MovieChat Forums > Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace (1999) Discussion > Could This Film Be "Fixed" By Sound Edit...

Could This Film Be "Fixed" By Sound Editing Alone?

posted 6 months ago by FootOfDavros (8142)
9 replies | jump to latest

I recently rewatched the prequels and although some things about this film cannot be fixed (mostly continuity stuff like Qui Gonn's existence for example), I started wondering if you overdubbed the voices of Jar Jar and Anakin - replacing them for the entire movie, and additionally replaced the dialogue at some points - whether this movie could be saved?

Going further, Jar Jar is CGI, so presumably the entire character could be replaced by something less stupid. But even without that, just making his voice less irritating and racially problematic might be enough.

Anakin would need more work and potentially changing the dialogue might be harder. My biggest annoyance is that he isn't the "great pilot" Obi-Wan had cracked him up to be in ANH.

I don't know why but for some reason on this run through it stuck me that when he's giving his "whoops!" and "oh oh..."s when taking off in a spaceship (for the first time!) that maybe his lines were supposed to be delivered sarcastically and he knew exactly what he was doing.

He does after all set it off moving, closes the cockpit and starts gunning the battle droids. Maybe if the dialogue was slightly altered it could make this work a lot better, rather than the kid randomly hitting buttons and blowing everything up that we got...

[–] Roguemail (1614) 6 months ago

Really? You don't remember how unhappy fans were with Lucas revisions of the original trilogy and the uproar about it?

[–] FootOfDavros (8142) 6 months ago

Well yes, exactly. That was kind of the point.

This film could be positivity fixed, to some extent, by audio changes only.

I guess you could argue that given he already replaced wonky Yoda, they could update that Windows 98 battlefield but that's another matter...

[–] greenvelvet (166) a month ago

I have seen it said that Jar Jar was better received by people who saw a dubbed version of the film.

[–] FootOfDavros (8142) a month ago

Ha, that's actually a great point - in terms of the voices being irritating, the fix may already exist in some of the foreign dubs!

That thing I was saying re Anakin's lines being delivered sarcastic may possibly also exist in some languages as well. That would be interesting to find out...

[–] Tam87 (1173) a month ago

No. Lucas wrote this movie for little kids. It's a babyish film. Nothing can fix that. The tone, characters and storyline are all cartoonish.

The originals could be enjoyed by anyone of any age, whereas The Phantom Menace is just juvenile garbage. I can't believe how bad this movie is. Some good action scenes like the lightsabre fight can't hide how lame the whole experience is.

If you want to fix it, give more screentime to darth maul so that he dominates the film the way Vader did in the originals, and have more battles and war (just like the originals) instead of trade disputes and podracing.

[–] AnthonySocksss (447) a month ago

Also cast that other, better child actor, Devon Michael, as Anakin and not Jake Lloyd.

[–] BKB (9880) a month ago

Honestly, this movie could've been 100X better if Lucas wouldn't have had such a boner for Jar Jar Binks and making him one of the lead characters that was just so incredibly annoying with the accent that Lucas also caught shit for back in the day.. Binks should've been a character the main cast ran into, had a brief conversation and then moved on and out of the picture and that's sort of what Lucas did for Binks in Revenge of the Sith, but too little, too late. Back when this came out, it made $105.7 Million for the weekend and was considered a disappointment for the opening which was projected to be far higher, but nothing like The FORCE AWAKENS Massive opening either

[–] TandyMan (11096) a month ago

Making JarJar just make wattery blubber noises like an aquatic wookie would be a HUGE upgrade. You could even throw in subtitles to buff up the dialog interchanges. Make him actually useful.

I always wanted a line of dialog between Qui Gon and Obi-Wan where Obi is like "master, why are we keeping this useless nut sack around?" and Qui Gon is like, "Jedi business can get very dull. He amuses me." Like okay. He's literally there to be a clown.

[–] FootOfDavros (8142) a month ago

Making JarJar just make wattery blubber noises like an aquatic wookie would be a HUGE upgrade. You could even throw in subtitles to buff up the dialog interchanges. Make him actually useful.

Yeah, thats a very good point re using subtitles - Give him a gruff voice, improve the dialogue via using subtitles and cut the complete garbage like when he steps in the d-g shit... That could almost fix Jar Jar.

Funny this because I just downloaded Adywan's Star Wars and Empire Strikes Back Revisted edits the other day. I didn't realise so many other edits exists (never managed to get my hands on Harmy's Despecialised) so someone should be able to do this...