Topher Grace (Yes Him) Edited ‘Star Wars’ Prequels Into One 85-Minute Movie. No Salvation
I didn’t know that Topher Grace was anything outside of Venom from Spider-Man 3. That’s literally the only place I know him from. So when /Film mentioned yesterday that not only was he a huge movie buff but that he also had edited the Star Wars prequels into one 85-minute movie, I was shocked. Then I just felt bad for the guy.
Hit the jump for video for reaction and details.
/Film:
For those of you who don’t know, Topher Grace is a film geek. He loves the Star Warsfilms, the Back to the Future movies and all the same signature titles of any film geek who grew up in the 1980s. He recently became interested in the editing process and wanted to learn more about the art form. Instead of cutting a short film, he wanted to use something he was more familiar with.
His idea was to edit the Star Wars prequels into one movie, as they would provide him a lot of footage to work with. He used footage from all three prequels, a couple cuts from the original trilogy, some music from The Clone Wars television series, and even a dialogue bit from Anthony Daniels’ (C-3PO) audio book recordings. He even created a new opening text crawl to set up his version of the story.
The result is an 85-minute movie titled Star Wars: Episode III.5: The Editor Strikes Back. It should be noted that the Star Wars prequel trilogy is almost 7 hours in total length, and the shortest film (Episode 1) is more than 51 minutes longer than Grace’s fan cut. What this means is a lot of footage ended up on the editing room floor, and a lot of creative choices were made in the editing process. And the result? Topher Grace’s Star Wars film is probably the best possible edit of the Star Wars prequels given the footage released and available.
Whats most shocking is that with only 85 minutes of footage, Topher was able to completely tell the main narrative of Anakin Skywalker’s road from Jedi to the Sith. While I know the missing pieces and could even fill in the blanks in my head as the film raced past, none of those points were really needed. Whats better is that the character motivations are even more clear and identifiable, a real character arc not bogged down by podraces, galactic senates, Jar Jar Binks, politics or most of the needless parts of the Star Wars prequels. It not only clarifies the story, but makes the film a lot more action-packed.
The screening last night was a private gathering of Topher’s industry friends – a event that feels like it will surely become part of Hollywood quasi-urban legend. I wish you all could see Topher’s version of the Star Wars prequels, but we were told that this would be the one and only time he would screen his cut. Of course, there are tremendous legal issues which would prevent him from screening the edit in public. He has no intention of uploading the footage online, and doing a screening at, say, Comic-Con, would require uncle George’s permission – which probably would never happen.
Read details of the cuts and edits here.
It’s a a fun exercise. For years fans of Star Wars have been trying to recuperate the shit-laden prequels through a variety of means. Unfortunately, that’s all they are. Fun exercises. Whatever can help peel bar some of that scar tissue, I suppose.