How big of a "Star Wars" geek is Topher Grace? He apparently edited the three prequels into a streamlined film that's got only the good bits, according to Slashfilm's Peter Sciretta, who saw it in a private screening.
"What's 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," writes Sciretta. Completely gone: Jake Lloyd as the young version of Anakin, most of Jar Jar Binks's antics, and all those boring senate speeches.
Sadly, it sounds like Grace's version won't be available to the general 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," says Sciretta.
The entire run time of the prequels is seven hours, so Grace's cut features just 20 percent of the trilogy. Sciretta calls it, "probably the best possible edit of the 'Star Wars 'prequels given the footage released and available."
Grace started the project as a way to learn editing, but the project took on a life of its own. He culled footage from Episodes 1, 2 and 3 (including a deleted dinner sequence between Padme and Anakin), a few minutes from the original trilogy and even some dialogue from Anthony Daniels' audio book recordings.
The actor -- most famous for his work on "That 70s Show" -- isn't the first "Star Wars" superfan to recut George Lucas's underwhelming prequel trilogy. Mike J. Nichols put together "The Phantom Edit," a fan-cut that was done to make improvements on "The Phantom Menace."
Grace is next working on a remix of "Close Encounters of a Third Kind," and (according to Slashfilm) the actor hopes that re-editing movies will take off as an annual event. Of course, he's not the first actor to re-cut someone else's films: James Franco was way ahead of you on that one, Topher.
[via Slashfilm]
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