FILM

Directors? Pah, who needs them?

Back in May 2014, the Internet went into meltdown over the release of a new Star

Wars movie. But it wasn’t Episode

VII: The Force Awakens that had nerds drooling over their keyboards. This lm was called Star Wars: Turn To The Dark

Side – Episode 3.1 and featured scenes from George Lucas’ bloated, dull prequel trilogy spliced together into a twohour, 47- minute- long feature lm. Gone was irritating child actor Jake Lloyd, who played Anakin Skywalker in The

Phantom Menace. The racist, Rastafarian alien Jar Jar Binks also ended up on the cutting room oor, as did much of the yawn- inducing plot about trade route blockades. In total, the lm’s editors made some 300 video and audio tweaks to the original lms, in a bid to tell a tighter, more actionpacked story about Skywalker’s journey to the dark side of The Force. It was only online for a few days on Vimeo before it was pulled ( because of copyright infringement) and can only now be found in the deepest, darkest of Torrent sites.

But it wasn’t the rst time an amended version of the prequel trilogy had been released. Rumour has it Turn To The Dark Side was inspired by another edit, but this one wasn’t created by a bored fan sitting at home. Actor Topher Grace, star of Interstellar, Predators and Spider- Man

3, made his own, 85- minute long prequel edit some two years earlier. It’s a movie that is now spoken of in hushed tones and those who have seen it claim it drastically improves Lucas’ space saga. He screened it once to friends but since then, it has almost been impossible to nd online. However, be it fans or actors, one thing is for certain: both edits are proof that pretty much everyone thinks they could have made three better

Star Wars prequels than Lucas, the man who came up with the franchise in the rst place. And

Star Wars aren’t the only lms to have been spliced and diced over the years by obsessive fans who think they can do better.

FIXED THAT FOR YOU

Movie editing has almost become an industry in itself and one Google search will open you up to a whole new world of simple re- edits ( known as Fan Fixes), to complete reimaginings ( called Fan Mixes). Some are sold for pro t, many are simply free to download. Didn’t like how Charlize Theron’s character dies in Prometheus? Then you need to download

Prometheus: Giftbearer, which not only removes one of the most moronic deaths in cinema history ( she’s crushed to death because she shows an inability to run left or right), it removes several plot holes, adds deleted scenes from the Blu- Ray to improve continuity and adds the music score from the original

Aliens movies. Did you hate how cheesy Arnie’s third Terminator movie was? Terminator 3: The Com

ing Storm removes all the lame gags and even changes the ending of the lm. The Ma

trix DeZIONized takes the two Matrix sequels and turns them into one, action- packed ick ( and removes all scenes from the plot- dragging underworld of Zion, especially the awk-

ward, sweaty rave party). One of the most celebrated Fan Fixes, though, is Spider- Man

3: Redemption, which culls the lm’s corny elements, such as its most derided scene, where a possessed, evil Peter Parker plays the piano, and completely removes the Sandman, one of its super villains, from the lm. Fan Fixes have in fact become so popular that they are reviewed online by movie sites and treated with the same respect as new releases.

HOLLYWOOD, BUT NOT AS YOU KNOW IT

Fan Mixes go even further and show that you don’t have to be a Hollywood hotshot with a $ 100 million budget to make enjoyable, creative movies. Take War Of The Stars: A New Hope Grindhoused, another Star Wars reboot that uses original trilogy footage. It adds cheesy deleted scenes and alternate takes and turns it into a ick that wouldn’t have looked out of place next to Robert Rodriguez’s Planet Terror.

The people behind fan edits are con dent in their abilities to improve or tweak any piece of art, even Oscar- winning lms by stellar directors such as Stanley Kubrick. Several altered editions of the sci- classic 2001: A Space Odyssey can be found on Torrent sites, but none go as far as Cos

mogony, a re- imagining by an editor called The Man Behind The Mask: not only did he cut to shreds Kubrick’s classic, he made an entirely new motion picture by combining it with footage from Daniel DayLewis’ There Will be Blood, Jurassic Park III, Contagion and

several other movies.

THE MEN BEHIND THE MASKS

So who is making these films? The anonymity the digital world offers means most of the time we’ll never know – and you’ll find few clues to a person’s real identity in usernames such as Paulisdead2221, Gekko and TeresofBlood. And the threat of copyright laws and Hollywood lawyers means that’s the way they want to keep it.

But head to sites such as fanedit. org, originaltrilogy. com, fan lmfollies. com and digital- fanedits. com, and you will nd thousands of new versions of movies – and you can even download DVD artwork for them as well. Some of these edits are terrible and just don’t work, but some, like Spider

Man 3: Redemption, do actually improve the original product. There were rumours that George Lucas wanted to see the very rst edit of The Phantom

Menace ( released in 2001 and known as The Phantom Edit), a version held in such high regard it was called “smart” by über

Star Wars nerd and moviemaker Kevin Smith.

Whether you think they are brilliant re- imaginings of lms, or butcherings of the director’s original vision, fan edits are clearly here to stay. And as editing technology gets more advanced, they’re only going to get better, which is dangerous territory for Hollywood. After all, what’s the point in paying a director millions of dollars when someone can improve the product at home?

“What interests me the most is what a creator can do with a limited budget,” Christopher Moshier, the creator of fan lmfollies. com once said. “Hollywood throws millions of dollars on movies that are not very good. But when someone can make a lm for $ 500 and entertain me more than Hollywood, it simply amazes me.”