MPAA Episode I: The Fanedit Menace

Anyone following the story of the MPAA's piracy crackdown will know that the MPAA is not too keen on the DVD format. The relatively mild Digital Rights Management (more commonly known as "DRM" or "the stuff that doesn't let you copy the DVD") gets cracked faster than it can adapt, and as the organization's spokespeople are constantly pointing out, anybody with a computer (and the necessary technical know-how) can distribute perfect digital copies of any movie.

Those who have seen ADigitalMan's Episode I: A Vergence in the Force, however, might get the idea that piracy isn't the real concern for the MPAA - creativity is.

Working from the footage available on the commercially-released DVD, ADigitalMan edited his own version of George Lucas' Episode I: The Phantom Menace. It's not just a pirated copy - A Vergence in the Force is a complete re-imagining of Lucas' first Star Wars prequel. The new running time is four minutes less than the original, and it contains deleted scenes that have been restored to their original place, as well as containing a lot less Jar-Jar Binks than the theatrical release.

And ADigitalMan is not the only one to take on the menace of Jar-Jar. A popular website for the cataloging and distribution of these homegrown projects lists 67 fanedits for the Star Wars series, alone.

Nor is Star Wars the only film to feel the amateur editor's digital scissors. The Superman films have seen numerous fanedits, as have the Matrix films, and even Titanic and Pearl Harbor. In fact, almost any movie released to DVD stands a good chance of being fanedited. Faneditor Slark has released Doc Salvage: TheFan-edit of Bronze, a re-edit of Warner Bros.' 1975 Doc Savage: The Man of Bronze. Faneditor Gangrel has reached even farther back, editing a handful of Three Stooges shorts released between 1947 and 1953 into a 46-minute film, Hold That Lion: The Extended Redux.