If you want to judge "The Phantom Edit" for yourself, it's not too hard to nab a copy -- just log onto the fan site, and read the discussion board, where you'll find plenty of people willing to send or download you a copy. But far-reaching ramifications aside, "The Phantom Edit" itself is no classic, although it is indeed a better film than the 1.0 version.

The edit begins with the famous yellow scroll across the starry sky, only this time the scroll reads, in part:

"... Being someone of the 'George Lucas Generation' I have re-edited a standard VHS version of "The Phantom Menace," into what I believe is a much stronger film by relieving the viewer of as much story redundancy, Anakin action and dialog, and Jar Jar Binks as possible."

(Lucas' perplexing opening paragraph about "trade relations" and the "Imperial Senate" is gone. And we don't miss it because it wasn't necessary. Already, "The Phantom Edit" is making improvements.)

Twenty minutes have been cut from the original 133, and as a result the film is tighter and faster. Jar-Jar, who has been demoted to an almost silent supporting role, is actually enjoyable. (A different "Phantom Edit" has dubbed over Jar-Jar with an alien voice, giving him subtitled dialogue that turns the gibbering idiot into a wise sage, spouting pearls like "Children and fools ask more questions" and "Pride can blind you from the truth.") Likewise, young Anakin -- whose shouts of "Yahoo!" and "Whoopee!" made many "Star Wars" fans grimace -- is a thoughtful, much quieter protagonist.

Although entire extraneous sequences are missing (the journey to and from Jar-Jar's underwater home have been sliced), most of the changes are simply felt rather than individually noticed, as is the case with any good edit. The Phantom Editor has smartly taken advantage of Lucas' trademark "wipes" (a scene transition that scoots a new scene in from one edge of the screen to the other) to duck out of scenes early.

Although the film is improved in pace and structure, the result is a movie that occasionally moves too fast. We are left with a film made up of really short scenes -- almost sound bytes --- that start to feel choppy and rushed. While it advances the story faster, the film obviously cares for its characters even less than before.

More than anything, "The Phantom Edit" magnifies problems that can't be fixed with clever editing: too many bland, uninvolving characters (the stoic Jedis, the stoic Princess Amidala, way too many digital characters), too few scenes with Darth Maul, no renegade comic relief à la Han Solo, and a typically confusing final battle that takes place in about 13 different locations at once.

Until the "Phantom Edit" controversy, the role of the editor has rarely been appreciated by the public. And in a way, "The Phantom Edit" illustrates that editors are not automatons serving a dictatorial director, but artists in their own right, contributing as much to a finished film as a writer or cinematographer.

But it is not easy to classify the Phantom Editor as simply an editor, for he is also a revisionist filmmaker, a film critic and -- perhaps most of all -- a restoration artist. The Phantom Editor has gone back to a completed artwork and tried to bring out what he saw as the "real" film, buried within Lucas' edit. Aside from the fact that he's subtracting footage rather than adding, the only difference between "The Phantom Edit" and what Lucas did with his rereleased "Special Editions" is permission.

If the still-growing deluge of "Phantom Menace" interpretations are any indication, this is only the beginning. We might see ambitious amateur editors take on overlong projects like "The Green Mile" or "Meet Joe Black," or perhaps attempt to edit a TV series like "Twin Peaks" into a coherent feature-length film. It almost goes without saying that if 2002's "Episode 2" fails to live up to expectations, we will see "Episode 2.1" through "2.9" by year's end.

With its obvious parallels to the Napster debate, the shifting of power from the filmmakers to the fans is both disturbing and exciting. It is disturbing because there will no longer be any sort of quality control, aside from the natural assumption that the best "fan edits" will be the ones that get passed around the most. We may have 100 different versions of the next "Star Wars," and 95 of them will be sub-par.

What's exciting is that one or two of these versions will not only be reedits but reimaginings, radically changing the narrative through unexpected audio and visual juxtapositions. The possibilities are endless -- indeed, "Battlefield Earth" may be a much better picture when reedited into a 15-minute experimental short film. In the upcoming years we will be privileged to witness, essentially, critics making movies, which we haven't seen in abundance since French New Wavers like Godard and Truffaut decided that the best response to a film was making another film.

If nothing else, the arrival of the fan edit takes its place alongside the recent slew of good movies made on consumer video cameras (such as "The Celebration," "Dancer in the Dark," "Chuck & Buck," "The Blair Witch Project" and the just-released "Lisa Picard Is Famous"), as yet another way in which the proliferation of digital technology could change the movie industry for the better. Because if the filmmakers themselves can't cut it, the fans will.

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