The Blackened Mantle is a Japanese Star Wars Fan Edit that combines the three prequel films (The Phantom Menace, Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith) into one. Famed for its unconventional editing style, this edit quickly became some people's preferred way to watch the prequels.
Tropes different from the vanilla prequel films include:
- Anachronic Order: One of the edit's defining traits is that the first two prequels are told as flashbacks.
- Composite Character: See Robotic Psychopath below
- Compressed Adaptation: The film has most of it's 160 minute running time from Revenge of the Sith, with the rest as flashbacks.
- Death by Despair: Averted, as Padme dies from being force-choked by Vader.
- Deliberately Monochrome: One cut of the film has the entire film in black & white.
- Demoted to Extra: Like most prequel edits, Jar Jar Binks is reduced to a background extra.
- Flashback Effects: A newer reconstruction of the edit has the flashback scenes in sepia tone.
- Gratuitous English: During Order 66, some of the Clones say in English "Yes, my lord.".
- Opening Scroll: Averted, as the first thing we see is the duel with Darth Maul. After that is Obi-Wan agreeing to train Anakin, then the film cuts to the battle over Coruscant.
- Recursive Translation: The film places retranslated English subtitles inside the picture.
- Robotic Psychopath: Darth Maul gets rebuilt as General Grievous after his supposedly-fatal fall in The Phantom Menace.
- The Teaser: The climax of Phantom Menace starts right after the 20th Century Fox logo, before the "A long time ago..." card.
