Topher Grace Finally Shared Some Details About His 85-Minute Star Wars Prequel Re-Edit And It Sounds AWESOME

I had Topher Grace on the podcast this week to talk a little bit about his show, 'Home Economics', and we got into a whole bunch more - including how he snuck into the Oscars while he was in college (pre-'That 70's Show'), why he thinks 'Batman Forever' doesn't get enough love, working with Jason Sudeikis when he was just a writer on SNL, working with CHRISTOPHER FREAKIN NOLAN AND SPIKE LEE in the past few years, and of course - his storied re-edit of the Star Wars prequel trilogy, where he turned Episode I, II, and III into one 85-minute film.

Topher only held a couple screenings before realizing the Mouse at Disney would probably sue his ass if he kept going, but those who were in attendance still rave about the "Topher Cut" to this day, so hearing some of the details from the man himself was pretty awesome....

Some of the things he shared....

-Episode I is pretty much cut entirely, aside from the Duel of the Fates (Qui-Gon/Obi-Wan vs Darth Maul) which opens the film, followed by Yoda's conversation with Obi-Wan about training Anakin....

-It then transitions into the famous elevator scene from 'Attack of the Clones'….

-Finally, to end the 'Topher Cut' - credits roll right as Vader's helmet locks into place and we hear his breath for the first time….

No more "NOOOOOO!" from the baddest man in the galaxy….

….just the pure fear of the destruction that'll follow. Apparently the theater went nuts the first time he played it. 

Grace said he took a ton of editing inspiration from the Marcia Lucas's work on the original movie and even cut out a lot of the action scenes, making for a tight cut, and every piece of info he shared on the damn thing just made me want to see it more. 

Oh, and one of the best parts is - he's not even this crazy die-hard Star Wars fan like people make him out to be. He likes Star Wars a lot, but as he explains in the clip above, he just wanted to learn how to edit and the prequels were his guinea pig.

I thought this was an awesome chat and if you're into further nerdy stuff, check out the beginning of this week's podcast here….