Pulp Empire

Finally got around to watching this. Wow! This is edit is right up there with War of the Stars in its creativity and revitalizing of a story that I thought I knew in and out. NJVC has made an oddity of a gem with this one that is sure to capture the attention and inspire the imagination of viewers and fellow faneditors. Since I've never seen a Tarantino film, I've seen clips but just don't care for his stuff and style, this review may miss the reasoning behind some of the editing decisions.

Visual Editing: 9
The editing is top notch. I only took away 1 point due to the excessive use of slowed down footage which after awhile becomes a bit repetitive and taxing. The split screen shots were excellently integrated and fit the presentation.

Audio Editing: 10+
Having done some pretty extensive audio editing on edits I am in awe with how seamlessly NJVC was able to add the new tracks and preserve the pre-existing dialogue without a distracting level of the pre-existing score. This is especially impressive as Star Wars is extremely music centric and difficult to isolate dialogue.

Narrative: 7
For how drastically different the presentation is, it's really similar to the core story, just very fragmented. The mark downs come as I never really knew what I was watching. Was it a story? Was it a montage? Was it a continuous music video? Then it just ends with characters that we haven't spent much time with. This makes it hard to follow. Perhaps this is where I miss out on the presentation due to my lack of Tarantino exposure? I did like the introduction of Vader with the music and the Obi-Wan dialogue.

Enjoyment: 6.5
I really enjoyed the first 30 minutes or so, then the repetition of slow mo/montage scenes kind of got to me. The ending is pretty ambiguous as well and we don't really spend time with characters enough without the visual montage stuff to be able to focus on and care about them so it was hard to sit down and watch this the whole way through in one sitting. That being said, this edit is brilliant in what it achieves and the doors it opens to the possibilities of fanediting especially in terms of Audio editing and presentation. NJVC proves again that they are one of the top faneditors out there. Masterful in skill and not afraid to take chances and make something familiar feel brand new. This edit is a must see for aspiring to expiring editors to see.

No words. F-cking Awesome!

I was really jazzed to see this edit. I mean, a Tarantino style brought to The Empire Strikes Back? You can't lose! But after watching the movie I was left with a really mixed feeling. It was like taking two of your favorite foods and mashing them up together, only to dislike the ensuing result. Both are awesome apart, but sometimes certain things don't go together very well.

The back and forth Tarantino narrative was just fine, and replacing Yoda's dialogue with Pai Mei's was friggin genius. But the music queues kept taking me out of the movie most of the time. While Vader's intro with Inglorious Basterds audio and visual editing was pretty fantastic, the rest of the time things were all over the place. And I realized the problem is that Tarantino himself has a varied style throughout most of his movies-- 70s funk/soul, garage band grunge, Japanese classical, Old West gunslinger.

The issue for me was that ALL of them were tossed into Pulp Empire rather than one or two styles. This caused too much of a mishmash of styles for my taste. It felt like you were in the mindset of Kill Bill one moment, then tossed into Reservoir Dogs, then tossed into The Hateful Eight... just jarring. I respect what njvc attempted with Pulp Empire but I would has personally preferred to see it keep the soundtrack and queues to either Pulp Fiction/Jackie Brown, Kill Bill, or Django Unchained/The Hateful Eight.

(this review might sound a little harsh so before I start off I just want to say that in no way whatsoever is this a personal attack on the faneditor. I have full respect for njvc and I can just imagine the work that went into making this fanedit. But I have to be honest. I just didn’t like it that much)

Okay so I finally saw it, with 19 reviews in the can and an overall score of 9.0 I thought to myself “wow this might be like just as epic as TMBTM’s grindhouse movies! You know, just epic man, just epic!” I was wrong...

The fanedit starts of really nice and I’m thinking here we go. But then it just turns into a recut version of Empire strikes back, with added slow-mo and a soundtrack instead of film score (and too many fades) that was not what I had expected. What did I expect then?
I don’t know, just more. Tarantino’s movies are more than just flash you know.
But how could you possible recut a Star Wars movie into a Tarantino movie, other than just add some Tarantino trademarks? And what could have been better?
I don’t know...This was just not what I expected and I wasn’t that much entertained to be honest (when Solo and co: was taken hostage I went into the kitchen to find something to eat, movie running. That normally never happens, I always pause)
...Speaking of Tarantino’s movies, I wouldn’t call this fanedit “a Tarantino inspired Star Wars mashup and remix.” Instead I would call it “a Kill Bill inspired Star Wars mashup and remix.”
That pretty much what this is; Kill Bill. And it doesn’t sync with Star Wars. I thought it would, but it doesn’t. And I’m sorry I have to say that. I was really looking forward to this. But all fanedits can’t be for everyone I guess. So again, all creeds to njvc for making this fanedit and I’m sorry I have to write this review but I feel like I have to be honest you know. I thought this was going to be like TMBTM’s Jaws The Sharksploitation Edit or War of the Stars. Just really really entertaining. But for me it wasn’t.

Btw I watched the mkv 720p version and everything looked super nice. And the audio a lot of people have complained about I have nothing bad to say, didn’t noticed any of the things that have been brought up, but I didn’t turn up the volume that high anyway so maybe that’s it.
All in all 5 out of 10. Not bad but not something I got much enjoyment out off either. So there you go.

I would say that the genuine idea for this is pure and so any form of this idea I will support, but this cut is rough.

It does a few things right, battle of Hoth is cool, opening scene is wicked cool, there's other great stuff like Han and Leia in the tunnels. My favorite remix was with Yoda and Luke in Degobah. The music bed change creates more a samurai/jedi feel to it, it really enhances Yoda's journey in relation to Luke.

All that said, I feel like the edit kind of kept getting in the way of a Tarrantino vision. His work is much tighter and dialogue is much snappier and the stories are more intertwined and layered thru the use of time. This cut was pretty much just the movie with some major music changes. I would have liked to see a tighter more destructive edit than this. I feel this cut it far too loyal to original EMPIRE, which I've seen a gazillion times. There were painfully long scenes that could haven been trimmed or re-ordered QT style. It's fun for sure, but there are a lot of missed opportunities.