Pulp Empire

*Review and Rating updated (because this edit has grown on me)

I just finished watching the final cut of Pulp Empire. I had previewed an earlier version, I think it was just the draft before the one njvc ended up releasing.

I'll start by saying that with an edit of this kind it is pretty much impossible to please everyone, similarly chances are not everyone will agree on the creative choices made by the editor. With that said. A lot of what I say in this review is not about the technical quality and the editing, but rather the creative choices, what worked and "felt right", and what didn't work for me and in my opinion didn't "fit". So a lot of the review is going to be ("music cue, i liked" "i wasn't 'feeling' this") so not the most articulate review ever!

I must admit I was a little biased going in as a result of watching some of the sample clips that njvc posted (i.e. Darth Vader - Hugo Stiglitz is GENIUS).

DVD Design etcs:
- professional menus! really slick

- awesome intro scene and opening credits, music worked, and black and white made it feel like the opening to Kill Bill

Chapter 1
- awesome music cue with "like we're being watched!"
- Pai Mei, mixed on this, good idea, and an Asian master kind of fits with yoda's zen jedi master, but i dunno, i guess mentally it was a bit incongrous to me with yoda's grunts and hmmms, and the pai mei voice
- music cue "you know him?!", excellent

Chapter 2
- music cue, for me it didn't work, when he cuts himself free from the ice cave
- freeze frame character intros, i liked it!
- Bernard Herrmann Taxi Driver score! njvc must have decided to pander to me for a good rating ;), this was a sexy choice IMO
- music cue "well i'll see you in hell" excellent
- Imperial probe droid music cue, awesome
- Darth Vader Hugo Stiglitz FAVORITE PART OF THE ENTIRE EDIT, awesome
- split screen works surprisingly well for the battle
- sneaky job of sneaking in a clip of luke in the death star trench!

Chapter 3
- i was a fan of using the Death Proof car sounds for the Falcon
- music cue when the "cave" is shaking and then collapsing
- music cue for "apology accepted" good stuff
- Boba Fett "intro" was cool

Chapter 4
- the David Bowie training montage has grown on me as I've watched this edit a few times since my initial review
- music cue when going into pit was cool
- anime scene another sequence that has grown on me in subsequent viewings and the music that goes along with it is good
- "decide how you must serve them best" music cue is excellent there

Chapter 5
- Joni Mitchell, i knew exactly what njvc was going for (a la Jim Croce Django) and this really worked perfectly for me
- and awesome music cue, getting out of the millenium falcon to lando intro
- across 110th street, i like the song anyway, so i liked that you included it
- music while leia is worried about 3PO,not sure if this was intentional but i liked that it sounded as if it was playing on the radio in the room
- perfect music cue, with Vader at the end of the table and Han starts shooting at him
- i liked the music cue when darth vader overseeing carbon freezing
- music cue, "I love you, I know", (and parallel between Han being frozen in carbonite, and The Bride buried alive in Kill Bill Vol 2 excellent! not sure if that was intentional or not)
- music cue, Lando's security taking away storm troopers, enjoyed this


Chapter 6
- quick elapsed time progression matched with vader's breathing was a nice touch
- i initially liked the ecstasy of gold remix, but then went it shifted in fatboyslim/chemical brothers (the brother's gotta work it out) remix, for me it just didn't fit with the scene
- but excellent spot to stop/pause the music as vader falls over the edge
- Awesome O Fortuna! Really liked this choice
- crescendo matching with Luke getting his hand sliced off, very nice
- im probably the biggest neil young fan on the forums, (only TMBTM surpasses me), i didn't like Old Man at all, the slideshow, and especially the inclusion of prequel footage, although luke's screams of "noooo!" sort of matching up rhythmically was a nice touch

End Credits
- I liked this, title cards intercut with some more footage

Features
- loved the split screen comparison special feature, "about this edit" (also gave some more insight into some of the creative choices you made!)

Some General Thoughts/Comments
- partially out of chronological order narrative, I get it, cause Tarantino's narrative is often this way, but for me it didn't completely work (the 1st chapter with yoda, maybe cause it gave the edit a bit of a slow start, but you can argue its stylistically like Reservoir Dogs which has just a bunch of dialogue in that opening diner scene)
- overuse of slo-mo, there was a lot of it, but i guess it was necessary as a kind of editing shortcut/trick/work-around, but at the same time because of how much it was used it became a part of the style of the edit


So what more can I say. njvc is a bold, brave, risktaker IMO. This is what fanediting is all about, simple fanfixes are entertaining but projects like this are almost always more interesting. I have a lot of respect and admiration for this sort of outside the box thinking. I have some idea of what a huge rescoring/audio editing undertaking this was and how challenging it is to rescore a movie like the Star Wars for nearly the entire movie (impressive, most impressive).

This edit may not be for everyone. I could definitely tell that njvc had a ton of fun making this edit and that he was, first and foremost, making this edit for himself.

I'm going to show this edit to some of my friends who are big time fans of both star wars and tarantino, so I'll be interested to see what they think.

I really enjoyed this edit. I think that njvc was able to accomplish exactly what he set out to do. The fight scenes and sequence between Vader and Luke was amazing. I would highly recommend this edit to any star wars fan. This community never fails to amaze me, keep up the great work.

I was pretty excited to see this fanedit. The preview clips looked great, and it was a daring take on my favorite SW film. Overall, I enjoyed it. There was some great, and some not so great. Could this have been a Tarantino film? No. Was the edit enjoyable? Yes.

I won't reiterate in detail what a lot have said already. Some points are obvious - too much slow motion, music choices didn't always work, and some chapters were worked better than others.

There were moments that I absolutely loved. The multi-panel shots were great. The intro to the final chapter was awesome. I even didn't mind the Neil Young song. It works for this. (but faneditors, please: No more Neil Young in Star Wars. You're killin' me.)

On a tech side, the release was nice. I watched the 720p MKV. There was a weird issue with the aspect ratio being off on my main TV, though when played on a different TV, it displayed fine. There were some weird issues from slow motion, but it wasn't too distracting. The only other editing item I will mention is mix of the music. I really wanted it to be louder for most of the film, but I'm not going to subtract too much for that, because of all the amazing work the editor did sound wise.

Bottom line rating for me is ~7.5 stars. Thanks NJVC :)

(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.

Let me get a few things out of the way first.

I've watched this fanedit six times. Before it was released I was a previewer and gave njvc private detailed feedback 19 pages long. I've put a lot of thought into reviewing this fanedit. I watched the workprint 5 times and the final cut once.

I am very biased when I watch this edit because I'm a Tarantino fanatic. I can't help but compare it to his films and think "how would Quentin have done that scene?" Is it fair to do that? No.

This is not a positive review but I'm going to try my best to be constructive and compliment the goods as much if not more than the bads.

Lastly, I love njvc to death. He is a great friend, a talented musician and editor and has a beautiful beard.

On with the review!


Audio/Visual Quality: DVD5 was great quality, haven't watched it in HD yet but I'm sure it's all good. 10/10


Visual Editing: First the bad, then the good.

There is an overkill of slow motion. The editor relied on that Twixter plugin way too much. Some of the dissolves/transitions felt out of place. Too much style over substance.

But damn njvc does some cool stuff. A lot of marvelous skill on display here. Some of the hero moments and montages have nicely composed visuals. Great split screen effects. Many wonderful stylistic nods to Tarantino. 8/10


Audio Editing: First the bad, then the good.

I felt that the editor was lazy in his choice of music. There was too much reliance on Tarantino music in my opinion. The genres and styles of music change so often and it lacked an overall theme or throughline to the soundtrack. At times it felt like watching Empire Strikes Back with a Tarantino soundtrack playlist on shuffle playing over it.

There were like 40 different songs in a 90 minute movie. Some of it clashed together, Chapter 5 in particular felt cacophonous. Chapter 2 had the best selection, the different styles worked well there.

But there were many wonderful musical moments all throughout. Chapters 1 & 2 were absolutely perfect musically. Chapter 3 was almost perfect. Chapter 5 had some great moments. Slaughter and L'Arena were my favorite choices.

And despite the fact I previously told njvc that he raped Morricone's Ecstasy of Gold, the audio editing in that Vader fight is fucking awesome.

7/10


Narrative: Great first half, falls apart in second half.

Prologue through Chapter 3 was dope. Pre-credits sequence is best moment. Yoda chapter first was brilliant. The non-linear aspect worked well in the first half.

Chapter 4 was too rushed. The Space Oddity montage ruined pacing for me and felt completely out of place. Chapter 5 felt too long by itself. Chapter 6 starts off nicely but then it gets to the big moment.

Ending was terrible. You fucked up the greatest movie ending ever. Sorry for the bluntness.

5/10


Enjoyment:

Despite all my criticisms there was a lot I enjoyed about it. It's obvious the editor had a blast making this and put a lot of blood sweat and tears into it. It's meant to be a fun remix. I really enjoyed some of it. And others have said how much they love it, I'm in the minority here.

For me this is not a case of the good outweighing the bad. I wanted to see "The Empire Strikes Back directed by Quentin Tarantino". This was not it. I was disappointed, maybe too much hype had built up for it.

My enjoyment is purely based on my own tastes and personal viewpoints about movies.

6/10


Recommend?

For Star Wars fans who don't care for Tarantino or people who think Kill Bill is Tarantino's best.