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.

Fantastic effort. My only criticisms are that you can still faintly hear the Williams music in a few moments, but it's forgivable and I really did not like how the Vader/Luke bespin fight was handled. It felt almost too music video-ish. But it's immediately followed up by the Prequel flashbacks set to Neil Young which might be my favorite moment in the whole thing. It's a very fun watch overall. Captures that exploitation style while still retaining all the substance and gravitas of the core Star Wars story. As someone who's favorite director is Tarantino and who's favorite film is The Empire Strikes Back, my fanboy funny bone was satisfied. Wouldn't mind seeing a Return of the Jedi one? Do the Kill Bill Vol. 2 to this movie's Kill Bill Vol. 1? Not losing sleep over that, but it'd be cool to see.

This is a passionate tribute to both Tarantino and Star Wars. It manages to enteratain and without loosing the simple but fascinating narrative of the original film. If you love Star Wars and Tarantino you will love this

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.

Really really great movie to watch. Enjoyable and astonishing from start to finish (or the other way around :P). Indeed is a great piece who paid homage to both Empire and Tarantino style. It all worked so well, I've never even seen the time passes. Great thumbs up for you, NJVC!