Pulp Empire

Warning: Contains spoilers

I watched the 720p mkv. Video quality is largely excellent.

Complaints: Some of the slow-mo stutters. The slow-mo during the snow speeder part made the snow blur on the lower part of the screen and I think it occurred a few other times. Too much slow-mo. Too many fades. Movie is not changed as much as I expected. For being Tarantinoized, the middle section of the movie is arguably too linear. I didn't like the Ennio Morricone butchering at the end but it wasn't terrible either. Yoda's buzzing wind sound when talking is somewhat distracting, but I'm sure I only noticed it because somebody else mentioned it first.

Positive: I didn't notice any Williams sound leaking in and I listened with headphones. Maybe it wasn't up loud enough to notice? I liked all of the other songs besides the aforementioned Ennio one. New Yoda voice is great. Character montages are great.

Very Positive: I really liked the new cyclical structure to the movie. The structure parallels the father/son dark path theme that njvc highlighted. Luke's path towards the dark side is not really the focus until Jedi, but njvc successfully made it strong in Empire. While Jedi makes it very dark, njvc makes the son following in the father's footsteps more sad or even nostalgic. I really loved the video slideshow with the Neil Young song because of that nostalgic feeling it made. The brief shot of the empty jedi council chambers at sunset is what did it for me. It makes me think of Vader longing for a time long in the past that he can never return to, and here is his son possibly going down the same path. As an added bonus, you get to see Anakin's decent brooding acting without any of his terrible dialogue or delivery.

Conclusion: Music is great, entertaining, probably not changed as much as people expected. I liked the ending for the way it made me feel which is hard to articulate, and I think that is a very good thing. Recommended.

Wow. I am blown away. This was absolutely fun, fun, fun from start to finish! Rating this from a technical perspective it isn't perfect but it takes so many chances, does so many interesting things, and succeeds on so many levels that it hardly even matters. Be warned, you'll need to know your Star Wars movies relatively well because this edit is non-chronological.

Just some of my favorite moments: Pai Mei's voice for Yoda (inspired!), the character names popping up (DARTH VADER), the Hoth splitscreens, "Boba Fett" scrolling across the screen during his amazing intro, "A Silhouette of Doom" over the anime saber battle. And that's all just in the first half!!

Find a copy of this and watch it. It's guaranteed the most fun you'll have with a fan edit this month.

NJVC is a BAMF. This is an example of the rare fanedit that breaks boundaries and really shows what this community is capable of. High creativity and technical skill mesh to create something truly remarkable. My only complaint is that the audio mix runs the full gamut of jaw-droppingly incredible to downright awful in spots. It is a minor complaint considering just how much fun this edit is. If you haven't seen it, do it now. Every year there are a small handful of fanedits that stand out from the crowd and really show the audience something incredible - this is one of them.

I have to confess two things up front. I am a big fan of njvc's previous work, but despite that, I was very skeptical that he could pull off his stated goals or that they would work for my personal tastes. I am pleased to report that for the most part I was wrong on both counts.

This is a very ambitious edit from an audio and visual standpoint, and from a technical fanediting standpoint.

njvc is a master with audio work and soundtracking. so I had high expectations at for this part, and he did not disappoint. There were a couple beautifully scored scenes. One that really stood out for me was the animated scene.

The animated scene is also just one of many examples where he demonstrates great visual and storytelling creativity that I absolutely loved. The character montages and the use of ANH and ROTJ footage was also wonderful.

This whole edit is just so fresh and fun that any technical issues at the end of the day just don't matter very much or ruin the overall experience.

That said, there were a handful of moments where technical things did momentarily pull me out of the scene. The most problematic IMO is the use of slow motion. The use itself is not the problem. In fact it is quite important stylistically. The problem is the inconsistent use of different types and some video glitches in a moment or two. The worst glitch that I can remember is in a land speeder scene on Hoth. In fact this scene really stood out in my mind as the worst usage. There were also moments in this scene when I began to feel as if the slow motion was over-used and unneeded. Lastly and perhaps most importantly regarding slow motion, there were really two different styles used and they visually clashed with each other a bit. There was normal smooth slow motion, and then there was a choppy slow motion that looked like it was shot with a 14FPS camera. Stylistically, I really loved the choppy slow motion and would have preferred a more consistent use of this look throughout.

There were a few other minor issues I had. While I absolutely loved some of the fades njvc creates (so beautiful!), fade transitions were over-used a bit IMO for certain intra-scene quick camera cuts. Yoda just didn't quite work for me either.

Overall, awesome job as usual dude.

For me, this is the kind of project that fanediting is all about, the kind I can share with people who don't know anything about fanediting. It's also the kind of project that gives me that feeling of seeing something the first time, even though I've seen this movie way too many times to count.

I'm no more than a casual fan of Tarantino, I've enjoyed all his movies to varying degrees but none of them are movies I feel a strong urge to revisit. But here is a movie that he easily could have made that I will come back to several times. It's all style, but in a good way. The visual tricks, the non-linear narrative, the fantastic music, it all adds up. And the fact that no trademark Tarantino over-the-top violence and language was used is a big plus in my book.

Yoda's new dialogue, the split-screens, the constant fades, the Falcon's engines, the hero moments, and the attention to detail were my favorite things about this edit.

I did have a few minor nitpicks. The audio work is well done, but there are moments where things from the original ESB sneak through that were too noticeable, mostly snippets of Williams' score. I can't complain too much, as I (more than most) completely understand how hard it is to work around this stuff in a Star Wars edit, and I know Mr. jvc put a ton of work in to minimize it as much as possible. But it's only fair to mention it.

The other audio thing that jumped out at me was Yoda's new dialogue. There was a hiss (or noise, I'm not sure how to describe it) present during his dialogue that was absent when he wasn't speaking. I know it came from the source and was impossible to remove, but it might have been possible to find some of that hiss from the source that was clean of any dialogue, and repeat it under the Yoda scenes to keep it consistent and less noticeable.

The Clone Wars animated footage was a great surprise to me (in a good way), but I wish Anakin hadn't been named. I was thinking that he was meant to be Luke until that point, and I thought it would have made more sense if he was Luke.

The video quality (watched the mkv) was fantastic. I will say I wish there were some things from the SE that weren't there (the Praxis ring explosions and Vader's pink lightsaber core being the main issues for me), but that's a necessary evil when using the HD source (THANKS GEORGE!). Down the road, once Harmy is done with his HD reconstruction of ESB, I'd love to see those elements replaced, but that's just a wish on my part that need not come true for me to recommend this edit enthusiastically.

One last nitpick - prequel footage? NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!1!!11! Completely unnecessary in my opinion.

I've spent more time on the bad than the good, but believe me when I say this is a wonderful edit, a great testament to the power of creative editing, and a strong contender for various site awards. Hurry up June, so I can vote for this thing!