Pulp Empire

After returning from the dark and fiery depths of Erich von Stroheim's Greed, njvc's Pulp Empire was a welcome delight! I had high expectations for this one and it didn't disappoint. All the elements of a great Tarantino flick have been masterfully integrated into The Empire Strikes Back, and I don't think anyone could have done it any better than njvc. There is not a single musical selection that is out of place (the music from Taxi Driver was surprising but it worked well with the scene), and I particularly liked the music from Morricone. The Battle of Hoth chapter is a technical marvel, full of split screens, overlapping dialogue, ferocious new sound effects and great music as I said. The final chapter is extremely intense, epic and powerful, and defintely one of the best fanedited sequences I've ever seen! The non-linear structure is well put together and there are no plot holes to speak of, but cutting the sequence where Luke chats with Han and Leia while recuperating wasn't really a good idea. I'm not sure if this was due to technical issues or not, but there's important character development in that scene and it would have strengthend the edit. The rapid fire pacing is well edited and consistent, but the narrative feels rushed and there's less time for it to breath, but that's a really minor criticism because I had a blast watching this. The picture quality was tremendous throughout, as was the audio editing. Sure, some of William's music can be heard in the background during some scenes, but I don't think there was any way that they could have been completely removed. Overall, njvc has done a truly fantastic job!

Also, Boba Fett's new entrance was FREAKING AWESOME!!! I was grinning for about ten minutes afterwards. Certainly my favorite scene from the edit!

Audio/Video Quality: 10/10
Visual Editing: 10/10
Audio Editing: 9/10
Narrative: 9/10
ENjoyment: 10/10

I'm a big fan of njvc's Where The Wild Things Are, as well as a fan of TESB, so expectations were high for this. And truthfully for the first ten minutes or so I had concerns. I wasn't sure about putting the Dagobah scene first, and although I enjoyed Kill Bill-style Yoda, hearing Frank Oz's grunts and sighs were disconcerting and made me concerned that the whole edit might be a great concept but done a little half assed. And then the first few minutes of Hoth were "relatively" unchanged and felt not as Tarantino-y as I was hoping, which reinforced my concern.

But from the moment Vader is introduced Pulp Empire kicks into high gear. The Hoth battle is totally and utterly awesome. The split screens, slo-mo, music, pacing. It works like gangbusters. And really from that moment on this edit worked for me with hardly any complaints.

Initially the Bowie montage was a bit WTF! But in hindsight it was just what was needed: the music was starting to get a little samey and a totally different style of track couldn't have been timed better.

Then the real WTF moment: the cave scene. I was just thinking at the start of that scene how amazing TMBTM's version was in War of the Stars Part 2, and how the one thing missing from Pulp Empire, by comparison, was something new and truly unique. The cave scene certainly ticks those two boxes. Honestly, I don't really 'get it', I assume that was Anakin (I don't watch the show), but it was a cool fusion of music and image and fit the tone.

I've been working on a rescored TPM for a couple of years now so I appreciate the enormous headache and heartache involved from an audio perspective in a project like this. I was expecting lots of bleed but apart from two or three scenes (and one moment in the otherwise spell-blinding climax) njvc does an exceptional job of hiding the old music.

The Joni Mitchell Bespin flyby is wonderful - and of course Lando fits perfectly at home in a Tarantino Star Wars movie.

While using the blu-ray as source fortunately Morrison's Fett voice was not used (which is my least favourite of the many terrible changes Lucas has made) - and for that I am enormously grateful.

The last few minutes are really special. The black and white is a great choice, the montage including young Anakin and Padme is unexpected and superb. I had started to get concerned towards the end that all the musical choices would be too light and would stop the edit going to more epic, emotional places. Fortunately I was completely wrong, and the last two songs are perfect. Old Man in particular is IMO the highlight of the whole edit - it works stylistically and emotionally, and I'm delighted njvc didn't just do "TESB with Tarantino flair", but created something original. The ending is greatness.

No doubt everyone will download this. But for the two people at the back unsure if they should: do! You won't regret it.

I loved this edit. Picture quality was gorgeous and the edit had some very creative effects. Empire Strikes Back has always been a huge favorite of mine, and I don't feel it crapped on it in any way. It was just a different spin & a very fun watch. I'm NOT a Tarantino fan per se, but had no problem seeing all of the obvious similarities, and thought they were very well done. Most fun I've had since watching a fanedit since Jaws: The Sharksploitation Edit. Great stuff.

I said God Damn!

I was fairly certain going into this that it would be the most bad ass fan edit of all time, and let me tell you, NJVC did not disappoint.

"Empire" is essentially my favorite film. So typically an edit of it would make me leery, but this is not a typical edit. Quentin Tarantino is one of my all time favorite filmmakers, and I think one of the most enjoyable aspects of his films are his musical choices. In fact, I love his musical choices so much that I take musical inspiration from him whenever I edit one of my own short films. So imagine my pleasure when I learned that NJVC would be doing that same Tarantino musical treatment to "the Empire Strikes Back!"

Of course the Tarantino inspiration doesn't stop there. He's got character title cards, subtitles, black and white segments, an animated segment, chapter splits, split screens, slow motion, fades, montages, and whatever have you. Basically all the things that make my spine tingle whenever I see a Tarantino movie. And they're all used perfectly.

But how is that music? It's awesome. It's just seriously very awesome. Pretty much perfect choices all around. Being familiar with the music in Tarantino's films, on a number of occasions a song would come up, and I would realize what NJVC was about to do with it, and I wouldn't be able to keep myself from smiling (the use of the Mercenary soundtrack in the carbonite scene comes immediately to mind).

Now for the negative, unfortunately. Like I said pretty much perfect choices all around. The songs make perfect sense for their respective scenes. But they don't always work together. This is probably more true for the Battle of Hoth chapter than the others. It's just that, in that chapter, there's little flow between the songs. It's not as cohesive as one might hope, though on the other hand, some have argued that Tarantino's use of music isn't cohesive either. Anyway, it's really only a problem in that second chapter, other than that it more or less works.

Unfortunately there are sometimes, when you can hear John Williams, but I know how hard it is to replace a SW movie score, and I think NJVC did an impeccable job working around JW. There are also some scenes where I do wish the replacement music could have been louder, but I was happy for the most part.

The real issue with the edit is the narrative. I really do love the non-linear story, and the flashback montages to the previous films. The story, however, seems like it could be rather confusing. And by that I mean, I wonder if I would understand it had I not seen this movie previously. Of course, it's hard for me to know for sure what this theoretical version of myself would and wouldn't be able to understand; but watching this edit it just felt like the narrative wasn't all there. What I did love is how the film almost feels like it's telling two parallel stories, the hero in one being Luke, the hero in the other being Han. (I suppose the original film is the same, but I just never looked at it that way. This edit actually made me notice a lot of things I never though I hadn't noticed in a film that I've seen a million times). What's also interesting is that these two heroes barely even share a scene together in this edit.

Few other thoughts:
- I liked the animated sequence, but there is a little bit of a what the hell factor to it Though this is probably intentional, I kind of wish Yoda would acknowledge it or something.
- Like others said, this edit starts slow. It really does get awesome as it goes along. If I were to rank the chapters, it would probably start with six and go in descending order down to one. Which is awesome. I love movie that get better and better as they go along.
- I'm flattered to see that I'm in the credits! Thanks NJVC!

Anyway, the negative thoughts are more or less nitpicks. I keep using the word awesome and there's a damn good reason why: this edit is awesome. Watch it now. Seriously, do it. I'm thinking about doing it again right now. And then again later with my friends. Great stuff NJVC.

I just finished watching this and all I have to say is, if Epic and Awesome had a child it would be called Pulp Empire.

I'm not a huge Star Wars guy, to me they're just another set of movies, so it takes a lot to get my attention when it comes to a Star Wars edit. TMBTM did it with A New Hope Grindhoused, and now NJVC's done it with Pulp Empire. The idea of breaking down The Empire Strikes Back into chapters, ala Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill and Inglourious Basterds, and replacing the score with songs from and inspired by Quentin Tarantino's library of films was genius. Not only does it completely change the look and feel of the film, it also changes the tone of it as well.

You might ask yourself, "Isn't the use of songs from Tarantino's movies going to be distracting? I mean, these are songs that you automatically associate with the various movies that they're from. Isn't it going to take you out of the movie.". In short? Fuck no, dude! lol The use of these songs only helps cement the feel of a Tarantino movie. A few of the non-Tarantinoverse songs did seem to be a strange choice, but they worked really well with the scenes they were added to.

I'll be honest, the first chapter in the film was a bit slow, but when Chapter 2 starts you'll be glued to your seat. The opening credits were awesome, and I loved the character introductions and hero moments. The use of "Down In Mexico" for Bobba Fett's scenes was pure genius. And like BionicBob, I too thought that the final chapter was a masterpiece. In fact when the song "Old Man" starts and the film moves into a Luke/Anakin montage I got goosebumps. The animated sequence was a nice touch as well.

I cannot recommend this edit enough. This is the first NJVC edit I've seen and it is clear to me that this man is a master of the craft. Download and watch with confidence my young padawans, for you will not be disappointed. And if you are I only have one thing to ask. What the fuck is wrong with you? lol Seriously though, congratulations on an amazing edit NJVC. I look forward to seeing more of your work.