Star Wars: Episode IV: A New Hope - Redux

A New Hope Redux was a delightful watch with all the fantastic pacing of the original with the SC38 and Rogue One sequences seamlessly added. I was genuinely impressed by how well these were integrated that you would think it was initially in the film, to begin with. The work gave A New Hope a much-needed facelift, added to Obi-Wan's legacy, and made Vader more menacing to match the rest of the entries in the trilogy. I'm giving this edit a "must-watch" review and think you will enjoy it as much as I did.

This is quite honestly the best way for newbies to get into Star Wars. It's far more appealing and Vader is so menacing here just like he's supposed to be. For recurring fans it's also very interesting.
The hallway scene and the SC 38 Reimagined just made it so much better in my opinion.
The editing is good too, mixes well seamlessly. Everything just falls in place.

There's one small thing I can't seem to shake off. I don't know how should I feel about cutting Vader's force push to Kenobi (SC 38 Footage). On one hand , the force push followed by the lightsaber tactics felt a little off so cutting that makes the whole movie slightly more consistent and it also preserves the integrity and tone of the movie. On the other hand, it looked cool and Vader was relying heavily on the force which he's supposed to do.

Anyway, it's still the best way to watch A New Hope for me. Best fanedit of ANH in my opinion. I'd suggest more people to watch this.

This hits differently. The Darth Vader appearance from Rogue One seemingly fits in perfectly and is way more badass. The addition of the SC 38 fight thankfully falls in line with how the prequel films most notably Revenge of the Sith's lightsaber duel between Vader and Kenobi are updated with this rematch. As for the scenes from the Special Editions, the ones that are replaced with the original scenes were choices I would have removed. Overall, this is definitely a good "revisit" to look at.

It's hard to feel like you're going to be able to improve on one of the best movies of all time, but I think this edit actually does it.

I already have the "Revisited" fanedit of A New Hope, which improves the visuals, audio, and many subtleties that people may not even notice. But one thing it doesn't manage to change is that what should be an epic reunion, a battle between master and student, feels like two clueless British dudes pointing sticks at each other.

The Obi-Wan/Vader duel has always been the weakest area of this film, if not the entire Original Trilogy. Particularly if you're viewing these films in chronological order, this follow up to Episode III simply will not stand! Thankfully there is the dynamic SC38 footage that reimagines a battle fitting for this occasion. And I fought hard to keep the whole thing in while this was being developed, but lantern51 was very cautious about how much of the battle to include, and how to incorporate it. In the end, I think it was merged very well, a conservative replacement to the fight that is certainly noticeable, but not in a bad way.

The other obvious change of course is to incorporate the Vader footage from the end of Rogue One into the beginning of this. While this does create a slight continuity issue as the attack in that film was clearly on a different ship (one that Leia's ship was docked at), I think it's overall worthwhile for the effect it has here. Namely, the original Darth Vader introduction just doesn't hold up. It may have been impressive and dynamic in 1977, but all these years later it feels like a lame follow-up to Episode III. In THIS cut, Our intro to Vader is downright terrifying, and so when he boards the Tantive IV and starts choking people out, it has an extra air of menace because you know he's actually restraining himself.

The final aspect to bring up is just how much better this edit LOOKS. While lantern51 did not use the Revisited edition as a base (so some weirdness like lightsaber jump cuts are still present), the filters and visual changes to this film really are remarkable. It looks damn impressive, and is a sparkling and dynamic way to rewatch one of the great films, a true shelf-replacer that starts this thing with a bang and feels like it never lets up.

I do not normally do special edition Star Wars (the original trilogy, anyway) and typically prefer the Despecialized or 4k77 versions if I am going to watch them. This, however, struck my interest, and I have to say this is what the Special Edition SHOULD have been back in 97 or whenever it was that Lucas shat them out. The hallway scene at the beginning started the movie off at a higher energy level, and the new fight scene, while not perfect, is at least much more inline with the rest of the series now, no longer feeling like an embarrassing fossil in an otherwise flawless movie (and, lets be honest, the original fight was made to look bad just a couple of years later in Empire, let alone what the prequels did for saber combat). Its not purist, but its not supposed to be. Its a special edition, after all. Absolutely loved it, but was somewhat surprised that you didn't include the newer Death Star run that was done by some VFX guys on YouTube a few years back (although I don't know if that was ever released as just a full clip without the compassion shots). Regardless, very good, and definitely my go to when I want a special edition version.