War of the Stars: A New Hope Grindhoused

Unlike most fanedits with the intention of making a film better, War of the Stars provides a unique perspective on an old favorite by providing an alternate take. Leaning heavily on the late 70's aesthetic of exploitation films, War of the Stars changes A New Hope into a whole new film. Lots of surprises awaits, it's a messier, weirder picture, leaning into deleted scenes as alternate takes to the originals, the deleted scenes go al long way to make this film feel different. Yet there's a lot more gags, like James Earl Jones' lines, changing tone via inspired music choices (the chase in the death star is entirely hilarious), and added effects. Not only that, there's narrative choices. Not every scene will feel new, but most will. It suffers when it's mostly a new aesthetic on a scene that's familiar, thankfully they're few and far between before the next gag.

This is ultimately a wonderful embodiment of why people watch fanedits, to experience a familiar film in a whole new way.

This cut made me remember to check the vaporators for the umpteenth time lol. When Vader uses the force something like that should have been in the original. Or shake the crap out of them lol.

I've recently heavily got back into Grindhouse movies and this had to be one of my go-to's.

For some reason, this version gave me more nostalgia than the despecialized edition, probably due to my first time seeing Star Wars being on an old VHS and I watched it so many times the tape broke.

A lot of people would miss the amount of skill and talent it takes to produce such an amazing addition to a beloved franchise but I was in editors Heaven watching this. I love it so much that it's now in the rotation when I binge-watch SW for International Star Wars Day.

Absolutely brilliant. Thank you for producing an edit I didn't know I needed. :)

BONKERS

Just had to re-watch this...

Not east to review without spoilers coz this ain't David Lean, but it is just a delicious ride with so many surprises and nice touches and flourishes.

It's just shows you what a car crash Ep IV could have been. They say a movie is crafted in the edit suite. Well, gorge on this one folks, it's just frankly tremendous and keeps you wanting more. I've lost count how many times I have watched this so apologies for the very late review.

OUTSTANDING

This fanedit is unlike anything I've seen yet. It remixes A New Hope into a Grindhouse film which plays out differently, and has a very different feel to it. There are a bunch of different scenes used and modifications made. I laughed out loud quite a few times. I recommend watching this without reading anything about it as you'll be surprised by some of the changes made.

My one critique is that, even though a lot was cut, this could've been packed even more tightly so as to resemble A New Hope even less, especially the final sequence with the attack on the Death Star. After the first 30-40 minutes, it began to feel like more like A New Hope again. However, this is only a minor criticism. The work on display here is truly imaginative and is a great example of what fanediting represents. The mind of TMBTM is something to behold.