War of the Stars: A New Hope Grindhoused

Audio/Video Quality: The video quality is intentionally bad in most places, and unintentionally bad in others. This is a limitation of the source material in some cases, and an artistic decision in other cases. The point is for it to look bad, and it succeeds.


Visual Editing: The visual editing is quite good. New effects have been added, blood spurts and things of that nature have been integrated, it's great. At one point the "film" burns through the projector and we have a (monty python-esque) moment where the projectionist has to restart the footage. [This leaves a small hole in the narrative, and prevents an otherwise impossibly awkward transition. Think of it the same way you think of the "Missing Reels" in Tarantino's Grindhouse.]
Audio Editing: Some of Vader's lines feel very out of place. This works because of the style of the edit. Accept it, move along. None of the overdubbing is distracting enough to prevent you from enjoying the film.
Narrative: This is where this particular film wins. Telling a new story in the star wars universe is a feat in and of itself. Telling that story using only footage from the original films (and deleted scenes and fan films) brings us another level of skill.

The fact that the new story works so well, and is (probably) closer to what Star Wars would have been if George had cared a little less, is really impressive.

Enjoyment:I loved the movie. I love this nature of edit. TMBTM has taken his source material, flipped it on it's head and created something new and other. I want to see more people take this approach (not, necessarily, the grindhouse, but the telling of a new story rather than "fixing" problems with the old story.)

There aren't many people in the world who wouldn't benefit from seeing this film. I've personally watched it three times this month, and it grows in impact, rather than shrinking.

The premise, that The War of the Stars is just another spaghetti space opera, is beautiful. The editing is beautiful. The ending is a bit of a twist, and all the better for it.

This edit is certainly one of my favorites, and really not just one of my favorite edits but one of my favorite films of any kind. The only thing that really beats it to the top (well, aside from Doc Savage:Detartnished) is its sequel.(That's right, there's a War of the Stars part II, and it's even better.)

This is what a fan edit should be. It's the polar opposite of Adywan's A New Hope. For everyone who has seen Star Wars WAY too much and want to see something very new with the film this is the edit for you. There was some stuff I thought was too cheesy but that was easily overpowered by the new stuff and great ideas. All of John Williams music has been taken out and replaced with lame 70's tunes which is surprisingly very awesome. Also the new effects that are added every time Vader uses the force is nothing short of brilliant. I can't wait to watch the next one.

the edit has some laugh out loud moments especially when luke discovers his auntie and unkle are dead, steering out into sunset their faces appear and with the accompanying music added makes it a great comedy moment. what i loved about that scene was that it played it straight and works better than the forced humour. r-2 is the star of the edit with his added subtitles it was a shame he didn't have more lines as there are alot of times he talks but with no titles. the bar scene alone is worth the download i thought it was a shame the scene turned black and white before we entered the bar. vaders new force powers also add to the edit along with the new music added, seeing han and chewey running to a 70′s music back drop brought another laugh out loud moment.

overall it’s a relief to see someone do a star wars fanedit different to the many that have been made before.

October 20, 2010 @ 1:07 am

Watched this last weekend, forgot to add my 2 cents.

I’ll be brief because so much has been said already, loved it from start to finish, though toward the middle it felt liek I was watching a star wars film again.
I loved mad Vader, so unpreditably random, I think knowing the theatrical film inside-out was what made this better, so much to expect and then wham-bang, something complreely different. The tench run at the end, I was laughing so hard at the ingenious plot device that was invented. And the pause frame ending complete with Bob Dylan.

Leia’s interrogation scene with the sentry droid, so hmmmm…. yet I laughed.

This fan-edit deserves an 8/10 for me.

February 14, 2010 @ 4:59 pm

Finally got to see this and thoroughly enjoyed it. Thank you so much for all the work that was put into this! But I have to wonder, why wasn’t Tomita’s Star Wars theme used anywhere on this? Tomita was used elsewhere on the soundtrack, and his version of the Star Wars theme is hilarious and would have been perfectly suited to this. On the other hand, maybe Tomita’s Star Wars is a little too hilarious. Anyway it’s definitely worth a view, I’ll give it a 9/10 but it easily could have been a 10/10 with a few more tweaks.