War of the Stars: A New Hope Grindhoused

This is an exceptional diversion that stands well alone and also enhances my love for the original trilogy. I've watched this and the sequel repeatedly and neither fails to entertain.

It certainly won't hurt your appreciation of the effort if you have a long history of watching B-movies, which I do.

Being relatively new to Fanedits it's difficult to put a finger on every facet that makes them so enjoyable but I do tend to pick up on alterations that actually improve from the source material. Impressively, despite (and sometimes due to) the intentional stylistic degradation, War of the Stars has many moments of genius that arguably outshine or improve on source material.

Fantastic stuff

War of the Stars in an inspiration for all potential fan editors and general fans of Star Wars. His reimaging of Episode 4 as if it were a 70's grindhouse feature gives the classic guts and charm not existent in the original. It will not replace A New Hope, but it's not designed to do so. This is done for fun and for love, and likely watchers are going to experience both when watching it.

Mask's approach to this project allows himself a certian lenience that other editors will not necessarily be able to employ in a more serious venture. For example, heavy use of poor quality extra footage fits easily into his version because the overall quality itself has been lowered to reflect a less refined attempt at filmmaking.

This is evident not only in extra footage, but in the audio track as well. The dialog track is flat and purposely so, which allows Mask to insert his own dialog changes that, even when they come of inelagently, it only adds to the charm of the film.

However, where this movie really shines is Mask's descisions to resequence certain scenes in the film. In particular, his retooling of the scene in which Death Star is destroyed. It is unique, unexpected and, with the greatest decision he makes in the whole film, hilarious.

It's hard to find fault with such an edit particularly because every bad splicing job, every poor audio cue and every bad bit of pacing can really be attributed to the overall style of the film. It's a clever way of hiding mistakes.

This really is a must see.

January 23, 2012 @ 9:36 pm

I was looking forward to watching this one since it had such great reviews. Unfortunately, it was a little bit of a letdown. There were parts that were brilliant and other parts that just weren’t.

Technical quality -10/10 –it’s supposed to be poor-ish video quality, so I can’t really comment on this section. All the downgrading of the video was done well though, so I’ll give it a 10.

Editing -9/10 – of course some of the editing was supposed to be sloppy. The added blood was pretty funny and some of the editing decisions were just amazing and pulled off very well. The music was too loud in a couple parts though.

Presentation – 10/10 – loved the menu and cover art.

Entertainment – 7/10 – let me start with what I liked. There were some parts that were just incredible – the cantina scene, the added music, Vader’s glowing red eyes, the deleted scenes, the Troops sequence (so amazing!), Owen and Beru on the twin suns, and best of all, the Death Star scene and ending with Jabba. These were the highlights, but there were other parts that weren’t so good. Half the time I just felt like I was watching the original, except with downgraded video quality. In order for this edit to really, really work, even more things would have to be changed to give it a completely different feel. Also, I didn’t really care for the R2-D2 subtitles.

Overall – 7/10

Review Date: August 23, 2011

THE WAR OF THE STARS by THE MAN BEHIND THE MASK

It seems there’s not much to say about this edit that hasn’t already been said, but I’ll review it anyway as I feel something this good must be. This edit is simply INCREDIBLE. There is so much awesome in this edit that I don’t even know where to begin, but rest assured, TMBTM has done exactly what he set out to do, and its great. I won’t go through everything, for everyone else seems to have already done this, so I’ll stick to my personal reactions.

There were quite a few laugh out load moments, many during the Death Star battle, but for me the best was the shot of Luke’s landspeeder that accidentally reveals why it needs no wheels. I think the single sequence that best adheres to the Grindhouse idea is the Cantina scene which is simply AWESOME. Actually, almost everything in this edit was awesome.

Somethings, though, were awesome in the wrong way, in the fact that they were actually awesome. I’m really just referring to any time John Williams music was used. I think it would have been better if the whole movie was completely devoid of Williams because, well, were talking about the greatest film score of all time, something that doesn’t belong in a Grindhouse movie. Also, the picture quality was noticeably not as terrible whenever footage was used that wasn’t actually from the movie (though the inclusion of Troops was great). In addition (though not really a bad thing) the music used in the celebration regurgitated memories that should never be regurgitated, though honestly, good call putting it in.

Overall, this edit is highly recommended to Star Wars fans. I feel this is THE reason why fan edits exist. This thing is honestly just completely awesome. I think I’ll be watching this again in the very near future, and I feel I’ll continue watching it in the times to come despite its minor flaws. Because of that, I give THE WAR OF THE STARS 9/10.

ORIGINAL REVIEW DATE: JANUARY 21, 2010

Imagine if you will, two talented editors.

The first, Adywan, takes the Star Wars Special Edition and actually makes it special. With the input and support of many others, he fixes color issues, cuts out misplaced humor, re-edits scenes, adds FX, and gives Star Wars fans a new experience to treasure for a lifetime.

The second, The Man Behind The Mask, is approached by film producer I.M. boon with a difficult task – to improve the original Star Wars. On a shoestring budget and with an insane deadline, TMBTM must fix Star Wars so it can be re-released for mass consumption on boon’s extremely profitable website FE.org. boon requests that TMBTM use an old faded and scratched print of the original movie, as he claims he cannot afford to acquire the 2004 DVD. TMBTM is asked to add better music, add blood, fix Vader and R2, and put scenes back into the film that should never have been removed.

Working alone, TMBTM does his best, and boon declares on his website that it is the best version of Star Wars that ever was or will be. He even goes so far as to claim that after seeing his version, no one will ever watch Adywan’s version again.

Imagine boon’s shock and horror when he learns that people love the film, but for all the wrong reasons. They chuckle at the blood. They laugh at Vader and R2. They giggle at the music. They ridicule the film quality. They shake their heads at the usage of a fan film and an interactive VHS game. The film is an unmitigated failure, boon is ruined, and TMBTM goes back to working on horror films.

In truth, TMBTM is a brilliant faneditor. This movie worked for me on so many levels, I can see watching this many times in the future. I especially loved the music choices and the new Vader, as well as the twists at the end. I find myself thinking of this as an Intentional Unintentional Comedy. My only disappointment is that the ending implies we won’t ever get to see The Striking Back of the Empire…but I say it has to be done. I’m sure a solution could be found – death doesn’t mean anything in a soap opera. Let’s see it, TMBTM!

Thanks for this. 10/10