War of the Stars: A New Hope Grindhoused

January 12, 2010 @ 8:51 am

This edit to my US mind completely has a European (mainly Italian) film feel to it. Let me delve into this a bit more and explain:

Picture if they brought over some old space movie from Italy (with the usual Italian exploitation rip off of some other major film) or some other European country that did not have a lot of money to produce it. Next, the US distributor decides to add in some minor headache inducing stock Library music (I like Library music, but not the type I found here) for certain parts of the film. Though it has that vibe, you can clearly tell it is too clean sounding to be originally on the film’s soundtrack and added in later. Make sure the film still looks pretty crappy (a plus) and this sums up my mood when watching this feature

I enjoyed this edit (though on a different level than Jaws) and I like it as a companion piece to TMBTM’s technically fan edit masterpiece of Jaws the Sharkspolitation edit. I can tell you now that this Star Wars grindhouse edition will cater more to fans of this sort of genre and not so much the broader audience appeal that his Jaws edition had.

I loved the use of Troops and other short features and deleted scenes that appear throughout the feature. The advanced cgi blood and Vader’s glowing red eyes were a nice touch and easily fit the pattern of the edit. I really enjoyed Vader’s psychotic ramblings (used from other films), and I also got a kick out of some of the re-worked and arrangement of scenes (which I will not spoil).

“Did you miss what he removed?”

“No, not at all.”

I like Star Wars (well really the first three produced films), but I do not consider it a holy grail like many do. What many might consider as some sacrilege offense to the integrity of the movie, worked fine for me. More importantly it worked for the type of edit this was presented as.

The use of the 16mm version is what visually really brought that true grindhouse feel to it and I am glad this move was chosen.

We have some nice menus and I loved the bonus material, especially the “laisse Tomber, Les filles” made to fit Princess Leia’s guest shot on Saturday Night Live music video.

In summing it up, I hated some of the stock library music used as it just gave me a headache and fortunately kind of disappeared right before Vader blasts through the rebel ship doors in the beginning. This music should have had some roughness added to it; more so to fit the source material we are being shown. Instead it sticks out like a sore thumb. To be honest if that music persisted throughout the whole feature I would not have been able to watch it.

Not as great as the previous mentioned Jaws, but still good nonetheless

This gets an 8.5 from me. The too clean music brought this score down from a 9

January 10, 2010 @ 4:32 am

I was very interested in this edit following the excellent JAWS version that TMBTM offered us. More so for the deleted scenes that were in low quality that could be added to this film given the nature of the grindhousing of the film.

I, like many others have probably watched ANH a hundred odd times, so, am well aware of missing dialogue or things that have been added.

The inclusion of the lost/deleted scenes are most welcome. Yea, sure, most of them are badly acted and seem out of place, but not for this edit. They fit well in there. I don’t care that there are missing sound effects and that they turn black and white in places, as that’s what I expect from this kind of film.

It’s a new experience to see all these early scenes with Biggs to finally understand why Luke has a soft spot for the guy. He’s quite instrumental to why Luke’s desire to leave the planet and we get some idea, very early on as to what the rebellion is all about. Ordinary people want to join.

There’s quite a bit of dialogue cut from this version – almost random stuff – I assume that this was to make the feature shorter? TMBTM – can you explain this?

I really wasn’t expecting a scene from Troops to turn up! Really enjoyed the new cantina scene. Seeing Solo chatting up a woman, various new aliens and Neil Young?(Not sure it was him) performing all adds to a new experience of this scene. With the bartender and Greedo using English in, well, English accents made this much grittier and less polished…which again, makes this an interesting experience – but I expect this for this edit.

The added blood and exploding stormtroopers head made me laugh. A few new lines for Vader doesn’t work quite so well, but Obi Wan describing Mos Eisley in Peter Serafinowicz’s description was another LOL moment. Vader’s new eyes were hilarious.

New twist on the trench run. Well edited my friend, didn’t see that coming.

R2′s subtitles – a bit random – perhaps use them a bit more – only some things are subtitled – but I think using the same font as your titles was not a great choice.

My only criticism was choice of music in two scenes:

Escape from the Death Star, it feels a little out of place and runs too long. As mentioned by Adabisi, the Battle of Yavin, again, not so good. It feels a little loud in places, drowns out the dialogue.

However, your choice of score for the end scenes is great. The films final scene – LOL – I wondered if you’d use this somewhere….

So, gushing muchly, really enjoyed this TMBTM – excellent work. Every Star Wars fan should watch this and not try to take it too seriously. This is fun, like the JAWS edit and I enjoyed much more than I thought I would.

9/10.

PS. Just to clarify something. There are scenes on the Death Star that I wasn’t able to place. It shows Vader talking to someone on a communicator and later, two Stormtroopers guarding a lift with one of those sqeaky radio control mini cars on the floor. Where did they come from?

January 9, 2010 @ 5:13 am

I agree with much of Mollo’s review, though I did watch it from beginning to end. The Vader voice thing really threw me off, I couldn’t even tell till I watched the end credits that all were clips of James Earl Jones. I see what TMBTM was going for, but I really could have lived without the voice thing. On the other hand, I didn’t mind R2 ‘s subtitles at all, Also, the other effect used for Vader I rather enjoyed. I liked all the deleted footage put back into the film, but wasn’t so crazy about other material being added in. I felt it really stood out visually as being from different sources, as the picture wasn’t degraded/grindhoused to match the rest of the film. Overall, I enjoyed it, though nowhere near as much as the Jaws edit. Far from perfect, but not a total waste of time either, I give this a 7/10.

July 28, 2012 @ 6:51 pm

*This rating was given before reviews were required*

June 21, 2012 @ 9:43 am

*This rating was given before reviews were required*