War of the Stars: A New Hope Grindhoused

I got to hear Obi-Wan Kenobi call Mos Eisley a f---ing s---hole! I recommend this edit!

Enjoyment - I think my biggest problem with this edit is that it feels like a job half done. It has the potential to be great, but it stops just short of that. The opening presents us with something that implies we are in for a real treat, something that is radically different to the original movie: we have a very retro opening crawl, deleted scenes of Luke with his friends, witty subtitles for R2-D2 and excessive gore as rebels and storm troopers get shot (which I loved!). Unfortunately, as the film goes on, R2-D2 subtitles become less frequent, the changes become less inspired and the blood/gore we were previously exposed to is pretty much non-existent (bar the odd effect here and there). Things do pick up again in the last act though, and TMBTM introduces a fun and unexpected twist which I won't spoil for those who haven't watched it. But in essence, it basically felt like I was watching a slightly trimmed version of A New Hope, book-ended with a genius opening and climax. Love the beginning, love the ending, but the middle felt a bit dry.

Audio/video quality - Ironically, I'm marking this down one point because of a scene that looked good - and by that I mean bad. This is a grindhouse edit, and so the entire film is meant to be laden with poor audio/visual quality and awkward cuts. However, despite most of the film being consistently grainy and crackly, the reunion between Biggs and Luke at the Rebel base looks completely fine. Well, not good as such, but certainly not grindhouse. It's the only scene in the entire edit that isn't covered in film grain and it just stands out in a really weird way.

Visual editing – one point off for the above reason.

Audio editing – generally excellent, except for the noticeable changes in Darth Vader's voice. I didn't think that all of the altered dialogue really worked, but I imagine this is a hard thing to make fit.

Narrative - was fine. Nothing confusing. The twist possibly could have been executed a bit better, but this is a minor qualm. At the end of the day, the only people watching this will be people who know Star Wars. The aim was to create an alternative experience, and for the most part that is what this is.

Overall, a fun edit and well worth a watch despite its flaws. The highlights for me were the subtitles on R2-D2 and the excessive gore, so it was a shame these were inconsistent. The Neil Young Cantina scene was genius. The "address me as Lord Vader" moment followed by Tarkin doing doing so was brilliant. I also cracked up after Obi-Wan dropped the f-bomb when talking about Mos-Eisley.

Anyway, good work, TMBTM. I'd love for you to consider revisiting this and turning things up to 11, but in the meantime I look forward to watching The War of The Stars II.

I watched "War of the stars 2" just recently, so I was somewhat prepared for this.

---Spoiler-warning---
The intention was to downgrade the videoquality, ie. to grindhouse it, so that the deleted scenes could be integrated without sticking out. That goal was achieved perfectly! It looks really awful through and through and everything looked natural in its awfulness!

But I can't say I'm a fan of grindhousing, the videoquality is already flat due to being SD-sourced, and the grindhousing further knocked the quality down obviously.

"War of the stars 2" did without the grindhousing-effect and in retrospect I'm thankful for that:).

That said, the grindhousing helped in a moment where TMBTM made a jump in the narrative, which I thought to be a great idea, by making it look like the film was burned out. Loved that.

Like in the second part I love the new special effects, like the blood and Vader's red eyes, or the new shooting of the sandpeople's wagon.

I also love the new music introduced, especially in the new Mos-eisley-bar-scene.

Narratively I like that it was made like it were a single movie, it all ends with the death star being blown up and Vader killed by Han. It made perfect sense as the emperor was not mentioned, so it could stand alone.

Of course it poses the question, why "War of the stars 2" exists? But I'm glad it exists, cause I think it's superior in most ways.

But back to this edit: I loved two subtitle-lines by R2D2: "Oh, God is he old", when Obi Wan said he wouldn't remember a droid, lol! And "Maybe they need gold" when C3PO asked what the jabbas wanted with them.

---Spoiler-warning-end---

Great edit, achieved what it wanted and tells the story of Star Wars in a single movie and is therefore highly recommended!
Still, I very much prefer "War of the stars 2", that gets along, without the grindhousing and offers many more awesome creative special-effect-use and offers more creative narration-choices.

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.)

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.