War of the Stars II: The Future in Motion

I thoroughly enjoyed the first War of the Stars fanedit, a grindhoused version of Star Wars: A New Hope. An imaginative alternative take on the original film.

This one finishes the original trilogy in a 2 in 1 cut of Empire and Return. It's impressive because it's narratively coherent too. There's some interesting alternate takes on the Vader/Luke reveal, Boba Fett's demise, and others. But overall the story is mostly the same.

While keeping some special effects, deleted scenes, and score changes, it’s ultimately a bit of a disappointment jettisoning much of the surprise and the fun of the original, fully jettisoning the Grindhouse idea. It leaves a mixed bag in terms of overall experience.

It starts off strong with a solid 40 minutes before a long slog and basically watching pieces of Empire and Jedi before ending with a “What If '' alternative universe style ending.

It’s still impressive what’s accomplished here mixing new f/x shots, different shots from the newer prequel films, and creating a brand new ending, it’s just not enough of a change and the deleted scenes aren't enough to make me not wish I was watching the original films.

Didnt think a part 2 would even be possible but here we are lol. This is another ride of adventure but without the vaporators. I get a kick out of these cuts. There r a very fun ride and being an 80's man grindhouse and mixtapes bring back the memories. Very enjoyable entertainment.

This has got to be one of the most impressive fanedits out there, even more so than the first edit. TMBTM has crafted a completely new narrative from The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi using some very impressive special effects. A lot of imagination and unique ideas - truly spectacular work, This was a lot of fun, as I honestly no idea what direction things were going, which is a unique achievement among fanedits. I highly recommend watching this if you haven't already.

I didn't watch the first part yet, so I came to this fully fresh and unprepared.
---Spoiler-warning----
The first half and a little bit more of this edit are brimming with creativity and I was quite flashed by it, the second half is more like the original until the end that is, where Luke turned to the evil side.

I think that end is awesome in a sense of "What if"-scenario, in fact I would have made it even more evil by preventing the rebels from blowing up the death star and being completely destroyed. That is a pure evil end, that I made a few months ago for my edit, but then got the creeps and changed it back to a good ending. But in this edit it would have worked nicely.

TMBTM has amazing special-effect-skills: How he turned the emperor into a ghost, or the red eyes on Vader, the falling down of his ship, or making Luke enter Jabba's palace alongside Leia and many more instances of special-effects that he created for this, is simply amazing.

Narrative-wise I love how he changed the tree-vision to make Luke enter Lando's city before he actually gets there. As a what if-scenario I also love how he made Vader not being Luke's father. and how he made him show more his jealousy of the emperor: "You are weak old man"...

But there was a thing I didn't like and that was how the bounty hunter died, special-effect-wise pretty good, but the explosion could have/would have waken up Jabba's palace. But that's a minor point.

Also I missed Leia strangling Jabba, but that is personal preference, the narrative worked for this as is.

I loved the use of the deleted scene of the sandstorm, and I liked the use of subtitling of R2D2 to bring in some humour.

Like already said the second half dragged a bit, because the first half was so full of new ideas and changes, while the second half seemed to be more like the theatrical version, so that one expected more during that phase, until the great evil (that could be even more evil) end that is.

I've heard that the first part was grindhoused, I think that would have helped here as well with the integration of the deleted scenes that have lots of scratches.

Maybe there will be a version 2 of this to make the evil ending, even more evil, and to grindhouse this and to use a bluray-source to get the most out of it.

But to redo all those special-effects would make it probably a very hard and long work, so I can understand if TMBTM don't want to endure that.

---Spoiler-warning-end---

I highly recommend this edit for the brimming creativity of the first half, the great new ending and the masterful use of special effects. I downgraded audio/video-quality, because on my 42"-TV the picture looked flat as it is only SD.

Edit: I misunderstood something crucial about the bountyhunter and therefore amended that point in my review.
Edit2: After watching "War of the stars 1", I change my opinion and welcome TMBTM's decision to do without the grindhousing-effect.

Simply amazing! Very coherent story which is full of surprises, none of them too cheesy (though I had to laugh out loud because of the "Roger, Roger!"). Some edits and effects are near to flawless, some are easily spotted, some elements are a bit "off", but nothing really spoiled my enjoyment. I would have preferred a bit less Wampa-shooting, some more scratches to better match the film to the lesser quality of some segments, and an improvement of some audio (in a few audio bits, speech is strangely "pitched", maybe due to an extraction from background music or effects).

To bring back an important character which was killed in the first installment "War of the Stars", the solution TMBTM has chosen was obvious, but some details and ideas in the process were ingenious. I had such a lot of fun - even with the segments of Return of the Jedi (I hated this movie almost as much as the prequels, when it first came out: I just saw it a single time in the theatre then, which speaks volumes – but TMBTM brought back the joy!).