War of the Stars II: The Future in Motion

This is, possibly, my favorite fan edit of all time. (It gets stiff competition from Slark's Doc Savage, but that's another story for another day.)

Beyond being a great edit, it is also a fantastic film in it's own right. It takes everything that is good about the Star Wars universe and mashes it up against everything that is good about bloody, messy, self-indulgent cinema.

Without giving too much away, Bobba Fett plays a much bigger role in this film than he did in the originals, and that's Awesome.

There were a few scenes where the Audio was different enough from the vocals to be distracting, but not distracting enough to detract from my enjoyment of the film. A conversation between Luke and Yoda comes to mind, but it is easy enough to overlook. In fact the only real moment that suffers heavily from this is Leah's last line. ("It's not like that")


I can live with the flaws, and I've seen worse in commercial movies (especially when they try to bowdlerize expletives for television) so I won't dock him too many points for that.



The story itself is fresh. It is surprising, it catches your attention. Some of the choices that were made are so inspired that I found myself wondering why Lucas hadn't done them to begin with.


Simply put, this edit took some of my favorite moments from the history of cinema and combined them in a way that makes perfect sense, to tell a dark and gruesome story that left me wanting more.


And the ending, well, that was a hell of a punch.

if anyone asks what is a fanedit then this edit is the perfect place to start, TMBTM takes one the best known films and completely changes it's story. this at times caused a problem for me as i had to reminded myself a few times during the movie. the many positives have been commented here to which i can only agree with, Darth Vader is once again the star of the edit with every scene he's in

on the negative side i felt the edit ran 15 - 20 mins to long especially the opening 20 mins which for me dragged a little in places with the inclusion of the deleted scenes with the ice monster. also the cgi monster used from star trek looked out of place and would be something Lucas would include in future star wars editions. R2-D2 was a little annoying in Jar Jar Binks way and i can't recall Chewbaca having much to do during the edit. but these a small differences aside this really is one of the best fanedits of all time

Original review: May 8, 2012

Brilliant. Bursting with creativity and imagination, not to mention technical wizardry. I loved watching empire and jedi with the deleted scenes reintegrated, that actually would have been enough. But in addition to that, we get a whole new story, achieved by…well I have no idea how to be honest. But it was completely entertaining. Congratulations TMBTM, this is one to be shared and savoured.

*Nothing in this review is meant as a personal attack on the editor. This is just one viewer’s opinions on this fanedit*

****** WARNING SPOILERS IN THIS REVIEW *********

As usual I’ve avoided reading any reviews for this edit. I followed the In-the-Works thread but didnt know much more going in then that there were going to be deleted scenes reincorporated and special effects added by TMBTM.

So I went in with War of the Stars: A New Hope Grindhoused not fresh in my mind at all! (having watched it only once quite a while back). It was nice to have a brief recap at the beginning. And then bam right away, this is not your average Star Wars movie! Awesome effects work and using old anakins face instead of Hayden Christensan!

All the Dagobah scenes were probably my favorite part of the edit. Changing Han and the Millenium Falcon to having light speed (instead of the “no light speed” and cloaking device talk) was very cool.

Effects work: I can only imagine how much time and effort went into all these effects so all I can say is great work. I did feel that some worked better than others. I was most blown away by old anakin on the operating table and Boba Fett in the dining room at Bespin (with the removal of Darth Vader from the scene). Also really liked the effect with Darth Vader eyes and the warped screen effect when Darth Vader was doing force chokes. And nice to see Ian McDiarmid in the hologram in place of the other actor who they used as the Emperor in ESB.

Voice/Dialogue replacement: For me this was hit or miss. There was some great Yoda stuff. i.e. the change in where “that is why you fail” comes in. And there were some that luckily enough matched perfectly (or you did effects work with the lip movements). Other places I understand dialogue replacement was necessary to the story you were setting out to tell, but it did take me out of the experience a bit but I commend you at trying out changing the lip movements with effects.

Music: The 80s style guitar rock stuff was kinda cool, and definitely gave a different feel to the Hoth scene with Luke riding the Taun Taun. But part of me didn’t like the jumping around of the music from Star Wars themes to rock to Gustav Holst (although they all worked well).

Deleted Scenes: I know that the original source/conditions of most of the scenes were not that great and TMBTM did the best he could so I can’t fault him on the quality of the scene. For the most part I liked the inclusion of the deleted scenes.

Some effects and/or deleted scenes that didnt work for me were a few in Jabba’s Palace. Although having Luke and Leia (disguised in bounty hunter geat) did look really great. But mostly the thermal detonator rolling on the ground and Boba Fett appearing to look out of a door way at Leia and Luke, these shots just didn’t look that great to me.

Entertainment wise this edit was a blast to watch. Maybe the most fun I’ve had watching a fanedit just seeing how TMBTM changed the storyline of Star Wars so cleverly and creatively!

So rating this is rather tricky. I rarely give 10s (I’ve only rated two edits 10s). But again as mentioned above in my review, some of the voice replacement didn’t work for me, some of the new effects and added shots didn’t work for me. And while there’s no rule that says the tone has to be consistent in any movie, in my personal opinion the edit would have benefited from being a bit more consistent in tone. It felt sort of all over the place, and maybe that’s what TMBTM was going for.

I give this a 9/10 A very entertaining edit and very very creative from an editing and storytelling standpoint.

Boy, did TMBTM give Empire a wedgie. . . in a good way. This edit has so much fresh on it, it deserves a bootyload of notoriety.

One of the things I really like about this funkily creative film is that the future truly is in motion, that Luke's prescience is approximate. Another: Yoda the OG simply owns his entrance.

And every scene that's delightfully altered created anticipation for more, to the point that when I came across scenes that were largely unchanged, I felt twinges of disappointment. Laissez le bon temps rouler. But don't cry for me, Argentina—I still had a grand ol' time watching this.

In the second half, a few parts were a bit slow. Some of R2's lines were amusing, but as with the first WotS, there were unutilized opportunities for subtitled humor, as R2 often uttered "straight" dialogue (e.g., commenting on obvious points) or was not subtitled at all. But again, mere nitpicks.

Imagine you go on a camping trip in some place with pterodactyls and weeks later come back barely alive to find everything a little bit different—your favorite breakfast cereal, your teacher's haircut and gender, and that light saber movie that's better than a girl because when you love it, it loves you back (this is waayyy before you lose your virginity, duh). That alternate universe contains this version of The Empire Strikes Back. And certainly a Lucas-TMBTM hybrid being, maybe with two heads.