Pulp Empire

A phenomenal edit that is just a very fun watch. Can't put it into words, really, but if you're a fan of music, Star Wars, and/or Tarantino, I highly recommend checking this out!

Unfortunate that it's in 720p, but other than that everything is great.

A novel concept, executed superbly. The audio editing is nearly flawless, as is the picture editing. The movie really has that Tarantino feel, and still works as a story, which is pretty marvelous. I do think this edit sometimes straddles the line between an earnest pastiche and the sort of "if x director made y movie" parody that you might find on YouTube. Judged in a void, I would say it doesn't totally work, in that I don't know what someone who had never watched Star Wars or a Tarantino movie would get out of it, but with the context of the original Empire Strikes Back and Tarantino's filmography, it's endlessly amusing and clearly a labor of love. Great job.

The opening of this edit really surprised me. Opening a Star Wars movie in medias res is a new one - and it fits the Tarantino style perfectly. I actively felt myself wondering how we got here. Even though we already know, the movie forces you to look at the narrative in a new way. Probably the best opening scene to a fan edit I've seen yet.

The majority of the film is pure QT style. The music choices and editing style are a near perfect match, and provide a take on Empire that's equal parts humorous and legitimately cool. Some portions of the film feature an abundance of slow motion and montage - the purpose appears to be to maintain sync with the musical choices. It may be a tad jarring in places, but the artistry of these sequences is very good. They may disrupt the pacing a but, but in and of themselves, they're quality. The use of title cards and a nonlinear narrative really complete the experience. The way Yoda was handled was nothing short of inspired.

But the real standout of this edit is the ending. The Empire Stikes Back has one of the most powerful endings in the history of cinema. I like this version better. I don't say that lightly. The way in which it is presented here adds a tremendous emotional punch that surpasses the original film. I was amazed. I sat in silence, jaw agape as the credits rolled.

You're doing yourself a disservice if you don't set some time aside to watch Pulp Empire.

Side note: I've watched this fanedit as a previewer but I think the "final cut" is about the same.

This is a very good fanedit. Strong concept, well done and with a passion.

I will not repeat too much of what the other reviewers said. I wanted to focus my comment on the audio side of this edit.
The audio aspect of it is its stronguest point (great choice of songs, great timming, fits the project perfectly) and possily its lowest too (some original music bleeds occasionally, but I know too well how it is difficult to remove Williams music from this movie!, volume levels could be adjusted here and there etc.). That's why it's difficult to rate the audio here. It's not perfect, it maybe could have been (a bit) better in places, but it simply cannot be perfect as the goal here was to remove all Williams music (something I did not even dare to try in both of my War of the Stars edits). There is enough heavy work done here on the audio side of things (lots of sounds reconstructions) to fully enjoy the edit without being too much of a nitpicker. Very good job.

To me the narration flows well. I understand some people saying that there are nice scenes that are missing. But my guess is that some of them are missing because the music could not be removed. There are some fanedits where your main goal dictates your cuts and you have to play around it. That can be frustrating for the faneditor, but it's also, ironicaly, what is fun!

The "Tarantinish" mood is fully exploited and the enjoyment was exactly what I hoped it would be.
(I wonder what the people who understand what Yoda is saying now will think of the edit, haha).

Thanks for this edit.
It's one to keep and to share with people to show what fanedit can create.

I said God Damn!

I was fairly certain going into this that it would be the most bad ass fan edit of all time, and let me tell you, NJVC did not disappoint.

"Empire" is essentially my favorite film. So typically an edit of it would make me leery, but this is not a typical edit. Quentin Tarantino is one of my all time favorite filmmakers, and I think one of the most enjoyable aspects of his films are his musical choices. In fact, I love his musical choices so much that I take musical inspiration from him whenever I edit one of my own short films. So imagine my pleasure when I learned that NJVC would be doing that same Tarantino musical treatment to "the Empire Strikes Back!"

Of course the Tarantino inspiration doesn't stop there. He's got character title cards, subtitles, black and white segments, an animated segment, chapter splits, split screens, slow motion, fades, montages, and whatever have you. Basically all the things that make my spine tingle whenever I see a Tarantino movie. And they're all used perfectly.

But how is that music? It's awesome. It's just seriously very awesome. Pretty much perfect choices all around. Being familiar with the music in Tarantino's films, on a number of occasions a song would come up, and I would realize what NJVC was about to do with it, and I wouldn't be able to keep myself from smiling (the use of the Mercenary soundtrack in the carbonite scene comes immediately to mind).

Now for the negative, unfortunately. Like I said pretty much perfect choices all around. The songs make perfect sense for their respective scenes. But they don't always work together. This is probably more true for the Battle of Hoth chapter than the others. It's just that, in that chapter, there's little flow between the songs. It's not as cohesive as one might hope, though on the other hand, some have argued that Tarantino's use of music isn't cohesive either. Anyway, it's really only a problem in that second chapter, other than that it more or less works.

Unfortunately there are sometimes, when you can hear John Williams, but I know how hard it is to replace a SW movie score, and I think NJVC did an impeccable job working around JW. There are also some scenes where I do wish the replacement music could have been louder, but I was happy for the most part.

The real issue with the edit is the narrative. I really do love the non-linear story, and the flashback montages to the previous films. The story, however, seems like it could be rather confusing. And by that I mean, I wonder if I would understand it had I not seen this movie previously. Of course, it's hard for me to know for sure what this theoretical version of myself would and wouldn't be able to understand; but watching this edit it just felt like the narrative wasn't all there. What I did love is how the film almost feels like it's telling two parallel stories, the hero in one being Luke, the hero in the other being Han. (I suppose the original film is the same, but I just never looked at it that way. This edit actually made me notice a lot of things I never though I hadn't noticed in a film that I've seen a million times). What's also interesting is that these two heroes barely even share a scene together in this edit.

Few other thoughts:
- I liked the animated sequence, but there is a little bit of a what the hell factor to it Though this is probably intentional, I kind of wish Yoda would acknowledge it or something.
- Like others said, this edit starts slow. It really does get awesome as it goes along. If I were to rank the chapters, it would probably start with six and go in descending order down to one. Which is awesome. I love movie that get better and better as they go along.
- I'm flattered to see that I'm in the credits! Thanks NJVC!

Anyway, the negative thoughts are more or less nitpicks. I keep using the word awesome and there's a damn good reason why: this edit is awesome. Watch it now. Seriously, do it. I'm thinking about doing it again right now. And then again later with my friends. Great stuff NJVC.