War of the Stars: A New Hope Grindhoused

This edit was a blast! Every single change that TMBTM made to this movie was shocking and hilarious! Be prepared for some unexpected hilarious twists and turns in this grindhouse of the original Star Wars movie. Although I had low hopes going in, the grindhouse video quality and rescoring didn't bother me one bit. Be sure to check out the bonus features as well, they'll be worth your while.

I found this to be a really good use of the Tatooine outtakes as well as using the footage from the TROOPS Fan Film (one of my favorites). The Grindhouse editing made for a very good homogenous look through out the film.

I also very much enjoyed the additional James Earl Jones audio from other movies for Darth Vader. It was a very good fit to the action on the screen and not superfluous in the slightest.

The only two issues I had with the edit was that the subtitles for R2D2 were very inconsistent though out the movie. It was one of the best comedic elements of the film and was sorely missed when it didn't happen for much of the middle of the film. The other issue is there were many missing sound effects in the film. This made some scenes such as the falcon being tractor beamed into the death star fall flat.

The cuts that were made from the original movie were well selected and didn't harm the narrative in anyway. The addition of gore to the film was very entertaining over all. I printed this one to disc and it is on my shelf!

Wow, this brought me back to my 15 years of working with 35mm film as a projectionist. I love all those spots, cables, cigarette burns, audio skips, missing images, burning frames and all those things I miss in a digital cinema I am working at right now. Other than that have I seen a New Hope a dozen of times in all sort of versions but never as this before. It felt almost like a whole new film, one that was left on a shelf for many years. I never thought Star Wars could be that funny too, with things like crazy dialogue, R2D2 subs and blood splattering effects. You can't give this a low rating for audio and video quality because everything you hear and see was created intentionally. This is what I recommend every fan of Star Wars and the era of 35mm film to see!

What a fantastic edit. It's what brought me back to the site after a few years away, just knowing the quality that can be achieved in a fanedit.

Honestly, the original episode IV is not a movie I would ever watch again. I'm not a hardcore fan and more importantly, I find this edit much superior. It's funny, it's deeper, and more intense. Using dialog from other James Earl Jones films is genius (I particularly enjoyed the line from Conan). The bar scene turns from a circus to a really down-to-earth cyberpunk experience. The choice of Neil Young is excellent.

Because the tone can be so dense and serious at times, the humor works really well, like the use of the behind the scenes footage where Lea and Luke are drinking a coke (at least I think it was, I'm reviewing from memory).

All in all a most recommendable edit.

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.