War of the Stars II: The Future in Motion

Overview - Fuse the strongest of the original trilogy with the weakest, redraw Luke’s character so he now carries Anakin’s bad seed, alter Vader’s character, juice the mojo for Fett, those are just elements of an exceptional edit.

Video - Quality choices top to bottom. Now, I KNEW when an alteration was made, but my reaction was always Ooh or Whoa. War Of The Stars is an genuine alternative, not a nip n tuck edit, the flow twists in unexpected directions. The editing was seamless, which I appreciated more during repeat viewings.

Audio - Great sound. Loved the musical alterations (Planets repeated perhaps once too often). Aside from that, again there are countless modifications and the audio editing is demonstration time.

Narrative - The first two thirds of War Of The Stars is inspired. Changes in story structure, character behaviour, Luke’s peccadillo, Darth’s red-eyed fury. Fun times. Jedi is what it is, though TMBTM minimized the Ewoks, brutally truncated all threads (in the best way), slammed the action. Jedi roared past and I did not cringe once. That is a feat.

Enjoyment - A terrific version. Truly. Must see for Sith faithful. Have rewatched a couple of times, this will be going to Star Wars buddies who think they have “seen it all.”

So, in the alternate universe where Star Wars was War of the Stars, it too was an outstanding success. So, with a higher budget, the broke out of the Grindhouse and made... something truly amazing. While perhaps not as hysterically funny as the original, this is an amazingly unique take on Empire and Jedi. It preserves the altered character personalities and plotline of the previous edit, and takes them in some really interesting directions. The use of footage from a variety of sources, a lot of very impressive special effect work, and a quality new soundtrack only enhance this altered reality version of these movies. This is a worthy followup. Another must-watch.

I write this review with mixed emotions. The original War of the Stars remains one of my favorite fanedits ever, and so I was beyond excited for the sequel. However, as much as it pains me to do so, I have to consider this a slight disappointment.

Don't get me wrong, there is plenty to love in this edit. The reworked narrative is amazing, especially the new journey that Luke goes on. I also enjoyed Boba Fett's new fate. There were some great new special effects, and it was a treat to see the new deleted scenes inserted into the movie.

But I couldn't help but feel that some of the fun was missing this time around. It just wasn't as wacky or silly, and while I know that was TMBTM's intent, I still felt let down a little. I also felt the deleted scenes weren't as well integrated visually this time, due to the improved source used for the main movies. Finally, there were a few wonky effects shots that stood out (such as the new Wampa head while Luke was being chased).

This was a really difficult edit to rate for me. I'm sure if I had seen this before the first War of the Stars, I would have rated it higher. As it is, I gave it an 8/10, because it's still a worthy watch and a great achievement.

(Note: I did not rate A/V quality as I only watched this on my phone.)

What can I say? TMBTM played a blistering main set with TWOTS, answered the call for an encore and blew the audience away with TWOTS2. We leave dazed and awed, jaws agape over the ride we just took.

This is what fanediting is all about.

April 22, 2012 @ 5:04 am

Watched this for the second time today. I’ll try to keep my thoughts brief and not spoil any surprises.

War of the Stars II succeeds in its own right and is a wonderful follow up to the first edit. There were many times I was blown away by how TMBTM changed things. The opening sequence lets the viewer know right away that this is a sequel to WAR OF THE STARS, not just a fanedit of ESB and ROTJ.

I personally loved that this was not a Grindhouse movie and that some of the added scenes and effects didn’t have the same consistent look throughout. It added to the mythology of it all, as if the director of this movie blew his budget on two sequences so had to go cheap with some other effects. And maybe even the original director never fully finished the movie and some scenes were re-shot by someone else.

TMBTM has succeeded in making a truly great sequel to War of the Stars without falling into the trap of making a carbon copy of the first one.

A lot of hard work went into this making this and it paid off well. 10/10.