QZ qz thoughts
a blog from Eli the Bearded

Star Wars: Fall of the Jedi (Neon Noir Fan Edit)


Watch it on youtube

Star Wars: Fall of the Jedi (Neon Noir Fan Edit)

This is a fan edit of the prequel trilogy into one feature length film. It has a new score, story, and tone that is hopefully akin to the films of Michael Mann and Nicholas Winding Refn. It is an experiment in editing and audio to try and find a new take on the fall of Anakin Skywalker.

Includes music by: The Chromatics, The Chemical Brothers, Cliff Martinez, Kavinsky, John Carpenter, Brian Eno, Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, NIN, Tangerine Dream, Proud, College, Daft Punk, and Clint Mansell.

It's a much different take on the series. Since all they do is reedit the existing films and put a new soundtrack on it, there are some things that can't be fixed (that fight floating on lava near the end, for example), but overall it's a much better version of the story. Run time is 100 minutes, shorter (by more than twenty minutes) than any single film in the entire real Star Wars canon.

Nearly all of the dialog is gone, stripped down to the bare essential lines. I think you could watch this and still understand the whole six plus hour story Lucas wrote, though. But gone are all the hooks for product tie-ins. No pod racing, no Jar-jar, General Greivous is on screen for perhaps seconds, etc. Darth Vader's mask, carefully and slowly filmed with a strong visual style that suits this edit gets more screen time General Greivous who isn't really advancing the plot.

Overall, I'd say 2 to 4 out of five depending on how much you like the new sound track. My wife hated the sound track.