IFDB Review: Pulp Empire:

I have to confess two things up front. I am a big fan of njvc's previous work, but despite that, I was very skeptical that he could pull off his stated goals or that they would work for my personal tastes. I am pleased to report that for the most part I was wrong on both counts. This is a very ambitious edit from an audio and visual standpoint, and from a technical fanediting standpoint. njvc is a master with audio work and soundtracking. so I had high expectations at for this part, and he did not disappoint. There were a couple beautifully scored scenes. One that really stood out for me was the animated scene. The animated scene is also just one of many examples where he demonstrates great visual and storytelling creativity that I absolutely loved. The character montages and the use of ANH and ROTJ footage was also wonderful. This whole edit is just so fresh and fun that any technical issues at the end of the day just don't matter very much or ruin the overall experience. That said, there were a handful of moments where technical things did momentarily pull me out of the scene. The most problematic IMO is the use of slow motion. The use itself is not the problem. In fact it is quite important stylistically. The problem is the inconsistent use of different types and some video glitches in a moment or two. The worst glitch that I can remember is in a land speeder scene on Hoth. In fact this scene really stood out in my mind as the worst usage. There were also moments in this scene when I began to feel as if the slow motion was over-used and unneeded. Lastly and perhaps most importantly regarding slow motion, there were really two different styles used and they visually clashed with each other a bit. There was normal smooth slow motion, and then there was a choppy slow motion that looked like it was shot with a 14FPS camera. Stylistically, I really loved the choppy slow motion and would have preferred a more consistent use of this look throughout. There were a few other minor issues I had. While I absolutely loved some of the fades njvc creates (so beautiful!), fade transitions were over-used a bit IMO for certain intra-scene quick camera cuts. Yoda just didn't quite work for me either. Overall, awesome job as usual dude.

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