10 Fan Edits That Totally Transform Famous Films

5. War Of The Stars: A New Hope Grindhoused

The Man Behind The Mask was a man with a dream €“- a dream of turning Jaws into the schlocky, cheap-and-cheerful exploitation film it so richly deserved. The book it was based on was a pulpy mess which Steven Spielberg somehow managed to elevate into the first example of the modern Hollywood blockbuster, and we love it, but wouldn't it be fun to make it more like its influence? He succeeded in that dream, too, but then he realised that no grindhouse flick gets released on its own; they're all double features. But what other film could stand the same treatment, with added gore, silly music, scratches, missing reels, all that? Star Wars, duh.

So he set to work producing War of the Stars: A New Hope Grindhoused, a total re-do of the first film in the series which reveals its low-budget, low-expectation genre origins. Star Wars was inspired by the sort of slightly crummy film serials and genre fare shown at grindhouse cinemas, so the film makes a surprisingly good fit for the sort of style Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino were aiming for with their Grindhouse double bill of Planet Terror and Death Proof.

Using the original, non-special edition footage (which has the right faded, aged look) and inserting some equally tatty deleted scenes and alternate takes, A New Hope reveals itself to what it always should've been: a shonky production with a lot of bad acting, clunky dialogue, cheap special effects, and R2-D2's dialogue being subtitled in the manner of an angsty blaxploitation sidekick.