First off, I think it's stupid to put so much effort into something that isn't your dream, isn't an original screenplay, so you can later sell it. This was a lot of work just to make a copy of someone else's idea. But I wonder if the people who made this would have gotten together and actually made it without the bait of being on Lucas's turf.
Another possibly good thing about copying Lucas is that one can do a point-by-point comparison--a potential employer doesn't have to wonder how these folks would match ILM's FX, they can SEE them working with the same type of material.
OK, so first off, this thing is fatally flawed because the script and acting are gawdawful. The attempts to recreate Darth Vader and the Emperor are a joke. We're talking cable-access awful. I started skipping after the first big FX sequence. The music is fake John Williams and isn't very good because it doesn't share Williams's musical instincts.
BUT...
The people who did the sets and FX on this should be getting calls from Hollywood--if not, they certainly deserve to, because the effects work is every bit as good as any FX on television. (I haven't seen it on anything bigger than my computer screen, so I can't say for sure, but I would bet it's as good as any movie, too.) Yes, the FX are THAT good. The fannish nature gets the better of the filmmakers--we see some FX shots because, it seems, they wanted to show how good they could make a spaceship approach to a planet. But so what? It's a fan film.
So the script sucked, the acting sucked, the story sucked, but the visuals were truly surprising. I hope everyone involved with this gets to work in the business, because based on their work here they deserve to.
It was surprisingly good for a bunch of amateurs. I wonder what their budget was? They got a lot of bang for their buck. Looked pretty decent.
The acting was horrible, though.