This edit aims to provide a more complete, satisfying and enjoyable telling of Elton John’s story, particularly for fans. Deleted scenes are restored, including Elton’s first suicide attempt and a subplot regarding the AIDS crisis. Two egregious factual inaccuracies are removed: Elton taking his last name from John Lennon (the real-life origin, from blues singer Long John Baldry, is well-known) and Elton playing his ‘80s hits in the ‘60s. The tone and pacing are also improved by cutting Elton’s last argument with his mother (a miserable scene that is too similar to the argument with Bernie Taupin directly following it). Finally, a couple musical Easter eggs are added to the film’s score.

Months back, clickbait merchants and rumour mongers were keen to share news that there would be some kind of Deadpool connection in the ill-fated Dark Phoenix movie. While this somewhat manifested a year earlier in Deadpool 2 with the X-Men's cameo in that film, there was no surprise cameo from Wade for this.

So while binging both movies I worked out a way of integrating several choice scenes from Deadpool 2 into a cut of Dark Phoenix that gives the movie not just something that brings two well received X-Film franchises together (and yes, the fact both of these films have the same initials in their titles doesn't escape me), but also provides closure to the series that doesn't corrupt the timeline the way the original version of Dark Phoenix did, and also sets up a hypothetical fifth film in the First Class timeline to show the saga of the X-Men really ought to have continued.

Two other minor tweeks aside, I left the rest of the movie alone