Star Wars: Episode IX - The Rise of Skywalker: Anti-Cringe-Cut

As I mentioned during my review of ep. VIII, I was not able to bring myself to watch the source material and the same goes for ep. IX. So I will not be able to offer a true comparison to the theatrical release. But given the non-canonical woke mess Disney produced I hope this won’t be held against me.

For me this was the most cringe out of the sequel trilogy and I’m not sure if that’s because Don Kamillo did such a great job when cutting cringe from ep. VIII or if this movie was just that much worse, because Metacritic would have me believe that this was the slightly less reviled film when compared to it’s predesessor.

Two things that had me cringe hard were the use of tread-speeders when sand-speeders were already a thing how many decades ago in a galaxy far far away? This is going to take quite a bit of work in CGI or a well trained AI to replace. So I was kind of surprised Don Kamillo left these in.

I was also shocked that he left the “broken death star” debris. This totally broke any sense of immersion into the story for me and reminded me again that Jar Jar Abrams had zero love for Star Wars. I didn’t expect all the shots filmed inside the debris to be cut. Just the line where Rey says “Death Star”. That way we could just assume it was some random imperial ruins.

There is still too much wrong with the film that I’m not really sure any amount of editing can fix. I live in hope that one day in the not to distant future someone empowered by AI and a clear creative vision can give us a sequel trilogy finale that could more easily pass for cannon.

Until then, this is probably the definitive way to watch this film. I can’t say I got through unscathed, but I’m sure this cut spared me a lot of pain and suffering over the original. Only a Sith could weaponize Star Wars into a post modern propaganda machine. So it is indeed the work of a Jedi to correct history and salvage the timeline. Gracias Don Kamillo and may the force be with you!

I wasn't expecting much. I mean the originals are such utter rubbish.

I was delightfully surprised. I actually watched TRoS anti-cringe first as I couldn't bare to believe a good cut of TLJ can exist. But TRoS was so well done that I went back and watched TLJ too.

Together these movies do so much better than a "best of what's left." They actually salvage the movies. No need to retcon anything in TRoS because it's not there in the first place. Nothing stupid in TRoS anymore... 'cept the bare minimum Emperor.

I'd love to see version 2+ of these as I still think there's more that can be done to improve.

Top work! I've actually put these in my Star Wars collection to show my daughter, who will now never have to go through the pain of the theatrical releases.

I'm just coming off the review for "The Last Jedi" as I watched both of these edits back to back. With the hurdles and hoops the editor had to jump through to make a cohesive story and bring it back to feeling like Star Wars again is something to be applauded. I understand some limitations with Luke on this one, and while it was a bit jarring I can't knock the editors on that as they had no hand in the filming aspect. Again this is the only version of the movie I'll watch from now on. I would really like to see this editor make an edit of "The Force Awakens" to see how they could weave the entire Sequel Trilogy together without any of the unneeded fluff.

Editing is seamless for the majority of the film. Many of the decisions were moments I also felt were "cringe-worthy" when watching TROS in theaters (Wayfinders and other silly artifacts, Palpatine's clone granddaughter, etc). Even though I don't agree every scene/sequence cut was as "cringey" as others, the overall effect is a much more focused and tighter film that still maintains the core of the story.

I was particularly impressed by the decision to kill Kylo Ren at the Death Star; not only in that it gives the finale more weight as Rey decides to face the Emperor alone, but it also demonstrates a lot of clever editing in the final act to maintain coherency.

The FX work was also impressive. Ren's Tie Fighter in the desert is seamless to me. The "un-Force Ghosted" Luke was convincing (though I have to agree with others that it's hard not to catch that slight invisibility that remains).

In terms of some constructive comments: Finn drops a line "I've never seen so few Wayfinders..." in the desert. I thought the "flirty look" scene at the end between Poe and Zorri was out-of-the-blue. The Wayfinder in the Imperial Vault was strange when all references to it are cut (I understand it's meant to be a nameless artifact, I just couldn't tell why Rey would need it, or get upset when Kylo destroys it).

The scene between Kylo and Han was interesting. I thought the dialogue works in context--as though Kylo's hearing his father's words in death or the two are speaking on some other plain of existence, but I think something in the way of a filter/echo/force-ghost effect to suggest it more explicitly would have helped, because the editing as-is seems as though Kylo got up just fine after the battle and started thinking about Han.

Overall, well done and very deserving of Fan Edit of the Month. I'm looking forward to review TLJ: ACC next.

Before, I should say that I really liked the original TFA and TLJ (minus the casino part) and I have not watched DonKamillo's TLJ.
But I knew the endings of his TLJ edit going in. Luke's and Leia's story was transfered from Don's TLJ, which had choices I do not agree with (personal preference). And lukes ghost effect is hard to undo I guess...
I don't think the narrative is on top. I guess that if you cut away that much it feels empty and forced, or abrubt, in some places. Some cuts even made it wierd. (Lukes ghost, Kylo's non-crash, and several specai effects).

That said,
This edit is beautiful and fun! The cuts are seamless and the quality is great. Almost all the cringe and unnecsessary plot are gone. That makes this a fun, fast-paced adventure. It is really worth watching! It is amazing how much crap it is in the original that we did not need.