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

(Quick words of note, this review will contain some spoilers for both The Rise of Skywalker and this edit. If you somehow have not watched either the original movie or this cut? I'd recommend doing so right now. Also this is a summarized version of a much longer review I made on originaltrilogy.com. If you would like to read the full review? Please follow the link here: https://originaltrilogy.com/topic/FanEdit-Reviews-Post-Your-Reviews-Here/id/74322/page/9#1483342)

I felt like this was a necessity. I watched the Anti-Cringe Cut of The Last Jedi so it only made sense to also watch and review the Anti-Cringe Cut of The Rise of Skywalker, especially since it bills itself as a sequel to that edit instead of what I find is the norm for edits which is that they're designed to where you can watch it without watching the previous edit but watching the previous edit could enhance the viewing. Now quick thoughts on the previous cut, it really wasn't that great. It had some really cool ideas and moments and a lot of ambition but it suffered greatly from over-ambition resulting in very awkwardly done cuts, choices that put strict adherence to certain franchise "laws" over the story and characters and various decisions that resulted in more plotholes and contrivances than what was present in the source. That being said, that easily could be changed or improved upon in a sequel and since certain edits have resulted in these two being companion pieces to one another? I thought I might as well look at this.

And to give my general thoughts, this was... unfortunately a mixed bag. That being said, I’ll give it credit and state this is much better than the Anti-Cringe Cut of The Last Jedi, that it shows a ton of potential and that it makes a lot of choices that build off of that cut in ways that makes me soften my view of it at least in terms of when I look at these as two parts of a larger whole. There’s a lot of really impressive editing here that streamlines plenty of scenes in ways that don't disrupt anything, one particular edit involves altering Luke to where he looks more alive which is done so startlingly well with so few seams that it makes me really wish to see more editors take a crack at this concept and refine it and some of the scenes on their own bring really striking visuals like Ben fading with Han, the multiple Reys screaming as Palpatine steals her life-force and the image of Rey accepting the darkness in her by constructing a red lightsaber, making her one of the first Jedi I think to do so at least in this new canon. The movie also does a good job of maintaining most of the character arcs of our main trio.

However, it also has a ton of glaring negatives that really bring it down like the TLJ cut from editing choices resulting in wonky all over the place cuts that screw up the pacing and wind up calling attention to how it would’ve been better to just leave certain aspects stock for the sake of having the story flow more naturally such as what happens with Ben being taken out of the picture early which results in so much of Rey's fight with Palpatine feeling rushed, certain ideas just being either way too ambitious like cutting Rey's Force Jump to slice Kylo's TIE which results in quite possibly one of the worst instances of a PNG being edited over footage I've ever seen or it's not conveyed properly like with how it cuts out Kylo telling Rey she's a Palpatine to remove the connection but it doesn't remove the line about her having his power and it doesn't remove Kylo explaining that they're a dyad in the Force which in turn results in me feeling rather lost without the change list about if Rey was still a Palpatine in this or not. There are also a great deal of odd audio glitches and jumps and in one instance, the change of making Leia's blade yellow is not only incredibly noticeable but in the Exegol sequences the wrong saber gets colored yellow.

I applaud the attempts made to change things up more drastically than certain edits and unlike the previous, I will grant it that I didn’t end this viewing feeling kind of angry due to certain decisions made but overall? While it has tons of great ideas and I don’t feel like my time was wasted? This is far from being the ideal edit of this movie and I’m probably not going to be rewatching this ever again unless I can think up a good reason to. I do applaud DonKamillo for his efforts though and I hope he keeps on making more edits and that those who enjoy this edit keep enjoying it and that those who haven't seen it are willing to give it a try.