Review Detail

9.3 107 10
tljanticringe-front-5
FanFix September 09, 2018 28573
(Updated: July 12, 2023)
Overall rating
 
8.6
Audio/Video Quality
 
9.0
Audio Editing
 
9.0
Visual Editing
 
8.0
Narrative
 
9.0
Enjoyment
 
8.0
Oh boy...Star Wars prequels and now the sequels. The eternal debate/fight. Well, at least for the prequels we have a ton of fan edits, plus the Lucas' versions, so it's really hard not to find your cup of tea. Which means prequels are already saved. The sequels on the other hand, mainly episodes 8+9, have a long way to go, very few fanedit choices.

Before my review for this, I should state my brief opinion on the original so you know where I'm coming from. I hated it. My overall enjoyment was like a 2. I saw it once in cinema, then saw a few analysis videos on youtube and never looked back. So I knew that I needed an aggressive edit and not a "restructure" one like those for Episode 7. Enter DonKamillo aaand another editor, not listed here for some reason, Clark Zuckerberg. To be honest, first I watched Clark's edit, The Fallen Knight, and I really liked it. The problem was he didn't have an Episode 9 edit and Don's edit contradicted Clark's a lot in terms of continuity, plus, Don's was the only aggressive Episode 9 edit I could find. I tried HAL's "Ascendant" but it didn't work for me, I guess I needed an aggressive edit for 9 too.

Thankfully, I liked this one also. It had some great ideas, like the ending, which created an excellent cliffhanger, or more scenes of Luke training Rey, which Clark's version didn't have much of. Also a couple of joke reductions, I always appreciate those. Now, the two major changes, Leia's death here and Luke's survival are a bit tricky. Clark kept the original outcomes and because he did it very very nicely, I was happy with it. On the other hand, by keeping Leia alive, she must die with that silly way in episode 9, which is a problem. So either you kill her in space or because she reached out to Ben. And then, there is of course the issue with the fight of Rey and Kylo at the sea, where you can't bypass the fact that someone reached to Kylo and distracted him. That can only be done by Luke or Leia. So you see what's happening here and the choices the editors must make. For me, personally, since a lot of changes need to be made in order for Luke to reach Kylo, and let's face it, Leia's death is a very brief scene which you can just "forget about it", I would prefer if Don had kept the original script and worked based on that in his episode 9. But that's me and I won't substract any points for that, in order to be fair.

Technical-wise, audio and visual edits were very good, except where noted below. And overall, definitely better than Episode 9 Anti-Cringe editing.

Now to some more specific points that were not that good:
- Cutting Snoke calling Hux at the beginning.
- Rey giving the lightsaber to Luke and then he gives it back? It was weird..I preferred Clark's version where he made it look like Luke drops it to the ground.
- Keeping those ridiculous scenes where the First Order is chasing the rebellion with a barrage of no-point-shooting. Again, Clark's version corrected this.
- An obvious jump cut, where Luke comes to save the day at the end, but since there is no Leia, there is a cut of their scene.
- Some added flashbacks I thought they where a bit forced (pun intended).
- Finally, though I appreciate the "purism" behind the gesture of the specific change, the green light on Luke saber was a bit obvious and too much.

All in all, in a perfect world I would have preferred an edit that is a mix of Clark's and Don's versions or I would be an editor and do it myself! Hehe..Anyway, I definitely suggest this edit, especially to anyone who wants an aggressive edit of Episode 9, Don's is the only one, so for continuity reasons alone, the "Anti-Cringe-Cuts" become your go to versions! I just hope the editor will revisit them to smooth some things out or even change others.

Thank you DonKamillo, thanks to anyone who read my review and may the force be with you!

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