Review Detail

My friends and I came to the TLJ Anti-Cringe Cut after many discussions and debates on how disappointing the original film was - in many ways it was an effort of will to try and forget all of the baffling and obnoxious story/dialogue choices while watching. Thankfully, the Anti-Cringe cut is so well done that this moved to the back of our mind very quickly. We all agreed that this edit significantly improves on the narrative structure and tone of the story, even if some choices seem like they will make it almost impossible to marry up with The Rise of Skywalker (note: we haven't yet watched DonKamillo's RoS Anti-Cringe Cut yet).

Personally, the most significant improvements are in the ordering and timing of Rey's journey with Luke, and the entire Leia storyline. Admittedly there wasn't much to work with in the original, but DonKamillo has somehow constructed a much more satisfying arc for both characters - for Rey, the training storyline is much more reasonable and feels like a slightly more protracted version of Luke's time with Yoda in Empire, while for Leia simply removing the famously cringe space scene in favour of a dramatic early exit helps immensely. One funny note is that removing the entirety of Rose & Finn's Canto Bight storyline didn't feel like anything was missing at all (apart from a slightly jarring reminder they existed come the finale).

All in all this was an amazing piece of work and really explores what could have been with TLJ. Hats off to DonKamillo, incredible work.