Star Wars: Episode VIII - The Last Jedi: Anti-Cringe-Cut

(Spoiler Alert - some key differences between official release and fan edit mentioned)
I agree with DonKamillo when he stated, "This movie was a mess! It managed to subvert fan expectations in the worst way and was riddled with plot holes and pointless twists and turns." He further stated, "Maybe with some changes here and there, it could be possible to redeem this movie." Redeem it he did!

DonKamillo, took a bad movie, and made it decent. Stating that it is decent is in no way to minimize my opinion of his abilities. On the contrary, just as a good cook can only do but so much with a bad recipe, and low quality ingredients, so is the case with this Anti-Cringe edit.
A few of examples of poor ingredients used by a good cook are: Rian Johnson could have been original if he had not begun the movie with an evacuation reminiscent of ESB, including the line about forgetting some of the equipment, and detecting the Star Destroyers upon them coming out of light speed;
Next, how was it that the Star Dreadnought did not detect Poe's X-Wing, the bombers and other ships until they were in visual range, close enough even to fire upon the massive flagship? Shouldn't their radar have detected the ships farther away? By contrast, the comparably small rebel base in the beginning of ESB detected the Star Destroyers from the surface of a planet.
Lastly, there was little DonKamillo could do about the glaring feminist agenda, and socioeconomic commentary within the story, but minimize and cut where possible, as he did. In doing so, he made it so that those of us who abhorred the original VIII can actually watch and enjoy this and IX, again Anti-Cringe of course, without being completely exasper​at​ed, and feeling like money was wasted buying the blu-rays.

As for a technical review, there were a couple of places where the audio seemed a bit loud. I can remember two instances, off the top of my head, as it were: The scene where Luke mourns for Han, and the transition from VIII to IX at the end of the movie. The latter was more noticeable. Those aside, great editing!

In short, from the modified crawl to the Luke lives and TRoS lede ending, this is a great edit of a bad movie. Great job, DK!

This edit managed to keep me awake and interested, which was the main reason for me watch it at all :-)
I'm not the type of guy who falls asleep all the time watching movies, but "Star Wars- The Last Jedi" (the original cut) really sent me sleeping even twice!!
By comparing the "Anti-Cringe" with the original again I noticed some more stuff of course...
So, what I liked was the fitting pace and feel, many of the dumb/funny moments out, and an overall nice, convincing and smooth editing, making for a good Star Wars feel. The way Leia Organa's passing is handled is really great, as it's atmospheric and emotional, that was one of the edit's biggest advantages!
What I didn't like was Finn's and Rose's romance being edited out completely, as I thought it was rather nice and explain why Finn's love interest moves away from Rey. With some soft hints (not that "forced" kiss), it would have been perfect.
As for "DJ"... I'm a big Benicio Del Toro fan, so there's a tear in my eye that he's also edited out, but I admit that the "Anti-Cringe Cut" does very well without it.

Have to say I really enjoyed this edit of the movie. Removed many of the well known unnecessary elements and focused on the key characters. I liked the big changes for certain characters, and had to watch twice to truly appreciate. The first watch was mentally noticing all the changes and thinking about the edit, but second watch was able to just follow it more for its own version of the narrative. My only concern in watching this, and liking these character changes, is how much it changes the ending and how it can carry over into the next film with such key alterations to the story-line.

On its own, will watch this over the original cut hands down. But will it work when bridged to the next movie? Guess watching that anti-cringe-cut will let me know. Review to be continued in that one. :)

I swore I would never watch "The Last Jedi" again after I saw the Ryan Johnson version. It felt so out of place and jarring. Nothing I'm saying here is any surprise. This edit takes the movie from my personal score form a 3 to a 7 only based on the weakness of some of the characters. However I'm taken aback at how well this edit made me feel like I was watching a Star Wars film again. It's not perfect but what there was to work with reinforces the idea of how "A New Hope" was saved in editing. This is now my definitive edition of the movie makes me want to re-watch it again so I can pay attention to details in the story I most likely missed. Great Job!

I have watched many edits of TLJ, like it or not, I have to thank Ivan Ortega. His edit was a horrible edit, but it lead me to discover other edits on OT.com. While I watched a few one stood out as my favorite, and that was Force Ghost Recon's Clean Cut edit. It kept maybe a couple things, with some sort of niggling voice in my head saying something that wasn't right. I've heard of the Anti-Cringe cut many times throughout the internet, but didn't really give it a chance until very recently. I'm really glad that I did there were a lot of things that I enjoyed with only 6 standout things that I noticed and wrote down as notes. Before I get to the positives, I want to address the negatives first.

Number one, I love the Han mourning deleted scene inclusion (more on that later), but there was something I noticed. It was the fact that the particular version of the force theme that you used was a cheerful version that is supposed to transition to the end credits theme. It was a little distracting to me. If you're open to it, I propose a fix. Maybe use the ROTJ funeral pyre version of the force theme, and I say that because it could follow George's "rhyming" philosophy of it being used to have Luke mourn Han. Cut it at just the right time to transition to Kylo. Number Two, the deleted scene of the third lesson was great. The only thing I noticed was that if you pause at a particular moment you can see the top of the prop blade. Is there a way to fix? Number Three, the portion of Luke's truth of "what happened" to where you see Kylo with the Knights of Ren you can still only slightly hear the Obi-Wan dialogue from the TFA force vision sequence. Is there a way to take it out for the purpose of Luke seeing into him? Number Four, I am aware that you have cut the Canto Bight side quest, thank god, but there is one scene where you can see DJ and the others. That is when you see the elevator going up. Granted it's a blink and you miss, but you can still see DJ with Finn, boxed BB-8, and Rose. Number Five, I see what you're doing with the green saber blade in the apparition portion but keep it blue it's one of few things that Rian did better. Number Six, with Liea's death from earlier how is R2 still able to scan for the beacon??? Finally, this one is not a negative but something I would've loved to see. Hear me out. What if when Rey is lifting the rocks, she finds out that it is harder than it seems maybe when Finn and co are looking at them being lifted maybe add some faint screams of Rey and when you see her up close add some cg blood from her nose. The reason I propose this, is because I see you are cutting down a little on her "Mary Sue-ness".

With all of that out of the way, I loved pretty much everything else in the edit. Bravo. Just fantastic BB-8 fix, inclusion of deleted scenes, keeping Leia dead (bold), Chewie not being translated by Rey, no Joke to Hux and many other cuts of the odd-ball humor, no slapping Hux around, Luke's point of view of the truth further expanding Obi's point of that and NO MURDER CONTEMPLATION, fixing Holdo's plan (BRAVO), the scene of Luke apologizing to Rey, the various transition shots of the island, many more from your change list, and good job on adding the ending with Palpatine my god that was wonderful (perfectly setting up the Rise of Skywalker). I loved the Luke fixes most of all really I never would've thought that someone could do such an amazing job, but you did and I applaud you well done. Don, I just want to congratulate you on how well you did on this edit. I probably will never again watch any other edit of this movie, only yours. Well done.

I highly recommend this edit to anyone. I understand why this edit won the Fanedit of the Month award. I haven't finished your Rise of Skywalker edit, I was halfway through it, but I will re-wind when I watch it next. You've done an amazing job, you sir have earned a fan of your work.