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

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.

We have to go back to the 17th of December, 2015 when a not even 20 year old boy sat in a theatre at midnight, crying through the entire title crawl of The Force Awakens 'cause he loves Star Wars since he was 6 years old but never thought he‘d see the premiere of a Star Wars Episode at the theatre. And boy oh boy, did this boy love that movie.

Two years went by and it was the 14th of December, 2017 - again at midnight. I was hyped like only a few times before in my life. And maybe that was the ultimate reason for the utter and bitter devastation that followed. How I hated that movie. How I hated everyone that defended it.

Fast forward again two years. After seeing The Rise of Skywalker I decided to give this another go. It had been the only Star Wars movie I‘ve only ever watched once. I couldn‘t get myself to and I didn‘t want to watch the movie in it‘s original form again. So I‘ve searched for a fanedit and found „The Fallen Knight“ which doesn‘t change the movie from the ground up but removes most of the shenanigans that bothered me so much and left me with a version of the film I neither love or hate. Instead it left me like Luke at the end of his life: in peace.

I was beginning to wonder if there could be even more done with the source material. So this time around I went with DonKamillos "Definitive Anti-Cringe-Cut". The first and second act are perfect. Seemless editing and a narrative which made me really enjoy this film.

Because hidden under all the unanswered questions/unsatisfying answers (Who are the Knights of Ren?, Who is Snoke?, Who are Rey‘s parents?), all the dumb humour ('Yo Mamma' jokes, porgs and the mighty Luke sucking space milk from an alien tiddy), all the aimless storylines (Finn/Rose/Rey love triangle, Canto Bright, DJ, Captain Phasma) and all the other mischiefs (CARRIE f*cking POPPINS and Luke tossing away the lightsaber after THE most anticipated cliffhanger ever) lies an amazing movie after all!

Unfortunately for this edit there were some choices made for last half hour which change the story in such a major way that it even effects the continuity of the next film so this can't be the replacement I'm looking for. It just wasn‘t for me.

Overall this was a great improvement over the theatrical cut and I'm really beginning to enjoy this film. Next up I'm gonna give "The Last Jedi Reimagined" by tiMartyn a shot seeing if it'll become my go-to version for the future.

As others have said, anyone trying to recut this mess is in for a lot of work. Trying to turn TLJ into a decent film might seem impossible, but DonKamillo has done just that. You might think he'd have to cut a lot and you'd be right. This guy is aggressive, but dang if this movie didn't need it. For quite a while, my favorite cut of this film was "The Clean Cut" which is a big improvement on the original, but this goes farther and takes more risks. You won't watch thing and have to stop and wonder if you're actually watching the theatrical release. You know it all the way through. And not because it looks bad or sounds messy. The cuts and clean and mostly unnoticed. But most of all, the movie is a good looking movie, even if the story is awful. Don fixes a lot of the story and retains the slick and shiny presentation which is the only thing Rian Johnson seemed to have any talent for. This is probably my go to cut and I can't wait to see what he does with RoS. Thank the maker for fan editors like DonK

My 2nd time around for TLJ-ACC, this time I watched the DACC!
I agree with those here who highly recommend this edit - The Don has actually made a godawful film into a decent Star Wars story and one that's, importantly, worth watching, well paced and has a 'proper' narrative that comes dangerously close to making sense and actually 'drawing' in the viewer!
I still can't stand the 'hooley around the camp fire' scene [even though the 'reason' for it is sound-ish] and, I can't BUT cringe at Snoke's ridiculous red painted throne room with the 'poseur' 2-legged lobster 'guards' ['guards'??? snigger!] - I'm glad it got burned down in the film!
WATCH THIS - DON'T watch ANY other version of TLJ [esp. the Theatrical Release!] unless of course you're a die-hard lover of Christmas Pageant-esque Paint jobs!!
;)