Star Wars: Episode VIII - The Last Jedi: Rekindled

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 TLJ 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 next 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 the Definitive Anti-Cringe-Cut had some choices made for the 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.

So, The Fallen Knight made me not hate it anymore, the Anti-Cringe-Cut made me like it and Hal’s TLJ: Legendary made me love it. Perfect video and audio quality/editing (visually TLJ has always been an impressing film) and 100% improved storytelling by getting rid of all disctracting things (which there too many of to name them all).
Only things I didn't like that are still in the Legendary edit: the shot of Luke drinking milk, Carrie Poppins and Rose saving Finn.

Gladly TLJ: Rekindled by poppasketti builds up on that edit and fixes all of my remaining problems with the film. It totally holds up by video/audio quality/editing (really amazing work!) and has become my definitive go-to version ever since. It holds it‘s very well deserved place on my Blu-Ray shelf for fanedits.

Thank you so much for your really great and hard work!

If anyone is interested my shelf consists of:

Episode I: The Phantom Menace ‚Faster, More Intense‘ by octorox

Episode II: The Approaching Storm by Hal9000

Episode III: Labyrinth of Evil (Alternate Ending) by Hal9000 (still have to watch Revenge of the Sith 'Another Happy Sanding' by octorox)

Episode IV: Project 4k77 by TeamNegative1 and Despecialized v2.7 by Harmy

Episode V: Despecialized v2.0 by Harmy

Episode VI: Project 4k83 by Team Negative1 and Despecialized v2.5 by Harmy

Episode VII: The Force Awakens Restructured by Hal9000

Episode VIII: The Last Jedi Rekindled by poppasketti

Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker Ascendant by Hal9000

Rogue One: Hal’s Rogue One edit (a half-assed version of DigMod’s) by Hal9000

Solo: The Coaxium Heist by DigModiFicaTion

I really liked this edit! The Last Jedi didn't sit well for me after watching it in the theater, sapping much of my Star Wars enthusiasm (The Mandalorian helped bring some of that back). I appreciated that Ryan Johnson was trying to do something different, but without an overall plan with the Three Sequels it ended up being a mess. I liked Hal9000's prequel edits, but I feel the Sequels needed more tweaking. poppasketti's edit of The Last Jedi was just what I was looking for! Really well put together while keeping the original feeling there. The only thing I didn't like was more of a person taste thing; I just can't stand the sappy Broom Boy ending, so I edited him out myself (I'm terrible at editing so it's not great) I took him out at the end, making the Falcon flying through space become the ending. I also removed just the Broom Boy close-up shot where he's looking all defiant (which I personally found looked silly) when they are on Canto Bight. Otherwise this edit is fantastic! It's my go-to now when watching the Sequels!

I really enjoyed this edit. I've been apathetic towards TLJ over the years. There have been things I liked and things that I didn't about this movie. I really enjoyed the effort that this edit makes to foreshadow Rey's heritage and makes hints of Palpatine returning in TROS, which felt so out of left field when it happened originally. I also totally agree with the decision to remove Leia Poppins.

I never hated The Last Jedi, like a lot of people did, but it did have it 's flaws. Leia's space walk and Canto Bight were the biggest issues to me, along with some smaller things. This edit does a great job of cleaning a lot of that up. It is flawless! Fantastic work! This is now my go-to version.

QUALITY

I watched the largest file size available and it looked excellent. No complaints. Surround sound too - yay!


VISUAL EDITING

No issues.


AUDIO EDITING

Virtually flawless. Two things stood out to me, minor though they are:

- 55:22 - sounds like two different parts of the score start to clash here, though looking at the cutlist i'm not sure exactly what might have been changed.
- 57:30 - it's a nitpick, but something about the cut here doesn't work for me. I feel like maybe it's a foley thing. The crashing rocks in the birds-eye shot are loud, but then when we cut to the closer shot we don't really hear their impact in the water


NARRATIVE

This isn't a radical edit. There are lots of changes, yes, but compared to many other edits the narrative and main thematic thrust is fairly intact. This is a linear take, with a couple of deleted scenes added in, undesirable elements reduced as much as possible and the optional addition of (very) subtle Palpatine foreshadowing. Some thoughts:

- The lightsaber toss now comes across better for having been rescored. Quite surprising how effective this is really.
- Luke's daily routine is better, but should be cut entirely IMO. It just feels unneeded and kills the pacing. I especially think this is needed given the addition of his grieving scene.
- The way things were edited to avoid Rose intervening with Finn is nothing short of aces. It feels completely natural and it's the only time I've seen it done convincingly. Great job.
- The added force whispers and hood effect in the cave are extremely subtle, to the point where I'm not sure I would have noticed if I hadn't been aware of those changes beforehand, but they are well integrated and some foreshadowing is better than no foreshadowing. By far, the most effective and inspired addition is the radio communication at the end.

There are virtually no narrative issues introduced as a result of the editing process, which says a lot about how bloated this film is. The only thing that felt off to me was possibly unavoidable, which was Finn and Rose's escape following the explosion. It's just hard to avoid this feeling abrupt and like there is footage missing. But this is minor in the grand scheme of things.


ENJOYMENT

Subjectively, I still would like more done at some stage and maybe I'll get round to doing my own cut sometime. There's still a couple of moments of awkward humour, but I also think the film is a bit muddled with its themes. Poe has an arc where he is meant to respect leadership, but Holdo treats him like filth. Not to say his mutiny is justified, but Holdo is painted in a bad light and then we're presented with a "twist" that she was right all along. Well, how about a little communication next time? And less belittling of your crew. She may have had admirable hidden motives, but she still showed poor leadership.

Then you have Yoda, whose entire scene, aside from a pep talk, is to further drive home to the audience that the old is dying and something new is coming. It's the end of the jedi - hence the burning of jedi texts. And yet Luke contradicts this completely in his speech at the end of the film - huh?

Nothing in Canto Bight is worthwhile IMO (including all themes involved) and it would be much better to skip the entire escapade and have Finn and Rose go onto the ship themselves without the codebreaker. I saw this done in Sobo film's edit and thought it was quite inspired, even if the technical execution was sadly not there.

Lastly, I think the only thing cut that I quite like is the boulder gag with the caretakers. It always makes me laugh.

I think if I did ever get around to my own edit, I would have to use this as a reference point because it's easily the best edit of TLJ that I have seen to date, both in terms of editing choices and execution. This is a very polished piece of work. High visual quality in surround sound with 99% of editing going by entirely unnoticed. It's what I love to see!