Star Wars: Episode VIII - The Last Jedi: Rekindled

When the Last Jedi came out it pretty much killed my love for Star Wars. Poppasketti's fanedit Rekindled did just that, it rekindled my love and passion for this franchise. Who knew changing a few things could do that? He made filet mignon out of cat food.

I absolutely loved how he handled the Finn and Rose side-quest and battle on Crait. What about Leia's space adventure? It never happened! The lightsabre toss is still there but it seemed more serious this time around due to a musical change.

As much as I enjoyed this, there were still a few changes I would like to see if a second version comes out.

1. Poe's line of not recongizing Holden. She's second in charge and has a reputation. How does he not know what she looks like? That would be like a soldier in the army not knowing who the Vice President was.

2. I would remove the entire Yoda scene. He destroys thousand years old texts and then makes a mockery of the entire belief system. It feels too much like a dig at Star Wars fans and religion.

3. In Luke and Leia's scene he tells her he can't save Ben. She says she knows her son is gone. Then he says no one is ever truly gone. Cut that line and go straight to him holding her hand. He contradicts himself.

4. At the end Leia says today the rebellion is reborn but Luke said the exact same thing like 2 minutes earlier. I would leave Luke's talk with Kylo but cut Leia's line.

5. The ghost dice really bother me. I would either have them not disappear or not be shown at all.

That's my wish list of changes but this version really is great. I highly recommend it and look forward to any future edits he makes of this or other movies.

First of all, I want to say that I have not watched many TLJ fan edits. However, I have watched this one, and the notorious Ivan Ortega Fan Fix. So this review is from two perspectives; compared to the Ortega edit, and the original film.

I watched the Rekindled earlier this week. Wow, I actually really enjoyed the movie. Albeit, the plot is still a low speed space chase, and no amount of editing could change that. This edit really did feel more like a Star Wars movie. I was way more engaged, not constantly being removed from the film from a terrible joke, or awkward scene. All in all, just so much better.

I had read some of the fixes prior to watching and loved what I read, but was concerned how a few scenes would play out.

saber toss- the change in music, while keeping the saber toss actually, surprisingly worked well. I was shocked how it gave the saber toss weight, it served as a visual cue to us viewers that Luke has changed his perspective on the Jedi, and keeping us in that moment. Instead of laughing at an antic, we are now in the same boat as Rey, saying, wait.... why did he throw his light saber, what is going on.

Leia Spacewalk - this worked well. In the notes it said inspired by Ivan Ortega version. However, I feel this version on rekindled, is much better than Ivan's.

Speaking of Ivan Ortega... lets just say that Mr. Ortega has not been very well received by the OriginalTrilogy.com community, and some of that may be justified. His edit just released, and I viewed it as soon as possible. While some of his ideas for story telling were good, honestly i would rate A/V quality, Visual & Audio Editing at 3/10. For me, there is no need to watch that edit, when something like Rekindled is available. However, he did add a lot of original material: Voice acting, and additional scenes, but since they are not PERFECT, they really stick out to me and took me out of the movie a bit too much.

Back to Poppasketti, dude, great job. This is definitely my definitive version of the film. Very hard to tell you are watching a fan edit (which is top priority for me) and it improved the original so much! Thank you!

Congratulation Poppasketti, this is the best edit of Star Wars 8 !

The film is now watchable and almost pretty good (despite the little weakness in the story), nothing makes me out of the film, really you did an amazing job ! All the silly humor is gone, luke is now not a depressed old man but a jedi who lost faith. The death of Snoke is perfect, the casino is just as long as needed, the mama joke is not embarassing, no more BB8 in the walker,...

Here is some suggestions for the v2 to be perfect :

maybe you can inspire of the edit (anti cringe cut) to avoid luke tossing the saber. In this edit, luke is giving back the saber to rey (they reverse the video).

In the anticringe cut also, the flashback between luke and kylo ren is better : luke is not trying to kill kylo (it's too much in contradiction with the character of luke) but just stand near him and is attacked by kylo in response. Maybe you should add this part in your V2

I suggest you also to remove the ending with the kids which is WTF, and end the movie in the millenium falcon with all the characters.

Otherwise, everything is good and i'm starting to enjoy the film !

Well done !

I have recently watched a few fan edits of the The Last Jedi as I struggle to watch the original version due to all the unnecessary side story's (Canto Bite) and cringy jokes and awkward moments (Finn and Rose kiss). Out of all the fanedits I watched this one is definitely the best of them in my opinion. This edit has removed or modified the worst parts of the film but still kept in most of the story which makes the pacing so much better. The lightsaber toss is still there but with the dramatic music playing it doesn't come across as a gag for a cheap laugh. The Poe "mama" joke has been removed but the rest of the dialogue is still in place which I think works because Poe is using it to stall so he can his get X-Wing ready to attack. The Canto Bite scene is now about 5mins and there is no awkward love interest between Finn and Rose. The silly fight scene with Finn and Phasma is gone and BB8 on the walker has also been removed and too be honest these scene are not missed. Admiral Holdo is still annoying as ever (I cant stand her purple hair. I wish there was an edit where her hair was blonde or something) but I have come to accept that.

The other edits I watched I found too much content was removed the from film and it just didn't flow well. Whereas this edit seem to balance the good and the bad parts of the movie. I actually found I was starting to enjoy the film and realized this should have been how TLJ should been released in the cinemas. This will be my go to edit for TLJ moving forward.

This is a fantastic edit. Really. All of the major changes work amazingly well, and some of them even manage to fix a scene I would have just yanked out of the movie completely or otherwise altered more drastically than you’ve proven necessary. Luke’s saber toss now has emotional weight to it since it isn’t played for laughs through the music, and it feels like it was always meant to be scored that way; the “milking” scene now works as Johnson intended it to without being undercut by the bizarre shots of Luke actually drinking the milk; the over-the-top CGI nonsense of Finn vs. Phasma and BB-8 in the walker are seamlessly extracted and not missed in the slightest; and your version of Finn’s suicide run is simply perfect.

And, of course, Leia’s spacewalk - thank you so much for getting rid of the one scene that consistently takes me out of the film in such a seamless way!

Anything else that’s been taken out, I didn’t miss. There are bits here and there that I still wouldn’t have left in the way you have, but they aren’t nearly as much of an issue when those are now the worst moments, rather than being surrounded by even worse stuff.

Technically, the edit is flawless. I noticed no harsh audio transitions, the video quality is top-notch, and all of the VFX work (both that which is new to this edit like BB-8 during the Star Destroyer escape and everything surrounding Rose’s crash and Finn’s suicide run, and holdovers from Hal’s edit like the caretaker removal) is seamless and professional. On that level, you’d never know this was fan edited at all, and that’s a massively important thing to me when it comes to fan edits.

Excellent job! This is now the only non-Hal Star Wars edit that’s replaced the “official” version for me.