Star Wars: Episode VIII - The Last Jedi: Rekindled

Rekindled deserves more reviews (praise), because it is currently the definitive TLJ fanedit.

Poppasketti's edit actually restored some of my faith in Rian Johnson as a director. A good faneditor should have a degree of respect for the source material he’s working with, and that's what we see here. Rather than fight against the director's vision, he brings added clarity to it.

I became interested in fanedits after learning about the work that had been done by various faneditors on the prequel trilogy, such as L8wrtr, Q2, Hal9000, seciors, and now Octorox. It has taken many years, but I believe we finally have a trilogy of good, at times great, films. In many ways I believe it has been a collaborative effort, That said, I didn’t think the sequel trilogy was as capable of being redeemed by a good edit, but poppasketti has shown that The Last Jedi is actually quite a good film when you apply a lot of polish.

I watched the edit twice, once by myself and once with my wife, who is a casual Star Wars fan. We both liked the Poe/Hux call exactly as poppasketti has done it. Star Wars should not be completely devoid of humor after all. On the other hand, cutting out Leia Poppins, Canto Bight, the showdown with Phasma, and the Rose Tico kiss, etc., is exactly what this film needed.

Humor has always been an essential part of Star Wars, and I think it’s fine as long as it’s not in excess. Rather, I think the far bigger problem the The Last Jedi has is the level of cynicism that Rian Johnson brought to it. Holdo is especially problematic. The movie tries to set up a character arc for Poe where he needs to learn...what? To blindly submit to authority? However, we can't ignore the fact that it was actually Holdo’s poor leadership that caused things to unravel in the first place. Poe is an established character from the previous film that is both charismatic and likeable. Holdo, on the other hand, comes out of nowhere to cut him down to size, because he's a man, I guess. I find the story involving Poe, Holdo, Finn, and Rose deeply unsatisfying. The message is confusing and heavy-handed. There is still more work to be done here.

I believe the faneditor who fixes Holdo will have fixed this entire movie. Portraying her as being as misguided in her actions as the others might be a workable fix, i.e., show how truly lost and desperate everyone--including Holdo--is without Leia (and Luke). Failure and disappointment are indeed core themes that Johnson wanted to include in this film, so why spare Holdo from that? (Her act of self-sacrifice could serve as a sort of redemption for her as well.) That way, the situation appears even more dire before Luke shows up to buy them some much needed time. As it stands, Holdo's positive portrayal seems very agenda driven to me, i.e., the wise purple-haired feminist who saves the day. Conversely, taking away some of her luster might serve to cast Poe in a better light--a character we actually care about.

I think this is a great fanedit overall. Nevertheless, I think keeping broomboy is problematic for a number of reasons. Why didn’t Rey (who is apparently the most powerful Jedi of all time without putting in any effort) realize she was force sensitive until she was an adult, yet broomboy just somehow happens to know? Like all the Canto Bight scenes in general, Broomboy just comes across as a little too...Disney.

Truthfully, I don’t think we’ll get the definitive TLJ edit until after Rise of Skywalker releases (poppasketti believes Broomboy may factor into TRoS, which is partly why he kept him in). Until then, this edit of TLJ is canon for me, so thanks to poppasketti. I know film/fan editing is arduous work.

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.