Review Detail

I will start this review with my only criticism of the edit. There were a few minutes at the beginning of the movie where the brightness seemed a bit excessive. I should qualify that my eyes were a contributing factor with astigmatism and a very thin cornea. My eyes can be sensitive to brightness, particularly when combined with darkness or dim lighting. Therefore, some of this issue was my fault for watching the beginning with dim lights.

As for the edit itself, I really enjoyed it. I first saw the movie at home a few years ago. Going through the change log helped refresh my memory. I should qualify that I felt the theatrical release was mediocre and I had a real issue with the Han Solo character. He came off as very respectable guy versus the Solo in the original trilogy who was introduced as an arrogant blowhard. This was an issue that an edit cannot really do much about.

Overall, the visual quality of the movie was clearly and noticeably better. I remembered from watching the theatrical version that I at times struggled to see what was happening. The color corrections done by the editor made watching the entire movie much easier on my eyes other than the brightness towards the very beginning. That is why I rated the visual editing as 9/10.

As for the audio, I have what I call the remote control test. When I watch a movie or television show, I always check to see if I have to play around with the volume up or down. If I have to touch the remote, I consider the audio needing work. I should be able to hear everything on a single volume throughout the movie. On this, I never had to touch my remote volume, so the editor passes with flying colors.

In terms of enjoying the movie, I enjoyed the edit significantly more than I did the theatrical release. The studio version had me feeling, “This is okay, I guess.” The edited version had me feeling that I actually watched a good movie. I would not call it great, but that is not the editor’s fault as there was only so much you can do. I already mentioned that I felt the Solo character was inconsistent with the one portrayed in the original trilogy. I also felt this movie did not really enhance the original trilogy in a way that Rogue One did in my opinion.

This movie was made more enjoyable by some of the more glaring removals by the editor. One of the obvious ones was dumping Maul. I like the character, but he had no purpose in the movie other than nostalgia baiting. If you want to use nostalgia, then the character should have a more prominent role besides, “Oh wow look at Darth Maul.” On top of that, his removal added an aura of mystery to Qira’s actions that made the ending much more mysterious and intriguing.

Moving on, another major reason the movie was actually fun to watch was effectively removing the extremely cringeworthy L3 droid’s sexual shenanigans. I have no idea who in the world would be interested in that stuff. Was Disney trying to promote some form of female equality here? If that were the case, this was a really bizarre way of promoting it. The droid love just gives you a nauseating feeling and disrupts you from enjoying the movie.

On the flip side, the version of L3 in the movie had a nice sassy attitude and made the character likeable in way similar to R2D2 and C3Po. Well done by the editor.

The best thing about the movie was that everything flowed very smoothly. In other fan edits I have seen, the trims and cuts created an obvious choppiness to the movies. I never felt that watching this edit.

I can comfortably say that after watching the theatrical version, I felt as though I had no interest in watching the movie again. This edit is something that would interest me in watching again down the line. That is what happens when you remove awkward moments and just allow the audience to enjoy the show.