Star Wars: The Coaxium Heist

I remember being sat in the cinema in 2018 actively squinting at the massive screen. The digital grading was completely obscuring things like clothing and facial detail, rather important for a space adventure! So, watching THIS version tonight, colour-corrected by DigModiFicaTion I can finally, genuinely say, hand on heart that I have now SEEN Solo.
The dozens of tiny little edits for pacing and brevity were all extremely welcome. Trimming back L3-37 was the right thing to do. The ideal would of course have been for the characters in the movie we got to actually CARE and think about her after the tragic loss, but as it is we get a grumpy droid who finds a new calling and then has her life cruelly snuffed out. It is actually MORE reassuring that they don't mess around feeding her mind into the navigation system of the Falcon, because again, that NEEDS to be followed up on for emotional resonance. Also with the new crop of digitally-masked body doubles standing in for beloved characters, this helped me warm to Ehrenreich's performance as Han (Ford being a virtually impossible act to follow). He's a human being and as uncertain as he needs to be. Excellent opening crawl, top notch ending edit. With what was available, this is about as good a film as it could ever be.

First of all, always gone love the crawl! I also like the addition of Corellia.

All in all, the many small edits removed unneeded plot points. And fixed the cringe-worthy L3 dialogue. Also, the Darth Maul removal was absolutely the best choice.

The wipe transitions work really well. The color correction is the unspoken hero here, the film now looks beautiful.

Tried watching through Solo a couple of times a while back but would always give up after a few minutes, had a few apprehensions on starting the edit but before too long I was properly enjoying it.

On reflection, I think part of the issue was attempting to reconcile my ideas of what Star Wars should feel like with the approaches taken by each instalment/sub-series, it will be interesting to finally watch through the original and see how DigMod's changes make a difference.

This has no right being as fun as it does; DigModification has done a tremendous job tightening the pace of this, giving it the narrative drive that the original was missing and simultaneously allowing the viewer fewer chances to mull over plot implausibilities and convenient coincidences (though hey, it would hardly be Star Wars if there weren't some of those, right?). Chewie and Han renew and strengthen their reputation as one of the great film buddy duos, and Donald Glover as Lando gets to hog the spotlight, as he should.

A great fix-up edit, deserves to be part of your next Star Wars marathon.

I finally got around to giving this edit a watch, and I was not disappointed. I haven't given this film the same sort of close look I have to the saga films, and remember my three previous viewings as somewhat ho-hum. I really enjoyed it this time around, with DigMod's edit flashing across my screen. In fairness, it might be partly due to having given Solo a rest and returning later with fresh eyes. It wasn't until I read the cutlist that I started to remember bits and pieces that he had removed seamlessly.

If you'd have asked me, I would have told you I didn't think optical wipe transitions would have been necessary, and I don't think they are, but they really did feel nice to have. The visual work that (I'm told, because I sure wouldn't have noticed) was necessary in a few places was seamless, as was 100% of the audio work. I listened on a good (stereo) system and noticed no issues, and I'm somewhat of a stickler on that stuff. I wonder if it would have been better to allow the "we'll have you flying in no time" gag to remain since the added optical wipe transition there does not allow for any new material to be seen.
The opening 'Fox' fanfare and SW opening crawl worked better than I thought they would, though I would still prefer if the same content were presented with the blue ALTAIAGFFA text. Just a personal preference; the editor's intentions are implemented effectively.

The film doesn't feel edited at all, apart from the opening crawl. I appreciate giving the implication that Han came up with the 'Solo' surname himself, rather than a hokey moment in which an Imperial officer assigns it to him. In the new canon, we know Solo was an improvised name anyway, so this change almost certainly won't be sniped by any future Star Wars works. Removing the Maul cameo was much appreciated, and removes a serious WTF moment many audience members had who hadn't cared to venture deep into what I still consider to be rather ugly cartoons. L3 wasn't nearly as annoying this time around, though there were only a few moments I consciously noted had been removed as I was watching, the remainder going undetected.

I was genuinely surprised at the extent to which I enjoyed my viewing experience, and it seems this edit is greater than the sum of its individual trims. Fantastic work; it makes me glad that I don't have to trudge into the muck of this film myself. Very, very well done.