Hi, I watched your edit. I’ll be honest, I saw the original movie in the theater and find it pretty bad, and I haven’t seen it since. That said, I have to say that while I liked some of the changes you made, I still didn’t like the movie. Nothing wrong with the changes you made, though. At the end of the day, I think the original movie has so many problems that not even editing can save it for me, unfortunately.
What I liked in your edit:
Luke saving Leia was great;
I liked that you took out unnecessary parts of Rose and Finn’s storyline;
Luke got to be a lot more likeable in your edit;
I liked the addition of Palpatine’s voice at the end, but I think it could have been edited better.
What I didn’t like:
In your edit, Luke uses the force from distance three times (once to save Leia, once to break the Imperial ships, and once to fight Kylo Ren). For me this plot device was kind of repetitive in the movie, and took the impact of Luke’s “force projection” sequence at the end. I found the second sequence where Luke uses force from distance in your edit to be a bit unnecessary, and since you used scenes of Luke’s sacrifice to assemble this sequence, his sacrifice became a lot less emotional for me towards the end of the movie;
Luke’s Theme From The Mandalorian Series didn’t work for me in your edit;
I found the sequence in which Rey tries to lift the rocks in training with Luke a little confusing. At first I thought that sequence of everyday images was really her training with Luke over time, but at the end of the scene it is shown that time has not passed, as she is still there, with her hand in the floor. I simply don’t get it;
In my opinion, I think it would be good to cut the scenes involving Finn and Rose’s storyline a little more. I thought the movie was starting to drag about half the screentime, and I think a lot of that is due to the lack of action mainly because of Finn’s storyline (and a little bit on Poe’s storyline as well).
What I didn’t like about the theatrical version that you kept in your edit:
For me Admiral Holdo is the worst character in the original film, and in your edit she is still very annoying. The truth is, I just can’t see her usefulness in the movie, and to me it would make a lot more sense if Poe simply took over the leadership of the resistance after Leia was knocked unconscious, and Holdo was cut out of the movie completely;
To me it’s stupid for Kylo Ren to “know” who Rey’s parents were, and for her to simply believe him without questioning how he knows this information in the first place. In my opinion, this line could simply be cut from the movie, because it doesn’t make any sense in the overall context of the plot.
And that’s it. In spite of the criticism, I really think you did a great job in your edit, cutting the worst and highlighting the best of TLJ. Thank you so much for sharing your edit with me.