I’m not sure fanedits can save TROS. I reckon you’d need more footage, not less. The first act already feels like it’s been trimmed within an inch of its life, we never spend enough time with any characters except Rey, Kylo and Poe, and the final act features an awkwardly silent Ben Solo.
What the movie needs is simplification: can the “Final Order” be axed? Surely at least one of the early plot points/planets can be glossed over to get the ridiculous fast paced first act out of the way sooner. Palpatine’s plan is kind of incoherent since he asks Kylo to kill Rey, then reveals he never really wanted her dead. What if Kylo had actually killed her, Sheev, then what would you have done?
Can Leia be killed earlier? I really appreciate what JJ was trying but to me it felt like an awkward fanedit - Carrie’s line deliveries never seemed to quite match the awkwardly engineered lines written to deliberately lead in to them. In one scene she practically just says “no”. It always cuts away from Leia very quickly. The worst offender is her death, which features Maz awkwardly explaining to the audience that Leia has decided to go and die to send a message to her son through the force, or something.
The ending is trying to be fan service but is absolutely tone deaf. We see Leia and Luke’s ghosts smiling at Rey because she decided to adopt their name for no real reason, immediately after their son/nephew has just died and faded away.
There are a few unnecessary jabs at TLJ which won’t age well when people watch this trilogy in a few years without knowledge of the BTS drama. Luke basically says you have to respect lightsabers and that he was totally wrong about the Jedi. He’s also wearing an awful wig.
I’m hoping for a serious bounty of deleted footage to be made available on the Bluray. Even then, this one is going to be a real challenge to fix up.