Star Wars Episode IX: The Final Order

Better.... it's better, that's what I can say.

The quality of the edits is top notch. A lot of the decisions made worked out for the better. Killing off Leia early on allowed the characters to be more independent, and enriches characters arcs like Poe's need to be the leader or, more importantly, the rivalry between Rey and Kylo. There is now more of a push and pull between them, Rey being pulled to the dark while Kylo is pulled into the light, and no Leia means this conflict is allowed to play out with their choices as opposed to others coming in to make the choices for them. The removal of Rey's parentage is cleverly done, using the vision of her taking the throne as the way Kylo tries to get to her. Bonus points for removing goofier elements like the Dark Rey scene or "Empress Palpatine," plus the addition of Palpatine's message to the beginning so we're up to speed. The Final Order feels more like a proper sequel to the previous movies now, and if this was released in theaters there'd be significantly less conflict about it (to put it mildly). It is better than what we had.

However, "better" doesn't translate to greatness, at least in my eyes. Even with these quality of life improvements, and believe me Spence outdid themselves on that front this isn't on them, I can't really bring myself to enjoy this movie. Finn isn't given anything to do, Rose being left to the sidelines, the fake out deaths, the Final Order fleet, Palpatine, that ending... these issues still permeate the film and hold it back immensely. There's still a reactionary vibe to the film that doesn't do it for me. Again, this is not the fault of the editor, who did the best they could and made a significantly more competent, even compelling, movie out of Rise of Skywalker. The Final Order gets a recommendation for me, if only because of how even these smaller changes help the movie immensely.

Spence has done an admirable job at excising what most find to be the most egregious central plot point of Episode IX: 'Rey Palpatine'. Unfortunately, what's left doesn't quite hold the rest of the film up in a satisfactory way for me. Several of the stretched out-shots look quite blurred out and there are some cuts and scene transitions that don't feel quite right.

Other than those minor gripes, the edit is well-constructed and thought through. I wish something along these lines had been filmed originally!

Spence took a complete and total mess of a movie and did the best he could to fix it. And in that he did a pretty damn fine job! The movie is still problematic storywise, but it's a little less overstuffed and more cleaned up. My favorite choices are these:

* Cutting the lightspeed skipping
* Killing Leia off at the start (I love Carrie Fisher but it didn't help to keep her)
* Put memories and Sith voices in Rey scenes to show the lure of the Dark Side
* Made Rey a nobody, no Palpatine connection (I dislike the idea from The Last Jedi but at least we're consistent)
* Dropped the Rey Skywalker nonsense

There's still so much this movie (and the sequel trilogy as a whole) got wrong, but how Spence turned it into a half decent movie is a damn miracle. Great work!

The Final Order is one of the stronger edits of Episode IX that I've seen so far. And while my personal bias means that my favorite edit of Episode IX is, well, my own, this one gets a nice, shiny silver medal at number two. This one earns a high recommendation from me!

Going into The Rise of Skywalker I was excited, but coming out of it there were things about the movie I did not like! I felt like they tried to back track some things from The Last Jedi, plus there were things about the story that just didn't make sense to me. It seemed like a bit of mess. While there are things I liked about the movie, there was a lot of stuff I didn't like, and I just didn't think any of it could be fixed with editing.

Lucky for us Spence came to the rescue! This edit was phenomenal!

While there are still some things story wise that just couldn't be fixed, Spence managed to go above and beyond my expectations! They cut out a lot of things I had issues with and really brought the story more in line with the The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi. I really like that Rey in this edit isn't related to anyone and doesn't have to "earn" anything she has or is in this story. Plus some of the nonsense I didn't care for was cut (goodbye Lightspeed skipping!), and a lot of The Last Jedi back tracks were removed which I appreciated.

Also, the added effects in this edit are top notch and I was really blown away by them!

Thank you for such a great edit Spence. This will definitely be my go to version when I watch the Sequel Trilogy!