Review of “The Last Jedi” (Ivan Ortega’s edit)

* * * B

Film editor Ivan Ortega, on his YouTube channel FilmFix, has been documenting his efforts to produce an edit of The Last Jedi that fixes many of its problems. He finally released the fine cut about six months ago. While the story remains largely unchanged, the end result is a huge improvement over the original.

The improvements that work the best for me are:

1. General Hux is now a serious villain

2. Luke actually trains Rey as a Jedi

3. The Canto Bight subplot is much shorter

4. Vice Admiral Holdo’s roll is reduced, making her less annoying

5. No more “Leia Poppins”

6. In general, dumb humour has been removed

I won’t spoil any of the plot changes Ivan has made, but there are a few, and in all cases, they improve the film for me. Ivan’s labour of love is a worthy addition to The Phantom Edit, Attack of the Phantom, Dark Force Rising, and the despecialized editions of the original trilogy. My one gripe is that he didn’t give it a new title to distinguish it from the original.

#fanedit #ivanortega #starwars #thelastjedi