(Some big spoilers ahead for “Star Wars: The Last Jedi” because discussing what’s in this “fan” cut of the movie necessitates discussing what was changed from the real version.)
There are plenty of people out there who aren’t happy with “Star Wars: The Last Jedi.” Most of those folks have expressed their displeasure in a normal, “I just didn’t like it” kind of way, but others have been weird about it. One such weird person is whoever it was who cut the movie down to 46 minutes in order to “fix” it by reducing the presence and importance of female characters down to a bare minimum.
This short cut, dubbed “De-Feminized Fanedit (aka The Chauvinist Cut)” by its anonymous creator, first started popping up on torrent sites on Sunday, and most everyone who has encountered it has had a good laugh about it (it came to our attention via reddit).
Digging into this I’ve debated whether the “De-Feminized” cut is the creation of an actual Men’s Rights Activist dork, or just total-commitment deadpan irony. In this age of parodies that aren’t quite as ridiculous as the things being parodied, it is often hard to tell the difference. But I would guess it’s the real deal for two reasons: first, it’s a lot of work for somebody to do as a joke; and second, the joke is only funny when you read about the concept — actually watching this cut wouldn’t be fun or enjoyable in that way. Or in any way, really.
The description calls it “basically The Last Jedi minus Girlz Powah and other silly stuff,” but weirdly, “De-Feminized Fanedit” isn’t really that accurate of a title. What it actually seems geared toward is changing pretty much everything the cutter didn’t like about the movie. For example, it removed Poe Dameron’s (Oscar Isaac) “can you hear me” gag from the first scene, which is just one man making fun of another man. OK then.
The “De-Feminized Fanedit” is sourced from a camera recording of a theatrical screening of the film that was uploaded to a Chinese pirate site with Chinese subtitles added — the site in question posting a streaming version of this camrip in December, before “The Last Jedi” was released in China.
Obviously, cutting a movie from 152 minutes to 46 minutes using pirated footage means that the whole thing doesn’t make any sense. Which, even the creator admits in the file description. But he did it anyway. We’re not linking to it, but for those of you who are curious, read on for a rundown of the important details about this weird, crypto-misogynist pirate cut of “The Last Jedi.”
Probably the single biggest change in this edit is the complete removal of Laura Dern’s Admiral Holdo. With her out of the picture, this cut tries to present Poe as being the one who does her suicide hyperspace maneuver that rips Snoke’s command ship in half. So, yes, that means Poe dies.
The next big change is that when Leia gets blown into space she dies there instead of using the Force to pull herself back into the ship. Also, it’s edited to make it look like Kylo Ren (Adam Driver), her son, was the one who took the shot that knocked her into space, whereas in the actual movie he couldn’t bring himself to pull the trigger and it was one of his wingmen who did it instead.
The whole part where Finn (John Boyega) and Rose (Kelly Marie Tran) go to the casino on Canto Bight has been removed completely.
The part where Rey (Daisy Ridley) confronts Kylo Ren and Snoke goes very differently. Instead of being killed, Snoke simply disappears for some reason, and in the ensuing fight all the parts where Rey does cool stuff was cut so it seemed like she was struggling with only one opponent the entire time.
Whereas “The Last Jedi” has Rey leave Luke behind on Ahch-To, with Luke then using the Force to create a projection of himself in the final battle from afar before fading into the Force — this cut attempts to awkwardly edit it so that Luke goes with Rey and Chewbacca on the Millennium Falcon. Luke then is actually physically participating in the battle, and gets killed by Kylo Ren’s walkers for some reason.