Neat work on improving Anakin. Any chance you consider doing “this” -meaning working on dialogue and shots and scenes- to add a different approach on Obi-Wan as well?
I think that ESB somehow lead us to believe as movie-goers that plot-twists are a very important thing when it comes to saying is a movie has been enjoyable or not. I don’t think that this kind of suspense on what is to happen or who is who is something important at all. Hitchcock’s Psycho could very well be a counter-argument to show that there are very good movies -even classics- in which you may know who’s the killer and still be entertaining without a twist, or with some reformulation on what a twist actually is. To reveal something at some point; either about a character to the audience -as in Psycho- or to a character about a situation or another character regardless of wether the audience knew it or not could become very strong moments in a movie and specially if that movie pertains to a saga, and while in ESB you had both of those aspects happening at the same time, you can say that in the prequels order 66 acts as a good “twist” in-universe no matter we as audience knew that it’d eventually happen. Although it doesn’t at a personal level.
Being that “preserve the reveal of Anakin/Vader” isn’t the point of the prequels nor the point of this edit (which I think is a good approach), I wonder if isn’t ObiWan the character who should be more akin to “receive” a twist that leaves him where he is in ANH.
Perhaps he could be made to stand on a more tense relationship with the council by covering Anakin’s love-affair, and then feel specially played as a fool by Anakin’s actions or turning to Palpatine.
“Anakin I’m on your side I don’t want to put you in this situation” is a line that could have much importance than what it currently does if moved or used at some other place. Not that I have a punctual suggestion, but just wondering if any of this is of your interest at all or even if somehow it’s more expressed on your edit, is it your intention to deepen the process with ObiWan -and Padme perhaps- just as you did with Anakin.