I’m going to play Devil’s Advocate concerning The Hobbit’s line in that he IS supposed to be the Big History Boy according to the TROS Visual Dictionary and the book states (and I quote): “Even now, most galactic citizens have no idea that Emperor Palpatine was the last known and prominent Sith adherent, though those in Resistance circles are more likely to be aware.”

So, Jar Jar does have a point about how most people probably didn’t know Palpatine had a hunger to cheat death. However, there is at least a canon precedence to keep the line as it is seeing that The Hobbit may very well have just been talking about the Resistance and himself rather than the Galaxy as a whole.

Anyways, to talk about the edit itself, I also agree that just completely cutting the scene is way too abrupt. If there’s any work to be done, it would have to be effects wise in order to remove the lightsaber. And yet again… this whole tangent is really more appropriate in another thread (like, were we really talking about ANH in this thread of all places? Come on, guys.)