I feel like the decision comes down to a tension between these two aims: 1) improve the enjoyability of each scene as it happens onscreen, and 2) improve the overall quality of the narrative.

I’m always in the latter category; even if it means cutting the coolest bit of a movie, I think it’s more important to stay on target thematically. I personally don’t think the proposed change weakens the Kijimi section by being muddy or makes 3PO’s sacrifice feel less necessary overall… but… I haven’t watched a workprint to put it into context. When the scene is put back into the movie, it might feel very different to watching it isolated and just imagining what it would be like in context. So perhaps it really is better to hew closer to the theatrical, I don’t know. But I do think it’s about figuring out the balance between individual scenes and overall narrative.

Also, if we can get someone else to dub 3PO, that would be awesome. It was fun to record the lines of poetry but my goodness do I think someone else could do a much better job.