Update

I have cut together and incorporated what one might call the “Cringeless” version of Episode 4 into my edit as a side-piece for when Episode 5 and 6 are here, and I mean that in the sense that the cut is ready for either an alternate version of the film (for those who want a complete experience of the show) or as a stand-by copy-paste into the final product if Episode 5 and 6 allow the structure of the film to have this (perhaps then more crucial) piece to the puzzle.

The cut goes something like:

Obi-Wan in ship, burned -> thrown into Bacta Tank (no Vader connection yet) -> Reeva interrogates Leia Part I, without cringe -> Obi-Wan is in bacta tank, connection and parallels with Vader are there - only one shot of them dueling as a PTSD memory rather than five intercuts with a duel that happened three minutes ago and also let’s us focus on the two, burned individuals -> Obi-Wan wakes up from Bacta, asks where is Leia -> Cut to Obi-Wan and Tala planning the invasion of the Inquisitor fortress -> Reeva interrogates Part II without cringe (Part III with the droid and the mindreading is gone, except for a few seconds of Reeva playing with the droid) -> then it proceeds chronologically, but without cringe and more intensely paced. I also strengthened Reeva’s character by her not interviewing and analyzing Tala for what feels like one hour instead of either mindreading, killing or taking her into custody (it goes something like: Obi-Wan saves Leia -> Tala has just been accused for lying, Reeva is interrupted by alarms, and goes to hunt Kenobi).

The content counts for 23 minutes in total, and puts the film from 1 hour and 27 minutes up to 1 hour and 50 minutes, and the flow felt way better than I expected. So this will be interesting to evaluate once we continue the editing journey.

I did have to re-score certain parts to not make the Episode cliffhanger’s feel like cliffhangers, which they all are - oh my - but this came across rather flawlessly imo.

I COULD render a beta version of the edit with the episode included, so that people can give feedback on both the cut as it stands and on their opinions as to what they feel about the second Leia kidnapping, but then again it would suck to “spoil the release” by rendering a BETA which I am not done perfecting or that ruin the “freshness” of watching the enitery of it. So I myself would vote against this for now.