Anjohan said:
I hope the removal of the lines “I killed Anakin Skywalker” and “Then my friend is truly dead” will help clarify to the audience that Obi-Wan still sees his friend in there and that killing him is just not in his heart. Thank you for a great assesment of the problem.You’re gutting the whole series of its emotional climax!
I would say that is a great overstatement.
Too many faneditors get so caught up in their desire to preserve canon and continuity that they will sacrifice important thematic elements of a story. This whole series is about Obi-wan being haunted by his sense of guilt over Anakin and then finally being released from that guilt. It was a powerful moment of catharsis truly unrivaled by the rest of the series. An editor’s first priority should be helping a good story come to the fore. I also think a good fanedit works with the original vision of the media, not against it. You are trying to fix something that ostensibly breaks the OT, but I assure you, you cannot make the OT one bit better or worse with this edit; you can only improve the material that you’re working with.
I do absolutely see where you’re coming from, having myself really enjoyed that moment. But when most viewers would like canon to be preserved it creates a great problem for me.
And although I agree with most of your assessment, I also think one can do both.
That being said, as I’ve stated, I totally interpreted the scene that ObI-Wan overcame his guilt and trauma and just left Anakin his own, failed misery - unable to both persuade him and kill him. It worked for me, but it seems not to work for many others (because of the two lines of them totally distancing themselves from one another).
It’s a huge problem, but if we choose to keep it in do we sacrifice continuity? Sure. Is Leia and Obi-Wan’s relationship a break in continuity? Sure. Should I keep one and remove the other? That’s unfair.
So it’s a problem. One really, really works and can’t be removed, and the other also really works for me and you, but not for most others, and CAN be removed.
You see the problem and the solution? It’s a tough one, and I’m totally willing for more debate on the subject - but so far I think I’ve counted eight arguments against the dialogue and about three for (and on YouTube the fans are going crazy - as they always do, lol).
The edit is not released yet.