You could cut the whole swimming scene and go directly to the stormtrooper opening the door and Obi-Wan choking him out. You can assume he’s wet from being in the “sewers”.
Order the scenes as:
- Obi confronts Haja
- Obi in the streets
- Random creatures
- Elevator
- Imperials monitoring the computers
- Stormtrooper opening door and Obi’s: "I’m in’
This will also help to explain why he didn’t have to swim back with Leia.
Shorten Haja’s dialogue to Obi in the streets:
“Alright if it’s the sewers you want there’s only one place to go. I’ll buy you as much time as I can.”Let’s not have Haja spell out his “making amends” intentions to the audience like we’re too dumb to understand.
Edit: Haja is a Jedi fanboy. Of course he wants to help a real one.
This is fantastic!
The removal of Haja saying “taking a break”, as well as “making amends” would be great editing choices, as Obi-Wan didn’t ask Haja for that information, so including it at that point in the movie would be unnecessary exposition.