so i watched it last night. a few notes/opinions. i don’t want to seem critical, but i’ll mostly give you my nitpicks. and i’ll try to manage a few suggestions, such as they are.
the quality is not great on my download. a good bit of digital grain. i don’t expect or want (because of the file size) 4k quality, but there were parts that were too rough.
just after the six minute mark the lips don’t seem to match at the line “his compassion leaves a trail.” it’s noticeable enough that it’s distracting.
You did pretty well cutting the Leia chase scene. though i’ve seen an edit where Leia didn’t get a chance to run, and as she was talking to Flea she had a bag slipped over her head, and i liked it better. because that stubby limbed girl would’ve been caught in 2 seconds even if she was 50 feet away.
and the second Leia chase scene, unfortunately needed to happen so that Kenobi could “reconnect” with the force. but it was edited well.
Nari was pretty pointless, so i think that’s probably a good cut.
I really liked the cutting of the stupid bickering between the inquisitors, and it was done well.
cutting out Reva mysteriously being at the end of the tunnel without passing Leia needed to be done. how did that make it past the editing room? it’s frustrating. just venting a little, i know you cut it out because you cut out the whole side trip to Fortress Inquisitorius, which by the way was the right choice, even though i did like parts of it.
of course, Vader still just LETS Kenobi get away, but i don’t know how one would edit that little piece of stupidity away.
maybe Reva waiting to stab the Grand Inquisitor while he was distracted should have been left in. idk. it’s not a great scene with or without.
Vader remembering the duel on Mustafar while looking at the fire, hmm. i’m not sure what it says, and so i don’t know if i like it or not. i’m curious what your intention was? what was Vader feeling? to me, the only way that Vader letting Kenobi get away makes ANY kind of sense to me is that he was so disappointed in him, and that killing him would have been a hollow victory. That he wanted to duel him at his best. (and I emphasize “any sense” because that’s still a flimsy excuse.)
i personally really don’t like the imperial march theme during the flashback duel, but if you’re going to do it, I would definitely turn the volume down. the de-aging was well done and helps a lot. the obvious age difference in the original took me out of the scene.
cutting out the flashbacks of Reva getting stabbed in the gut as a youngling was good. BUT. every instance of her motivations are cut. so if this is the version of Kenobi we got, we would all be confused as to why she did what she did (at least i would be). and an edit should stand alone in my opinion.
I don’t think I like the Qui Gon voiceovers, though. i like the idea well enough, but i dont know if there’s a good way to edit it to look right. for instance, the time Kenobi talks to Qui-Gon early on (sorry i don’t remember the timestamp) and when Qui-Gon actually replies Kenobi is still looking at the floor, looking dejected even though they are communing.
the cut at about 1:22:40 is too sudden. maybe you could have her still find the hiding space after it’s already too late? i’m not sure if that would fit, just a thought…
i support cutting out any mention of Reva after being stabbed through the gut, thus leaving it open to interpretation that she probably died. because she should have. i say that not because i hate her character (she grew on me a little), but it makes much more sense. especially in the original, because it’s made clear that Vader knows that she knows that he is/was Anakin. in the other media Vader kills anyone who knows who he is, so it’s good that you cut anything that told us that Vader knew that she knew.
but i would cut out the “we’ll leave you in the gutter” line. it serves no purpose. maybe even the “revenge does wonders for the will to live” line. it makes it seem like they know she is going to survive, and they just let her live for no reason.
speaking of Grand Inquisitor lines, in his first scene in the saloon i don’t like the line where he says “so he steps in and saves your saloon.” it feels to me like he’s just advertising the fact that they are the bad guys.
i think the last thing i will mention is that i’m a sucker for all the trappings of Star Wars. so, if it were me, i would add an opening crawl, and probably even the classic Star Wars side wipe transitions. i guess the issue here is that there is no text at the beginning, so i suppose you would have to make your own. I saw you addressed this already in the comments, but just putting my two cents in. I prefer all of my SW edits to have an opening crawl, episodic series or no.
all in all a solid edit. good ideas, and good execution. I hope it doesn’t seem like i’m being too critical, I just thought it might be more constructive to point out the areas where I thought it could be better. There’s a lot to love here.