OT member Phase3 had a wonderful suggestion for altering the final duel in the Kenobi series so that we don’t end on Obi-Wan’s baffling choice to let Vader live. The basic idea is to move the burying obi-wan in rocks to the very end of the duel so that after Kenobi walks away from Vader with a sliced helmet, he screams out “Obi-Wan” then cracks the ground with the force, proceeding to bury Obi-Wan, walk away from the fight the victor. Then Obi-Wan climbs out and the fight is over.
If we can make this work, I think it would make the duel even more amazing than it already is (I quite enjoyed the fight outside of the nonsensical ending where Obi-Wan lets Vader live).
I created a mock-up of this idea. The changes so far:
-Reversing the flow of Kenobi retreating so it links smoothly to the later part of the duel.
-Flip shot of ground breaking for visual continuity.
-Removed Vader’s line “And that is why you will always lose” as he breaks the ground, rough sfx replaced (can be polished later)
-Cropped out vader of wide shot of ground breaking for visual continuity.
-Removed vader’s line “Did you really think you could defeat me?” after he buries him.
-Rearranged shots of Vader walking away for better flowThe one key change remaining to tie this whole idea together is somehow changing the final shots of the rock burying so that Vader’s helmet is still sliced in half. I don’t know who would have the special effects skills to do this but perhaps a community effort would achieve this.
Mock-up of the rearranged duel: https://streamable.com/myzuo3
I’ve totally missed this.
It’s not a bad idea, and if I revisit the edit I might look into taking a similar approach.
I’m glad you might consider this idea Anojan!!!
I love the duel but the idea that Obi-wan fully accepts that Anakin is dead and Vader is all that’s left, yet he refuses to kill him for no reason. It is a huge issue for me and hopefully my little workprint shows the direction a fanedit could take to solve this issue.
The one hard part that would fix everything together is the vfx work of replacing vader’s mask with the half-cut version. With those vfx shots, the idea could be fully implemented, so the issue is finding someone of talent who is passionate enough to work on those shots.