Guardian of the Force (an Obi-Wan movie edit)

This is my first Star Wars edit for a long time. Over the last couple of weeks I’ve watched several different Obi-Wan movie edits and have found lots of great things in them all… but none of them 100% hit the mark for me.

The main issue IMO was they still felt “TV-ish”, episodic in structure. Specifically the A-plot being:

Leia is kidnapped
Obi-Wan goes on an adventure and rescues her
Obi-Wan and Vader have a fight
Leia is kidnapped again
Obi-Wan goes on an adventure and rescues her again
Obi-Wan and Vader have a fight again

This makes no sense as a movie structure, and surely this would never have happened if they’d made it into a movie in the first place. The whole thing feels padded out to make it into six episodes. If it had been a movie then I think Leia would have been kidnapped, then Obi-Wan would have rescued her and then the fight with Vader would have come as the 3rd act climax.

So I changed a load of things around to make it into that movie. I completely cut the first fight with Vader and I cut Leia getting kidnapped a second time and taken to the underwater base. That whole section I felt dragged anyway, so it was nice to ditch it entirely.

My initial idea was to use the Spence V3 edit as a basis for my own version which I would just keep and not share with anyone. I thought his was the best of the edits I’ve seen.

But I think it’s turned out better than I was expecting so I thought I might want to share it, maybe some of you would like it as well. I have asked Spence for his permission to share this edit, and he has kindly consented.

I’ve also borrowed and outright stolen ideas and whole chunks from the other 3 edits I’ve seen recently. Those edits are by:

Kai Patterson
FaMe
Pentex Productions

I’ve always viewed fan editing as a collaborative endeavour. We build on what others have done in the hopes that others will build on what we have done. So I wish to thank all four editors for their excellent work, and I’d advise you all to check out their edits, which are pretty easy to find online.

If you want to view a copy please be aware that the version I’ll share is HEVC/X265 codec. Please make sure you can view MP4 files with this codec. I won’t be doing an AVC/X264 version.

It’s a pretty small file, around 4gb, I may upload a larger one to MySpleen eventually.

PM me if you want a copy - or better yet, if you have access, get it from MySpleen where it’ll be uploaded in the next few hours - but please don’t reply to this thread and fill it up with requests.

Thanks,
Dan.

What’s the run time of your edit, please?

2 hours exactly.

Just checked this out, very cool. I think it flows nicely at the shorter runtime.

Just checked this out, very cool. I think it flows nicely at the shorter runtime.

Glad that you liked it. 😃 Being able to cut the underwater base scenes/the second Leia rescue plot really helps the pacing of the movie IMO.

Could I get a link please? Maybe that could be my favorite Kenobi Edit 🙂

Having never seen the show or its other edits before, I just watched this and liked it a lot!

I had only read bad things about the show, but if that’s the case then you did a great job with the source material. It feels like a movie and the pace is just right. Proficiently put together as well.

I did think the audio was a bit muffled, specially at the beginning, and the image is quite soft (I watched the ~7GB upscaled file).

Other than some nitpicking, my main gripes with the cut itself would be:

• The musical score is VERY lacking. Not completely throughout, but in most dramatic and tenseful moments it screams “generic youtube channel epic trailer music”. I wonder how much work would be to rescore the cut with some varied SW music, it’d certainly improve it;
• The Grand Inquisitor, what a cringe worthy fellow. Looks like a Power Rangers crossover or something. Couldn’t he remain dead for the rest of the film? Or is he vital to some continuity? I hope not;
• Some videogamey moments that I think the cut would be better off without (Vader suiting-up, Vader force-pulling the ship);
• The final showdown between Vader and Obi-Wan could be even more streamlined, perhaps? Specifically when Vader buries Obi-Wan and later when Obi force-push rocks at Vader, also look very videogamey and could be cut from the fight with it being resumed seamlessly - with the only downside of Vader being inexplicably weakened to the point of defeat.

What do you think?

Thanks again for sharing and the work you put into it.

theprion said:

Having never seen the show or its other edits before, I just watched this and liked it a lot!

I had only read bad things about the show, but if that’s the case then you did a great job with the source material. It feels like a movie and the pace is just right. Proficiently put together as well.

I did think the audio was a bit muffled, specially at the beginning, and the image is quite soft (I watched the ~7GB upscaled file).

Other than some nitpicking, my main gripes with the cut itself would be:

• The musical score is VERY lacking. Not completely throughout, but in most dramatic and tenseful moments it screams “generic youtube channel epic trailer music”. I wonder how much work would be to rescore the cut with some varied SW music, it’d certainly improve it;

Thanks again for sharing and the work you put into it.

Integration of SW music has rally shown as making the series better.

theprion said:

Having never seen the show or its other edits before, I just watched this and liked it a lot!

I had only read bad things about the show, but if that’s the case then you did a great job with the source material. It feels like a movie and the pace is just right. Proficiently put together as well.

I did think the audio was a bit muffled, specially at the beginning, and the image is quite soft (I watched the ~7GB upscaled file).

Other than some nitpicking, my main gripes with the cut itself would be:

• The musical score is VERY lacking. Not completely throughout, but in most dramatic and tenseful moments it screams “generic youtube channel epic trailer music”. I wonder how much work would be to rescore the cut with some varied SW music, it’d certainly improve it;
• The Grand Inquisitor, what a cringe worthy fellow. Looks like a Power Rangers crossover or something. Couldn’t he remain dead for the rest of the film? Or is he vital to some continuity? I hope not;
• Some videogamey moments that I think the cut would be better off without (Vader suiting-up, Vader force-pulling the ship);
• The final showdown between Vader and Obi-Wan could be even more streamlined, perhaps? Specifically when Vader buries Obi-Wan and later when Obi force-push rocks at Vader, also look very videogamey and could be cut from the fight with it being resumed seamlessly - with the only downside of Vader being inexplicably weakened to the point of defeat.

What do you think?

Thanks again for sharing and the work you put into it.

Thanks for the review, I appreciate it. And I’m glad you enjoyed it.

Rescoring Star Wars movies is a nightmare. I tried rescoring TPM a long time ago and it basically meant redoing most of the sound effects in those scenes. It also tends to result in the new score having to be too loud - I’ve heard this in other edits as well, because you have to drown out the remnants of the original score. So it’s just not worth doing in most cases. But I agree that the score is pretty mediocre, like it has been for other recent Disney Star Wars stuff.

If you think the Grand Inquisitor is bad here you definitely don’t want to watch the full series. I cut nearly all of his and Reva’s scenes. If he remained dead then Reva would have no arc at all, as presumably it would mean cutting the scene where she and Vader fight. I’ve cut it back to the bone as is, but without that final scene I don’t think it makes sense to even have Reva in the movie. And without her in the movie the plot falls apart… because who kidnapped Leia and who planted the tracking etc.