DarthYcey said:
Docking Bay 54 said:
vranir said:
I see some guy getting publicity for his Kenobi edit, which he posted about on TikTok. I know that fan editors are wise to generally keep their work less public, but it made me feel a bit indignant for you and the other two or three people in this forum who have done the same project, likely as well or better than the one getting credit for it.
I have it and watched it. He did an exceptional, even, marvelous job, imho. The “obi wan movie” that was tucked inside of the series, he managed to very deftly stitch together - considering what appears to have been the intentions of the original creators. He was masterful with Reva’s portrayal. Soundtrack edit choices were highly respectable. He adhered to the “3-act formatting” of contemporary film making. Very theatrical cut of the source material. For the time being, this version is my go-to canon visual of the story, bar none.
4.5 out of 5 stars / 9.7 out of 10
Once I saw Anjohan had been working on a V.2, I decided to hold off on watching his first cut, so I sat through the edit of this tiktok’r. I agree with several others I’ve talked to (on this site and IRL) that this edit was just not very good. It pains me actually to see how much recognition he’s getting for it when there are far better edits out there. Reading your assessment feels like we were watching an entirely different movie. The music choices were awkward at times (using Cloud City for Alderaan and the Coruscant speeder chase for the Daiyu rooftop chase, to name a few), the music fades were very rough much of the time, and overall the film just zipped along way too quickly. Lost were several interesting convos and establishing scenes that gave context to what came next. It reminded me of Rise of Skywalker where things just jumped from one thing to the next without a chance to catch your breath. When you cut too much stuff while also trying to cram in the story from 6 episodes (yes, Nur is jammed in there too in 17 minutes), you get a rushed and disjointed product that has things ‘just happening’. I can easily see new viewers who hadn’t watch the series’ original episodes get lost at times because of how this thing was edited together.
Aside from the music choices and poor audio fades, other things just didn’t fit well. Recycling Qui-Gon lines from TPM to use under the rock pile didn’t hit for me, and then it’s even more awkward at the end when Obi-Wan still acts surprised at Qui-Gon like it’s the first time he’s heard from him in decades. Then you have lots of ‘cutty’ stuff like going from inquisitors talking to Obi-Wan just running up to Freck’s transport. Or no intro to Roken, just him planning a rescue already on Jabiim. One of the worst sequences was Tala tending to a burned Obi-Wan, to Reva finding Leia, to Obi-Wan descending into the bacta tank, to then Reva already on Nur interrogating Leia. These are all back-to-back and super awkward with everyone just teleporting around between scenes. Also, we see Vader on his ship, then Obi-Wan talking to Leia, to suddenly Obi-Wan sitting by himself, to Leia yelling at him for leaving. The organization of these scenes are edited very poorly.
So yeah, you can fit all 6 episodes into a movie and make cuts along the way to do so, but this fan editor’s product is the result of those choices, and it’s not good. It was so rough that it made me go ahead and watch Anjohan’s V.1 because I needed a palette cleanser – I was pleased then to see how much better his version was. I feel like a successful edit needed to blend OG music with the music from the series. Anjohan did that, but what I heard from the tiktok’r just made me think of the original movies. Seriously, the Coruscant speeder chase music was a really bad choice for the rooftop chase, it just doesn’t work. Same for using Bespin as Alderaan. I also didn’t care for all the ESB music at the very beginning.
Anyway…I’ve said enough about the subpar version, let’s talk more about the better version. I really liked Anjohan’s re-scoring for much of the film. I missed getting more Imperial March for Vader’s entrances, and then the sadder piano version in the final convo after their duel didn’t really work for me, although it wasn’t bad (just not my cup of tea, but it’s his version). Otherwise, the music choices were very inspired. I particularly liked the changes during the Jabiim action scenes inside the base and then with Vader pulling a Starkiller and later with Vader vs Reva. The Mapuzo changes with Vader/Obi-Wan were also good.
Leia’s toned down intro and faster capture are a must for an edit, IMO, so I’m glad to see that you did that (and well). I also liked the idea of speeding things up on Daiyu with the bounty hunters but I felt it could have used a better establishing event than just Leia running and climbing the ladder to the roof. Maybe have the bounty hunter come around the corner, Obi-Wan punches him, then Leia takes off running from that because she’s scared. It gives a beginning then to her running and Obi-Wan chasing after her and calling out to her. Then, you can show her running in the market area where Obi-Wan shoots one of the bounty hunters and clotheslines another. This would better establish why they are fleeing since the bounty hunters are on their scent now.
Although losing the Nur episode was probably the best choice to get this to a respectable runtime, I did appreciate the creativity in using Nur for the first rescue. The series writing is really repetitive with two captures/rescues, so it made sense to lose one. But Anjohan was able to use them both in a way that worked well enough. Showing events in a creative way that doesn’t hurt the story is always going to be preferred over zipping along and jamming all of the existing story elements together with poor editing. I’ll take this 10/10 over the rushed tiktok’r version.
I don’t want to repeat anymore of what others have said, so I’ll end things here. Overall, great job, Anjohan! Looking forward to checking out your V.2 after it’s done processing.
I hear ya. These reviews are completely subjective, for sure. I just appreciated the fact that the edit tried it’s best to fully stick to the source material, episode-to-episode, without overly combining sequences and switching around shots to fit a narrative to create a flow that didn’t originally happen. Obviously, this is very tricky to achieve when trimming down something from 6+ hours to 2 1/2 hours while still maintaining the integrity of the original telling of the story. When it comes to these fan edits, it ends up boiling down to people being able to see what THEY WANT TO SEE, and everything else being dismissed out of hand. Nothing wrong with that, technically. Anjohan’s V.1 edit is GREAT. I also have the other 2 edits currently posted on the site. I don’t particularly mind that this other guy seemingly “rushed” his version out and went to TikTok with it instead of posting it here first or at all lol. Who cares, except for folks in an echo chamber? I appreciate the comradery of this community but “homerism” isn’t allowed to factor into my viewership or enjoyment of projects like these. That just gets in the way. The thing about these edits is that no one person has the absolute correct solution(s) to the perceived ills of the source material, so, in fact, many different approaches can and do work. In this case, this guy’s version worked best for what I was hoping for in an edit of this show (so far). Doesn’t take anything away from Anjohan’s (community-involved) work though. I’m just glad that ANYONE is doing SOMETHING with it lol.