NFBisms

I did think about doing the shorter spiritual walkabout, and I think it would work, but it would skip over the character elements I liked. His conversations with Leia, truly stepping out from his exile to be a hero, really being confronted with what Anakin’s become…

Obi-Wan having an internal mind-adventure is cool for sure, but his actualization through more external factors has always been more compelling and feels more valuable to me in seeing Obi-Wan as human. Watching him struggle, his heartbreak, but also his determination and commitment to the children - I like what The Plot pulls out of him, and how it develops him - despite not really loving what it is or how it was initiated.

That’s the biggest difference for me between Obi-Wan’s material and Mortis’s. The latter feels far more philosophical and based in abstract ideas. It lends itself to Eddie’s spiritual presentation IMO because it mostly confronts the characters with those concepts. Some looking back at where they’ve been and where they’re going, but mostly through a new perspective on The Force that guid[ed/es] them. The nature of power, light and dark, universally.

Obi-Wan in OWK is dealing with a bit more tangible trauma and pain, rooted in his personal relationship(s) and often exacerbated by the emotionally heavy external incidence. Having it all be a vision quest feels like a cop out to me, personally. We could handwave with That’s [Probably Just] How The Force Works, sure, but it’s not what I saw in the show to start the edit in the first place.

There’s a cool framing device for a 3-in-1 prequel edit there though

Here’s a recent, perhaps controversial/contrived idea…

When trying the walkabout idea, I had Obi-Wan go to Daiyu from Tatooine without being prompted by a rescue request or vision or whatever. I figured this could work even with the Rescue Plot.

It fixes a few problems I was having with earlier iterations of the edit, namely being that:

• Obi-Wan just happens to get a vision of Leia as soon as he’s off planet?

• Even if he’s next seen on the Ring World or wherever to imply passage of time, Obi-Wan getting the vision as the next narrative beat is incredibly contrived, especially when he immediately goes straight to rescue her. Not five minutes ago he was leaving Luke because Owen says “Keep your distance” + Inquisitors On The Hunt = Luke Better Off Without Me. Going to save Leia, without convincing, caveats what could have been a simple mindset. Obi-Wan’s implied state of mind as too complex if not contradictory, especially for an edit that can’t verbally exposit any of those specific motivation changes.

• And as far as being an Inciting Incident/Call To Action, the vision and immediate rush to Daiyu is barely, if even, a moment. The pacing was just weird.

Soo, Obi-Wan in this new context going to Daiyu is just Obi-Wan finding a new place to lay low, away from Luke, more within a crowd. (And can also symbolize a bit of Obi-Wan’s spiritual decay, that he finds himself in such a place of his own accord.) First and foremost, it does wonders for the pacing. We can now stew on Obi-Wan’s decision to leave Tatooine for much longer. The entry and first walk through Daiyu feels like a sequence about what comes of Obi-Wan’s choice to leave Luke behind. It’s bleak and purgatorial but now it’s a tone exercise with thematic purpose.

That works great - until this more shaky element that I’d need feedback on: Then, in some warehouse on Daiyu, he gets the vision of Leia being kidnapped. Instead of Obi-Wan dropping everything to go to Daiyu, the kidnappers are coming to him. (The planet he’s on already, technically.)

Now bare with me. While that might not sound any less contrived, for Obi-Wan’s character, it flows so much better. For the aforementioned pacing reasons, but also now Obi-Wan isn’t sensing across the galaxy and crossing said galaxy just for Leia. The vision in this context is symptomatic of coming to Daiyu rather than The Call To Action Moment itself. As far as the character arc, Obi-Wan stays established in the more reluctant, disillusioned stage of his journey, while still being pushed towards Leia. I also find that Ewan’s cautious performance and the next sequence of events (extorting help from Haja, gritty hand to hand brawl in a spice den, skulking around the seedy underworld, etc.) actually fit better here than after the very Jedi-like decision to go after Leia

Basically, Obi-Wan making such a big step to leave for Leia doesn’t track as well for an Obi-Wan that thought Luke needed to be left alone. This way, it’s not even a full step he takes willingly. It flows better from the Tatooine opening.

Is it a huge coincidence? Probably? But it always would have been without Reva’s orchestration anyway. At least this way, Obi-Wan’s arc stays clear in its initial acts. Besides, Daiyu as a criminal hub can handwave some of the coincidence maybe?

I’ll post a clip later, but that’s where I’m at with it currently. No Reva Orchestration yet.

I feel like trying to share all my thoughts here is going to get confusing haha

As far as that goes, it’s still like that in the edit, but I am experimenting with a lot of alt branches. Many of them you guys don’t see because it would, like I said, be confusing about what’s actually in this. The Reva idea is just one I’m toying with right now to fix the current problems I have. But I would not have brought it up if it wasn’t being discussed in the thread.

Unless I’ve posted an explicit update to the cutlist or have an accompanying clip to a pitch I feel strongly about, the edit hasn’t really changed.

FWIW, I’ve been able to avoid doing it so far, but I’m also not too hot on the edit at the moment, possibly because of it. To me, the lack of Reva as a primary antagonist for the first act only aggravates how pointless the action-oriented narrative feels. It’s just… stuff, happening. Obi-Wan is rescuing the princess, but why should we care if we know they’re both fine? Who were those these kidnappers anyway?

I have the character-driven opening and I know my character-driven endpoint, but the whole middle act is just a pointless adventure. Without an antagonist and their own [enigmatic] motivations to give any of it meaning, it’s just a really long stretch of “film” about nothing. That’s the opposite of what I wanted to accomplish here. The tonal exercise is one thing, but it needs to be in service of a narrative that even demands it.

To be more specific about what I actually intend when I talk about reinstating Reva’s orchestration, it’s more as a tool for Vader’s character, who I’d been tinkering with introducing earlier to ground the story more in Obi/Ani.

EARLY VADER TEST

And then maybe Reva calls, Vader dangles the Grand Inquisitor carrot, and now earlier on, she has a motivation for us to latch onto as she’s ambitiously on her prowl. But it’s now contextualized as an extension of Vader’s will and his personal feelings, which provides at least the illusion that Vader and Obi-Wan are the centered heart of everything we follow.

She eventually has her own true motivations revealed, but as far as taking us through a “pointless” second act - Vader’s presence and all the drama that teases would be more tangibly present than just implied upper management.

You all probably think I’m trying too hard, making up problems for perfectly fine solutions, 😓 but this kind of creative exercise is what’s fun for me. I hope it’s not pretentious or arrogant or anything, but I’m inspired to edit at all when I can do something really different from the source material, really transform it n’ stuff. I love FanFixes, but I don’t think I can offer anything on that front that so many of you can or already have. Spence’s Edit for example is already my ideal realization of this show into a movie IMO. I’m not trying to “compete” or anything, I’m just messing around with my own sensibilities or inspirations.

That said, I’m definitely taking a break right now. Not for lack of ideas or really being in a bind, just general burnt-outedness on the stuff I have to do to implement each idea. I’ll be back soon though

I was actually feeling the same thing tbh! I think like most of my edit ideas I start from Wouldn’t It Be Cool If and I’ll eventually start reeling it back after I realize it wouldn’t fully work the way I want it to.

If anyone hasn’t noticed, I’m ON HOLD for now. On top of the Leia thing, a lot of my tinkering so far has been just that; tinkering. im in this, perhaps selfishly, more for the creative process than actually getting a final edit

I would still like to do a full edit, but as I’ve gone along recently, after a certain point, I felt like I was just going through the motions of the narrative too close to as originally presented. And since I want to use the opening’s tone as a guide, the story remaining action-adventure oriented hasn’t been inspiring me. (Skipping Leia’s intro only exacerbates it even).

I wanted to take a step back and rethink my approach to the material, and find a more cerebral/emotional throughline than just The Rescue. I also don’t feel in great company with people that want less Reva, or less Leia - no offense to anyone that describes for less toxic reasons - that’s been putting me off it too.

Right now, I’m thinking about overhauling to introduce Vader earlier to ground the narrative in the more interpersonal chess game. Otherwise, it’s just Obi-Wan versus some baddies, until it isn’t. This most likely involves reinstating Reva’s orchestration (sorry to anyone that hates that) but idk, the sparse nature of the tone I’m going for feels shallow without tangible driving forces established in some way.

Alright, I’ve decided I’m just going to use something closer to the full Inquisitor scene rather than try to shorten it/hide them until the saloon.

…I don’t even know where to begin with that. leave us alone

DominicCobb said:
kindly fuck off from this site

no, you’re all good. and right

Reva is going to be a much bigger part of my edit going forward!

please leave my thread

Taking a break for a bit, I’ll leave off with some of this:

How Obi-Wan Leaves Tatooine

Not anything new, really. Just the most up to date revision of this sequence, with some help from RogueLeader and jkimm. I’m going to try to make the Inquisitor sequence in this way work for as long as I can, until it’s clear no one likes it, but for now I think it works better than I had started with it. It’s not flawless, but I’m hoping I can smooth it out in some way.

New Establishing Shots on Ringworld Before Force Vision

RogueLeader’s suggestion of using the Ringworld from BOBF (The Mandalorian) to suggest some passage of time.

Daiyu Entrance

Obi-Wan’s entrance into Daiyu, de-scored and re-sound designed. A bit darker and seedier in tone. I’m a big fan of the dreary Wong-kar Wai aesthetic and while something like that wouldn’t fit here, I wanted to lean into the setting a bit more and evoke some of the same neon city loneliness in a crowd.

Daiyu Brawl De-Scored

My crack at taking the score out of this hallway fight, and re-foleying all the sound effects. I like a lot of this episode for how un-Jedi the setting and a lot of how Obi-Wan navigates it is. In lieu of having Obi-Wan verbalizing all his rejection of The Fight, this stuff paired with all the tired expression and hiding communicates all we need to know about where Obi-Wan is at psychologically. I wanted to lean into the griminess by removing all the “exciting” action music, and focusing more on the visceral sounds of the brawl.

As far as the rest of Daiyu and future plans, I’m still breaking how I want to approach Haja and how I’m going to officially and organically introduce Reva as a player. And we’re only 20 minutes in at this point, which leaves a lot of room for the quieter moments between Leia and Obi-Wan I want to keep in. I’m probably skipping episode 4 too.

If you have any more general ideas for an edit, there is a more general redux thread for the show. I’m still just trying to break the first act of my personal edit here lol. Not that I don’t appreciate anyone trying to help, but I do have more specific goals than being everyone’s else’s wishlist. I do read that thread and if any of those ideas appeal to me, I’ll reference it here as I fold them in

Otherwise, I might be bowing out until I have a bit more to show. thanks for understanding

DominicCobb said:

Miche said:

NFBisms said:

I like Reva though! I’m actually trying to find a way to include her a bit more as this goes on without it feeling out of left field for who’s mostly been a background player

Why do you like the character? Also, out of curiosity why shift the focus onto a secondary role. I personally found her as stuck up, ill headed, guetto stereotypical want to be baddy. Not sure why anyone would want to include even more screen time.

Assuming “guetto” is a typo for what I think it is, kindly fuck off from this site. We don’t need your kind here.

^^^^^

Hell yeah, looking forward to it!

I like Reva though! I’m actually trying to find a way to include her a bit more as this goes on without it feeling out of left field for who’s mostly been a background player

That’s great! These are all great ideas I’ll definitely give pass throughs. Small moments like that can pass me by when I’m focused on a bigger picture.

Vladius said:

Kaweebo said:

Editing is much tighter on the Inquisitor scene, though I do think there should be an establishing shot of them exiting the ship before we just cut to them in the bar. Especially when Reva comes into play a bit more later in the show. I get why you edited them walking out because it just highlights how ridiculous they look, but it did feel a bit rushed, almost like they teleported to the cantina.

The editing on Nari and him getting strung up is good, as is the last time Kenobi goes to the Lars homestead. Very impactful. I’m enjoying this so far very much.

I agree with this. I also think it might be good to include the scene of Nari visiting Obi Wan before he gets killed, just to introduce who he is, let Obi Wan express “we lost,” and let the inquisitor scene play out to show why Obi Wan’s caution was justified while also making him feel it harder when Nari does get killed. I know that all we really need to know is that he’s a Jedi but as it is it feels a little abrupt. I also thought that this little sequence of events was something the original show did well.

This is another thing I go back and forth on. It’s a pretty good scene, but again, I think a lot of what is said in it is communicated visually at different points throughout the show. When I can, I’m going to lean for the minimalist choice for this particular edit.

I also think there’s something to be said about clarity by leaving out Obi-Wan having explicitly given up on the Jedi. Within the next scene, he would’ve been pushing for Luke to be trained. And not too long later, jumping headfirst into saving Leia with no convincing. When all’s said and done, Obi-Wan is slightly different here than he is the original show. It isn’t so much about regaining his heroic instinct, but persevering in the face of so much reason to give up. Leaving Luke in this edit could be an example of him giving up, sure, but in context is really a choice made to keep him safer.

I don’t know if this makes any sense but that’s where I’m at with it. I like Obi-Wan’s arc in the original show, but this feels a little closer to how I understood Obi-Wan as a character before it.

RogueLeader said:
I hope I’m not giving an overwhelming amount of feedback. I think what you’ve done so far is great, and you should trust your gut!

Don’t worry about it! I’ve always loved reading your detailed thoughts. You’ve always really gotten my thought processes and confirm a lot of things I feel but am unsure about.

I gave your proposed Inquisitor revision a shot this morning.

I did change the transition, but I actually like the older one more. Weirdly, this one is longer but it does feel quicker.

RogueLeader said:

The only one that stood out to me was hearing the Across the Stars motif during Leia’s rescue. I know the idea is probably because she is Anakin and Padmé’s kid, but I’ve just always associated the song with romance, so it doesn’t really work for me there. Could Leia’s motif potentially fit there instead?

I was thinking the same thing, actually. I was going for a “This is Anakin and Padme’s daughter” kind of emotion, but the scene doesn’t really pause for us to take in Leia from Obi-Wan’s POV like that. And yeah, it is quite romantic which is odd here. Was inevitably going to be removed. I think I wanted to save Leia’s theme for later.

The first half of the cue in that moment is from when Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan save Padme on Naboo, I just faded Across the Stars into it, so I could just easily let that play out instead. It works in a similar way, I suppose. (Let me tell you, turning full tracks into appropriately timed incidence is a whole other thing that might be harder for me than the foley.)

I wonder if it would be possible to imply that more time has passed when we see Ben meditating on the ship, and not that he got an alert that Leia was in danger as soon as he was off world. Perhaps fading out as he walks toward the ship rather than a hard cut could help suggest that. And/or potentially a shot of a transport ship flying through space? Or maybe a brand new shot to show he is chilling in a warehouse on some totally different planet. Just something to show that a little time has passed.

Been working on that but shots from other media or are recognizable to me have been taking me out of it. I’ve got some options for good nondescript nebulas and planet footage, but then it feels odd to suggest Obi-Wan took a shuttle to just… float in space? I’ll try to post a clip later, but at least for leaving Tatooine, the fade out does a little better IMO.

Short of doing a “# Days/Weeks Later…” subtitle, I can accept Obi-Wan got the vision pretty soon after leaving Tatooine anyway. It’s not like in the original show, Reva didn’t put her plan into action to catch Obi-Wan the same few days she was on the same planet as him.

I think the overall structure is working well so far. A part of me does wonder if I miss a bit more of Leia’s introduction, but I may be biased a little bit. I did realize you run into a question of why the kidnappers set up a dummy hostage, if there plan was no longer to capture her rescuer, but maybe that was just a safety measure they take with all of their hostages? I personally think the muffled Leia line works by the way.

I miss it a bit too, especially no Bail, but with the project as a tonal exercise, the whimsical Alderaan stuff was a real pain to try and make fit. The material deserved to be presented in all its whimsy anyway, if it was going to be. I think Leia’s endearing disposition as a contrast is going to work later in the cut, but not this early on where I’m trying to set the tone.

I also wonder if it is fine that Obi and Bail have no contact after he senses Leia in danger. Like, could you potentially have voiceover of Bail as Obi-Wan arrives at Daiyu, implying they communicated after Obi-Wan sensed Leia.

This was also something I played with and is trivially easy to implement as VO, but kind of felt at odds with the storytelling language I’m going for. I don’t know to articulate it atm, but I’d prefer to truncate the plot than I would what should be an important character interaction. I’d rather it not be tackled than given a handwave

Besides, there was an element in the old EU I remember liking where Obi-Wan was so off the grid that he had to go to internet cafes or something to keep up with the galaxy’s goings on. The idea that he had something to even be communicated with, was already kind of a shock to my expectations. Obi-Wan going on his own accord I think sells his commitment to the children a lot also. I kind of like that.

Here’s another pass through from the Toy to Departure.

• I re cut the Inquisitor scene, maybe it’ll feel a little better this time - removed the saloon BG music, used more silence and howling winds, and tried a different song/transition at the end.

• Removed the shot of Nari tied to the arch to imply more gruesomeness

• Removed the sun in the binoculars shot

• Used the fade out as Obi-Wan leaves Tatooine and tried out a [flipped] shot from BOBF to imply more time passage

The tragedy of this edit is that it was finished at one point but then I got too ambitious and made like five or six choices I want to take back. I would go back and fix them now, but I don’t have a lot of the old source files any more, which makes navigating the already nightmarishly disorganized project a living hell.

I can probably edit the last export and just replace the parts I want to change, but I haven’t found the motivation to do that, especially since it caps the project going forward at 720p. If I wanted to continue this at all, I would have liked the eventual endpoint to be 1080p, submittable to FE and all, you know? i also don’t like the color grading any more

oh btw i am sending it to people still, if it looks like im ignoring everyone in this thread i just use PMs

Yeah, definitely have some cleaning to do, just wanted to get the structure into place here and receive some feedback before going forward. Every decision I make for this is accompanied with some considerable time rebuilding the sound design of a short minute, so I figured I didn’t have to have everything polished if I’m just testing iterations. you can tell when it starts falling off lmao

Which, I did have the Jawa scene in the edit a day ago actually. I go back and forth on it honestly. While I see its value in verbalizing some of Obi-Wan’s feelings about the Jedi’s “extinction” - I’ve really been going for a sparse, minimalist atmosphere and these things are communicated later [and] visually anyway. It’s really just a tone thing. I wanted Obi-Wan’s opening grief to carry into the next few scenes to tie it all together, and I felt a somewhat humorous interaction sandwiched between the relevant bits broke with it a little. 🤷

As far as the Leia line, I agree. I did make an effort to use that line muffled behind the door right before he walks in, but I do think I should have more specific sound clips from the excised Alderaan stuff in that Force Vision to better establish the situation.

EDIT: Took down the preview to revise a bit more

Obi-Wan’s Vision of Leia

Thanks for the notes, but tbh all of the choices are very intentional. I don’t know if I know how to articulate it, but it’s an intuitive style thing. For example, I wanted the intro to feel sparse, particularly at the beginning, not fast or intense. The flashbacks are meant to be jarring and what triggers the pace increases. I think more overt color grading for flashbacks is tacky. The zoom is actually from the show itself, I can see about keeping it more fixed, but I don’t mind it and it serves to build anticipation towards revealing Obi-Wan’s face.

I’m not really trying to make it Star Warsy fwiw, the promise of these shows for me and the intention of my own edit was that it could do more than just be along the lines of a swashbuckling adventure serial. There’s only so much I can do of course, but my sensibilities are for as measured a pace as I can.

Yeah, I changed Obi-Wan’s reason for leaving Tatooine into just, literally taking Owen’s words to heart. “Leave us alone, Ben.” and he does. It’s already text that Obi-Wan can’t even disagree Anakin’s “death” is his fault, so I leaned into it.

I ended up keeping a bit of the Inquisitor and runaway stuff as the driving force in the decision. Obi-Wan sees The Inquisitors kill Nari after being told off by Owen and from there, Obi-Wan decides his presence is dangerous. That he’s dangerous. So he leaves. (not enthusiastically mind you)

I feel it’s actually a pretty clean starting place for a story that ultimately culminates in Obi-Wan learning to move on from his guilt and regain a sense of purpose.

Here’s how I was roughly planning on streamlining the kidnapping plot’s introduction in my edit.

The idea is that Obi-Wan feels a disturbance in the Force related to Leia while trying (and failing) to contact Qui-Gon.

It’s very very specific to how I’m approaching the Tatooine portion, I’ll get into it in my thread, but for the most part I don’t think we need any of the Alderaan stuff in full if we can help it.

Some of it is nice, but I don’t think a lot of it is necessary from a character perspective. (which is my focus) We can learn a lot about Leia more organically through her interactions with Ben later in the series.

I don’t think this approach is polished/perfect yet or if I’ll even follow through on it, but I like this for how it mitigates a good bit of the POV jumping, keeping us centered on the titular character for most of the [series-turned-] movie. We lose a neat moment with the intercutting Vader suit-up, but it was entirely redundant anyway.

The biggest loss I think is having Obi-Wan not completely cut off from the Force. Him saving Leia on Daiyu later in this context would just be him as rusty and weak. Which is fine I guess, it’s not like that’s not along the lines of how we understood Obi-Wan before, but I liked that moment in the show as it was.

anyway, I want to try to lean less on this device going forward

I have more to explain about it but I’ll save it for my thread

TLWR: A TV-to-movie edit of Obi-Wan Kenobi (2022) that is more tonally consistent, utilizing storytelling sensibilities unrestrained from Star Wars’ typical conventions, more in line with a grounded character drama.

Obi-Wan Kenobi as “prestige television” and not a mass appeal Disney+ blockbuster.

SO.

People liked my opening mock-up.

Basically, I liked the creative team behind this show a lot prior to release (Chow did “Something Stupid” from Better Call Saul, Kelley Dixon is/was a Breaking Bad/BCS editor, Oldboy’s Chung-hoon Chung on cinematography). I was expecting something comparable in caliber for Obi-Wan. At the very least, I would see some of that DNA peeking through.

A bit misguided in hindsight, what can I say?

So, I cut together that opening, approaching it through the storytelling language inspired by the best of Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul montages, as a way to creatively articulate what I really expected for this show based on the team behind it. What I wanted.

With some support, I figure I can give the rest of the series a shot.

I’ll post any updates and brainstorming in this thread as I go along, and explain some of sensibilities for this. I’m not trying to make it some kind of BB-verse styled edit, but I think taking lessons from its storytelling is how I’m going to make the most out of the material. I do think Chow’s sensibilities as a director, at least for the character stuff, has been conducive to being arranged in this way. It’s a terrible name, I know - worse than “New Canon Cut” which was already so bad - but part of me wants to give her some credit I know many fans won’t.

Anyway, as far as some goals:

• Tighter, streamlined pacing. Really carving this baby up. I hope to get it down to more or less feature-length, and I think it’s doable.
• De-scoring/re-foleying scenes to really give this some [illusion of] subtlety and depth. It’s not that music is inherently showy and unsubtle - I love music for storytelling - but in this case, it distracts and muddles some of the directing. Additionally, it’ll provide a lot more freedom for me to re-arrange and recontextualize individual shots and entire scenes. Using these to create some more…
• Tonal consistency. The show goes back and forth between being goofy as hell and attempts at emotionally sincerity. There’s a lot of forced “hopefulness” that I also think needs to be earned over the course of the narrative, and not just whenever the show feels like it. The de-score helps a lot with this.

Still very tentative, still very experimental.

I just think it’d be fun to work through this with some of you, just don’t expect much haha. It wouldn’t be an NFBisms edit if it wasn’t needlessly ambitious and inevitably too specific to appeal to anyone

Will edit this post with a cut list and more information once it starts taking shape.

OPENING

Obi-Wan’s Vision of Leia

DISCLAIMER: I do not claim to know or understand what Deborah Chow was trying to do with this show, nor do I think what I’m doing here is some kind of “fabled original plan”. Nor do I have any sort of handle on her personal style.