While many of us were busy debating the merits of Disney+’s surprisingly polarising Obi-Wan Kenobi series starring Ewan McGregor, one man has decided to “fix” the six-episode run with a single two-and-a-half-hour fan edit.
“The Obi-Wan show, in my opinion, suffered from things that were easily fixable in the script and in the edit,” explains Kai Patterson.
“Awkward pacing, whole scenes that ultimately amounted to nothing, goofy dialogue and directing choices — so I decided to take matters into my own hands and change what I could.”
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“I want to be very clear: this is my own artistic interpretation of how these scenes could be strung together to make something that works better for me personally.”
“This is all done as a fan, for the fans, and I am not making any money from it. I really hope you enjoy this 2.5 hr movie interpretation of the Obi-Wan Kenobi show.”
Although Mr Patterson isn’t receiving a single red dime for his efforts, he is receiving quite a bit of viral attention. Maybe Lucasfilm will end up hiring him, like they did with the YouTuber who fixed a bit of sub-par CGI featured in The Mandalorian.
Incidentally, prior to the fan edit, we learned Disney had originally planned to unveil an entire trilogy surrounding McGregor’s Obi-Wan Kenobi. But when Solo: A Star Wars Story tanked in spectacular fashion, the idea was scrapped and eventually transformed into what’s currently sitting in our streaming queues.
“I wrote the film that they based the show on,” Obi-Wan Kenobi writer Stuart Beattie revealed during an interview with The Direct.
“So, yeah. I spent like a year, year-and-a-half working on it. And then, when the decision was made not to make any more spin-off films after Solo came out, I left the project and went on to other things.”
“Joby came on and took my scripts and turned it from two hours into six. So, I did not work with them at all, I just got credit for the episodes because it was all my stuff.”
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What would this have entailed?
“So when I pitched my Obi-Wan story to Lucasfilm, I said: ‘There’s actually three stories here. Because there’s three different evolutions that the character has to make in order to go from Obi-Wan to Ben.’ And the first one was the first movie, which was the show, which was: ‘Surrender to the will of the Force. Transport your will, surrender your will. Leave the kid alone.'”
“So then, the second [movie] was thinking about where Kenobi ends up. And one of the most powerful and probably the most powerful moment in all of Obi-Wan’s story is that moment where he sacrifices himself in A New Hope.”
“Great moment, you know, makes you cry. But, if you stop and think about it, it’s a pretty sudden thing, to just kind of go be fighting a guy, to see Luke and go: ‘I’m gonna die.’ You know, that to me, that required forethought. That required pre-acceptance that this was going to happen.”
“So again, it’s one of those universal things we all struggle with, to come to terms with our own mortality. So, that was the second step of the evolution for me, that Obi-Wan now has to come to terms with his own mortality, somehow in a prophecy, or Qui-Gon telling him: ‘There’s going to come a moment where you’re gonna have to sacrifice yourself for the good,’ And then [Obi-Wan] is like, ‘What? No, no, no, no, I’m here to help… I can’t, no.'”
“And get him to that point where Obi-Wan has accepted the idea that he’s going to die, and that he’s going to die willingly at a crucial moment, and you will know when that moment presents itself. So that when that moment comes up in [A New Hope], you understand.”
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“He’s recognising he’s been on this journey already, and he’s waiting for this moment, and that’s how he’s able to make it so easily. To do this and die. So that to me was the second evolution, the second film, the second story. For me, if I have anything to do with the second season of Obi-Wan, that’s the character evolution that I would take him on. That, to me, is really interesting.”
“Ewan was on board, everyone. We were like: ‘Yeah, ready to go.’ And we were so excited about it, too… It’s a great story to tell, right? It’s such a fitting character and Ewan is just so fantastic at it. And he’s the perfect age, everything.”
What could have been, eh?
You can check out Kai Patterson’s Obi-Wan Kenobi fan edit for yourself via the link below.
