Obi-Wan Kenobi fan edit reimagines series as 2.5-hour movie to address 'awkward pacing' and 'fluff'
A Star Wars fan has taken it upon himself to tinker with Obi-Wan Kenobi after encountering many of the same issues other fans had with the Disney+ series. The end result is a 2.5-hour movie distilled from the show's six episodes.
Filmmaker Kai Patterson, who's currently working as a VFX artist on an indie film, released his cut of Obi-Wan Kenobi as for free via his website. "This is my own artistic interpretation of how these scenes could be strung together to make something that works better for me personally," he writes.
Patterson also unpacked several of the elements he chose to tweak in a video shared to his TikTok page. "While going through all six episodes, I really noticed how much fluff there was," he says, "a lot of scenes that literally just added too many frames to each shot probably just to fill some time quota that they needed. I also changed some of the ordering to some of the scenes just to make them more effective or impactful." He also tried to make Reva, the Inquisitor played by Moses Ingram, "more menacing."
"The Obi-Wan show, in my opinion, suffered from things that were easily fixable in the script and in the edit… 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," continues the statement on his website.
Patterson's edit is currently available to stream on his website, though it has already been removed from Google platforms. He hopes only those with Disney+ subscriptions will watch the cut: "Let's make sure we're supporting all the original artists on this show by not letting this become a means of pirating."
Matt Kennedy/Lucasfilm Ltd./Disney + Ewan McGregor appears as the titular Jedi master in Disney+ series 'Obi-Wan Kenobi.'
Obi-Wan Kenobi found Ewan McGregor reprising his role from the Star Wars prequel films to tell a story set after the events of 2005's Revenge of the Sith. Living a humble life on Tatooine, the once great Jedi master is tasked with rescuing a kidnapped Princess Leia (Vivien Lyra Blair), while Reva attempts to lure Obi-Wan out of hiding for her master Darth Vader (Hayden Christensen).
Before it became a series, Obi-Wan Kenobi was originally explored as a feature-length movie, EW reported in 2017. But after the reception to 2018's Solo: A Star Wars Story, Lucasfilm changed course to focus on creating a fleet of live-action TV series.
In a FAQ on his website, Patterson clarifies that he isn't trying to shade the creators with his cut.
"I know that everyone who worked on this show did the best that they could do. I know that sometimes working on huge projects like this it's hard to fully realize your vision with budget constraints, tight deadlines, studio interference, etc.," he writes. "All of this said, I am a firm believer that you can and should be critical of things that you love. I made this edit because there were things I wanted to fix for myself and I posted to TikTok to see if anyone else had any interest in the work I did. It turns out a lot of people felt the same way. I hope that my edit doesn't at all take away from those who really loved the series as is, that's totally cool with me."
Listen to interviews with Obi-Wan Kenobi stars Ewan McGregor, Hayden Christensen, Kumail Nanjiani, Moses Ingram, Rupert Friend and more on EW's new Star Wars podcast, Dagobah Dispatch.
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