Last month I turned the Obi-Wan Kenobi series into a two hour movie by cutting almost 100
minutes of material from the show, leaving behind a tightly focused story that put the
character of Obi-Wan at its heart.
And by an incredible coincidence, about a day before I published my video, an LA-based
filmmaker called Kai Patterson did pretty much exactly the same thing and, well…
A fan re-cut the show into a feature length movie.
Kai Patterson Kai Patterson
Kai Patterson We’re joined by Kai Patterson!
This fan edit made me feel things that I was legitimately hoping to feel from the show
itself.
I decided ‘you know what,’ I’m going to load this up and I’m going to watch it.
Fantastic.
There’s always a bigger fish.
But a rising tide lifts all ships, and the huge surge of interest in the Patterson Cut
saw over 140,000 of you discover my own take on Kenobi, and from the looks of the comments
I think you really liked it.
What happened next was a surprise, to be sure, but a welcome one.
Hello there!
This is getting out of hand.
Now there are two of them!
So Pentex and I got to talking after both of our Obi-Wan edits got a lot of attention,
and we were blown away by the amount of support the Star Wars community had for what we did
with the show.
But we also noticed that there were a lot of requests coming in, specifically to see
what we could do with the Book of Boba Fett.
We were super keen to work together and to give something back to the community who had
shown so much support for our edits of Kenobi.
But here’s the thing.
See, Obi-Wan Kenobi was very clearly a feature length screenplay that was expanded into a
series.
So reverse engineering it into a movie was actually relatively straightforward.
The Book of Boba Fett is a much more complex story from a structural perspective, for a
bunch of reasons.
The first is that it’s not just one story, but it’s like four all combined together.
You have flashbacks of Boba with the Tuskens, you also have present-day scenes Boba working
through the leadership roles of Tatooine, but then you also have like Mando, Cobb Vanth,
Fennec.
All of those characters had their storylines started in a totally different TV show – The
Mandalorian.
And this show is also when we see the crucial moment in Biba’s storyline where he gets
back his armour and also takes over Jabba the Hutt’s Palace.
And to complicate things even more, there’s like two episodes of The Book of Boba Fett
that are basically entirely dedicated to The Mandalorian.
So as you can see, this was never going to be as straightforward as Kenobi, but we both
felt that the structure and pacing of Boba Fett could still be improved.
So we decided to tell the story chronologically, in two parts.
Kind of like Kill Bill, Harry Potter, or Darth Maul.
The overall story is called Boba Fett, while each part has its own subtitle.
We went back and forth a lot on these and have settled on ones that we think reflect
the overall story of that part, while also drawing directly on a line from the movie
itself.
I took the lead on Part I – which is called Without a Tribe.
It follows Boba’s journey with the Tuskens, but it also introduces us to Cobb Vanth and
fennec Shand through the eyes of The Mandalorian.
These are all characters who essentially are loners and throughout this movie they’re
going against everything they’ve ever been by creating family around them, creating a
tribe.
You can only get so far without a tribe.
I really tried to only include the relevant parts of The Mandalorian show into Boba Fett’s
storyline so this isn’t really like a substitute for watching The Mandalorian, but my intention
was that you could watch this and loosely follow the story of The Mandalorian because
his storyline is so interconnected with Boba Fett’s.
Meanwhile I got to work on Part II – called ‘The Name of Honor.’
This is a movie about our characters trying to do the right thing in a lawless world.
Picking up where Part I left off, this story follows Boba and Fennec as they build a new
tribe, and confront the treachery and scheming of Tatooine’s criminal underworld.
This runs alongside Cobb Vanth standing up to the Pyke Syndicate, as well as Mando coming
to terms with leaving Grogu, and being expelled by the other Mandalorians for his actions
in Part I. He resolves to fight side by side with Boba
and his new tribe in the name of honour.
So as you can see, we haven’t simply re-ordered the scenes of the show into chronological
order and called it a day.
No, we have restructured them to make the pacing and storytelling more engaging and
effective.
We have shortened or removed entirely scenes that weren’t relevant, and on the whole
shaped the entire series into two standalone movies that flow much more smoothly than the
show did.
The final runtime of Part I is 2 hours 32 minutes, while Part II is 2 hours 11 minutes,
both comparable to the lengths of other Star Wars movies.
We’ve actually both been surprised at how this process has helped us really appreciate
the story that was in The Book of Boba Fett, and I think that seeing the story in chronological
order is a really fun and exciting new way to experience the content we got and make
you appreciate and follow along in Boba’s journey from the Sarlacc Pit all the way to
really being a full leader on Tatooine.
by how much this process has made us enjoy the story this show was telling.
I came away from The Book of Boba Fett feeling quite underwhelmed, but when you lay the story
out from start to finish, tying in the supporting character moments from The Mandalorian, it
actually becomes much more cohesive and compelling.
That said, we will both be the first to admit that the Boba Fett movies are not the same
as our Kenobi edits.
It’s a cliché that a poor workman blames his tools, but when you’re making a fan
edit the reality is that you can only work with what you’re given.
Overall, Obi-Wan Kenobi tells a much more interesting story than Boba Fett in a much
more conventional way, and that is reflected in our respective edits of that show.
But we still think that Boba Fett’s story is worth re-visiting in this new – and we
think improved – story structure.
Like with our Obi-Wan edits, this project was done out of the love we have for Star
Wars and all of the exciting new material we’re getting from Disney.
We mean no disrespect to any of the creators, we know that creating content on this level,
you know with like thousands of people involved, it gets complicated.
And we’re just a couple of guys who thought maybe we could play around with the source
material and give the audience a new experience, especially watching this in a chronological
order.
On that note, we ask that you please show your respect to the creators of the show by
only watching our Boba Fett edit if you have a full Disney+ subscription that gives you
legal access to both The Book of Boba Fett and The Mandalorian, as these were the shows
we have repurposed into the edit.
Neither of us are making any money off these edits – they are purely fan creations for
sharing with other fans who also have legal copies of the show.
So if you want to watch the edits that we’ve made it’s all for free it’s on my website,
we’re not making any money off this, all the links are in the description down below.
You have to have a Disney+ subscription like that’s mandatory you have to have a Disney+
subscription in order to watch these.
We’ve also made sure that there’s English subtitles as well as four other languages.
So you can go ahead and check that out now or you can stick around an Pentex will give
you more of a detailed description, summary of some of the changes we have made an how
the story flows in our two-part movie event.
Super super excited to hear what you guys have to say, just so grateful for this community
and may the Force be with you.
So I’m not going to summarise every change, or even give an overview of them like I did
with my Kenobi explainer video, simply because it would take forever and I think you’re
better off just watching the edit and being pleasantly surprised.
So go do that and then come back and tell me what you thought.
But before you go, make sure to turn that red button grey.
Go on.
Do it!
So instead of summarising the changes, what I will do is talk through the principles me
and Kai followed when re-telling the Boba Fett story, to give you an idea of the reasons
behind the editing choices we made.
So firstly, and like with Kenobi, we wanted these to feel like Star Wars movies.
So we open with a long time ago, used the cheesy screen wipes and yes, there is a Wilhelm
Scream.
While we couldn’t really do anything to fix the show’s production design choices,
we were able to make some subtle changes here and there.
Most importantly Kai did some amazing VFX magic to make the mod scooters look like they
belong in Star Wars rather than Austin Powers.
Seriously, look at how much better they look now.
We did not include a title crawl for the same reason we didn’t include them in our Obi-Wan
edits.
We both agree that these should be reserved for the episodic Star Wars movies, which is
also why they don’t feature in the other Star Wars stories like Rogue One or Solo.
We have incorporated some of John Williams’ music into our edits, but in a much more limited
way than we did for Obi-Wan.
The reason for that is simply because the John Williams scores all have significance
for specific characters or themes, so we didn’t want to undermine those by, say, slapping
Duel of the Fates over the Tusken raid, or using the Imperial March for the Pyke Syndicate.
The original Star Wars music would only be used where it made sense in the context of
the story, characters, and Star Wars universe.
So we have used it, but don’t go expecting as much as you saw in Kenobi.
Otherwise, the changes are pretty much all structural ones aimed at keeping the story
focused.
For example, in the first couple of episodes of the series, Boba is snubbed by the Mayor,
goes to the cantina and pledges support, and gets attacked by assassins who claim to work
for the Mayor.
Boba confronts the Mayor who denies being responsible and sends Boba back to the cantina,
where he is told the Hutts have laid claim to Jabba’s territory.
Then Boba confirms that the Mayor doesn’t have the resources to send assassins, but
the Hutts do.
Then the Hutts try again to kill him with Krrsantan, before finally ceding defeat.
Remember, in the show all of this is also intercut with the flashbacks to the Tusken
tribe storyline over the course of three episodes.
So rather than having the convoluted wild goose chase with the Mayor, I have instead
combined a few scenes so that Boba only goes to the cantina once, and it is clear the Hutts
are the ones who sent the assassins in the first place.
And of course this all plays out chronologically, with the Tusken tribe stuff all taking place
in Part I as a separate story.
Trust me, it’s much cleaner this way.
Both Part I and Part II are told with similar efficiencies in mind, but this is more challenging
when you’re dealing with two parallel storylines – and in the case of part one, two entirely
separate TV shows.
But it had to be done, and I think the story works better when you have all of the relevant
backstory included in one place.
For example, in Part I, Kai has intercut Boba’s story with the episode of The Mandalorain
where Mando retrieves Boba’s armour from Cobb Vanth.
This works to establish his connection to Boba, and also sets up Cobb’s inclusion
in Part II.
Same with Fennec and even Ahsoka.
So rather than have those storylines all sitting in another show, we have worked them into
Boba’s story, and it works really well to tell a single, cohesive story across the two
movies.
I could go on, but like I said before, I think the re-edit of Boba Fett that me and Kai Patterson
have made is best enjoyed with a fresh mind.
When I first watched the Book of Boba Fett series, the story wasn’t particularly memorable
for me, even though I loved the character so much I made an entire video essay about
his re-introduction in The Mandalorian.
So I think other Star Wars fans who were a bit disappointed by the Boba Fett show will
really enjoy the chance to watch the story again with a new, improved structure and format.
Like we said before, it’s genuinely given us a whole new appreciation for the story
that this show was telling.
Temuera Morrison really carries the show, and it’s a shame that the story, character
and it’s themes were let down by the structure of the series, and the splitting of the story
across two different TV shows.
I really hope you enjoy what Kai Patterson and I have made here, and if you do then please
feel free to spread the word.
Links to the edit, and all of our various social channels are in the description.
So once again, from me and Kai, thank you for watching and showing our edits so much
love and support.
May the Force be with you all.