Hello again,
I’m continuing the trend here with plans to do a 4K upscale and attempt to create 7 different cinematic cuts of the Clone Wars TV episodes as films.
These edits will cover 29 episodes released as 7 different “Feature Length” (at least an hour) films, released in 4K HDR like the rest of my projects…
4K HDR Teaser Trailer: (Inspired by the Season 3 2011 Trailer)
https://youtu.be/DC62naTm3Zs
After many, many PMs and requests, I’ve decided to tackle a select limited number of arcs in the Clone Wars TV series, editing them into feature length films and upscaling them to 4K HDR like I did the previous 2D series and 3D Clone Wars film edit. This is a lengthy process that I have been working on non-stop for the past several days, involving not only the editing, color grading and subtitling of 29 episodes worth of content, but also a massive amount of effort to encode these 7 cuts. This is still an ongoing process and I don’t have a set date to release these yet, but you’ll know when it happens.
Why make this? Are you adding deleted scenes?
Some, but there are very few fully animated ones to use. The Season 2 Mandalore Arc can be extended by about 2 minutes between 5 bit scenes, and the Season 5 episode where Savage finds maul has one deleted scene that’s usable, but the goal here is more to cut these arcs into the feature length films they were kind of always meant to be. I saw the Nightsisters arc in an early screening back in late 2010, and I’ve wanted to watch THAT version of the arc again ever since. This is my attempt to recreate it. Of course, my usual HDR treatment for all of my projects will apply here, using the highest quality 1080p video source I can obtain as a base (each file is initially 10kbps encodes or about 1.7GB per episode before I upscale them already), then further enhancing them from there. It turns out with some very minor adjustments, an absolutely incredible amount of HDR color data surges into these episodes, and the show’s textures upscale very, very well. Given that it’s unlikely Disney will itself ever upscale the show, this may be the best that we ever get. If you’ve seen my 4K Clone Wars Microseries release, or the bits included in the 4.5 hour ROTS cut, you know what to expect.
If not, log in to your smart TV app or use a 10-bit HDR 4K monitor and watch these video files on either Chrome or Edge for the full HDR effect. Firefox doesn’t show off the colors quite as properly, but they look amazing on the right hardware.
Why these 7 (technically 8) arcs)?
Because collectively, they form the best bridging narrative between Episodes II and III while also being the show’s most cinematic works. 2 parters don’t benefit much here, and single episodes don’t really need it, so 3-4+ episode arcs were the best. It’s a combination of technical merit, and story relevance. If you’ve NEVER seen the show, watching these 7 arcs along with the TCW filmcut and the ROTS/Siege edit will give you a pretty comprehensive overview of the War, Anakin, Rex, Ventress, Maul, and Ahsoka’s story. Of course, I am also releasing these cuts in 1080P SDR as well so everyone can enjoy them.
The 7 Feature Length Cuts will cover…
The Mandalore Plot - Season 2 (3 Episodes Cut into 1 film)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4YxTwTXXbc4
Nightsisters Arc - Season 3 (3 Episodes Cut into 1 film)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PDx2Vo_qJxY
The Mortis Arc - Season 3 (3 Episodes Cut into 1 film)
https://youtu.be/Im0Iqgm7lYQ
The Battle of Umbara Arc - Season 4 (4 Episodes Cut into 1 film)
https://youtu.be/qwsM26UE3O0
The Return of Darth Maul - Seasons 4-5 (8 Episodes Cut into 1 film)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QmxBk5zTGfk
The Wrong Jedi Arc - Season 5 (4 Episodes Cut into 1 film)(No Clip yet, coming soon)
The Yoda Arc - Season 6 (4 Episodes Cut into 1 Film
https://youtu.be/yi7FmZrwzfg
The longest and most interesting cut will be the Return of Darth Maul cut, as it’s nearly 3 hours, but is also based on an OFFICIAL film cut Filoni’s team released on DVD as a Target exclusive back in 2012. I used that edit as an outline for the first 4 episodes, including some of its original elements like audio and transitions, while also restoring the scenes it removed from the TV episodes back into the edit, and even restoring one small scene that was deleted entirely. The episodes then lead into the Season 5 arc, as one long continuous story covering Ventress, Kenobi, Savage, Maul, and Mandalore. If you want Maul’s Clone Wars story (before Season 7) in one cut, here it is.
Enjoy these previews. I don’t have a release date set yet, as I’m putting a lot of work into testing/encoding/proofing these, but I’ll let you know the moment they’re available.