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The Clone Wars: Refocused [COMPLETE] + Subtitles for season one! — Page 35

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EddieDean said:

and either trims to or the full removal of the Neimoidian admiral who serves as Anakin’s foil,

Unless it drastically affects the pacing, I’d rather he stayed. Seeing living CIS leaders and not just a endless array of Tactical and Super-Tactical droids is nice, but having a Neimoidian character who isn’t an absolute joke (even if he’s only brief) improves them as a species a whole lot. Lot Dodd is pretty cool compared to every other Neimoidian but Mar Tuuk is better.
Considering how much every other CIS leader is played as a joke (excluding Dooku), you have to wonder how they’re actually doing so well against the Republic.

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Hah! I love how often you guys give great suggestions just as I’m thinking the same thing. I’m literally editing those parts right now, and had come to the same conclusion. I’m going to minimise Wat Tambor, but you’re exactly right, this Neimoidian is competent and has an interesting character, so I’m preserving him.

The other 180 I’m doing on a previous decision in this episode is that I’m keeping the SkyGuy/Snips nicknames. I think their introduction on Christophsis was more adversarial and less about representing a bond, whereas they’ve earned one now. Now, Ahsoka first calls him SkyGuy after they grow together during the Malevolence crisis, and sometime after that he’s started calling her Snips. Without the adversarial introduction I almost read it like “little sister”.

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I agree that Wat Tambor should be minimised in this arc, he’s doesn’t look or act very intimidating and doesn’t achieve much. He’s much better in the Bad Batch storyline where his CG model is thankfully improved a lot. The Neimoidian captain in Ryloth is a nice change of pace from his cowardly conspecifics such as Nute Gunray and Rune Haako, so I’m happy to see him stay.

I never had a problem with the Skyguy/Snips nicknames in the first place, but I’m glad they are being recontextualised as they could work better for new viewers.

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OK, ‘The Blockade of Ryloth’, as it shall be called, is rendering now, running time 34 minutes.

Its cuts are described above.

This one is just going to be a REVIEW CUT for now, because I spent so much time staring at each scene in isolation and merging them together that I’ve lost my ability to judge the quality of the whole, so I need a little distance from it. It’s perfectly watchable though, I’ve completed the edit and done a polish pass, I might just need to reorder some scenes and fix some transitions. Be brutal with this one!

Also, Where did we land on the best approach for the Domino Squad episode? I’m going to go with the far shorter Clone Cadets, unless anyone objects.

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Hey Eddie.

I’ve watched the first 4 episodes and will post with my thoughts later today. (Loving it so far though.)

Just wanted to comment on the Domino Squad one. I’m glad you dropped the cold open. It feels far more fluid now and it works as just being one test as opposed to two. I definitely think you should re-insert Cutup’s death though. Removing it just creates confusion as the character just disappears off screen now. It also sets up the Eel for later with Rex, which right now feels a bit out of left field.

The only other thing that feels off is 99’s reaction to Heavy’s death. I know we don’t explore their relationship as much as in the original episodes but the timing just feels a bit too short after the ‘Oh’. If there is anyway to drag that out for just a few more seconds then I think it would benefit a lot from it. I also felt the timing on the fade to black from Heavy when it reads ‘2 Weeks Later’ was off. I think it would feel more natural keeping the screen dark after the fade for a little longer and then fade in with the text. Right now, it just feels a little too quick.

Other than that I loved the episode, the pacing is great and the narrative flows smoothly. We hit the important beats when it feels necessary and you don’t overload the character and drama with action, it hits a really nice balance - if that makes sense.

You’re doing an awesome job and I can see your edits definitely being my go to for any rewatch. Cheers.

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Thanks Samuel95! I might end up having to reinsert Cutup’s death. The advantage of having that scene gone is that (1) the stuff on the surface of the Rishi moon looks awful, (2) the worm looks awful, and (3) nobody cares about cutup. But I think that may be overweighed by the continuity of having him die offscreen and to set up the worm, as you and others have highlighted.

I agree on 99’s reaction to Hevy’s death. Unfortunately it was already quite a quick scene, and removing the references to now-excised content, it now goes even quicker. At least this way he now seems far more certain about joining the fight more quickly, which I think adds to his heroism, but unfortunately I don’t think there’s a way to milk this scene any further. I will check again though.

I’ll fix the timing of ‘two weeks later’ too.

Glad these are going down well - keep the feedback coming!

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(Usual caveats about coming back to polish all prior episodes notwithstanding…)

So, I’m now in a good solid run of easy edits, so my output should increase for a while.

The next episode is my s02e02, Duchess of Mandalore. I’m barely editing this episode because it’s great. This is also the first time that we get the return of what I’m presenting (via reordering) as one of our show’s core themes, so this one should serve to say “this anthology show still has a core”. To be honest, I think it really works. Now that it’s not back to back with the prior two Mandalore episodes, watching it solo now feels to me like the show’s committing to having strong connective tissue. It might just me, but I feel like watching this one ‘clicked’ something, reinforcing the prior Mando episode and itself more than if you saw all three episodes as one arc.

Plus, it’s a great episode. We get more Mandos being threatening, our first sight in TCW of Padmé without it being boring, our first sight of Palpatine and Coruscant, including Coruscant’s underworld, and some good politics that’s different to the binary Republic/Separatist conflict and everything that’s happened before. It’s slow paced but still gripping and strong. We also get some scenes set in locations originally designed by Ralph McQuarrie during the production of the Original Trilogy, back when Coruscant was known as ‘Had Abaddon’.

I don’t think I’m going to edit this episode at all, in which case I think it’s appropriate that I only take a ‘Presented by’ credit, because all the work I’ve done begins and ends at the presentation aspects, there’s been no actual fan editing.

You could possibly argue that there’s one slightly silly moment, and that’s that apparently the galactic senate building only has two guards, who can be easily distracted. But you kind of need this, I think, because otherwise it’s not really explained how they got the unedited video file to Padmé. And the tension of Satine turning herself in is quite good, even if it’s immediately undone.

Edit: Scratch that, I’ll preserve the plan to distract them but then just show Satine’s distraction without the Obi-Wan shots, leaving him to implicitly break in in a way that’s cooler in our heads. That counts as an edit!

Shouldn’t take long at all to spin this one up, then it’s on to the Holocron arc.

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Looking at the tracker sheet, I know it’s a ways off, but the Ahsoka & the Martez sisters arc is actually before The Bad Batch. You’re obviously free to change it, but you’d have to cut the really heart-string tugging moment of Anakin in orbit sensing Ashoka as she leaves Coruscant, because by the time we get to SoM and RotS, Padme says he’s been away long enough there were rumors of his death.

Also a possible title for episode 0 is “Knight of the Order”

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Hm, that’s an interesting one. Release order was Bad Batch > Martez > Finale, but production and chronological was Martez > Bad Batch > Finale as you say. I’m tending towards BB > M > F because Bad Batch isn’t really important to the rolling plot (beyond setting up the spinoff), and because the Mauldalore elements of Martez Sisters can serve to build anticipation for the forthcoming finale. You could possibly ignore it - maybe Padmé wasn’t aware that Anakin’s been local recently, and an implicit time gap between episodes is fine. But I agree that the scene of Anakin sensing Ahsoka is worth preserving.

There’s a third option, which might emerge after the Bad Batch show kicks off, and that’s turning the Bad Batch episodes of The Clone Wars into episode zero of the Bad Batch TV show (flashing back to pre-rise of Empire). Though the obvious negative would be losing the impact of the good Anakin/Padmé scenes and the hints Obi-Wan knows, which I think is additive to the Clone Wars finale and RotS.

I like your idea for the title, Delpheas. I think you’re right that the emphasis should be on Anakin’s knighting since that’s the one main takeaway from the episode along with Ventress’ existence. Could maybe go with KNIGHT AND ASSASSIN though that’s a bit bland. The other option I’d thought of, since Tartakovsky’s a bit more light, is going a bit cheeky with it. Something like BEGUN, THE CLONE WAR HAS. But I don’t think that’s quite right either.

Speaking of episode titles, I’m now thinking about the Holocron arc, and had been considering emphasising Cad Bane (because he’s so much fun), with either CAD BANE: BOUNTY HUNTER (because that tells the new viewer we’re getting some bounty hunter fun) or the even schlockier CAD BANE AND THE HOLOCRON HEIST, which is just pulpy fun.

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RELEASED - EVERY SINGLE EPISODE

Not really, but I want to make an important point here.

If you’re someone who just wants to get The Clone Wars digested RIGHT NOW, either as background for Mandalorian or for the imminent Bad Batch show, for example, you can do that RIGHT NOW.

With the removal of the worst episodes and the reordering to make the whole show more focused, you have my recommended viewing order. And importantly, the weakest part of the show was always the start, which had necessary but crap episodes, and that’s the part which has already been polished up to a far better standard, which will get you into the meat far more comfortably.

What you’ll miss out on in this is all of the presentation polish of the episodes I’ve not yet edited (opening text, credits, different music etc), so it’ll feel a little less coherent. And of course, you’ll also miss out on any edits I make to unwelcome elements in the remaining majority of episodes, which will include a few small niggles, quite a lot of restructuring to better pace some of the longer arcs, and about four instances of me making a major change to a more egregious element. There will also be two or three places where this introduces continuity errors where B comes after A, though these should be minimal.

But my point is, if you really want to get this show seen before more Mandalorian or the Bad Batch, and you don’t mind the tradeoff, I’d recommend that you can do that from now onwards.

Check my tracker spreadsheet, download the episodes I’ve completed, then for the incomplete episodes refer to column L to find which original episodes to watch instead.

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Right, I’ve finished the popping sound issue so my Nightsisters episode is now fixed nice and easily, so that’s rendering now and will be up soon.

Ooh, I feel all productive!

Aw man, I just had a fantasy that I know’ll never happen: Imagine if Disney re-rendered all of the episode video with the lighting shader they currently use. That’d be so lovely.

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EddieDean said:

S02E01 - THE BLOCKADE OF RYLOTH - REVIEW CUT AVAILABLE.

See the few prior posts for details.

PM for a link to the tracker if you don’t yet have it.

Using the link, it says on the google drive page „File not found…“

I’m tending to BB > M > F for the same reasons you mentioned.

If you want to live in this fantasy world, find peter pan otherwise there’ll be none 😄

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So, I’m doing some planning for my next arc, s02e03 now. This is Cad Bane and the Holocron Crisis.

It’s pretty super, but I’m just thinking about one particular issue at the start.

It opens on Felucia, where Ahsoka disobeys some orders as they’re getting evacuated, which subsequently results in her getting disciplined by the jedi council. It’s a gorgeous looking scene, too, with some great colourful combat.

However, in the Ryloth episode we’ve just had Ahsoka disobey some orders, causing far more loss of life, and get told off by Anakin but no larger discipline.

So there are two options:

  • Keep both instances of disobedience, using something in the intro text to make it clear she’s on thin ice after the first instance, or something.
  • Cut the second, recontextualising the discipline scene from this into the punishment for her behaviour in Ryloth.

Pro of keeping it is that it’s a lovely looking scene, and maybe emphasises her disobedience that much more.
Pro of removing it is that it saves us a bit of time for pacing, and makes a bit more flow between episodes, which is something I’m eager to achieve.

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EddieDean said:

So, I’m doing some planning for my next arc, s02e03 now. This is Cad Bane and the Holocron Crisis.

It’s pretty super, but I’m just thinking about one particular issue at the start.

It opens on Felucia, where Ahsoka disobeys some orders as they’re getting evacuated, which subsequently results in her getting disciplined by the jedi council. It’s a gorgeous looking scene, too, with some great colourful combat.

However, in the Ryloth episode we’ve just had Ahsoka disobey some orders, causing far more loss of life, and get told off by Anakin but no larger discipline.

So there are two options:

  • Keep both instances of disobedience, using something in the intro text to make it clear she’s on thin ice after the first instance, or something.
  • Cut the second, recontextualising the discipline scene from this into the punishment for her behaviour in Ryloth.

Pro of keeping it is that it’s a lovely looking scene, and maybe emphasises her disobedience that much more.
Pro of removing it is that it saves us a bit of time for pacing, and makes a bit more flow between episodes, which is something I’m eager to achieve.

throwing in a third option:
would it work to change ryloth and this episode? so ryloth ep03 and felucia ep02?
Otherwise i would pitch for the first option via crawl.

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I’d say keep it. Ahsoka relapsing into the same mistake after her deeds over Ryloth is a good enough motivation for the Council to isolate her from the front lines.

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I agree with Kalee. It directly helps the setup for the Mortis arc where her vision tells her Anakin has imparted some really bad habits that if not corrected could ruin her. Blatant disobedience because she thinks she knows best is absolutely one of them. Maybe make it a cold open? That could help with the pacing. (It also helps setup the idea that the council might have less reason to trust her than Ahsoka thinks for when Wrong Jedi rolls around.)

That actually reminds me, do you have any thoughts for making it appear Ahsoka has, even only briefly, some PTSD thanks to dying on Mortis? The only real fallout from that is arc is Anakin trying to ground her during Citadel and his fear for her during the Youngling Hunt. She kinda shrugs it off and it’s always bothered me.

Another thing is, I just realised Padme doesn’t appear in your S1. That’s something that bothers me from the perspective of her being one of the four main characters of TCW, and one of three of the PT. It bothers me a bit less from the perspective of it being a war that is canonically keeping Anakin and Padme apart for long periods of time, heightening his jealousy with the two Clovis arcs.

And the finally, an Ahsoka question. Will you be trimming/removing the Ahsoka/Lux flirting? After tyr first episode where she turned him down it just felt very forced, and for myself as much as Anakin influenced her, I don’t think romance is something Ahsoka would actually really consider until after RotS as briefly depicted in the Ahsoka novel.

Sorry, I know my thoughts jump around from one place to another…

(Once again wishing that the final Cad Bane and Ventress arcs had been fully produced…)

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Delpheas said:

Blatant disobedience because she thinks she knows best is absolutely one of them.

Yep, agree, I think I’ll just emphasise that she’s on thin ice, then this cool scene can be the thing that tips her behaviour into needing discipline.

Maybe make it a cold open? That could help with the pacing.

Worth looking into for sure, it makes a better cold open than the one I used in The 501st.

That actually reminds me, do you have any thoughts for making it appear Ahsoka has, even only briefly, some PTSD thanks to dying on Mortis?

I have a real problem with Mortis, I was going to exclude it altogether until convinced otherwise by contributors of this thread. I’m instead going to recontextualise it into essentially an extended force vision, where those characters aren’t the literal representations of light, dark and balance (too demystifying), so nothing that happens there will be literal. I’ll have her die, in the vision, and Anakin do something something lightside to preserve her, in the vision, which’ll still have the effect of tying her to Morai. But I really don’t want anything in that arc to be explicit, so I shouldn’t expect to need to give her PTSD.

Another thing is, I just realised Padme doesn’t appear in your S1. That’s something that bothers me from the perspective of her being one of the four main characters of TCW, and one of three of the PT.

She’s a main character in TCW, but she’s not a main character in TCW:R, mainly because she has no arc across the show, and unfortunately doesn’t have many great episodes. Her decent episodes and appearances will be preserved and highlighted as much as possible, but ultimately TCW did her a disservice and I don’t want TCW:R to strain itself to make her a feature at the cost of overall quality.

And the finally, an Ahsoka question. Will you be trimming/removing the Ahsoka/Lux flirting?

I’m not sure yet, I haven’t thought much about this. Originally I didn’t like it so much, but contributors here highlighted that it serves he quite well by the end because it shows that unlike Anakin she does have the capacity to let go. I’ll keep it in mind as I progress.

Sorry, I know my thoughts jump around from one place to another…

Not at all, this is perfect! I really do want everyone’s thoughts on any topic, even if it’s something that’s already been discussed to death, or a conversation we’ve moved on from. It’s always valuable.

(Once again wishing that the final Cad Bane and Ventress arcs had been fully produced…)

Here’s hoping the Bad Batch adapts a few of those lost plotlines…

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So, more thoughts on the Holocron arc. This episode I think is a good example of why aggregation of episodes isn’t always a net gain, because it’s weirdly paced. It’s a good episode, but there are a lot of variables here to think about, so I’m not settled on my approach yet.

  • A few trims for cringe/silliness throughout, and to make the episodes flow better.
  • The first episode, Holocron Heist, is well structured and good fun throughout. I might trim a bit of TODO-360’s dialogue where it gets a bit too silly, and I might trim some of the breaking in sequence which isn’t so interesting.
  • The second episode, Cargo of Doom, covers LOADS of plot in the opening narration, which is a challenge. I might need to end up cutting there just so I can put in my own intro text alternative, if I can’t find a clean way to bridge them. Smudger had an idea for this I might check in case it makes sense to steal it.
  • Also, there’s this weird thing where Bane needs both the Holocron AND the “Kyber Crystal”. Firstly, in the canon now, Kyber crystals are more explicitly lightsaber crystals and/or Death Star laser things, not data storage devices. And secondly, having the Holocron and the Kyber crystal just makes it a bit overcomplicated, especially since Bane gets the crystal offscreen. I’d like to remove all references to that as smoothly as possible.
  • The first episode ends on “find master RuPaul who has the Kyber Crystal”, then the second begins on “Bane’s got the Kyber Crystal from RuPaul and is torturing RuPaul to open the combination Holocron/Kyber crystal”, which is too complex. I think I’d rather that they’re just chasing Bane in order to get the Holocron back, which is the only thing with the Children’s names on it.
  • The second episode has some good moments, especially a cool zero-G climax and some good scenes with Ahsoka (points in favour), though it’s very slow and action heavy, so even after finding a good transition into it, it would need some heavy trimming.
  • The third episode, Children of the Force, really whips by, in contrast to the prior episodes, and a lot of plot happens. You could probably skip Rodia entirely, and just have the visions of the kidnapping be Naboo, and have Anakin and Ahsoka ready to capture Bane there more quickly, before moving onto Bane’s base and then the Mustafar finale.
  • I’d trim Sidious’ motives to make them less explicitly about making ‘force spies’ and more implicitly whatever he’s now been seen doing in Rebels and the Mandalorian.

None of this stuff is egregious, though, so if I can’t achieve it all that’s fine.

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If anything Bad Batch will probably give us Boba vs Bane where he gets his father’s armor back. I can’t imagine any of the other’s getting adapted though since they feature characters who are either dead or in hiding or are adapted elsewhere (Yoda & Bad Batch, Ahsoka’s Sith temple arc, Rex Top Gun arc, Padme’s Chancellor investigations, Dark Disciple…)

Though I could maybe see them having the Bad Batch go to Kashyyyk to suppress the wookies as one of their early mission for the Enpire before they defect. And the Yuuzhan Vong arc could maybe work…

I personally really hate Ahsoka/Lux, no matter what it shows for Ahsoka’s arc. Since she’s completely oblivious to being flirted with throughout the later novel due to “Jedi hangups” and the Lux stuff (especially in the Death Watch and Onderon episodes) is just so forced and cringy I would prefer it be gone. It doesn’t really add anything to her characterization imo.

As for Mortis, that is a slightly confusing arc because it’s implied that Father, Son, and Daughter are the physical embodiments of Balance, Dark, and Light, at the same time that Father explicitly says they were just Force users who were too powerful to continue existing in normal space. And for it being a vision, since they already can’t find the planet afterwards and Anakin’s memory of it is muddled, that works. Plus as you say, it removes the PTSD issue for Ahsoka. And actually helps support Anakin’s later fear for Padmé’s life. Cus if Ahsoka died in this vision, his paranoia for her life and later Padmé’s has greater context. (Also Daughter saving Ahsoka by giving up her Life Force energy could be seen as both subtle foreshadowing for RoS and the Force trying to show Anakin how he could save Padmé’s life.)

I’m working on editing the Dark Disciple audio book into a Clone Wars style format of episodes. At some point I’d be interested in maube working with you to make that arc into a set of optional TCW:R episodes.

Also, I was thinking that during Yoda’s final arc that Sidious’s line from fortnight about the Day of Revenge could be inserted as ambient audio? It’s a great line that has no context in RoS but fits with the context of TCW & RotS.

Also, your outlined thoughts for the children act seem good to me.

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Hell yes to Dark Disciple’s inclusion! I’d love that, Ventress’s conclusion is sorely missed.

And great idea about using Sidious’ audio ambiently somewhere in the Yoda arc (some of which I’ll also be recontextualising as a vision since again, for me the force planet is too on the nose).

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