A Bane of the Heart? Heartsbane? I’ll default to ‘A Strike at the Heart’, I think. It covers a lot of ground.

Anyway, today’s session was really good, I’ve finished all of the intercutting of Holocron/Hostage and done its full polish pass. Trimmed a good amount for pacing so it’s coming in at 37 minutes without credits.

I haven’t copied Smudger’s cuts directly because I always like to run an edit through my own process, so I’m sure there’re differences even though the core idea is totally stolen. I’ve kept Sidious in (because it makes Bane badass if Sidious calls him directly, and it makes Sidious badass when we know he’s calling all of the shots on both sides - this is kind of a micro version of the Clone Wars), cut out a lot of Todo’s banter and the fish’s goofiness, made some nice audio edits so the intersplicing is quite tidy but carries all the necessary plot, made Anakin just a tad more Die Hard when he’s on the run, and trimmed the boring vents scenes. Padmé and Ahsoka both come out really nicely in this cut.

The only key thing I need to add to the intro text I reckon is to emphasise that Bane has a crew, or something to do with him often hiring groups of bounty hunters, to kind of explain why he starts off just chatting to the one changeling but then later appears with a full squad. That and that Ahsoka’s on thin ice with the Jedi Council.

I still need to do all of the credits, then I’ll wait to finalise it until I’ve done the second part, which should be easier. Either way, expect both soon, which’ll mean I’m back in chronological release order without gaps.