I’ve just reviewed Umbara and that’s going to be a nice easy episode to edit. I’m not going to make any fundamental changes to the story, just trim out quite a few scenes which don’t directly serve the plot.
I think Krell is a bit too overtly villainous, so I’d like to chop some of his dialogue so he’s less of a clone hater and merely someone who uses absolute obedience to ensure he can spend troops at a high rate to achieve his victories. After the reveal where he pits clone against clone, we can have more actual disdain. I’ll not show his lightsabers ignited in their first appearance either, so the threat kicks in when they try to arrest him. I also won’t have him laughing in the jungle as that’s very goofy, and I might change his motivation at the end so he’s already connected to Dooku rather than just hoping it’ll win him some favour, which retroactively makes his plan a bit weird (and kind of cheapens the fact that he managed to rise to the rank of master because surely an evil-ish master would have a better plan for serving the Empire).
I’ll also play down the blockade at the very start, so the moment when the stolen ships break the cloud cover into an overwhelming firefight can also be a nice reveal moment.
I’ll play up Fives’ character, adding in a few more instances of him being referred to by name, just to help cement him in the viewers’ minds, and I’ll also add a couple more references to Kamino to remind the viewer of how he joined the 501st. I’ll also do the same with Tup’s name if possible.
I’ll cut the opening battle to allow us to start with Krell taking over, cut almost all of the wildlife, droid banter, and the centipede-bot, because they just don’t carry any plot and this whole thing could do with some pacing tightening. I’ll also cut the scene where the clones test out the new ships, because it doesn’t change the status quo.
I’ll trim a fair few other scenes, including the infiltration of the airbase, and depending on whether this runs long or short I might trim the very first “just walk in a straight line” assault because it gives away Krell’s hatred a bit too early (and this way, the first instance of clones fighting overwhelming odds comes in a semi-justifiable way because it follows from Kenobi’s need). I might remove Dogma’s relevance to the plot though, as his arc isn’t as important or interesting as the other clones in this episode.
The only thing that’s major that I’m unsure about is whether or not to have the actual scene where the clones nearly kill their brothers by firing squad. It’s nice and tense and it’s nice to show the clones reject their orders but we get a lot of clones rejecting orders here and they do ultimately all turn on Krell, so I think we can go from the INTENTION to execute them to the interruption of the ‘Umbaran’ attack, which turns out to be an attempt at execution anyway.
I won’t promise I’ll have this out today, but it can’t take too long…