I’ve missed so much! It was good to read through your posts, and I’m glad to see the project still in motion. I’ll be back with more episode notes when I can!
I am sure there are others who suggested to focus along the lines of emphasising the villains in your Season 1, but thank you for the mention.
I’ll miss Bail from Christophsis, but it will make the episode flow better overall. The new ordering sounds good, and well thought out.
Renaming Strike at the Heart 2 to Future of the Force sounds good to me, to emphasise elements that will be picked up later in the Saga, as you say. Consider also, ‘Destiny of the Jedi’ for the title.
Resistance on Ryloth is a great title, an improvement over Blockade of Ryloth I think.
I eagerly await your cut of the remaining Ryloth episodes. Given Bad Batch, I’d say they fit in well with the continuity tier.
The follow up Ryloth episodes could be promoted to continuity, but I don’t think they need to be in the quality cut.
Visions is a good title, for your Assassin episode.
The new intro is fantastic! The ordering is great, and ending with Vader is chef’s kiss
Tales of the Lost Clones is a good title, but Tales of Captain Rex is also good, and the latter is perhaps more useful in signaling to the viewer the importance of the character throughout the show and beyond.
For the crawl kicker in S3E1, I’d suggest ‘the Republic needs more soldiers; the people need peace…’
Paja’s logo for CW03 is good, the revised spacing makes it fit well.
With Kalani, while the Rebels connection is a nice easter egg, it is a bit far off to be useful. A reference internal to the Clone Wars would be more effective, as you say. Maybe Cato Nemoidia, to link with your ‘Ahsoka’s Fall’ episode, would be good? If you can find the dialogue for it.
The Anakin/Qui-Gon dream in CW03 is an odd scene, for sure. I’m keen to see how you can make use of those lines for Mortis.
I like the idea of the original Mortis arc, but not the execution. I’m keen to see what you come up with for it. The Vader mask is a little much, and this vision so overtly details Anakin’s destiny that the Father then removes his memory of it, which undoes whatever foreboding was achieved by that scene. I wonder if by making that vision less overt, or the context of the scene less literal, the forced amnesia could be removed too?
I’m not sure if cutting all of the Mortis gods is necessary, but this arc is a difficult one to crack. There are some great moments there, like Ashoka’s scene with her future self, it’s just that the good parts don’t string together well.
If Mortis can be cut into something good, then I can see your ordering of Season 4 coming together well.
Yeah, Bounty could be demoted. Though it is great to see Ventress running with a crew before her part in Ahsoka’s Fall, it’s perhaps both not enough content to justify its inclusion and too much for what little character development we get here.
I don’t mind Citadel, it’s just too long for what it is. With Echo I feel it’s at least continuity tier. If you’re not happy with the episode, then I don’t think you should promote it to quality just because it’s relevant for Bad Batch. Or, are you keeping Citadel as quality in order to balance out the season as a whole?
For the Liberation of Maul, I wonder if it could be demoted to the continuity tier? I am keen to see it in the context of your Season 5, but suspect I’ll find the difference between animation and audio-comic too jarring. From just reading the comic, it seems to me an action packed but unnecessary addition, since the end of ‘Maul Rules Mandalore’ could be interpreted as a political assassination by Sidious, in order to weaken a dangerous rival. Maul being captured and then liberated feels like a digression, though I may have missed a plot detail somewhere. If ‘Liberation of Maul’ is demoted, this might free up the structure of your Season 5?
Looking over old episode titles again, I’m not sure if ‘Dissent on Umbara’ captures the arc as well as it could; consider instead, ‘Betrayal on Umbara’? Also, for ‘The Politics of War’, I like the title (it reminds me of the Clausewitz quote ‘war is a continuation of politics by other means’), but consider as possible alternatives: ‘A War of Words’ or ‘Senate at War’.
With Delpheas’ excellent take on the relation between the SOM arc and ROTS, I was persuaded that this relation is a problem, and that an edit like theirs is a workable solution. Though a combined edit might not be the best way for your project, dividing ROTS into the episodic form of Clone Wars would be an interesting approach, as you suggest. Definitely worth pursuing I think. Then, if the stylistic difference is too jarring, the animated and live action episodes could be separated, if you’re willing to forgo exact linear continuity in the timing of the episodes. This would also extend the episode count of your Season 5 way up, but since it’s the finale of the last season I think it’s a fine exception. Unless you want to split SOM & ROTS into a Season 6, and have Bad Batch be the Season 5 finale?
Also (since Burbin and sonofabindi would prefer to keep ROTS separate), having your finale episodes keep separate the ROTS and SOM content (if possible) would let viewers skip ROTS if they prefer.
How would you do a 12 episode Season 4 + SOM/ROTS finale? Would you drop the Ventress and Younglings episodes down a tier?
In terms of including ROTS, would you use the original film, or an edit like NFBisms (as Delpheas does)?