(RE)RELEASED - s01e00 - DARK FORCE RISING (v2.0)

RELEASE VERSION, now brought up to my more polished 2.0 standard.
Our special ‘episode zero’.
Comprising the Muunilinst, Yavin and Hypori arcs from the Tartakovsky Microseries.
Source video is Numeraljoker’s upscaled version, used with permission and credited.
Running 51 minutes.
DOWNLOAD LINK is in the tracker spreadsheet, PM me for access.
Note: It’s recommended that you download this before watching, rather than streaming it directly from Google Drive.

The microseries is great, but features characterisation that doesn’t quite align with TCW’s refinements of the characters. It’s also something of an anthology, with quite a few side plots (which I cut here, but you’ll optionally see later in my show). I focused on the characters and elements which best support and enhance the remainder of my Clone Wars: Refocused show, so that this can be viewed as a pretty necessary episode zero. This episode doesn’t feature the TCW:R opening text that the other episodes in my edit will use, instead allowing a hybrid incorporating the microseries’ initial narration to lead us in.

Noteworthy changes:

The episode is titled ‘Dark Force Rising’, as a bunch of ‘dark forces’ rise: The Clone Army is the Republic’s Dark Force, Anakin is drawn to the darkside in his battle with Ventress, and of course Palpatine’s dark plan is coming to fruition, causing the whole force to fall out of balance towards the dark.
Anakin is a major focus, highlighting his strength, relationship with Palpatine, and hints at his darkness, and with far more faith from Obi-Wan bringing their relationship far closer to how it appears in TCW proper. (Thanks Delpheas for a lot of the inspiration here.)
Dooku’s machinations are the secondary focus. We see him train Ventress (far earlier, for balance, focus and story flow) then send her to challenge Anakin, then we see him train Grievous (from the second part of this microseries) then send him to Hypori to kill Jedi and spread fear (as Dooku taught Grievous in their sparring session).
The remaining focus is on showing at least some clone competency, focusing on their training and hardware, and the elements we’ll see later in TCW. I tended towards favouring the more grounded action, like we see outside of Tartakovsky’s eccentricities.
The whole is quite radically reshaped, so that it flows nicely and feels more like a single narrative, with the Republic reacting to Dooku’s bold moves. We intercut both a little more and a little less in places as felt appropriate and natural.
The clones no longer follow Anakin to Yavin, with the scenes there reworked so that Ventress simply removes his escape, forcing their conflict. Obi-Wan doesn’t send the clones - partially due to having to wrap up matters on Muunilinst, and partially due to trusting Anakin despite his (now reduced) disobedience, which is more in line with his later trust.
I moved the shot of Yoda having an “oh shit” meditation moment to right after Anakin’s just completed his rage-fueled attack on Ventress. Now in context, he’s reacting to feeling the darkness rise in Anakin. A viewer could choose to imply that it’s this feeling which compels him to agree to Knight Anakin and later grant him a Padawan, in the hopes of keeping him on the right path.
No Dirge/Lancers, since they’re not referenced in TCW again and feel aesthetically very different.
No TPM Anakin/Qui-Gon vision, since it had no place here and I’ll use some of its dialogue in other episodes.
No Dantooine/Ilium/Mon Cala, because they distract from the core narrative. (These have been included in a ‘Tales from the Clone Wars’ bonus episode, s03e00.)
No Nelvaan or kidnapping of Palpatine, because they are set later in the war. (I may eventually turn these into later bonus episodes.)

The episode is now wrapped in (most of) my usual TCW:Refocused trappings, the first of the ‘2.0’ versions. It has a variant ‘Clone Wars’ microseries logo and a slightly alternative approach to the end credits, hopefully straddling the middle ground between being part of TCW:R and respecting that the source content was its own thing.