More good progress on Malevolence.

The run-up to the final battle, the final battle itself, and the mop-up are all smoother now. This was always the weakest part of the (amalgamated) episode and one of the reasons for that is that there’s far less emotional jeopardy for the time spent on these scenes, so they feel bloated and slow.

Now, we don’t waste time on the clones who are going to die, and we also don’t have Grievous launch fighters and pick off our bombers with them. The only unexpected threat, which Anakin’s plan didn’t account for (since the Malevolence leaves no survivors and all they had was Plo Koon’s intel from his encounter) was the heavy flak, which forces them to change their plans from assaulting the bridge to attacking the ion weapon.

I also trimmed a couple of scenes in the medical station. Still now, with this episode, we establish way earlier that Grievous is on the hunt for more medical stations, and then this one in particular, in order to add a time pressure aspect (and recklessness) to Anakin’s hunt for Plo Koon. But then we don’t need to keep cutting back to it to establish tension about faceless clones the audience doesn’t care about, especially since Anakin and Ahsoka aren’t emotionally invested in them either. This keeps the final fight that much smoother.

I’ve preserved some of Grievous’ arrogance, which ultimately gives him his comeuppance. I wasn’t sure about this, because I’d like to only show him when he’s a most compelling threat, but ultimately in this context he dismisses his ship’s vulnerability to bombers (which is OK since he’s only really underestimating a Jedi’s ability to evade flak) and he focuses on the medical station rather than the incoming threat (because he doesn’t perceive it as as much of a threat, and boy does he love killing clones).

Just a little more work to go to finalise the wrap-up and the very opening, then I can bookend this and get it out the door…