Wow wow wow. Smudger you are amazing at this. I had a blast watching this, honestly the 3 hour flew past. Actually seeing how the Mandalorian arc can be weaved through the entire movie gives me great hope for the edit. I feel all the small choices you made on what scenes to cut were very effective too. I personally enjoy the softer side of Boba Fett from the show (others disagree), but you created a real middle ground that comes to a head when his ‘angle’ is called out by Cad Bane; its really neat. The choice to move Mandos encouter with Ashoka and Grogu’s choice to the end of the film was perfect, it feels a lot more rewarding as the epilogue to the main story (instead of it being squeezed in during act 2). The cut between Grogu in the temple to being in the ship was also pretty fun, very creative stuff.
Since I understand this is a workprint I have a few pointers for the fianl cut 😃
Part 1:
. I would recommend colour correcting the opening shot of the film so it will blend better with the starfield (I can imagine opening shots are a pain in the arse)
. at 1:12 the aspect ratio changes a few times between the Wookie with a hard-to-spell name and Boba Fett
. In my opinion, there were too many shots of Boba Fett’s face during the flashback scenes (e.g. when Fennec was introduced). I understand there was a time jump but the white flash does the job.
Part 2:
. When Mando first flys the N1, the final shot of the fighter is jarring when it transitions into it landing (since there are two shots of a ship back to back, flying in different directions). The shot of Mando in the cockpit works well when transtioning in the landing shot.
. At 21:30, I reccomend cutting the droids line before the explosion, maybe even him holding it up in the first place. It comes off too comical for the tone it needs. I may even reccomend moving the Cade Bane scene in between the explosion and when Boba arrives to see the wreckage, so it works better timing wise.
. At 25:41 there is no audio transition
. At 1:13:30 you accidentally left the previous shot of Mando before the transition.
But apart from that and I think a few flickers of frames from removed scenes, this was edited beautifully. I do however, echo the sentiments of WitchDR ans STF78. With the completed story peaced together the way it is, the flashbacks don’t feel like they have a place anymore. Not your fault at all, you effectively chose the scenes that would best enchace Boba’s story. The problem with the flashabacks was that they felt fan-editty before they were even touched by you. I reckon the one flashback of Boba crawling out of the Sarlaac would be enough; it shows us why Boba needed the Bacta for healing and it’s the fan service moment the EU fans wanted to see in live action.
Overall, amazing stuff, we get lots of good Star Wars content pulled from this structurely confusing show and its thanks to your talents. I am planning to do a Smudger Mando marathon on May 4th along with the Depsecialized trilogy, but I couldn’t help watching this early and giving my thoughts 😉
I also would like to show off a custom opening inspired from your edit. I always thought the idea of using some of the concept art along with a crawl like yours would be a neat alternative. I hope you like it: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1S_fx_OOy-dPgDKMhhaPj0ZOHsuNYFG2o/view?usp=sharing