RELEASED - S04E07 - THE RENEGADE (v2.0)

RELEASE VERSION.
Our seventh episode of season four.
Comprising the original episodes The Unknown, Conspiracy, Fugitive, and Orders (the Order 66 arc).
Running 54 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.

This is the full Order 66 arc, which is a quite popular arc involving the investigation of a clone whose Order 66 protocol triggered early. I’m using this episode as season four’s ‘Clones vs Loyalty’ plot, which I’ve been putting one of in each season so far. (Usually they focus on Rex, whereas this one focuses on Fives, but Rex gets the message at the end and that leads into his actions in the series finale.) It’s fairly decent, but there are two main issues I sought to address:

Firstly, it’s written as a mystery story, presenting its main character (Fives) with many different possible answers - brainwashing, a virus, a tumour, the Jedi, the Kaminoans, etc - but within the first ten minutes of the original arc the mystery is spoiled for the audience by a cutaway that has the bad guys behind it all discussing exactly what it is. This takes a load of momentum out of the story. I’ve remedied this by removing all cutaways to villains explaining the plot, unless they’re acting non-villainous and just discussing the mystery as a mystery. This way, we only learn what Fives knows and what others propose as possibilities (plus the possibility that it’s innocent and Fives is also suffering a similar affliction), so it’s a mystery for the audience too. Only at the very end, after the plot is concluded, do the audience get to see that the Sith believe they’ve caught the Republic in a trap - which hangs over the series from there.

Secondly, there were a lot of unnecessary tangents, which took more momentum out. Tup is captured but then saved, Fives goes in and out of Tup’s room a lot, Fives gets captured and escapes, Fives leaves Tipoca city and returns - all of it just took away from the excitement of the investigation and his attempt to get what he learns to someone he trusts.

Now, the pacing is tight, the investigation is in focus, and the energy is high.

Noteworthy changes:

The episode is titled ‘The Renegade’, a term used to describe Fives in the episode (and also potentially a misdirect for Tup early on), plus it sounds cool, and it also serves to remind us that the clones can act individually, a plot point which continues to be relevant through to the conclusion.
The episode is placed here as it’s just a natural place for it - after losing Ahsoka and dealing with the fallout, and reminding the audience of the state of the war in the Scipio arc, the show now starts to focus much more deeply on the mysteries of the Clone Wars and the continued threat of Mauldalore.
I use the crawl to emphasise the relationship/trust between Jedi and clones, the individuality of many in the 501st, and to lightly set up the opening scene and this episode’s theme.
From The Unknown, I removed the scenes of Admiral Trench reporting Tup’s killing of Tiplar to Dooku. (It probably still happened offscreen, but the audience shouldn’t see it.)
I also removed the entire second half, where Tup gets captured by Trench then rescued. Now, when the clones say they’ll take him to Kamino, we transition right there.
From Conspiracy, I streamlined a lot. Fives’ three conversations with AZI-3 have become just one, covering most of the same beats, though with a little less of AZI-3’s goofiness (here and throughout the edit). Fives’ initial motivation for wanting to run the brain scan on Tup came a little out of left field initially - we rejoined a conversation halfway through - so in this instance I’ve had it appear more that he’s frustrated with AZI-3 for not ensuring his medical opinion got actioned to save his friend, with the escalation for Fives only coming when he hears that Nala Se wants to terminate Tup.
I’ve shifted a few scenes around to avoid a lot of redundant repeated dialogue (the arc has a lot of cases where two people will discuss something, then one of them will go and discuss the same thing with someone else). The scene where Shaak Ti reports to the Jedi carried all of the information about the mystery and characters’ intentions, so that’s the one I kept, placed a little earlier.
We still see Nala Se and Lama Su attempt to terminate Tup (as the audience were told was their plan when Shaak Ti reported to the Jedi), but now without knowing that they side with the Separatists, this can be read as either their legitimate medical opinion, or them seeking to protect their corporate secrets/reputation (we know from an earlier arc that they’re at least a little corrupt in a capitalist way).
To remove Fives getting captured, escaping, leaving Kamino, and returning, I cut his capture from Tup’s death scene. That scene now transitions into a time-of-day change re-estabilshing shot, to imply time has passed. I shifted the scenes of Shaak Ti realising the alarm was in the medical bay to just before that scene, plus the scene of her later getting a report that nobody’s escaped the planet to after the time-shift, to help sell time passing. (This gives Fives time to get away from the medical bay and lost in Tipoca city.) We then rejoin Fives as he acquires a disguise, ready to investigate this further.
As a note, the above also lets us remove the idea that Fives is going to be mind-wiped. Mind-wiped? Do Kaminoans have that technology? Feels a bit out of left field.
From Fugitive, it’s mostly just trims for pacing and to remove a few cutaways to villains. As a note, now that we don’t know who’s behind all this, when Fives realises that a Jedi ordered the clone army, that moment hits harder and puts more suspicion on the Jedi/Shaak Ti.
Most of Orders is intact. The main change was removing Fives telling benevolent characters that the conspiracy goes ‘all the way to the top’, because that would give the Jedi and Anakin reasons to distrust the Chancellor, which I think is just one little step too far, for obvious reasons. It’s still implied that the conspiracy goes very high, though.
I also trimmed a shot of the flying whales, the redundant taxi driver conversation, a little of other clones hunting for Fives while he’s at the clone bar (though they’re still seen and searching), and Palpatine being a little too sinister in a couple of scenes.
I merged the final scene of Dooku talking to Shaak Ti (from his perspective) with another of their conversations (from hers), to give more exposition to the audience (and in particular remind us that the creativity in the 501st clones is a slight risk to the Order 66 plans, which is relevant in the series finale). Now it’s finally clear that Nala Se has been working all along to cover this up on behalf of the Separatists, and ultimately succeeded. Dooku’s happy, Sidious is happy, the Republic is in jeopardy.

I’d appreciate reviews of this one, as it has a lot of moving parts.

Onwards to the Sifo-Dyas episode, which only needs one cut so should be a quick turnaround.