(The Mandalorian+BoBF) The Way of Mandalore | A Legends Movie Saga (Final Update in Progress: 5/6 Done) — Page 5

Have you considered incorporating Shamook’s redone VFX of Luke’s first entrance in the Mandalorian Season 2 Finale? Some shots don’t look good as far as the mouth movements go but I believe I using a few re-done Shamook shots could really help bridge the Luke we see in the Mandalorian with the more realistic Luke seen in the Book of Boba Fett?

darthrush said:

Have you considered incorporating Shamook’s redone VFX of Luke’s first entrance in the Mandalorian Season 2 Finale? Some shots don’t look good as far as the mouth movements go but I believe I using a few re-done Shamook shots could really help bridge the Luke we see in the Mandalorian with the more realistic Luke seen in the Book of Boba Fett?

Yes, Shamook’s Luke is already present in that Episode.

And thanks for the feedback everyone else, the story reviews are coming along nicely and the Book 1 upscaling should be done in around 20 minutes. So if that looks good and my settings are correct then I’ll continue ahead full steam.

Book 2 Final Changes:
(I have gone back through every line in this film taking great care to craft the most Legends-esque Boba Fett possible, and I think the results are a massive improvement. Read the edits below.)

• Added Intro Cards
• Adjusted the timing in which Boba awakes from his dreams of him as a child as he lays in the Sarlaac. It is now a more sensible jolt awake that coordinates with his old memories.
• Boba is now less hesistant in striking the tusken dog and shows it no kindness.
• Removed all of Boba talking to the captured Rodian, as at this point in the story he is solely concerned about himself. The Rodian is a loudmouth and gets Boba in trouble by yelling out, leading to the Tuskens coming.
• Reworked the conversation of the kid tusken telling Boba to dig. Boba now talks much less and his overall demeanor is far less cooperative and understanding. Boba is exhausted, frustrated and looking for a way out, not trying to play nice.
• Boba now only scowls at the tusken dog, no longer apologizing. Boba is a mean guy.
• When Boba finds his first water fruit he is now much more direct in drinking it without permission and takes an aggressive stance against the kid rather than trying to appease him.
• Completely transformed the scene of Boba and Rodian digging near the monster! Boba no longer speaks at all here as all he did before was whine and seem weak. I have totally re-cut every shot and remade the soundtrack so that this whole moment now seems like Boba is planning to potentially kill the Rodian in an escape attempt.
• Cut out a few shots of Boba doing absolutely nothing just watching the monster rise out of the sand.
• Trimmed up the monster battle for faster paced action. No more moments of goofy face reactions and such slowing down the intesity of this scene. We want to see a decisive, strong Mandalorian in action, not a scared, confused prisoner. When Fett stands over his kill it really feels like Hardocre Boba is back people.
• Cut out some more Boba confusion in his first gaffi training. I get that he is unfamiliar with the exact dimensions of this oddly shaped weapon, but this is a galactic legend bounty hunter who has wielded hundreds of different weapons in his life. He doesn’t need to be THAT confounded at how a gaffi stick works.
• Cut out one more shot of Boba helping Tuskens in the first train attack. He is just beginning to feel at home here, but I still think in a combat situation that he should be self-centered.
• Cut Boba repeating the same line “I will teach you” and reordered some shots with him and the Chief.
• Trimmed down the Speeder training scenes. Smiling Boba freaks me out and he talks way too much in baby-talk trying to get them to understand. It’s just uncomfortable to hear that from him. And it also feels like they now bond so much more with the lack of verbal communication as they are learning to trust each other in a unique way.
• Boba now talks less to the captured Pykes. He is slightly more demanding.
• Boba now whines less to the Pyke boss on the following protection money conversation.
• Added music in the cantina where Din meets the young bounty hunter.
• Fixed a transition with an audio artifact

This sounds so good!

Book 3 Final Changes:

• Added Intro Cards
• Flipped direction of travel of opening scene. The original felt unnatural.
• Extended an early shot of Grogu looking at Dune’s credit stack. The previous version cut away too fast and seemed like an oversight on my end.
• Added a new shot of IG-11 pouring drinks to give Din a more reasonable amount of time to lower his blaster since that happens off screen.
• Fixed an audio volume dip on a transition
• Altered the Herzog death to be just slightly less visually abrupt but increased the intensity of the sound effects. We now hear the glass shatter and he is killed immediately after.
• Extended a shot of Gideon in the standoff and extended Kuiils death soundtrack.
• Fixed a couple small audio transitions
• Changed a transition shot for the flamethrower entry
• Re-made the soundtrack for Grogu stopping the flames
• Re-organized the back and forth with Din and IG-11 during the healing scene. Added Din saying “I swore the creed”.
• Added in ~3 minutes of Din and Cobb staying with the Tuskens overnight and scouting the Krayt Dragon. I had originally cut this scene for pacing, but upon rewatching it seemed odd that Din and Cobb went out to scout, met the Tuskens, and drove right back without ever actually scouting. I have heavily cut up and transformed this new 3 minute segment so it accomplishes just what we need in building tension and accomplishing their original goal without wrecking the pacing.
• Unified Credits presentation with other films

Book 4 Final Changes:

• Added Intro Cards
• Added new opening soundtrack
• Increased the speed in which Din and crew are ambushed in Imperial base
• Adjusted some audio transitions
• Cut a tie pilot shot earlier because you could see his thumb press the fire button when he isn’t firing in the next shot
• Fixed a color correction bug
• Unified Credits presentation

What runtimes are we ending up with here?

EddieDean said:

What runtimes are we ending up with here?

Good question. Each film fluctuated by 1-5 minutes, so we’ve landed at:

Book 1 - 2 hours 11 minutes
Book 2 - 1 hour 50 minutes
Book 3 - 2 hours 29 minutes
Book 4 - 2 hours 26 minutes
Book 5 - 2 hours 24 minutes

Book 5 Final changes:
(This one was already pretty much good to go since I had already rendered the most versions of it previously and was working on it most recently. Mostly just needed the presentation brought up to speed.)

• Added Intro cards
• Fixed a couple transitions
• Increased the speed in which Boba kills Cad Bane
• Unified Credits presentation

And with that, we are in the final stretch. I’ll be dropping a planned release date announcement tomorrow…

Does book 5 also have the previous additions mentioned earlier in the thread like the reintroduction scene of the mods and such?

Peonthegrate said:

Does book 5 also have the previous additions mentioned earlier in the thread like the reintroduction scene of the mods and such?

Yes, everything mentioned in this post is also included which is why the final changes were so short.

I actually am upscaling all of these films to 4k as well unlike that post states, so it’ll now be the best quality footage I can muster up.

Ohhhhhh this is gonna be good… I’m so stoked.

Grab yourself a cup of caf, kick back, and check out the Premiere Trailer for Star Wars: The Way of Mandalore.

Stay tuned until the end for a surprise! May the Way be with you-, er… This is the force-, uh… Just enjoy 😉

Would love the links too!

Just watched your first movie (v3) and absolutely loved it. The opening half in particular is fantastic, with the worldbuilding being extremely strong in terms of the way the user is fed information. The narrative really works, it’s gripping, and it flows really well. I enjoyed this so much I’m going to watch through the corresponding original episodes, in order to challenge it as deeply as I can and give detailed feedback. I’ll do that for all five movies, if you’re interested.

But for now, key points:

• I completely agree with your approach. This edit attempts to preserve as much content as possible, which does mean that they’re not quite structured as modern hollywood movies are, so they feel a little more like very long (but well-paced and narratively satisfying) episodes in a series. To me, that’s completely welcome and exactly how I’d do it.
• I think the parts you did cut were exactly right. Extended opening, Jawas, wetlands planet fight, many trims. While it did slightly feel like a ‘series of events’ in the second half, it hung together, and again, it’s totally worth it from my perspective. This is definitive for me.
• I think you could get away with cutting a bit more from the wetlands planet, keeping it even tighter on the idea that they attempt to settle (emphasising wannabe-girlfriend and Yoda with the kids) but then realise they’re going to get pursued, forcing them to take the prison break job which concludes the movie. Gina Carrano’s character we know isn’t going to be major to Mando, so she can be pretty heavily minimised - you might even be able to cut the fist fight with her, perhaps going straight from ‘who’s she?’ to their conversation, via some transition or intermediate scene.
• I had another idea for this section, though I’m not sure how this’d work technically. As I mentioned earlier, your flow of information to the viewer was great - but you could possibly get the flashbacks to Mando as a kid to happen as part of the conversation with the wetlands wannabe-girlfriend character, at the point where she inquires. It would make the wetlands planet a bit more purposeful as a carrier of more worldbuilding. That said, those scenes are quite technically intercut with the forging scenes, so I don’t know quite how easily extracted they can be. (You possibly don’t need to have both forging scenes play out in full either - maybe just a hammer blow for the pauldron, then the full scene later for the full suit.)
• I thought it might be nice to have something immediately before the wetlands planet, and between the wetlands planet and the prison break, to pace those transitions, allow time to pass, and show what’s going on with their pursuers/the galaxy. Ideally that second one would be a little more of Greef, or the Imperials, if such content exists. But failing that, before wetlands it could be the Kuiil recovering IG scene, and perhaps the IG repair between wetlands/prison break.
• I slightly missed the conclusion to the prison break - perhaps a post-credits scene showing the imprisoned teammates would be suitable?

Anyway, if you want this and more, I’ll keep it up, though I appreciate you intended these versions as final! Loved the movie either way, and I’m really looking forward to your next ones.

Sent to everyone above & all films are now officially released! Post here or DM me if interested.

EddieDean said:

Just watched your first movie (v3) and absolutely loved it. The opening half in particular is fantastic, with the worldbuilding being extremely strong in terms of the way the user is fed information. The narrative really works, it’s gripping, and it flows really well. I enjoyed this so much I’m going to watch through the corresponding original episodes, in order to challenge it as deeply as I can and give detailed feedback. I’ll do that for all five movies, if you’re interested.

Wow, thanks, thank would be incredible. When I say the films are “final”, I don’t mean to infer I’m never going to update them again or that they are beyond critique/improvements. I only mean that I consider them to be in a final presentable state now where everything should work and flow and be free of bugs. Certainly could have missed things or find need for additional changes, or if someone suggests something brilliant I might try to integrate etc.

But for now, key points:

• I completely agree with your approach. This edit attempts to preserve as much content as possible, which does mean that they’re not quite structured as modern hollywood movies are, so they feel a little more like very long (but well-paced and narratively satisfying) episodes in a series. To me, that’s completely welcome and exactly how I’d do it.
• I think the parts you did cut were exactly right. Extended opening, Jawas, wetlands planet fight, many trims. While it did slightly feel like a ‘series of events’ in the second half, it hung together, and again, it’s totally worth it from my perspective. This is definitive for me.

Glad a lot of this landed well. As I’ve mentioned before on this project, the goal wasn’t necessarily to make traditional movies out of the show, but to simply tell a well-paced story with sensible decisions and character arcs intact. I’m actually glad it retains that “TV show pacing” more than feeling like a standard hollywood film structure. Long form comics and novels are my go-to inspiration, so if we get that sort of drawn out pacing while still moving the main story forward rather than feeling like pointless filler episodes, that’s nailing exactly what I was attempting with the re-edit.

• I think you could get away with cutting a bit more from the wetlands planet, keeping it even tighter on the idea that they attempt to settle (emphasising wannebe-girlfriend and Yoda with the kids) but then realise they’re going to get pursued, forcing them to take the prison break job which concludes the movie. Gina Carrano’s character we know isn’t going to be major to Mando, so she can be pretty heavily minimised - you might even be able to cut the fist fight with her, perhaps going straight from ‘who’s she?’ to their conversation, via some transition or intermediate scene.

Did you find yourself wanting this planet to go by faster? Was it dragging on too long to where it was boring/not developing a character enough? There were a few extra things I could have cut out like you mentioned, but as it was already the shortest “act” in the film, I tried to keep as much as possible that wasn’t directly related to the village defense.

• I had another idea for this section, though I’m not sure how this’d work technically. As I mentioned earlier, your flow of information to the viewer was great - but you could possibly get the flashbacks to Mando as a kid to happen as part of the conversation with the wetlands wannabe-girlfriend character, at the point where she inquires. It would make the wetlands planet a bit more purposeful as a carrier of more worldbuilding. That said, those scenes are quite technically intercut with the forging scenes, so I don’t know quite how easily extracted they can be. (You possibly don’t need to have both forging scenes play out in full either - maybe just a hammer blow for the pauldron, then the full scene later for the full suit.)

I actually really, really like this idea. As you said though, the technical aspects might really restrict the delivery here since the flashbacks are so interwoven into the armor construction scene with clangs and white flashes. However, I could potentially re-cut up the final flashbacks from S01E08 (07?) where Mando tells the full story since those are presented as a whole rather than snippets. But I do love the idea of giving the wetlands world a bit more purpose with that character backstory. Note taken and it’s worth experimenting on.

• I thought it might be nice to have something immediately before the wetlands planet, and between the wetlands planet and the prison break, to pace those transitions, allow time to pass, and show what’s going on with their pursuers/the galaxy. Ideally that second one would be a little more of Greef, or the Imperials, if such content exists. But failing that, before wetlands it could be the Kuiil recovering IG scene, and perhaps the IG repair between wetlands/prison break.

Another good idea I think, however there is a surprising lack of content without Din in Season 1. The only options of “other stuff going on” scenes are the IG repair like you mentioned (which I already did repurpose as a “passage of time” sequence for Din traveling back to Nevarro) and the wetlands village getting wrecked by raiders. So unless I want to show that whole village getting massacred immediately after Din leaves… Haha, that would be freakin dark. I don’t see any other options for content unless there’s something I’m forgetting in Season 2 I could bring back here for.

• I slightly missed the conclusion to the prison break - perhaps a post-credits scene showing the imprisoned teammates would be suitable?

I liked to cut that jail scene of the teammates for 2 reasons.

1. It leaves their fate ambiguous. Did Din kill them, knock them out, lock them up? We don’t fully know what kind of person Din is yet, and I think the mystery benefits his persona at this time.
2. With that mysetery intact, it is much more of a surprise when we see Mayfeld brought back into the story later on in the series. With that jail scene included, you definitely have an expectation that all of them will return. But now it’s more of a shocker to learn that Din didn’t kill Mayfeld (and others, presumably).

Thanks for the comment, that is great content!

tangelo1023 said:

My only narrative issue was that it did seem like two arcs joined together.

It does, but I think that’s a fair price to pay for including as much good ‘episodic’ content as possible. That’s why I think that the wetlands planet works well as a bridge, and its bridginess could be enhanced by it becoming more of a short world-building interlude via the full Mando childhood flashback. There’s a place in the dialogue where it’d fit neatly, and that’d help the viewer recognise ‘Oh there’s more to see here’ even as the story’s implying that things are quieting down, before the twist that he’s still being tracked.

It could be smoothed a little more by Mando receiving a call (over the radio, cribbed from existing dialogue) from the guy who gives him the prison break job, before he goes to the wetlands planet, which he then rejects (button press graphic, radio cuts off), before explaining to Baby Yoda “we’ll lay low in the wetlands”. Any kind of line saying “Got a job for you” or “No questions asked”, or whatever, passed through a radio filter. That might set up that plot earlier (again making the whole more cohesive) and make his appearance there later feel like more of a resentful acceptance.

Anyway, Acbagel, I would advocate for seeing a shorter wetlands planet, perhaps with less of the complications of settling there, and more just getting pretty quickly into settling down. The montage is lovely (let time pass) though I wouldn’t have Mando teach them anything about weapons. I wouldn’t say the content was boring, but a trim could make this long stay more of a shorter worldbuild/setup for the viewer. The core of it is that Mando is tempted by peace, intends to leave Grogu there, then discovers he’s being tracked even out here.

Thinking about Mando flashbacks, I think there’s a clean way to get that extra narrative beat in at the wetlands, whilst avoiding some of the challenges of technical unpicking:

• Pauldron scene: Scene begins, tools are revealed, forge is turned on, “the excess will spawn so many foundlings”, hammer comes down - leave on a nice long hammer ring sound, cut to Mando in space, and the over-the-shoulder shot of his new shiny pauldron. Nothing to unpick. Maybe include the shot of the Armorer holding up the new pauldron, if the transition needs it.
• Full armour scene: Play in full. Partial flashbacks intercut with forging. Not too much flashback context. This is now setup for the full scene later.
• Wetlands wife scene: “I wasn’t much older than they are…” cut to full scene from s01e08. Cut back. “You haven’t shown your face to anyone since you were a kid?” then use mixed dialogue from both this scene and s01e08’s post-flashback scenes: “No. My parents were killed. I was a foundling. The Mandalorians took care of me. I was happy that they took me in. When I came of age, I was sworn to the creed.” “I’m sorry.” “This is the way.”

So, while the “plot” beats of this movie end up being a little ‘sequence of events’, the real narrative is focused on “Who is the Mandalorian?” He’s a man torn between a job and a creed, we’re not sure if he’s good or bad, and we un-peel the layers as the movie goes, and as we build his relationship with Grogu throughout, ending of course on the lovely ball moment. But it’s for this reason that I’d include the tag showing that he didn’t kill even those who betrayed him. “Who is the Mandalorian?” A warrior, but one who shows mercy. That’s a nice beat, and a compelling end to a movie focused on introducing his character.

Absolutely fantastic suggestions, Eddie and tangelo! I’m pretty sold on this whole flashback idea now, and just reopened the dreaded project files to begin tinkereing again. I think I need to render another version of Book 1 anyway because I noticed that despite saying this:

Acbagel said:

Book 1 Final Changes:

• Extended one more context scene before the mudhorn battle. The reason they have to enter this territory on the way back is because Din is not riding his mount like he did on the way here, so they have to take a different path back. This explains why Kuuil said the mount is necessary, because presumably you should be jumping over all those valleys that the dangerous wildlife resides in.

I actually forgot to make this change… I meant to swap around some of the walking footage and never did so. Plus on the one scene’s music transition that tangelo pointed out, I did indeed have the soundtrack fading the wrong direction which led to the harsher music change.

tangelo1023 said:

The first half deals with Mando finding Grogu and having a crisis of conscience. It sets up the main emotional arc of the show beautifully, even ending with the first instance of Mando handing the ship part to Grogu. The second half feels like a transition chapter with Mando’s helmet and his sense of identity being discussed. It also deepens the Mando-Grogu relationship, ending with the second instance of Mando handing the ship part to Grogu. … He’s a cipher that slowly gets filled in as the film goes on

Hang with me here as I suggest something… radical. Your discussions above have my brain working overtime on a crazy idea to merely reconstruct half the movie.

What if Din didn’t go back for Grogu immediately after delivering him on Nevarro? What if we see Din struggle internally there when he is about to leave, but he actually does take off and fly right to the prison break job solo? The story beats are now this:

1. Keep same intro, Din starts as a mysterious Mandalorian bounty hunter.
2. First 50 minutes are exactly the same aside from taking out the early flashback sequence.
3. Din has turned in Grogu, goes to get his new list of jobs, and right at the 58 minute mark he hesitates, but DOES fly away.
4. Play out the prison break sequence, edited to be a solo job. Grogu is only in a few minutes of this episode anyhow, and there aren’t any revelations here that aren’t covered elsewhere in the series. Would remove ~5 minutes of this prison break sequence since some scenes refer to Din’s betraying the guild. We are starting to get into his helmet/identity crisis discussions here based on the crew banter.
5. He completes the job, returns to Nevarro, is heading back to collect payment but then sees Grogu’s carrier in the trash. This is now the moment that changes Din.
6. Din has changed, he saves Grogu, flies off to find refuge and we get a shortened wetlands world that concludes the film.

Thoughts? The goal here would be to lessen the feeling of two separate story sequences joined by an interlude, transforming it all into a more cohesive tale of Din’s transformation as a person. Since we would end the film with him rescuing Grogu, it’s now a more defined character journey.

Now, that’s interesting. I don’t think the wetlands planet would make a good ending - episode 3 would be strongest this way - BUT you could use the wetlands content as the Mando opening in your second movie. Boba’s with tuskens thinking he’s found his people, Mando’s with the wetlanders wondering if he can find peace. Boba’s tusken family is killed, Mando gets tracked and has to leave his wetlanders. That segues nicely into Mando being pursued by the bounty hunter onto Tattooine, before the Fennec storyline overlap. Gives us a bit of a break from too much Boba/desert too.

It would also nicely set up movie 2’s conclusion - an opportunity to finally stop being pursued, which we’ve now seen happen to him heavily emphasised in one movie.

Edit:

Ah but wait! This means you wouldn’t be able to use wetlands to close out the flashback content. Ach!

EddieDean said:

Now, that’s interesting. I don’t think the wetlands planet would make a good ending - episode 3 would be strongest this way - BUT you could use the wetlands content as the Mando opening in your second movie. Boba’s with tuskens thinking he’s found his people, Mando’s with the wetlanders wondering if he can find peace. Boba’s tusken family is killed, Mando gets tracked and has to leave his wetlanders. That segues nicely into Mando being pursued by the bounty hunter onto Tattooine, before the Fennec storyline overlap. Gives us a bit of a break from too much Boba/desert too.

It would also nicely set up movie 2’s conclusion - an opportunity to finally stop being pursued, which we’ve now seen happen to him heavily emphasised in one movie.

I truly hate that you’re right about this haha. It all does make a lot of sense narratively on paper at least… The idea just smacked me while reading the back and forths above and now I can’t get it out of my head as a superior structure. Someone please persuade me otherwise! I feel I am doomed to try this out now.

Edit:

Ah but wait! This means you wouldn’t be able to use wetlands to close out the flashback content. Ach!

True. However, I was thinking perhaps I’d start to bring the flashbacks into play when Din sees Grogu’s carrier in the trash (the event that now changes him as a man). He looks at that destroyed carrier and remembers himself as a helpless kid until someone had to come and rescue him too. A Mandalorian had to rescue him.