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Mando EP4: Return to Mandalore 4K [RELEASED]

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 (Edited)

Here is my edit of the Mandalorian Season 3.
After much debating I decided to leave the Grogu/Luke scenes in Episode 3, so this edit contains just the Mandalorian Season 3 material.

My goals are:
To recreate the classical Star Wars movie experience.
Full continuity with my previous three movies - some changes will now be made to those edits to line everything up.
To focus on the Mandalore plot with Din being the lead character.
To remove the large amount of filler in this series.
Improve the pacing of the finale.
Provide an emotionally satisfying ending.

Headlines:
2h 46min runtime
Classical Opening Logos, Opening Crawl and Iris-out to End Credits.
Dr Pershing, Plazir-15 and Foundling Rescue plots have all been removed.
Removal of many of the creature attacks.
The 2-part finale has been heavily edited and restructured to improve pacing, including removal of R5.
All audio transitions have been carefully edited including re-scoring and audio rebuilding as needed.




Detailed Changes:

Chapter 17

Custom credits using Disney Era flashing characters over Fox Fanfare followed by ALTAIAGFFA
Custom Crawl and right screen pan to N1 exiting hyperspace
Opening scene is Mando travelling to Bo Katan’s Castle which establishes his motivations.
Edited to trim his long walk to and away from Bo’s throne.
Hard Cut to the armourer at the forge. Initiation ceremony takes place but the creature attack is removed. Scene ends with “this is the way” with a re-used shot of the armourer used as the exit shot.
Cut to Din arriving on Navarro.
Removed transition wipe as Mando enters the town.
Trimmed Mando and Grogu walking through the town.
Remove transition wipe to Grogu spinning in the chair.
Cut Garga’s lines about the belters and money to be made on Navarro.
Trimmed the encounter with the pirates. Cut Vane “that explains why she wouldn’t let me inside”. Cut references to the pirate king. Cut Vane “now bring me a drink”. Cut Vane “you hear that boys, his school” and “you paid us for murder and mayhem inside these doors”.
Trim the standoff between Karga and Vane.
Cut scene where Mando tries to rebuild IG-11, instead he takes him straight to the Anzellans. Remove transition wipe.
Cut Mando “this one is my friend”. Cut Anzellan “Not friend anymore”.
Cut Karga “he says you should get a new one”.
Remove Encounter with pirate ships.
Edit cuts from Mando leaving Nevarro to Teva discovering the wrecked Republic shuttle from chapter 21.
Cut Teva “I knew it, he never made it to trial”.
Cut to Mando travelling through hyperspace with Purgill.

Chapter 18

Cut to Pelli on Tatooine.
Cut the Jawa/Pelli parts scam scene.
Cut Pelli “you know how Mos Eisley gets during Boonta week”.
Cut Mando leaving Tatooine. End scene with Pelli Offering R5 to Mando. Reuse head shot of Mando to extend scene and line up scene transition with music.
Cut to Imperial Shadow Council Scene from Chapter 23.
Cut the multiple “yes” responses.
Cut mention of an assassination attempt.
Cut “Yes I see”.
Cut to Mando exiting hyperspace above Mandalore.
Cut Mando “from the surface we won’t be able to communicate with anyone, so we have to be careful”.
Cut R5 stopping and Mando telling him to stop being a baby.
Cut whole scene of R5 dissapearing and Mando heading into the cave to rescue him. The edit has R5 heading into the rocks and then transmitting information that the atmosphere is breathable. Then a wipe transition to Mando and Grogu walking towards the cave.
Shortened Mando and Grogu’s journey to the mines.
Cut creature attacking Grogu as he leaves the cave to fetch help.
Small edit to remove continuity error of Grogu jumping from his hoverchair and into the cockpit. R5 bleeps used to replace sounds.
Remove Transition wipe to Bo’s Castle scene
Remove Gauntlet taking off from Bo’s Castle, replaced by hard cut to captured Mando having his blood extracted.
Cut to Gauntlet arriving on Mandalore.
Trim Gauntlet travelling through atmosphere
Cut Bo “It didn’t always look like this.”
Cut Bo asking Grogu to guide her.
Massively Trim Bo’s journey to Din including removal of R5 scream and the creature attack.
Cut back to repeated shot of Mando losing his blood and then to Bo arriving to rescue him.
Cut Bo “Din I cant hear you, are you trying to say something”.
Cut Bo “he’s quite the navigator”.
Trim Bo talking to Din about her father.

Chapter 19 (intercut with scenes from Chapter 21)

Cut to Nevarro Pirate invasion scene from Chapter 21.
Cut to Din and Bo at the edge of the waters.
WIpe transition from Gauntlet taking off from Mandalore surface to external shot of Adelphi Base.
Alelphi base scene from Chapter 21.
Cut to shot of Gauntlet returning to Kalevala.
Cut R5’s screeching and Bo “Don’t worry I grew up flying these cliffs” and “of course its been a while”.
Cut Din and Bo talking about ship damage at the end of the initial dogfight.
Cut to Chapter 21 scene of Karga and the citizens at their makeshift camp. The scene starts with Karga looking at the town through binoculars - the “walking" is cut because it makes it obvious that there aren’t enough extras in the scene and the group also make a strange turn due to the limitations of the volume set.
Wipe transition to Teva exiting hyperspace above Coruscant from Chapter 21.
Wipe transition to Mando and Bo exiting hyperspace en route to Mando’s old covert.
Cut Din “its a secret location and you are my guest”
Trim posturing and walking as Bo and Din land and walk into the Clan’s cave.
After Armourer welcomes Bo to the Clan I added armourer dialogue from Chapter 1 to add “a pauldron would be in order”, “I shall craft it”.
The whole Coruscant plot line has been removed.

Chapter 20

Wipe transition to wide shot of the Covert Planet
Cut to Armourer making Bo a new Pauldron.
Everything else form this Chapter has been cut - the training sequence, the creature stealing the foundling and the Grogu-Armourer scene including Grogu’s flashback. These scenes have no relevance to the main plot of the season and provide no payoff at the end. The only continuity issue was Bo losing her Pauldron in the rescue, but this has been explained by the Armourer offering her a new pauldron after welcoming her to the clan.

Chapter 21

The first half of this episode has been used to intercut with Chapter 19 scenes.
Cut to Teva arriving at the Clan’s location.
Cut Din “this man cut me a break once and now I’m returning the favour” - at the moment this line doesn’t fit with my preceding edits…. This may well change when I got back to episodes 2 and 3.
Cut Lines from Paz about Din saving his son (this has been cut).
Cut the entire pointer sequence where Bo explains (in length!) the plan to defeat the pirates.
Cut to the Pirates on Nevarro and the battle then play out.
Cut Pirate king “Its the Mandalorian” - he would not know because their earlier encounter has been cut.
Battle scene trimmed and unnecessary “Marvel” dialogue has been removed.
Cut droid correcting Karga about his title.
Trim Bo and Armourer talking about the forge.

Chapter 22

The Gideon/Kane scene from Chapter 21 has been placed here to provide a spacer scene. I have cut Gideon “and make it quick because I’m short on time”. The scene ends as he walks past the clones because the shadow council scene has been moved to the start of the movie.
Opening scene of Axe’s Mandalorians and the Quarren as been cut.
We cut to Din and Bo arriving on Plazir-15. Losing control of the ship has been cut, so they now land on the planet of their own free will.
Cut Din “I knew they looked familiar"
Wipe transition from the Gauntlet landing to Bo and Din walking to the Mandalorian camp.
Trimmed some of the standing and staring.
Cut Bo “certainly as much as any of us”.
Cut Bo “no matter how well intended”.
Cut Din repeating “would it not belong to her”.
All other scenes have been cut including the entirety of the Droid plt.

Chapter 23

Cut Karga explaining to his droid about the cruiser being Mandalorian.
Cut Karga calling the droid IG-12.
Cut Karga asking Mando if he likes the droid.
Cut discussion about whether the droid is safe - the scene this references has been cut.
Cut Karga “I think he’s saying he’s old enough to operate it”.
Cut IG/Grogu messing around at the food stall.
Cut Bo talking about the poisoned surface of Mandalore and dormant creatures - most of these encounters have been cut.
Cut Din “Grogu as well”.
Cut 3 “I will go”.
Cut Bo “We will lose Comms shortly”.
Trim walking across Mandalore sequence.
Cut Bo “you were right, I was selfish and this is what it brought”.
Cut board game sequence.
Cut giant creature attacking the land ship. We cut from the Gauntlet returning to the cruiser to the Mandalorians entering the caves to the forge.
Cut Bo “no its too far”.
Cut Axe “I can make it, its our only chance of taking the planet back”. Now Axe’s move is more decisive.
Trim down battle sequence.
Cut Din telling Grogu to keep up.
Cut Bo “I’ll make sure of it”.
Cut Gideon “now surrender the darksaber and tell these people this planet is mine”.
Trim Paz v Mando Trooper fight to make the troopers look less like battle droids!

Chapter 24

Move the TIE squadron leaving the base to the opening scene so that it immediately precedes Bo telling Axe about the TIEs. This creates more tension a jeopardy for Axe’s subplot.
Cut Axe “I’m entering the upper atmosphere but I have my orders.
Remove wipe transition between Bo’s forces and Din.
Edit Din’s escape so that the Mando trooper no longer blasts him twice (Din gets hit by balsters far too many times over the seasons!)
Cut Din “thankyou for your help”
Cut scene of Gideon tracking Mando - it makes no sense.
Cut R5 completely - his presence really slows the pacing - this involved cropping scenes, cutting scenes, re-scoring and audio editing.
Move Axe arriving at the cruiser forward. Cut Axe “Bo Katan needs our help”
Move Bo Katan and her group arriving at the cave escape point backwards slightly. I’ve made a significant change at this point. As she tells Din that she’s under attack and getting the troops to safety the Armourer contacts her to tell her that her reinforcements have arrived. Added Bo “lets take back out planet” from a later scene (which I’ve cut). We then cut from the Mandos blasting out of the cave to them joining with the Mandalorians above from a later scene. I’ve used a few flipped and reversed shots to accommodate the additional dialogue. This allowed me to completely cut the “garden scene” which slowed down the plot and removed any sense of danger. Having the “lets take back out planet” at this point has more emotional weight.
Cut from Bo leading the Mandalorians into the Base back to Mando searching for Gideon. Here I’ve combined the two separate scenes into one, having moved the Fleet scene forwards. This took a lot of audio rebuilding and score manipulation with original score tracks and revurb to remove R5 and combine the scenes into a smooth single scene. It now plays out with much more urgency and threat. End the scene before Mando goes into the Clone room and cut to Bo and her forces. If the full scene of Din plays out it feels too long in this edited form.
After the Bo Forces scene cut to Mando in the Clone room.
Cut to Bo’s forces and then back to Mando facing off Gideon.
Gut Gideon “smother them before they could take their first breath” Giancarlo’s acting was a bit off here so I cut away from him and his sentence is cut off as Din appears and fires at him.
Cut straight from Moff Taking Din down to Grogu v Praetorian Guards as I’ve used the original spacer scene of Bo’s forces earlier in the edit.
Cut to Axe plunging towards Mandalore in the Cruiser - this scene has been moved forwards to create jeopardy and because there was too large a gap between Axe’s scenes in the original series.
Axe’s line about crashing into the base is transitioned to shot a shot of Bo.
Added Bo saying “Din” as we cut to a distant shot of Din v Gideon. The Gideon duel then plays out.
Trim Gideon firing at Din so that Bo intervenes much faster.
Added new exit soundtrack to classical iris out and Star Wars music.

Current Project:- Ahsoka EP1: Heir to the Empire https://originaltrilogy.com/topic/Smudger9s-Ahsoka-Movie-Series-EP1-Heir-to-the-Empire-WIP/id/107396#1551872

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Only thing that was a little rough scene-wise, was Din staying to wait for Grogu’s decision. Also having the Purgil moment be the scene to show the outcome of Grogu’s decision doesn’t quite work to me. I honestly think the Croc fight scene would work better for showing his decision. We only see Din when he lands, then Grogu pops up a second later. It misleads the audience into thinking Grogu chose Luke, only for the audience to be surprised when he pops up.

Something akin to this…
https://vimeo.com/manage/videos/806284394

Other than that… fantastic first cut! Crawl looks great too! Exited to see this built as episodes come out.

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As always, I am speechless with your work and I love how you know how to see what is important in each episode to rescue the necessary information. That being said, I do agree with WitchDR that seeing Grogu and Din reunite for the first time with the purrgil scene doesn’t quite work for me either.

In that sense, I think that the way Grogu appears on the ship in the mandalorian’s ritual scene could work as a “revelation”, or you could still mix the purrgil scene with the final of TBOBF, which I think linked very well with Grogu’s decision in the third film. Maybe make some way that when the N1 goes into turbo mode at Grogu’s request it jumps into hyperspace and spins with the purrgil scene?

Otherwise I find it great! The first episode was almost a reminder of everything that came before with the strange addition of the IG-11 plot, it seems very appropriate to jump to the second almost directly.

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Warhorn said:

As always, I am speechless with your work and I love how you know how to see what is important in each episode to rescue the necessary information. That being said, I do agree with WitchDR that seeing Grogu and Din reunite for the first time with the purrgil scene doesn’t quite work for me either.

In that sense, I think that the way Grogu appears on the ship in the mandalorian’s ritual scene could work as a “revelation”, or you could still mix the purrgil scene with the final of TBOBF, which I think linked very well with Grogu’s decision in the third film. Maybe make some way that when the N1 goes into turbo mode at Grogu’s request it jumps into hyperspace and spins with the purrgil scene?

Otherwise I find it great! The first episode was almost a reminder of everything that came before with the strange addition of the IG-11 plot, it seems very appropriate to jump to the second almost directly.

Thanks for the feedback. I agree that the ritual scene makes for a better Grogu reveal, but ideally I’d like to cut the monster scene. Maybe a compromise would be a the reveal on Tatooine to Pelli. I’ll see how that works.

Current Project:- Ahsoka EP1: Heir to the Empire https://originaltrilogy.com/topic/Smudger9s-Ahsoka-Movie-Series-EP1-Heir-to-the-Empire-WIP/id/107396#1551872

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I definitely agree with the decisions you made so far about cutting stuff from the first two eps.

Regarding the whole Luke Skywalker / Grogu thing - wouldn’t be better maybe to end Ep III with a cliffhanger (Luke giving Grogu the choice) and then reveal the choice of Grogu in this one?

Or, alternatively - use all available Luke/Grogu/training scenes in Ep III to follow Grogu’s journey there, and then start Ep IV with Mando arriving on the planet and talking to Ahsoka and then cutting to Luke offering Grogu the choice?

It’s just that putting all the Luke/Grogu content as a prologue in this movie feels a little bit off to me, but on the other hand, we ll see what this season has to offer yet 😄

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Shouldn’t we have at least them at Nevarro talking about what happened to Cara? I feel like that’s kinda important after spending so much time with her on the first two seasons.

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PsyGemini said:

Shouldn’t we have at least them at Nevarro talking about what happened to Cara? I feel like that’s kinda important after spending so much time with her on the first two seasons.

It’s a massive impact on the running time to include that whole sequence just to explain where a secondary character is. Plus if the sequence isn’t included it doesn’t need explaining.

Current Project:- Ahsoka EP1: Heir to the Empire https://originaltrilogy.com/topic/Smudger9s-Ahsoka-Movie-Series-EP1-Heir-to-the-Empire-WIP/id/107396#1551872

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szopman said:

I definitely agree with the decisions you made so far about cutting stuff from the first two eps.

Regarding the whole Luke Skywalker / Grogu thing - wouldn’t be better maybe to end Ep III with a cliffhanger (Luke giving Grogu the choice) and then reveal the choice of Grogu in this one?

Or, alternatively - use all available Luke/Grogu/training scenes in Ep III to follow Grogu’s journey there, and then start Ep IV with Mando arriving on the planet and talking to Ahsoka and then cutting to Luke offering Grogu the choice?

It’s just that putting all the Luke/Grogu content as a prologue in this movie feels a little bit off to me, but on the other hand, we ll see what this season has to offer yet 😄

Totally agree. The Grogu/Luke scenes felt a bit out of place as the beginning of the movie for me too, looking like it doesn’t belong there. Particularly I think that these scenes look better as the ending of the movie 3. The emotional punch of this moment works better with it being the ending of a movie than a start.

But, if you prefer these grogu/luke scenes to be part of movie 4, maybe you could consider edit them to be more faster paced. That scene of the robots constructing the temple for example. As important as it is for the lore, it doesn’t seem important for the story of Mando and dragged a lot the beginning of the movie. It’s an ok scene for an episode of a series, but feel too much as a deleted scene of a movie. The same goes for the rest, if it doesn’t serve the actual story you are trying to tell, even if there are cool moments in these Luke/Ahsoka/Mando/Grogu interactions, then maybe it could be better to cut out the fat for a better start.

The faster you make Grogu going back to Mando, the faster you could start the real story of movie 4 and throw away once and for all that plot point of “Grogu being separated from Mando” that didn’t go to anywhere in the show, in the end.

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What the f*ck was today episode… 40min less that you could include in your edit. Such a waste of time…

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Sirius said:

What the f*ck was today episode… 40min less that you could include in your edit. Such a waste of time…

I enjoyed it. It’s (finally) connecting larger dots from not only the past seasons of Mando, but the larger SW universe. It may be a ‘meanwhile…’ for Din’s current story but I’m glad they’re actually doing this somewhere and not leaving it for some novel down the line to work things out. Does it need to be in a more concise Mando edit? Possibly not (time will time as ever). Am I happy it exists? Yep.

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Spread that Pershing stuff throughout the 1st two episodes, would make Mando zipping from world to world feel less like a taxi service and would give the Pershing storyline room to breathe.

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Well, I think this episode can help the film feel much more choral (I was thinking it could give it some Rogue One vibes) if, as some say, you alternate parts of Pershing’s plot between those of Din and Bo-Katan. I admit that I was watching the chapter and thinking about your edits.

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Warhorn said:

Well, I think this episode can help the film feel much more choral (I was thinking it could give it some Rogue One vibes) if, as some say, you alternate parts of Pershing’s plot between those of Din and Bo-Katan. I admit that I was watching the chapter and thinking about your edits.

Ahaha same here, I was watching and wondering how smudger will edit it 😄

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szopman said:

Warhorn said:

Well, I think this episode can help the film feel much more choral (I was thinking it could give it some Rogue One vibes) if, as some say, you alternate parts of Pershing’s plot between those of Din and Bo-Katan. I admit that I was watching the chapter and thinking about your edits.

Ahaha same here, I was watching and wondering how smudger will edit it 😄

I guess it all depends on how this plot plays out. It could all be very crucial or it could be mostly edited out. I think this season is going to be very difficult to edit until we’ve got all of the material.

Current Project:- Ahsoka EP1: Heir to the Empire https://originaltrilogy.com/topic/Smudger9s-Ahsoka-Movie-Series-EP1-Heir-to-the-Empire-WIP/id/107396#1551872

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I think the Pershing storyline could be used to space out the Grogu training/rejoining Mando arc in a Boba Fett free edit that bridges season two with the main body of season three, kind of a part 2.5. So basically the Mando centric parts of the book of Boba Fett combined with the early episodes of season three, albeit with some restructuring. I’m going to die on the hill of wishing for a way to watch the Mando saga free from the pollution of the Book of Boba Fett drivel lol

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Assuming that the Dr Pershing stuff is important going forward, I think that it would have been served better spread across the first three episodes. Granted, I would have probably viewed it as an annoying interruption to the Mando story, but it would have filled out the space between those events snd given the impression that Pershing’s story was taking more than a couple of days to build and resolve.

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This is shaping up to be one of the easiest of the movie edits thus far. Every episode feels about 15 to 20 minutes longer than they need to be. Probably only about an hour or so of content that needs to be kept out of all four of these episodes combined.

Honestly, having the beginning be the Luke centric BOBF content like you have it now, might end up helping it get to a reasonable runtime lol.

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Yeah, the way this season is going, we could end up with a half an hour EP4 and still be some filler left…

But we still have the entire latter half of the season, we never know what might be coming up next.

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I feel like seasons 1-2 worked well in both series and movie format. Book of Boba Fett not so much as a series. Now this disjointed season may push the entire thing over into the “best viewed as a series of films” category.

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Since discovering your Mandalorian edits, I have begun experimenting with my own versions of Mandalorian films, adopting elements of your edits.
It’s nothing special or extremely different from your versions, just the movies I want to watch again upon rewatches.

With the release of Season 3, I was also looking for ways to incorporate all of the Mando stuff from The Book of Boba Fett into the third instalment of my Mandalorian film series.
And I think I have found a good way to introduce Mando’s quest in the mines of Mandalore by combining the scene in the Mandalorian hideout from BOBF with the dialogue from the Armorer’s cave, while also setting up his visit to Grogu.
The audio needs some more work, but here is a sample:

https://streamable.com/4ue7oa

I do not know if it fits your plans, but I’ll definitely use it for mine.

Stranger Things Film Collection

Foundation Film Collection

His Dark Materials Film Collection

Penny Dreadful Film Collection

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ThanosM. said:

Since discovering your Mandalorian edits, I have begun experimenting with my own versions of Mandalorian films, adopting elements of your edits.
It’s nothing special or extremely different from your versions, just the movies I want to watch again upon rewatches.

With the release of Season 3, I was also looking for ways to incorporate all of the Mando stuff from The Book of Boba Fett into the third instalment of my Mandalorian film series.
And I think I have found a good way to introduce Mando’s quest in the mines of Mandalore by combining the scene in the Mandalorian hideout from BOBF with the dialogue from the Armorer’s cave, while also setting up his visit to Grogu.
The audio needs some more work, but here is a sample:

https://streamable.com/4ue7oa

I do not know if it fits your plans, but I’ll definitely use it for mine.

That works really well. A simple change but very effective. It acts a very good signpost for his journey. Having decided to cut Mando’s first appearance on the covert planet, I’ll utilise a similar change to make it seamless.

Current Project:- Ahsoka EP1: Heir to the Empire https://originaltrilogy.com/topic/Smudger9s-Ahsoka-Movie-Series-EP1-Heir-to-the-Empire-WIP/id/107396#1551872

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I can’t believe how random and disjointed this season feels. Coupled with the fact that I’m contemplating moving elements from BOBF, I’m probably going to pause any active editing at this point. I suspect I’m going to have to work “back to front” on this instalment so it makes sense to wait until the season is complete. There is a huge amount of footage that I’d like to cut but you never know whether it will end up being essential until everything has played out, especially when Filoni is involved (I love Dave BTW).

In terms of this latest episode I really want to remove the whole Terradactyl scene but now they have the babies, it probably makes it impossible. The sequence certainly needs to be edited down to a minimum.

I hope the second half of the season is more structured. So far I’m sensing a huge amount of editing will be required to pull this all together… At least I’ve completed my Andor edits to clear the way…

Current Project:- Ahsoka EP1: Heir to the Empire https://originaltrilogy.com/topic/Smudger9s-Ahsoka-Movie-Series-EP1-Heir-to-the-Empire-WIP/id/107396#1551872

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For now, this season seems to be focused on Bo Katan’s journey, with Mando and Grogu being treated a bit like supporting characters at this point.

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The problem with this season is that we have 4 episodes and for now it doesn’t seem to be about anything in particular. The introductory approach was fixed in the second episode, they have dedicated an entire (and quite long) chapter to asserting that Gideon is coming back and now we have a main character with no firm motivations and Bo-Katan, who does seem to be more restless, completely stopped in the plot without being able to convert them into an active agent. Grogu seems to have a more active role in the plot, but he doesn’t feel any evolution and the flashback is basically the same information that Ahsoka told us in the second season. We know that the plot of the pirates in Nevarro still lies ahead, which also seems secondary in any way, and we have seen a large squad of Ties that “cannot be from an imperial warlord”. A thousand chips thrown into the air and nothing picked up.

In order to translate this into a film, I agree that things will have to be reconsidered and it is difficult to propose it from now on compared to the two previous ones, which, even with very different developments, had a much better focused dramatic axis. Let’s hope that the remaining four make it clearer to us, but for now Favreau’s writing is seeming quite erratic and dysfunctional to me beyond the fact that there are things that I am quite liking.