Here’s a video clip including both edits.
I got around the Greef situation by just cutting more. It’s not implicit that Greef is meeting Mando a long journey away from the city, so we don’t need travel scenes. Greef begins with his bodyguards, which is sensible even with this interpretation, since they did leave each other on bad terms. That’s the purpose they serve here, then we don’t need to see them again. Then I flipped the scenes so that Greef asks to see Grogu first - and the tension dissipating there as we see that he also genuinely cares for Grogu is what sells us on the fact that they’re now not going to get into conflict. Greef just seems legitimate. Then they talk about the situation a little, but Mando just says “I have a plan.” (I know you like it when we just get straight into the plan, rather than explaining it first!) We then have a quick montage, then just cut straight to Greef escorting Mando to the Imperials - if we notice Greef’s injury, we can assume he faked it to make it look like his capture of Mando was legit. A smooth musical transition helps sell this all too.
For the second scene, “You just got your bell rung, you’ll be alright” is a legitimate statement, rather than Cara being actually worried about his mortality. The flamer then immediately attacks, so we don’t waste any time with them forcing an emotional scene. Grogu works his magic, and IG opens the grate then picks up Grogu. Again the music then carries us to the scene of Mando walking - we don’t need a wipe. Mando updates them on the situation as he’s struggling, then he stops and tells them he can stand. He’s now OK, and has recovered from essentially just a temporarily disorienting knock to the head.
I don’t massively feel like that’s the turning point for him not hating droids - I always felt like that was more of an odd prejudice (plus IG is an assassin droid) that he just gradually gets over.
Interesting, that’s a solid edit and your cuts do work well enough that the concept could work. However, my next concern is that if I do end up altering the ending anyways, we are already looking at a 1 hour 57 minute runtime. Cutting out so much more would be pushing this film too far into the shorter end and I really don’t feel like it slows down too badly anywhere as is. If I were running long, I would definitely feel stronger about cutting there, but the runtime is spot on where I like it and it’s not like those scenes are necessarily bad.
Not so! This is from your book 2, which clocks in longer than the rest at 2:15. So it’s not massively longer, but I do think that both of those scenes hurt the pacing in an already oddly slowly paced finale.
Oh! You’re right, I’m mixing up my own films now. Yes, actually that Book 2 did drag on some so I am back in favor of shortening those scenes. Also, I think we discussed in DMs once, but the Grogu healing thing is pretty wack. I was willing to give it a pass orginally just because it was Yoda’s species and they’re so shrouded in mystery and a unique connection to the force, but they never went any further into his healing ability throughout the next 2 seasons. I am pro-cutting that scene. It also lessens the impact of him blocking the fire later since it’s 2 miracles in 20 minutes.
I loved your book 5, so what you’re saying about it there sounds very exciting!
I’m bringing back the Hutts in a whole new way. I can’t yet write out how it’s all going to play out as I’m still rewriting the Hutt dialogue to tie into the story better, but I’ve got some crazy twists and turns planned. Boba’s reign is going to have a completely different tone. He will be pretty well established to start, and then it slowly starts to break down as the Pyke chaos begins to set in and we see a need for his reliance on the Mandalorians which is such a major theme of The Way of Mandalore. Again, his story will be interwoven with Din’s journey. What makes me the most sad is that it is such a shame that Boba was not in Mando Season 3 content at all. Hopefully we get a Book of Boba Season 2 for a Book 7/8 Way of Mandalore?