EddieDean said:

(RE)RELEASED - S03E08 - Dissent on Umbara (v2.0)

RELEASE VERSION, now brought up to my more polished v2.0 standard.

Our eighth episode of season three.

(Note the new ordering if you’ve been away from my edit for a while.)

Comprising the original episodes Darkness on Umbara, The General, Plan of Dissent, and Carnage of Krell.

Running 52 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.

A very popular episode, with gorgeous graphics and a good meaty shades-of-grey plot.

Noteworthy changes:

This episode is titled ‘Dissent on Umbara’, mainly because I wanted to preserve the name Umbara (as I’ve done with many of the most popular arcs) and, y’know, dissent.

Regarding placement, this originally aired around the middle of the show, and I’ve pushed it just a little more towards the ending. Mostly to balance the season, but also because it’s time to start refocusing on complicated clones, and it shows both Dooku and the Republic getting more desperate.

I use the opening text to emphasise the Republic’s limited supply of clones (thanks Padmé), and keep the Umbara plot clear.

Structurally, I’ve made quite a lot of trims - though I’d hope that the episode feels the way you remember it. The original arc had a lot of action, which looked gorgeous but really didn’t serve the plot, and watching it as four episodes I think it really drags and the pacing suffers. I’ve chopped a bunch to let the emotional core shine through, but with far tighter pacing, whilst still keeping this as a very action-heavy episode that showcases the gorgeous graphics. In particular I trimmed the combat-heavy opening where Anakin’s leading the clones, up till Krell takes over, and I only had Krell send the clones on one suicide mission (versus the walker tanks) rather than also in a straight line against the capital. All the meat, a quarter of the time.

But yes, for those of you who miss it, I will eventually release an extended version with all the combat back in.

I trimmed a little of the infiltration of the airbase as well as some of the surrounding combat and discussion.

After the clones take the airbase, I trimmed some of the discussion there, most notably removing the scene where they test and crash the aircraft, because it doesn’t change the status quo.

Throughout, I trimmed most of Krell’s more overtly villainous hatred of Clones, making it seem (at least early on) more like he’s just a hardliner with extreme tactics.

In the final episode, I preserved the majority of it, mainly just cutting down the hunt for Krell in the forest to remove his cartoonishly evil villain speech and to speed up his capture, while preserving a lot of his physical threat. I also slightly trimmed his jail dialogue to imply he’s already a Separatist rather than just doing this all on the hope he’ll get recognised. I think this all tightens up his character nicely, whilst keeping him ultimately the same.