I’ve had a massively successful day, and it looks like this definitely works, so I’ll have it released very soon.
I’ve completed the work to move all of the scenes around to make all of the storylines work within contained movies, and I haven’t had to cut a single frame so far. I’ve cut one minor background line, and literally one redundant word from one line of dialogue, just to ensure I could use every shot and scene. I must have moved perhaps sixty scenes, but you’d never notice because it doesn’t interrupt the plot (generally cutaways just replace other cutaways). I avoided cutting particularly smooth transitions between unrelated scenes, to maintain as much of the show’s original flow as possible.
All I need to do now is spend time on the smoothing out the audio between shots, which has proven far easier than expected, since the scenes are usually so long that they have plenty of padding before dialogue and major SFX. There might be the odd difficult transition which necessitates minor trims, but I’ll keep them to an absolute minimum. I want this edit to be invisible, and keep absolutely as much of the original as possible.
I’ve managed to execute the full plan as outlined above:
- The first movie (1h40) is the first three episodes, just smoothed together. I didn’t touch the flashbacks since they’re well integrated into the story, and moving them would have been unnecessary and beyond the original vision.
- The second movie (2h) is the full Aldhani heist, with only very light rearranging to enable the smoothing. Luthen introduces the audience to Mon Mothma, and we follow her personal issues only (husband and daughter) up until the ending where we see how unsatisfied she is with how the Empire operates. Syril is only used in one scene to introduce us to Blevin, and we then follow Dedra’s story within the ISB and her conflict with Blevin in particular. We see no more of Syril, and none of Ferrix. I added two brief scenes from the orphaned episode seven into the ending, of Cinta seeing the Empire arrive on Aldhani, as part of this movie’s wrap-up scenes.
- The third movie (2h5m) contains a lot of restructuring. It begins in the immediate aftermath of Aldhani, showing the reactions of the ISB, Luthen, and Mon. Blevin establishes the Ferrix base, which sets up the tensions felt there by the locals and Maarva when Andor visits. The initial Dedra plot focuses just on the Imperial reaction to Aldhani (including increased prison sentences) which gets Andor captured fairly early. During this early period, Syril re-enters the story (having functionally skipped the last movie), arriving at Coruscant, meeting his mother, and getting the intelligence job. He comes to the attention of Dedra while Andor’s getting acquainted with Narkina 5. Then there’s a small time jump (Andor spends ‘30 shifts’ in prison), after which we follow Mon becoming more rebellious via her interactions with Tay Kolma and her cousin Vel. Near the end of the episode we find that Syril has been stalking Dedra, and the full prison escape plays out. We don’t see Andor making landfall, cutting instead from the water escape to the Death Star being built to close out the episode. This one took a HUGE amount of work to replace all the non-Narkina content that I’d moved to movie four (so that it wasn’t just a torrent of prison scenes in the second half), but it really works.
- The fourth movie (2h10m) also contains masses of restructuring. It begins with Maarva’s sickness, which kicks off many plots. Vel and Cinta meet on Ferrix and struggle to make their relationship work, but Vel leaves while Cinta stays to spy. Bek tries to contact Andor about his mother, which makes Luthen try to get Saw and Anto Kreegyr working together. Dedra has Bek captured, and tortures her for information on Andor and Kreegyr, while a frustrated Kleya meets Vel on Coruscant to put the kill order on Andor (so that threat overhangs his return). Tay Kolma sets Mon Mothma up with Davos, and we follow the ‘pimp my daughter’ storyline throughout. Dedra returns to Coruscant and continues to follow Andor and Kreegyr, and as she closes in on Kreegyr, Lonnie (the ISB spy) reports that to Luthen, prompting Luthen’s amazing monologue. He concludes that with “I need all the heroes I can get”, after which we finally smash-cut to Andor on the run on Narkina 5 (I might add TIE fighter SFX to this shot). Maarva dies, turning all eyes to Ferrix. Luthen and Saw agree to sell out Kreegyr, and the funeral occurs, drawing everything together into the season’s major conflict. Mon realises she’s in deep, and Andor convinces Luthen to hire him instead.
I’m really happy with this structure. Just gotta smooth it all out and we’ll be golden!