Well, after an excellent opening this season really did limp along with the finale being a bit of a disappointment. I really don’t think there is enough plot to warrant 2 films.
Spoilers Ahead
Omega’s M-count sub plot and faux Jedi training with Ventress went absolutely nowhere and Rex and his clones didn’t appear either, so most of the mid season is meaningless. Fennec, Bane, Ventress and the Teth arc aren’t needed at all.
It may be a challenge to bring this in under 3 hours, but the structure will be:
Act 1:
Omega and Crosshair escape and are reunited with Wrecker and Hunter.Act 2: Crosshair and the batch settle their differences. The Empire ambushed the Batch on Pabu and Omega sacrifices herself. The Batch free Rampart from the Imperial camp.
Act 3:
The Batch find a way to Tantiss and then the finale.I had already structured act 1 and it clocks in at just over 50mins. Act 2 is the narrative challenge but I’m almost there with that. Act 3 will be the challenge from a time point of view. The middle act has a lot of ground to cover, so will have to be faster paced than I would like. Annoyingly the return to the Outpost could be cut from a plot perspective, but it is crucial to the Batch mending their relationship with crosshair
I’ll get cracking tonight.
I disagree that the Ventress/faux-Jedi training was meaningless. It accomplished two important things. One plot wise, and one character wise.
With this long gestating possibility that Omega might be super Force sensitive because of her high M count, we needed an answer. The Jedi training gave us the first huge piece of the puzzle that no, a clone may have the high m count, but it doesn’t make them Force sensitive. So, that answered a pretty significant question. (And used the incredibly awesome Ventress to do so, which brings us to… )
You mention the batch mending their relationship with Crosshair, the use of Ventress was part of THIS arc. Ventress did awful, terrible things, yet she came there, she stayed behind to help Omega. She could have easily killed those three without breaking a sweat but she didn’t. Because she had changed. Just like… Crosshair. IOW, people can change, people can reform. And the three working together to protect Omega from someone bad, and then realizing together that she was a changed person was a huge step in the mending of their overall relationship.
I also found the finale really strong, and a great ending to the show. I still maintain that beginning an edit before a show/season is done is not always the way to go because a general framing starts building up of how it will play out. If the season/show goes in a different direction, there is inevitable disappointment. I don’t think that’s fair to the show. (Shrugs) that’s just my opinion, though. I know it’s become more the norm to do it this way. Anyway, I do think you’re a brilliant editor.
My frustration with the M-count/Ventress episode is that it didn’t have any resolution. Many of us speculated that clone force 99 would all die and Omega would end up with Ventress. That would have been a nice resolution. As it stands it’s a dead end, and one that I’m not sure needs exploring in this edit.
My aim with these edits is to create movies that comprise the key plot elements, allowing people to do a re-watch without having to rewatch the whole season.
Clearly this is going to result in some elements of the plot being lost, and the difficulty is often deciding what elements to keep and what to cut.
Including the Ventress material will push this season to 2 movies. So is the material important enough to warrant a whole other movie? My opinion is that it doesn’t, given that as it stands, that plot line doesn’t go anywhere. And for now I’d rather Ventress stays dead.