Got sidetracked into tinkering with this and I have an overall working structure, but 1 problem.
General structure:
The episodes plays out as normal. When Echo gets hit with the food tray, we have a little flashback to the Clone Wars Citadel Rescue (Both scenes have an “Echo, look out!” which is a nice bridge), which abruptly cuts off and shows Echo being freed in the S7 Episode of CW. (Which bridges nicely into him not wanting to be plugged into machines when he wakes up.
The big change comes into play once Crosshairs chip gets amplified. Since I want to skip most of season 1, I use this amplification process as the reason for the scar on his head. Which works nicely. Tech already mentions that the chips do not seem to have an effect on them (except maybe Crosshair), so that whole story arc of removing the chips is not needed. It even will make Crosshairs turn later on even more meaningful, since he has to overcome the chip, which in this version will still be there and active. Also, having the scar there as a symbol of the empires control over him is more interesting to me than it just being a random wound.
After the Batch escapes (i cut off the conversation at “I know someone who can help us” - Implying it is Rex they are talking about), I jump directly to the end of the season, showing the young Clones getting deported and the contract with Kamino getting canceled and the Leadership of Kamino planning a secret departure. The talk in the Hangar between Crosshair and Rampart talking about their plan for the Kaminoans follows.
After that, I show the Batch meeting up with Rex (No Sid), to finish off their journey and paying off the setup of Rex in the Flashback earlier.
Following this I go into the Prime Minister of Kamino being disposed off and the destruction of Kamino, with the Bad Batch not being present for this. Episode ends with the first tease of Tantiss.
It all kinda works. In this cut, the Empire comes to Kamino to identify the valuable assets worth extracting and once that is done, destroys the city. Pretty ruthless and just feels like a well oiled, fast moving evil machine.
There is one scene that poses a problem though: The moment the batch escapes and Crosshair comes to stop them. For my idea to work, he needs to have his scar here already. I tried to cut out the parts where his helmet is off, but that just did not flow very well. I now tried to work in a shot from the scene in the training room of the finale, adjusting the background and color a bit so it fits better. And this works better, but since in that scene an alarm goes off, we have crosshair looking left and right in surprise. Tried to play that in turn off by being caused by blasterfire of his mates, but it does not quite feel right. Preview clip here, no work into the sound done yet. Need to figure out the path first.
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1OJLsmGyBdCyHPqDT_4__oC7UXx1K5pEc
Currently I am struggling to find a better idea for this, and with this i am not really happy.
SO DOES ANYONE HAVE AN IDEA? 😃
Oh, btw. I also intercut this with Tales of the Empire, which really amplifies the themes of the episodes, but that is beside the point for the time being.