Okay, it took me a few months, but I finally finished Rebels Recut, and I have to give serious props to g00b. A fanedit this intricate spread out over this many hours of content must take ages to work on. A great deal of care and effort was clearly taken in slimming episodes down to highlight their best qualities, and cut out as much fluff as possible.
The pace and flow of dialogue is generally improved throughout the entire show too. Not to mention some great amendments to the story, like keeping Kallus’s extermination of the Lasat canon. As well as some subtle edits like the additional voices in the World Between Worlds. I especially love some of the changes to the music throughout the edit.
With that being said, I’m putting these thoughts together after watching through everything, but I’ll do my best to remember at least some helpful notes or critiques that stood out to me.
Thanks! Any and all feedback is welcomed!!!
The first of which would be that I really think Kallus kicking that Stormtrooper to his death should be removed from the first episode. It makes his character arc hard to take seriously when he’s at first shown being so cartoonishly evil towards those around him, only to later have his heel-turn start when he feels like the people around him are too callous. Like, dude, that’s not an Empire problem, that’s a you kicking people who annoy you to their death problem.
The main problem with cutting this scene is that if it’s gone you don’t see that Kallus survives… Which I think is a slightly bigger problem then him killing a stormtrooper. You’re absolutely correct though, I don’t think they ever planned out Kallus properly. If I ever come up with a way to resolve this I’ll implement it though!
Second would be during A Message to Lothal. The way Kanan mentions having met Bail Organa once before is so offhand that it feels like a reference to something we were meant to see. I feel like this line should be cut around if it’s possible.
I personally treated this like how the crew knows Lando. They’ve encountered each other in some past mission somewhere. I did initially try to cut this moment but it broke the flow of everything too much. In the original show they do meet once at the end of droids in distress… and to be honest that was such a non episode Kanan’s reaction in the original show still doesn’t make sense. I’ll be having another pass at this episode soon enough so I’ll see what I can do with this moment in particular!
The next big thing that stood out to me was the episode with The Purrgil. The dialogue in the first half of that episode is really noticeably cut to the point where it feels pretty unnatural. I assume this was done in an effort to tone down Hera’s hatred for an entire species of wild animal, but I think too much was stripped away, and it’s left feeling very awkward as a result.
Was this in the 4.1 version of the episode? If so, I will be giving the episode another pass and I’ll fix any jarring cuts or weird dialogue.
Another big thing I want to note is that, in Twilight of the Apprentice, while it’s a really cool idea to turn Malachor into Malachor V, some stuff just doesn’t work. The planet shots look janky and out of place, and the new voice for the Holocron sounds noticeably off. I think there should at least be alternate versions of this episode, (and the first episode of Season 3,) that remove these changes. I also think having Ahsoka return Anakin’s eye color to blue is a cool visual effect, but not something that really fits the lore or the character.
UNFORTUNATELY, I completely messed up the audio in this episode. All my 5.1 channels turned into mono channels coming through each speaker… Why? I don’t know. Don’t worry though, I will be revisiting this episode. I’ll be redoing all the audio work, all the visual work and potentially making more cuts and changes. So I will address all of these points in a future release.
Lastly, Ketsu Onyo comes completely out of nowhere in Season 4. Her design is a bit too unique and her actions a bit too helpful for her to seem like a background character, so not ever being formally introduced to her feels very awkward and makes it clear that something is missing.
She does a bit… Honestly I just really dislike her character and her episodes. I’ve made some efforts to try to counteract this sudden inclusion. She actually first appears in S02E11 - A New Base of my edit. She’s referenced by name in the opening crawl and seen fighting along side the crew. I don’t think you see her face though, which could be part of the problem.
In any case, for anyone who’s a fan of Rebels, this is probably the best way to experience the show. For me, personally, Rebels is fine, but nothing too great, so even a relatively condensed 18+ hours of it is a lot to sit through. As it stands, however, any edit you’ll find of Rebels that’s shorter than this cuts a lot of pertinent information from the show.
Thanks!
Personally, I still think the best edit for this show sits somewhere around 12 hours, waiting to be made. My fingers are crossed that g00b’s movie edits might manage to trim the series down just a little bit more and approach that length. Until then, however, Rebels Recut is the best edit I’ve seen of this show so far, and a testament to g00b’s editing skills.
I’m hoping once I’ve got everything polished and working, someone can come around and shorten everything I’ve already done!