- Time
- (Edited)
- Post link
[Updated on 15/05/2024]
A project I’ve definitely been looking forward to, and I’m glad to finally get it all done.
Like my project of ‘Tales of the Jedi’ from 2022, I’ve organised the 6 episodes into a two-episode structure, self-contained to each respective character, giving both a longer length and more straightforward story. Also, I’ve taken the liberty of annotating each of the 6 time periods by year, anchoring the story further – as I also did with ToTJ before.
.
.
.
“Barriss: The Wrong Path”
.
The episodes ‘Devoted’, ‘Realization’ and ‘The Way Out’ all stitched together. Truthfully, when I first read the season’s episode titles, I was a little surprised and confused. The episode titles for Morgan Elsbeth felt like they were much more appropriate for Barriss and her story instead – that and her deep involvement in the “Wrong Jedi” arc in The Clone Wars season 5 made it an easy title to come up with.
.
‘Devoted’ takes place around the fall of The Jedi and Order 66, making it BBY-19. ‘Realization’ takes place in an unclear time, but in the trend of why I planted the last Elsbeth episode where I did year-wise, 7 years again could work. Therefore, having it in BBY-12, 7 years after Order 66, would be viable (not like there’s anything there at the moment anyway). Lastly, ‘The Way Out’ has to be between the Obi-Wan series in BBY-9 and the time the Inquisitors are dissolved and redundant as a result of their own success in around BBY-0 or so. Continuing the trend of 7’s, sticking it at BBY-7 to mirror the second Morgan episode fits well enough to work.
.
.
.
“Elsbeth: The Iron Fist”
.
The episodes “The Path of Fear”, “TPo Anger” and “TPo Hate” knitted in the correct timeline sequence. The name has different meanings in each of the Elsbeth episodes, so it works well. In “Fear”, it’s pretty literal in the sense of General Grievous himself, in “Anger” it refers to The Empire itself which Morgan now joins properly in an official partnership with Admiral Thrawn, and in “Hate” it’s related to Elsbeth’s grip on Corvus, and how the system suffers under her rule.
.
“Fear” takes place during the Battle of Dathomir in the Clone Wars (season 4, episode 19) so finding out that was BBY-20 was easy. “Anger” was a little tricky because of the Venators above Coruscant, but that and the Imperial Star Destroyer makes it around or following the end of ‘The Bad Batch’ season 3 at least. But Thrawn was first promoted to Admiral in BBY 3 after the Battle at Lasend Twenty-Six in the canon comic ‘Thrawn 4’ – and he only just becomes a Grand Admiral right before “Rebels” season 3 starts in BBY-2, so putting the episode in BBY-3 works. Also, Venators were still canonically in service by BBY-2 under Admiral Ahr in the ‘Age of Rebellion – Darth Vader 1’ comic from 2019, so that all checks out fine. Lastly, the episode “Hate” happens between the Battle of Jakku in ABY-5 and the arrival of Din Djarin in ABY- 9 – I haven’t put anything in ABY-7 yet in any of my relevant projects like ‘The Book of Boba Fett’ and the epilogue of ‘Rebels’, so why not just put it there by proxy?
.
.
.
“Special: The Stark Mirror”
.
I came up with a crossover episode blending the Barriss episode “Devoted” and the Ahsoka episode “Resolve” into one story that pendulum swings between both characters, hopefully to good effect. I had this idea more or less as soon as they announced the series and that Barriss was going to be one of the central characters, especially around the time of the Fall of The Republic, like ‘Resolve’ years prior.
.
Since these two characters were friends, to the point of working closely together in the past to mutual goals, seeing them juxtaposed like this and the contrast between them that creates an interesting story. In both cases, you see the young woman starting in a low place amidst the chaos of the new regime change, going through her own trials of sorts (socially, fighting, possible discovery and moral crises). All before seemingly accepting her new destiny – at least for the time being: the agent and the fugitive – or, more precisely and aptly: the hunter and the hunted.
.
.
.
Now, after this I admit I got a little carried away. Specifically I put the Morgan Elsbeth portion of the Battle of Dathomir into the Clone Wars episode “Massacre” and my own arc project “Darth Maul returns” – simply just to add depth to that story, and connect that older one to this newer one.
If you like it and see the point of it, great – if not, no foul, I did really just do it for the sake of doing it for the most part.
.
.
.
Update 1: Mid-May
I checked my uploads and realised the title card for the crossover special was the one for the Barriss arc, so I promptly changed, re-exported and re-uploaded that so it’s fixed now. Also, to clear up a detail I forgot to mention; the crossover is framed as a ‘Jedi’ story, not an ‘Empire’ story, because it focusses 2 former Jedi finding their feet in the new regime – on opposite ends of the spectrum. Also the fact they were both friends when they were Jedi padawans in the Clone Wars too has a big impact.
Secondly, I noticed that I didn’t upload the shorter version of Barriss’s arc that accommodates the first story being inside the crossover episode, so I promptly uploaded that too.
.
.
.
Update 2: Early June
I looked back on the special crossover episode. While I did do it initially with the story focus swinging back and forth between the two characters of Ahsoka and Barriss, I found when rewatching it properly that that method doesn’t always keep the pacing of each story and focus on each main character as well-tuned as I hoped it would when I was first doing the project, so I created a second version. This time, it begins like before: starting off with Barriss in Prison before segueing to Ahsoka on Naboo – then comes the title card – then comes all of Barriss’ story on Nur in one go with the Grand Inquisitor, Marrok and Vader – then all of Ahsoka’s story on the farm, culminating with the inflatable Grim Reaper-esque Inquisitor from Barriss’ story finding her (and failing dismally).
I think this one works well in its own right as well as the first draft: keeping everything self-contained means the stories stand together in their own ways side by side, and in a way that’s a little more straightforward on both ends, as there are no interruptions in a story you’re otherwise familiar with this time.
Me being me, I did keep the original there in the same online folder, and clearly labelled the updated version – so if you prefer the original, you can still keep it – if you prefer the new version, you can replace it with that instead – it’s all good either way. I’ve also changed the names of some of the things in the ‘Tales’ folder I have – now the specials are grouped together more neatly: The shortened version of Dooku’s TotJ story is Special 1a, while the cut of ‘The Phantom Menace’ with the last Dooku episode is listed as Special 1b for example.
.
.
.
.
Footnote: I am merely a self-taught editor and VFX artist here, so some areas might be visibly mostly good, as I have to be realistic with the footage in front of me and what I can do with it. If you do have any particular notes and feedback, feel free to give me your thoughts, but please be constructive and don’t be an ass about it.
