Smudger9's Ahsoka Movie Series: EP1 Heir to the Empire [WIP]

I’m enjoying the show but yes, I definitely think there can be a better/tighter version.

Smudger9, did you maybe consider combining Ahsoka and “The Mandalorian” into one film series?

It seems eventually all those shows will lead to one big crossover event - Dave Filoni’s movie.

Plus, Ahsoka already appeared in your previous “Mando” films and Thrawn’s return was hinted there before.

So, if you made them all just “Star Wars” films, this one would just be a continuation of some storylines that started in the previous stories.

Please cut the stab wound somehow. Tired of Qui-Gon death having less and less impact.

“very much like young Kirk’s intro in ST09”

That’s because it’s the same thing. It’s blatantly copying the same scene.

There’s a typo in your crawl. It should be trail.

Also could you consider a new title? Heir to the empire only makes one compare it to the Zahn trilogy.

The whole map thing also sounds like the sequel fetch quests again too, find the damn map that tells us what to do next blablsbla

smudger9 said:

So we’re 3 episodes in and this series is ripe for a Movie edit. It has more of a Star Wars theatrical feel about it than the previous TV shows and feels like a sequel to the OT thanks to the New Republic world building.

Filoni suggested in interviews that the series would have one linear plot with no side quests and that is certainly how it’s playing out. As a result this season may need 2 movies to cover it.

So here are my thoughts on the first 2 episodes.

1. This is screaming out for a classical Star Wars crawl using an abridged version of the crawl from the show leading into the opening scene which feels very TPM (I love the opening of TPM!).
2. There isn’t a huge amount that can actually be cut because each scene is crucial to the plot. I was hoping to cut the whole Correlia sequence but there is a lot of crucial exposition in Episode 3 that references it. I’ve cut the Lothal celebration ceremony which makes for a far better introduction to Sabine - very much like young Kirk’s intro in ST09.
3. Quite a few scenes can be slightly trimmed to help speed up the pacing, remove the odd bit of cringey dialogue and try to make Ahsoka less monotone.
4. There are too many transition wipes - I love a good transition wipe but only to represent the passage of time. Some of the scene transitions are far better without them.

My current cut of the first 2 episodes is 81 minutes from 87 minutes of footage, so not much of a trim… yet! I’m not sure about a title yet. A Threat from Beyond is one I’m toying with, but for now I’ll go with “Heir to the Empire”.

Here is the opening sequence. I’m really keen to hear people’s thoughts on the series now and as it progresses. I’ve watched Episode 3 and was less happy with it, there are quite a few cuts I’d like to make. Sadly Ahsoka’s outfit change means I’ll probably have to keep the Clone Wars-style space walk, which I didn’t like.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1OnELfvXkANNCjv7flpBOrGnhu_iwP_ci

I definitely hope we can end up cutting more. I’ve went through all three episodes countless times in Vegas, just trying to find ways to remove large chunks out of it, but just keep coming up short. Only really being able to trim scenes, instead of completely removing them.

I think these 3 episodes only really have about 45 minutes worth of good content in total, but it’d require some absolute radical editing and ideas to get it there.

Here’s some of the stupid things that could hopefully be tackled:

• The New Republic captain allowing Baylan and Shin to enter the ship, knowing they are lying about being Jedi

Maybe we could start this scene in the middle of the fight instead? Skip the whole boarding part all together. We could try something like this: https://vimeo.com/manage/videos/859635415
I feel like adding the alarm sound just helps bridge the scenes together. We would have to recolor the cock pit in the ship establishing shot, since it isn’t lit up red.

• Sabine taking the map to her place, just so the bad guys can easily get the map

Probably can’t be fixed.

• Sabine being stabbed by Shin, only to be completely fine in the next episode like it never happened

Probably can’t be fixed.

• One of the assassin droids staying behind at Sabine’s just so they have a new clue to where they need to go

What if we made the droid Sabine beat, the one they take the head off of instead?

• Shin and the other pilots shooting at Ahsoka on the wing instead of just shooting her downed ship

Like you said, the whole Clone Wars-esque Ahsoka space walk scene can’t be removed.

And I agree with you on the awful pacing of scenes. I think almost every single scene needs some level of trimming. So many scenes drag on far too long. Too many shots of characters just standing and staring at each other, or showing us each character walking to every spot they need to be at in the following scene.

I really would love if the community could brainstorm some radical ideas for this, cause I think there’s something really great here unlike most of the live action shows. But it just needs a lot of work to get there.

Maybe going from a reworded crawl straight to the Corellia scene as an opener could be a radical approach? The crawl can have the ‘Rebels gang’ of Ahsoka, Sabine and Hera together and unified from the off, and investigating suspicious Imperial activity at the shipyards. The encounter with the Sith and the tracker on the engine part then leads them on into the rest of the plot.

That would do away with all the tedious (and unnecessary) scenes of Ahsoka and Sabine being estranged, and do away with the silly Rubiks cube map.

If you’re looking to cut a big sizable chunk off the run time to make the series movie length then that could work?

She obviously appears more wounded than she should be, but it may be the best that can be done. You’d also need to remove the hole in her shirt on her back.

I think it’s a far better solution than leaving the stab in though.

Not in front of the episode but could the space walk be cut by going from Shin saying “almost got them” to Morgan when they’ve lost sight of them, straight to them landing on the planet like they used the chance to slip away?

smudger9 said:

szopman said:

Smudger9, did you maybe consider combining Ahsoka and “The Mandalorian” into one film series?

It seems eventually all those shows will lead to one big crossover event - Dave Filoni’s movie.

Plus, Ahsoka already appeared in your previous “Mando” films and Thrawn’s return was hinted there before.

So, if you made them all just “Star Wars” films, this one would just be a continuation of some storylines that started in the previous stories.

Absolutely. Lucasfilm updated their Eras timeline this week so I’ll probably go with “The New Republic” as the logo for these. I’ll wait for the end of the Ahsoka series before committing to this and I’ll also need to tinker with my Mando S2 to include the now essential Ahsoka/Morgan confrontation.

EP1: Mando S1
EP2: Mando S2
EP3: Ahsoka S1 P1
EP4: Ahsoka S2 P2
EP5: BOBF
EP6: Mando S3

EP1: Mando S1
EP2: Mando S2
EP3: Ahsoka S1 P1
EP4: Ahsoka S2 P2
EP5: BOBF
EP6: Mando S3

I just watched the Mando movie, great work, I am really looking forward to this edit too, I think none of us would mind if episode two is longer to include more of Ahsoka. Also I personally have no issue with Sabine surviving her wound.

smudger9 said:

I’ve watched it back a few times and it now feels like Sabine has more of an emotional collapse as she sees help arriving. Shin still clearly wins the duel, so that plot point is retained.
It seems to work and I’ll edit out references to the lightsaber injury in the medical bay.

When you put it that way, I think that is a satisfactory work around. You did good on removing all the references. But there’s still the shot right before she collapses, where you can see Sabine has a hole on her back from where the saber went straight through her.

I tried masking out the wound and sent you the clip via PM if you want to use it.

Really looking forward to seeing how this looks after your other edits! I think it’s the series that most lends itself to becoming a “classic” Star Wars movie with all its mannerisms, and at the same time there are quite a few things that can improve the result. I’m quite liking Ahsoka, but like almost everything, I think I’d like it better in a movie format.

smudger9 said:

szopman said:

Smudger9, did you maybe consider combining Ahsoka and “The Mandalorian” into one film series?

It seems eventually all those shows will lead to one big crossover event - Dave Filoni’s movie.

Plus, Ahsoka already appeared in your previous “Mando” films and Thrawn’s return was hinted there before.

So, if you made them all just “Star Wars” films, this one would just be a continuation of some storylines that started in the previous stories.

Absolutely. Lucasfilm updated their Eras timeline this week so I’ll probably go with “The New Republic” as the logo for these. I’ll wait for the end of the Ahsoka series before committing to this and I’ll also need to tinker with my Mando S2 to include the now essential Ahsoka/Morgan confrontation.

EP1: Mando S1
EP2: Mando S2
EP3: Ahsoka S1 P1
EP4: Ahsoka S2 P2
EP5: BOBF
EP6: Mando S3

EP1: Mando S1
EP2: Mando S2
EP3: Ahsoka S1 P1
EP4: Ahsoka S2 P2
EP5: BOBF
EP6: Mando S3

Did you consider maybe intercutting Ahsoka with TBOBF and Mando s03 to have one coherent story with the same protagonists?
If I remember correctly, you weren’t 100% happy with the Mando/Ahsoka/Luke stuff being the last act of your third Mando movie.

Maybe you could make it the beginning of the -let’s call it-movie4? We have there Ahsoka and Mando meeting, Mando and Grogu reunion and from there, both protagonists, Ahsoka and Mando go their way and in both storylines, the return of Thrawn is heavily mentioned. And in both storylines we have Carson as a recurring character. So maybe it would make sense to make it two movies with Ahsoka and Mando stories intercutting (like the one you did with Boba and Mando) with the big finale being probably the return of the admiral Thrawn.

Or just add the Luke/Ahsoka/Mando part to the movie 4, as a prologue, and then add some scenes from the first episope of “Ahsoka” to your movie edit of Mando s03. You could even end it with a nice cliffhanger, of Baylon and Shin rescuing Morgan and then the next movie could be Ahsoka-centered.

szopman said:

smudger9 said:

szopman said:

Smudger9, did you maybe consider combining Ahsoka and “The Mandalorian” into one film series?

It seems eventually all those shows will lead to one big crossover event - Dave Filoni’s movie.

Plus, Ahsoka already appeared in your previous “Mando” films and Thrawn’s return was hinted there before.

So, if you made them all just “Star Wars” films, this one would just be a continuation of some storylines that started in the previous stories.

Absolutely. Lucasfilm updated their Eras timeline this week so I’ll probably go with “The New Republic” as the logo for these. I’ll wait for the end of the Ahsoka series before committing to this and I’ll also need to tinker with my Mando S2 to include the now essential Ahsoka/Morgan confrontation.

EP1: Mando S1
EP2: Mando S2
EP3: Ahsoka S1 P1
EP4: Ahsoka S2 P2
EP5: BOBF
EP6: Mando S3

EP1: Mando S1
EP2: Mando S2
EP3: Ahsoka S1 P1
EP4: Ahsoka S2 P2
EP5: BOBF
EP6: Mando S3

Did you consider maybe intercutting Ahsoka with TBOBF and Mando s03 to have one coherent story with the same protagonists?
If I remember correctly, you weren’t 100% happy with the Mando/Ahsoka/Luke stuff being the last act of your third Mando movie.

Maybe you could make it the beginning of the -let’s call it-movie4? We have there Ahsoka and Mando meeting, Mando and Grogu reunion and from there, both protagonists, Ahsoka and Mando go their way and in both storylines, the return of Thrawn is heavily mentioned. And in both storylines we have Carson as a recurring character. So maybe it would make sense to make it two movies with Ahsoka and Mando stories intercutting (like the one you did with Boba and Mando) with the big finale being probably the return of the admiral Thrawn.

Or just add the Luke/Ahsoka/Mando part to the movie 4, as a prologue, and then add some scenes from the first episope of “Ahsoka” to your movie edit of Mando s03. You could even end it with a nice cliffhanger, of Baylon and Shin rescuing Morgan and then the next movie could be Ahsoka-centered.

I’m playing with that idea based on Smudger’s edits and I’ve been wanting to open a post about it for a while, but first I wanted to do something really solid. The question is that for now this idea of ​​interconnecting the two stories would only work in a film, because it seems strange to me to make films of two timelines that have nothing to do with each other. But it’s a matter of trying, maybe Smudger will come up with something.

Ahsoka really only has two broad problems. First, the pacing of the first three episodes needs to be tightened up considerably. I swear so many user reviews I’ve read say the long pauses and slow, monotonous dialogue put them right to sleep. Second, like all Disney SW content, too much of the plot seems overly contrived. Sometimes that can be mitigated, sometimes it can’t.

On another note, Episode 4 was surprisingly strong and well-paced. There’s very little I’d change there.