Thanks Sade, I’ll give that a shot. I was planning on using (Dolby dynamic?) stereo as opposed to full 5.1 surround, but I confess I’m very ignorant of this problem space. If I can render to 5.1 without much hassle I’ll gladly do that. My home setup is only 2.1, or whatever a soundbar with subwoofer is, so I can’t test full surround, but I can still cut the rear like the front and pass it through.
After rewatching the first smudger9s TCW movie, I definitely think you should cut the first 38minutes (I think it kills the pacing and its not that relevant to the story itself).
The rest should stay because of the way smudger9 edited this story, connecting Christophis, saving master Koth and battle of Kamino, its just genius.
I think you could definitely drop the stealth ship, and you should cut the traitorous clone from a story this early in the series. The Eeth Koth content could go by quicker too. But I do admire what smudger did very much.
That said, I’m thinking about pairing Ahsoka’s intro with some other content which allows her to be more present in our first episode.
After rewatching the first smudger9s TCW movie, I definitely think you should cut the first 38minutes (I think it kills the pacing and its not that relevant to the story itself).
The rest should stay because of the way smudger9 edited this story, connecting Christophis, saving master Koth and battle of Kamino, its just genius.
Thanks Szopman. The Cat and Mouse portion can certainly be cut.
As for keeping the rest of it, it depends on the goal of the project. The first movie is the one where I took the most liberties with the timeline and as a result it doesn’t fit well with a continuity project.
One thing I had completed (but not released) before I lost my work was an edit of the Clone Wars movie. It is definitely possible to create a “de-snipped” 😉 version (I even rescored the “heavy rock” segments). There are some great moments in it like the whole Teth sequence and Dooku v Anakin.
The Kamino episodes can then be cut together for a single feature and placed in the timeline closer to where ARC troopers should be.
Current Project:- Bad Batch EP3: Shadows of Tantiss
Well, if you cut the rookies and admiral Trench boring episode, you can use some Ahsoka centered episode then, to intercut with the rest of the film after they go to save master Koth.
Though, I believe you can leave her behind in the first one and follow the smudger9s version. Now if you cut the unnecessary stuff, you have a 1h40min movie. It’s a good running time. Not too much, not too little, the pacing is good. And the job is done. Chronologically and story wise speaking, it does the job well then. We are introduced to Ahsoka as a new supporting protagonist, a cool addition to the protagonists of the previous movies. And now, she can start to be more and more prominent just to rise as a series star 😉 In my opinion, it makes sense to introduce her in this way to a viewer.
After rewatching the first smudger9s TCW movie, I definitely think you should cut the first 38minutes (I think it kills the pacing and its not that relevant to the story itself).
The rest should stay because of the way smudger9 edited this story, connecting Christophis, saving master Koth and battle of Kamino, its just genius.
Thanks Szopman. The Cat and Mouse portion can certainly be cut.
As for keeping the rest of it, it depends on the goal of the project. The first movie is the one where I took the most liberties with the timeline and as a result it doesn’t fit well with a continuity project.
One thing I had completed (but not released) before I lost my work was an edit of the Clone Wars movie. It is definitely possible to create a “de-snipped” 😉 version (I even rescored the “heavy rock” segments). There are some great moments in it like the whole Teth sequence and Dooku v Anakin.
The Kamino episodes can then be cut together for a single feature and placed in the timeline closer to where ARC troopers should be.
Nah, in general, your EI is 100 times better than the original movie. I rewatched it 3 times since 2015,and my only problem is actually this first 38min act. When you watch it for the first time, it’s boring but watchable (mostly because of your editing skills, not the eps itselves). But now, I wish there were a version with this thing skipped because it’s like having to watch Holiday Special before TESB 😀😀 even when I wanted to watch your edit with my gf (she never saw TCW or any SW animated stuff) she didn’t want to watch it after 50min,because she was so bored after the first act 🙈 which is a shame, because the rest is nice, interesting and perfectly edited, after minute 38, I actually enjoy the movie, wich I cannot tell about the original 2008 release.
Anyway, I think you improved in this particular aspect a lot as an editor, cause in the Mandalorian project you are not afraid to cut stuff if its better for the pacing and story itself. Sorry, just a bit of (constructive I believe) criticism from a fan of your edits 🖖🏼
Smudger, lovely to have you with us, your input is very welcome here! I think your first movie intercuts really nicely, which manages to permit the slightly compressed timeline. It definitely works.
I can’t imagine a version of the Huttlet crisis storyline that isn’t painful to watch, but maybe that’s a failure of imagination. I’m glad you mention rescoring though, because like Downfall/Duel of the Droids it does have that really awkward rock music that they experimented with early.
Szopman, I actually quite like both Cat and Mouse and Hidden Enemy, enough that I’ve thought about seeing if I can include them as a later “return to Christophsis” arc.
But I feel like you’re right that this project would prefer to trim them from our first episode (assuming I use some variant of Smudger’s), for pacing and to best help focus the audience on what will be our central character.
Smudger, lovely to have you with us, your input is very welcome here! I think your first movie intercuts really nicely, which manages to permit the slightly compressed timeline. It definitely works.
I can’t imagine a version of the Huttlet crisis storyline that isn’t painful to watch, but maybe that’s a failure of imagination. I’m glad you mention rescoring though, because like Downfall/Duel of the Droids it does have that really awkward rock music that they experimented with early.
Szopman, I actually quite like both Cat and Mouse and Hidden Enemy, enough that I’ve thought about seeing if I can include them as a later “return to Christophsis” arc.
But I feel like you’re right that this project would prefer to trim them from our first episode (assuming I use some variant of Smudger’s), for pacing and to best help focus the audience on what will be our central character.
Why not cut it into 2 entries then? 😀 Then you have one 40min episode introducing the better, more cinematic one 😀😁
In terms of length, yes, that’s absolutely up in the air. I’d like each episode of my cut to feel like a three-arc, focused narrative, however long that is. So as I pick up each individual arc to edit I’ll see where the emotional breakpoints are. This might result in, for example, presenting the Domino squad arc as just three original episodes.
I think that example is unlikely since they’re better together (you want to get from 99 in Clone Cadets back to 99 in ARC Troopers quickly because that is one of our best early ways to tell the new audience “there’s more to the clones than you know, take interest, there are emotional stories to be had here”). But I use that as an example to illustrate that I’ll more likely present most episodes in the 22-50 minute range than the 60+ range - though there will be some that run to nearer 80.
Hmm, Maybe I should try to do my own custom personal cut.
I’m a noob here, you guys think it’s possible to cut it well with iMovie, so it look nice?
I only need a nice 1080 mp4 file 😊
Please challenge any of this, I could really do with having this thoroughly tested.
So, I think we have four main audiences:
Bear in mind the plan is still to edit episodes - sometimes with polish, sometimes more creatively - to bring them up to the best quality possible. The more important episodes will be allowed to consume less important episodes ‘for parts’.
Here’re the cuts I’ll therefore produce:
And here follows the current allocation of arcs to cuts - though this has changed a little since my reviews (in response to your feedback) and it may change again in response to your opinions and focused rewatching:
Focusing on Ahsoka’s most important moments, and everything to do with Mauldalore, plus highlights for Boba Fett and Sidious’ interest in force sensitive younglings. Importantly I don’t think this audience cares much about clones, Rex, Order 66, or other prequel elements or characters.
Focusing on telling the best (in my subjective opinion but with community input) end-to-end story of the Clone Wars (if you’re seeking a TV style episodic experience). Importantly this one doesn’t care for including every beloved character just because they’re beloved - it’ll be built around the best moments and a cohesive experience.
Those extra episodes that give extra context for existing key characters and context beyond just the Mandalorian and Prequels.
Everything but the absolute worst. A full run-through in a sensible order but skipping the episodes which are both unnecessary and hard to watch.
The episodes which have had scenes or other elements used elsewhere, so watching them might cause the viewer to notice duplicated scenes or content.
Hard to watch episodes which I’m not even going to wrap up nicely.
I’d absolutely welcome any challenges to any of the above - I’d like to break this if it needs breaking, and then pull it together better. All of this planning up front is going to help this become the best it can be.
Additionally, if anyone feels like they’d like to work on any of the edits, please feel free. (@RogueLeader you mentioned looking into the Tartakovsky arc.) I’ll certainly do them myself if nobody else is interested, but please, if you are, feel welcome.
Nothing glaringly jumps out to me there, but it’s been a few years since I last fully consumed the show. Once you start producing edits I’m sure I’ll have some feedback. Your plan seems sane and I’m eager to see it begin to materialise.
I get the lack of the Order 66 arc in the Mando cut (since it relies on the previous Domino Squad material and that’s a slippery slope to just turning the Mando cut into the Quality cut…) but how will you deal with its ramifications in the final episodes (Rex’s recorded message about Fives)? Just leave that as it is, since it sort of explains itself anyway?
Also, will you be producing different edits of the same arcs for various cuts? It’d be more work but allow some more flexibility for each cut.
I’m happy to produce a few edits for arcs which won’t take much more thought than just cutting out the intro and credits and maybe overlapping scenes from adjacent episodes a bit.
Thanks for thinking it over, Sade. I’ll try to get materialisation going as soon as I can, I promise! I feel like this might need to be a multiple iterations kind of thing, so I do want to start getting the core established so I can start cutting.
Yeah, I’ve not thought too hard about the Order 66 content in Siege of Mandalore, though it is my intention to replace all episodes’ intros with text that works both as the introduction and the ‘previously on’, so you could pick any episode without watching others and hopefully have proper context.
I have considered producing different edits of the same episodes, but I’d rather avoid producing A and B cuts for the same episode since it makes the problem space increase significantly (and it’s already pretty damn large).
If you’re game for any merge + polish + intro + outro passes of the straightforward episodes, that sounds ideal. I’ll let you know when we hit that point, but don’t feel obliged!
Having gone over all of my prior notes, small things I need to review again (these are mainly notes to myself, but discussion is welcome as always):
Knight of Kalee, I have to say, I think we’re particularly in sync. I keep thinking I’m having original thoughts, but then on review, finding that you had them long before I did! Please keep it up!
I might be a little busy now for a few days - worst case, expect a proper new chronology around Saturday.
I can’t really provide proper feedback on those points since I don’t remember many aspects of those scenes. I guess when you begin experimenting with some of those I can start to form opinions on what I believe works and what doesn’t.
I can say this: The idea that really caught my interest is possibly merging the stealth ship from Cat & Mouse with the Malevolence arc. I remember really linking Anakin and his personality when he uses that ship. It really highlights his strategic prowess, but I get the episode isn’t that solid. It could find a better place in Malevolence perhaps. Idk.
Looking forward to those intros and outros. I think I read that you won’t be using the original CW theme for the intro? It’s become iconic to me, but I’m open to seeing what you propose. I guess it’s bound to change anyway since you’re not using the vo narration bits. I’m curious about when you plan to include the blue text that replaces the narration, before the CW logo, kinda like Solo, or after, in place of the fortune cookie quotes. I would go for after, since that approach allows for the music to play a little longer in the background. Plus I feel like that is the structure we’ve become accustomed to.
I love it when I get into Original Trilogy after a few months of non-stop schoolwork and find some new incredible project by a passionate SW fan. This time it was this one. I’ve watched CW in its entirety twice and without the filler at least three times. I’m a HUGE fan of the show and also The Mandalorian. Your plan is exceptionally well thought out. I’m beyond excited to see what you produce, I’m sure it will be brilliant. Cheers!
I think I’m on board with almost all your decisions, though I would consider the Order 66 arc more vital because of its implications for the finale (the crucial “Find him…Fives” line can make the moment fall flat for someone who’s not up to date), and I’d include Bounty in at least the continuity cut, since it shows the beginning of Ventress’s bounty hunting career.
I’m on the camp that likes the Citadel arc though I don’t believe it’s necessary for the Mandalorian cut. But it has to bee in all the remaining ones since it has more of Ahsoka, introduces Tarkin, features Echo’s presumed death, etc.
In general I’m glad we’ve similar thoughts in this! I think I’ll be checking out the chapters you want to review to see how they can be merged or edited into any of the existing cuts. Greetings!
Just dippeed into this, and it looks really great. Eddie there’s a number of excellent ideas and I love how you’re working with the ideas of the community as well. My older brother would probably really like the Mandalorian cut. Though I’m much more of a completionist myself, and Ahsoka is my fave so…
As I said in my PM, feel free to look at what I did for my Fall of the Republic edit for the finale. 😃
My Edits:
Revenge of the Sith: Refocused Available
The Clone Wars Refocused: The Chosen One (Mortis Episode)
Dipping into this thread and wow you’ve put a lot of thought and planning into this. I can’t comment on much of the specifics. But I’d say include what you’d want someone to see, as if the world will only see what you put out. It’s for Disney+, and so they want a consistent quality level for the most part but give you all the flexibility you need otherwise, with no quota to fill.
I am looking forward to this, for sure.
This sounds like quite the endeavor, I’m very much looking forward to it. I don’t have any input right now other than maybe consider putting in dates as a way of transitioning to things and conveying passage of time and days (I tried this with my own edit I abandoned some time ago). An example would be: “Date 13:5:4” (year/month/day) for the first part of the battle of Christophsis “Cat and Mouse” (May the 4th), then “Date 13:5:5” for “Hidden Enemy”, and so on. The actual month/day is made up as it’s not clear exactly when these events occur within the year (13 post “Great ReSynchronization”, or 22 BBY). Here’s a wookieepedia article on the Great ReSynchronization, which would have been the dating system used during the Clone Wars period:
https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Great_ReSynchronization
I used dates to show the passage of time when editing together the Domino Squad Episodes. Not sure if this helps but figured I’d throw it out there.
ADR14NAT1ON, yeah, I’ll take a close look at Malevolence. The Ahsoka/Plo stuff is good, and the escape pod killing is great, I just don’t think the rest of the arc is strong, especially the ending, which becomes a bit of a Scooby Doo caper. I think if it has any hope of preservation it needs a different ending which quickly gets Anakin onto the ship without faff - and the stealth ship might achieve that. I think the chances of me pulling that off are low, but I’ll try it.
I’m intending to change the music, but yes, to do it in such a way that the new music gets a good while to sink in and set the tone. Replacing the fortune cookie with Solo text allows for a lot more flexibility.
KoK, agreed on Bounty, I’ve shifted that up into Continuity at least. Order 66 arc I’ll at least work into the Siege of Mandalore intro text for the Mandalorian Cut audience. And Citadel is an important one for me to review, so it’s a priority.
Delpheas, I’m so glad to have your input, and your permission to use FotR. I was always a big fan of the original idea to make RotS match the Clone Wars (since it developed even our core characters so much), and intersplicing it with Siege of Mandalore is the obvious sensible choice for presenting it in a way that lets it really give you a good kick in the guts. I might think about offering an alternative presentation where it’s episodic (suprise suprise), maybe cut around days, if it’s possible to cleanly do so just to make it more digestible. But again, only with your blessing (and crediting you).
That reminds me, I said above that I probably would try to avoid offering A and B versions of episodes, though I think the finale has as many as three: (A) RotS movie then SoM arc, (B) RotS and SoM interlaced as FotR, ('C) B but episodic. I can see valid reasons for someone to want to watch any of these.
Hal, thanks again. I will ultimately allow this to be my own project because I think I’ve got an angle here worth sharing - especially I’d like the live Clone Wars Wednesdays airings to be a more curated list than people are expecting because I’d like to test this theory on people who don’t know what to expect and so have fewer preconceptions. Feedback from the live airing might cause me to backstep a little towards a more conventional level of inclusion. But I also want there to be a hell of a lot of community input along the way. Already people have added huge value by catching things I’d missed, or arguing the case for episodes, or presenting ideas. The project is already better than it would have been if I’d approached it alone.
Darth-gary, yeah, I’ll think about this. I was suprised to find that the Clone Wars only last three years. I do want to give viewers a sense of the passage of time to at least some degree of accuracy. I don’t know if I’ll land on exact dates (since I am shifting content around and that might upset the purists), but I want to use my intro text to at least include a bit more sense of cause and effect (couldn’t destroy Kamino clone facility so now we’re dependent on building more droid factories, etc), and also of the war’s ebb and flow over time (for example emphasising that the outer rim sieges are having the effect of pulling Jedi away from the core).
I love the idea to cut up ROTS as episodes also. It’d get you the fun of a ROTS/SoM mashup edit without the weirdness of switching between live-action and animation on a scene by scene basis. Plus, it’d give the politics stuff from ROTS, especially the cut bits, a bit more room to exist.
Edit: I gave this some thought and it’s sort of a mess - lots of shorter episodes. Not to hijack the thread or anything.
TL;DR - also spoilers
- ~28 minute episode of TCW (Ahsoka/Anakin part ways; Ahsoka meets Maul)
- ~22 minute episode of ROTS (Invisible Hand)
- ~28 minute episode of ROTS/Deleted Scenes (Anakin’s nightmare; Padme’s politics)
- ~21 minute episode of TCW (Maul collects info; Ahsoka captures Maul)
- ~33 minute episode of ROTS (Grievous vs. Obi-Wan; Anakin falls to dark side; Order 66)
- one ~40 or two ~20 minute episodes of TCW (Order 66 on the star destroyer)
- one ~50 or three ~15 minute episodes of ROTS (aftermath of Order 66; Mustafar; duels; Padme gives birth; ending montage) - this might be easier to work out if you restructure things to split Yoda vs. Palpatine from Anakin vs. Obi-Wan
- no idea what to do with the TCW epilogue
Full thoughts. Spoilers ahoy! Expand to read.
You have to start with TCW, because RotS doesn’t begin until at least 16 minutes into the first episode of the Siege of Mandalore, when Anakin and Obi-Wan run off to rescue Palpatine. That’d make a very short episode, though. There’s another 12 minutes of TCW after that before we get another indication of events in ROTS, so everything before that point (all of S07E09 and ~3 minutes of S07E10) could be one ‘episode’ with a runtime around the same as Chapter 14 of Mando. Unfortunately, the ROTS tie-in is Obi-Wan mentioning being sent to Utapau, but that occurs about 49 minutes into ROTS…
I’d propose that chunk of ROTS be split into two episodes. Firstly, a ~25 minute episode covering the Invisible Hand sequence, ending with Anakin finding out about Padme’s pregnancy. You could extend it by about a minute by reinstating some of the deleted material and possibly put the Grievous scene in at the end too so “one far younger, and more powerful” acts a bit of a cliffhanger. You could even put the scene of Palpatine putting Anakin on the council in here if you wanted, to get it in before the episode break, but I’m not sure it would feel right. This bit of ROTS, much like the Jabba’s Palace section of ROTJ before it, is very self-contained.
Then, a second episode covering the really Coruscant-heavy, dialogue-heavy part of ROTS, with the A-plot being Anakin’s nightmares leading to his conversation with Palpatine at the Opera, and the B-plot being Padme’s deleted scenes political effort against Palpatine, with the two mingling a little in that scene when Anakin shouts at Padme for being a separatist (which is mildly less weird if you put it after the deleted scene where Palpatine suggests “Senator Amidala is hiding something…”). This would have to go up to at least the scene where Obi-Wan gets sent to Utapau - which awkwardly has a pointless bit with Yoda on Kashyyyk, but I’m sure there’s a smart way to edit around that.
Then we could get another ‘episode’ of TCW covering everything from that holocall with Obi-Wan through Ahsoka vs Maul, up until Maul’s capture. S07E10 does a lot of stuff which strengthens ROTS - Ahsoka sympathising with Anakin re:his assignment to spy on the Chancellor, Almec’s “Skywalker…”, the Imperial vibes of Clones occupying Mandalore, discussion of the hypocrisy of the Jedi, everything Maul says about THE plan and Sidious, “he… is the key… to everything” - it’s all great. And Ahsoka’s faith in Anakin makes his fall hurt all the more. I think this is my favourite Star Wars. It’d be just 21 minutes, but very dense. You COULD include the ‘Obi-Wan has engaged Grievous’ conference call from the beginning of S07E11 at the end of this episode, but a) it’d be weird to see it in TCW before we see it in ROTS, I think and b) it’s clearly set the next morning after an implied timeskip so it feels like it should follow an episode break.
Back to ROTS for a while then. Again, TCW forces our hand here - S07E11 begins with the ‘Obi-Wan has engaged Grievous’ conference call but just five minutes later we have Ahsoka feeling Anakin’s fall and Order 66. Obviously we should see the ROTS-angle on those events first. That means we’re going to have to let ROTS basically run from Obi-Wan and Anakin’s farewell all the way up to Order 66, which definitely feels like it ought to be the end of an episode (you could do the sad fadeout like S05E20 of TCW). This would come in at 33-minutes and vaguely has an A-plot of Palpatine seducing Anakin and a B-plot of Obi-Wan killing Grievous and getting shot down on Utapau.
We’re safe now for TCW to continue, but here’s where things get a little tricky - the rest of S07E11 and S07E12 (epilogue aside) take place continuously in the immediate aftermath of Order 66. Even the actual E11/E12 break is just a cliffhanger. You could easily do a 41-minute ‘episode’ here that just covers the entire rest of the Ahsoka, Maul and Rex’s story, but I’m not sure if it’d be good pacing overall to have such a long length of time prior to returning to ROTS, which has another 49-minutes of runtime we haven’t covered. You could split those 41 minutes of TCW into two episodes, either according to the pre-existing E11/E12 episode break, or a more natural stopping point; and those 49-minutes of ROTS could, at a push, be made into a 17-minute episode (everything between Order 66 and Padme leaving for Mustafar), a 20-minute episode (Padme on Mustafar + Anakin vs. Obi-Wan + Yoda vs. Palpatine) and a ~12 minute epilogue. Separating out Yoda vs. Sidious from Anakin vs. Obi-Wan would make things work much more nicely here, but that’s a fairly considerable fanedit.
Of course, we still haven’t answered the question of what to do with TCW’s epilogue. It can’t really come before we actually see Anakin’s reconstruction in the suit, but you can’t just make it a whole episode by itself, so you’d have to move at least ~20 minutes of the end of TCW into an episode after the end of ROTS, but that seem weird considering how ROTS goes to such lengths to set everything up exactly where it needs to be ahead of Episode IV…
Yeah. It’s definitely a lower priority, since it’d already be presented as a few good options and it wouldn’t need actual content editing, but I’ll certainly see if we can add some breaks in.
Episodes imply time passing, so things like Anakin being raised to the Council then asked to spy on Palpatine would be a little more mysterious and exciting.
I think I’m tending towards generally having all episodes in the 22-50 minute range (so longer arcs may be released as part 1 and part 2), but as before, pacing and enjoyment of the individual stories will be master.
Just seen your edit there. That’s fantastic analysis Sade, thanks for getting into that much detail! It’s interesting that you’ve approached it from the perspective of wanting to isolate live action from CG, I hadn’t considered that. To be honest I was mainly thinking of breaking it around the four days which Delpheas mentioned in her thread. But this is definitely food for thought…
Random thought: I don’t like Ahsoka’s visions in the Assassin episode, since she never demonstrates that power again. However, it’s got good Padme and Ahsoka content. I wonder if I can do something which merges the non-vision elements of Assassin with Duchess of Mandalore - since the latter’s plot is about Death Watch putting a hit on Satine, but they’re responding to events which Padme was a part of too so could feasibly be putting a hit on her also.