Damn, this is a complicated episode. But I think something’s coming together.
I think it’s fine if my edit doesn’t make perfect geographical sense - transitions between scenes and locations can work on ‘dream logic’, and I can use audio effects and fades through white to shift things around if I need to. I think the main logic I need to respect is what characters are with each other at a given time, since it’s a shared dream.
The main thing I want to change is removing the characterisation of the Father, Son, and Daughter as individuals with normal autonomy and desires. If they are simply ‘very powerful beings’, with the ability to have a major impact on the real universe, as the original episode suggests, I think the implications of that are too radical for the canon as we currently understand it. Instead, I’d like them to feel like force beings, dream beings, visions, metaphors, tests, part of the force communicating, and somehow related to Qui-Gon’s journeys through the deep force. I’ll take out almost all of their scenes where they commune alone amongst themselves, and retain only a few of their dramatic interactions in front of our main characters - almost as if in those moments they’re performing some kind of morality play, talking in metaphor. (Let’s David Lynch this shit!)
I won’t have the triad be explicit about what they are - I prefer Father’s later line “I am merely letting the will of the force take place” as an explanation in lieu of anything else.
I can avoid having the planet appear as a diamond in ‘real space’ quite easily, with plenty of material to transition the characters to the planet. The ship they travel in, and speeder bikes, will probably both have to stay, but I want to avoid the characters repairing the ship (from the third episode) - it’s a dream vessel for them whilst they’re in the dream world, not a real material object.
I’ll bring Anakin’s vision of him talking to Son from the second episode to near the start, probably before they all wake up ‘properly’ on the planet, because there’s a good little core there that we can use for focus. I’ll also bring Qui-Gon forward to make his influence more deliberate to their situation, and use more of his voice lines from the 2003 series throughout to make him a bit more ever-present.
I’ll remove the flash of the Son when Anakin’s talking to his dream-mother. That can remain ambiguous, like Han’s appearance in TROS, especially since she nearly verbatim says “no-one’s ever truly gone”.
I might remove Anakin’s vision of the future entirely, but I could end up retaining some of that. I’ll definitely remove Alderaan’s destruction and Vader’s mask, though. I’ll trim most of Anakin being explicitly darkside and anything to do with the Son trying to escape the planet, though probably preserve a little of the Son trying to convince Anakin that he can use the dark to end the Clone Wars and save those he loves. I think I’ll still have the Father remove that vision from Anakin’s memory though.
I would have liked to remove most of the second episode, with the sword, darkside Ahsoka, and the family drama, but I should for the sake of future canon preserve the scene of Anakin using the dying Sister (light side) to save Ahsoka, which’ll mean I have to use some of that. But I think I can cleanly transition through it without needing to hit every beat on the way.
I don’t think I’ll show the main characters talking to Rex at the start of the episode, but I’ll probably have them reappear under mysterious circumstances and talk to Rex at the end, since it keeps things mysterious. In place of the ‘ancient signal’ I’ll probably have Obi-Wan have received what he feels is guidance from Qui-Gon to come here. And I might describe their arrival as via a blind hyperspace jump, guided by the force during meditation? But that might be unnecessary.
As a note on placement, I think this episode will work well this late in the series. This is our season where it’s implied that there’s a lot more beneath the surface than what’s been let on, so going dark and mysterious fits nicely during this period of escalation. And Ahsoka’s warned by a vision of herself that she shouldn’t remain Anakin’s apprentice - which’ll lead nicely into what happens to her only a couple of episodes later now.
Still a loose connection of ideas, but I’ll do another full runthrough shortly and think it all through again.