The Clone Wars: Refocused [COMPLETE] + Subtitles for season one! — Page 90

(RE)RELEASED - S03E00 - Dreams of Destiny (Interlude) (v2.3)

• RELEASE VERSION.
• An all-new interlude episode bridging seasons two and three.
• Comprising the original Tales of the Jedi episode Practice Makes Perfect, and the Forces of Destiny episodes Unexpected Company, The Starfighter Stunt, The Imposter Inside, Teach You, I Will, and The Padawan Path.
• Running 22 minutes.
• DOWNLOAD LINK is in the tracker spreadsheet, PM me for access.
• Note: It’s recommended that you download this before watching, rather than streaming it directly from Google Drive.

This is an experimental little interlude I’ve had cooking for a while, that I’m very proud of. It satisfies a few important goals:

• It contains the final content from Tales of the Jedi that I hadn’t yet included in TCW:R
• It contains the Forces of Destiny episodes featuring Ahsoka during this timescale
• So, now, we have 100% of Ahsoka’s story (that’s available in video format, and set in this timeframe) within this edit, in near-chronological order.
• It bridges Ahsoka’s costume change (seasons two and three in TCW:R) nicely
• It highlights her journey so far, through her early appearances and maturation, and hints a little at her destiny without spoilers

What I’ve done here is compile a story out of both sources of content, elegantly using the fact that Ahsoka is frequently stunned to unconsciousness in TOTJ’s Practice Makes Perfect episode as a framing device for the FoD shorts. This ‘unconsciousness’ device also works nicely as an excuse for why the animation style and tone of the FoD shorts are a little different from what we’re used to from TCW.

It’s a little odd, a little experimental, a little fun, but it’s also got a suprising amount of valuable content in it for what it is - most notably Anakin training Ahsoka to resist Clones, and Ahsoka becoming aware of Anakin and Padmé’s relationship. This content doesn’t really work on its own, but combined I think it heightens both and makes a worthy episode.

The ‘Ahsoka’s dream’ format also givs us some flexibility over the timeframe and reality - are these events a little earlier, recent, or during this timeframe? Are they exactly real, fantasy, canon, or not canon? This allows the viewer to take only what they want from this.

In terms of the FoD shorts, I begin with the episode where Ahsoka learns of Anakin and Padmé’s relationship, which leads nicely into Ahsoka deciding to spend quality time with Padmé after. We then see Ahsoka using and training with her second lightsaber (also a feature of her season three CG model update), around the time in the framing episode where she switches to using it too.

The final FoD short is Ahsoka’s formal rise in rank, and Yoda and Anakin’s pride, showing her maturity. But this is in FoD style (is this now reality?) I like this, because I then decided to include a CG-style glimpse into her future (is this now the dream?) as we see her and Rex preparing to walk through a door together, with his gun to her back, reflecting back on her training. I cut away before the door opens (unlike the original version of this), so it doesn’t spoil what’s within - hopefully that’s the right balance between flash-forward and force vision/dream, and a tease without actually spoiling what’s going on there.

Noteworthy changes (new changes in bold):

• This episode is titled ‘Dreams of Destiny’, as a nod to its Forces of Destiny origins, and to play up the dreaminess.
• Regarding placement, as stated, it naturally fits here.
• No opening text as it’s a special episode - more on that in the following post.
• Structurally it’s a simple intercutting using fade-to-white, with the transitions smoothly polished.
• NEW: I’ve made the fades-to-white now also shift the aspect ratio, to make the transitions that much smoother.
• NEW: I’ve flipped two of the FoD episodes by popular demand, to slightly improve the flashback ordering in terms of Ahsoka’s double lightsabers. (That means that she starts using them in the flashback while she’s still using a single lightsaber in the present, but perhaps you just headcanon that she wasn’t confident enough with two to bring them to her clone trooper training yet.)
• The final fade - to the flash-forward, is a traditional fade to black, to add more mystery.
• As stated, the final scene remains, with the spoiler of what’s behind the door minimised. I felt I needed to keep this scene because it pays off the present day training plot - albeit with a tease.

(This also brings the total number of episodes required to tell Ahsoka’s story, and the story of the Clone Wars, to 50, which I find very pleasing.)

And for those keeping track, that does make my ‘Tales From the Clone Wars’ mini anthology of Tartakovsky leftovers a bit more moot now (since it used to host the Forces of Destiny shorts) - but I will eventually include that episode in the ‘very least important’ category.

OK, thanks to all your feedback, and bojangles’ work, I’ve got a rough cut of a properly edited Citadel arc.

I got through my edit-blindness for this episode by using a key editing principle: When in doubt, edit from back to front. I’ve been working through from the end to the beginning in ten-minute chunks. Much easier to decide what’s necessary and what’s not.

The start and end are relatively unchanged, and I kept all of the Anakin/Tarkin content and most of Ahsoka’s story, but I cut a lot of action (especially after they escape the landing platform; you can remove about ten minutes and it keeps the pressure way higher), and I removed the cutaway to Obi-Wan being captured and rescued, most of the Citadel’s weirder defenses, and most of the battle droid silliness.

I’m much happier with this now, and the pacing is far better.

I’ve got to polish and finish it but I’ll have it to you all soon.

(RE) RELEASED - S03E06b - The Citadel Rescue (v2.1)

• RELEASE VERSION.
• This is a BONUS episode that is NOT part of my recommended viewing order! It belongs in what I call the ‘Continuity’ cut, for people who want the most connections to other content.
• This is numbered as episode 6B of season three - fitting between s03e06 and s03e07 if you want to watch it.
• Comprising the original episodes The Citadel, Counterattack, and Citadel Rescue.
• Running 49 minutes.
• DOWNLOAD LINK is in the tracker spreadsheet, PM me for access.
• Note: It’s recommended that you download this before watching, rather than streaming it directly from Google Drive.

By popular request, here’s the Citadel arc, added into TCW:R. You can read about my issues with the original episode (and difficulty editing it) here, but thanks to community encouragement and some great work from bojangles, I’ve returned to this and made a number of significant trims, bringing the episode down to 49 minutes and vastly improving the pacing. The key elements (Anakin/Tarkin, most of Ahsoka’s arc, and a key character moment that’s relevant to the Bad Batch), are still preserved.

I don’t think it’s an incredible arc, but I’m very pleased with how it’s now paced and the story it now tells. Thanks for encouraging me to stick with it.

Noteworthy changes:

• This episode is titled ‘The Citadel Rescue’. Like the other well known arcs, I wanted to keep the key word (‘Citadel’) in there.
• Regarding placement, I think it belongs here, in the middle of Ahsoka’s journey to independence, but before her more extreme trials later this season.
• I used the opening crawl to essentially replace the original newsreel and the very first scene. The first scene is exposition, and repeated a lot of content from the newsreel anyway, so I killed two birds with one stone and just covered that initial plot, so we can kick off the episode with Ahsoka wanting to join.
• I also, in the crawl, mentioned the special security droids - hopefully that explains why we see some very competent droids here that we won’t see again.
• Sped up the overly drawn out scanning section.
• Removed some of Osi Sobeck’s scenes, mainly redundant ones or ones where he gives exposition for the audience. He appears more competent now, though still cruel, and still fearful of Dooku. He’s less stupid too, making fewer mistakes and fewer dumb decisions (like shooting a droid for saying the word “escaped”).
• Trimmed the electromines sequence. They get through it quicker now, and without being suprised that a locked door “wasn’t in the plan”.
• Removed most of the other goofy traps in the Citadel (energy field, magnetic ceilings, bisecting doors). With the sentry system and the advanced droids, we have more than enough - and there’s very little jeopardy here. The prison’s security is in its remoteness, hostile environment, lifesign scanners, and defensive fleet.
• The team still split, and Kenobi’s diversion works, but then we see very little more of Obi-Wan while he’s travelling, keeping the focus on Anakin/Tarkin and Ahsoka.
• Removed the dead-end wall sequence, and the commando droid attack here (they have enough presence - and better threat - elsewhere).
• Trimmed R2’s storyline quite heavily, and the scenes which made people suspicious of their craft. Now, they pass the lifeforms check, set the team down, wait, then head to pick up Obi-Wan.
• Obi-Wan’s team don’t get captured (or subsequently rescued). There isn’t a trap, and he doesn’t expect one, since they all expected the R2 droid squad plan to work - and it did. Instead, when he gets close to the landing platform, we also see R2’s team successfully land (“we’ll pick up Obi-Wan”), then instead of calling Anakin, Obi-Wan calls R2, and receives affirmative beeps. They meet up (offscreen) then fake a prisoner transfer to try to trick some guard droids into letting them back on the ship. It’s only once the alarm is raised due to Anakin’s actions and Sobeck working out their plan that it all kicks off.
• I’ve made less of a point about plan A failing (since Obi-Wan isn’t captured). Now, the only real issue is that Obi-Wan was a little slower than expected, and switching to plan B (meet at the landing pad) is a much more casual switch, one that they’d clearly considered a likelihood.
• After the fight on the platform, and retreat, the fleeing Jedi call the Jedi council, for just one scene. We assume that the backup extraction point is well-known by all characters as part of the plan.
• We then cut a whole load of the good guys just milling about talking about how bad the situation is (but with no jeopardy), and a lot of mindless combat. Instead, Sobeck’s immediate reaction is to send out the Anooba hunting dogs (sensible!), which quickly track the party down, and are our only real combat in this section until Sobeck catches up with his larger force.
• Trimmed about a minute of the final combat, so the focus is on where the story is.

OK, that last episode is available now.

EddieDean said:

Hm. That’s an interesting one, and I’m surprised I hadn’t thought of it! But I should be able to pull something like that together. I’ll have a think.

Let’s see, what are the key bridging stories?

• Anakin’s development, dissatisfaction with the Jedi, and relationship with Sidious.
• Anakin’s relationship with Obi-Wan and Padmé
• Yoda and the Jedi’s investigation of Sifo-Dyas
• The mystery of the clones and Order 66
• At the very least Ahsoka joining and leaving Anakin.
• I don’t think Maul or Mandalore need to be major plotlines

Is there anything else?

I’ve added a new ‘Decide how to watch’ category, “I ONLY want a focus on bridging the movies and relevance to the Skywalker Saga”. I’d appreciate feedback on this, especially anything you think I should include or exclude.

Currently, I’m including:

• The Dooku episodes of TOTJ, for great value and context for the movies
• Ahsoka’s introduction and leaving but far less focus on what comes between
• For Obi-Wan, only the Mauldalore stuff that adds to his value, and the Rako Hardeen arc (though if we don’t care about Obi-Wan’s relationship with Satine, we could drop almost all of this and not feature Maul/Mandalore at all)
• Anything about Sidious’ interest in force sensitive kids
• The Hunted by Trandoshans arc (for Chewie)
• The Boba Fett arc, the Geonosis arc, The Citadel, Slaves of Zygerria, Onderon Rebellion
• Scipio (Padmé, and good politicking for late in the game)
• Lightsaber crystals arc (for Grievous and padawan training), 2003’s Nelvaan Crisis (with Anakin’s visions of Vader)
• All of the Order 66/Sifo-Dyas stuff

And I’m currently not including (but could be convinced):

• More Padmé stuff - her Assassination attempt, Heroes on Both Sides, A Friend in Need, Scipio
• More 501st/clone-heavy stuff (especially Rex/Cody)
• More Grievous/Dooku stuff
• The droids arc
• The Siege of Mandalore (‘The Lawless’ apparently takes Maul and Mandalore off the board)

Please feel free to check the spreadsheet and help me think through this (and for other viewing options, too!)

bojangles said:

In Dreams of Destiny there seems to be an extra frame between 5:07 and 5:08. I can’t seem to grab it at the moment without putting it into DaVinci to go frame by frame. Side note, I’m not sure I like the way you changed aspect ratios, I feel like cropping it would probably look the best. One final criticism is that I feel like the ending is out of place if the intent is for this content to be watched in chronological order. I could understand the perspective of seeing it as a cliffhanger tease but it just doesn’t work for me. Both of those are just my personal preference and I’m sure others feel differently. Overall, I love what you’ve done with those pieces of content.

Good catch on that frame, I’m re-rendering now.

This one’s a bit tricky, since the sources here have two different framerates. I’ve done what I can to minimise it, but there is a little interpolation in the FoD content that might be noticeable. Hopefully most of it will look like normal motion blur.

As for the aspect ratios, since the episode is inherently weird with the mixing of styles, I think I’m more inclined to lean into it than try to mitigate it. I think it’s more respectful to the original content this way. If I were to do anything with aspect ratios, it would be to zoom the final scene, so that that moment of Ahsoka with Rex has the ‘dreamlike’ aspect of the other shorts, adding to the mystery of whether or not it’s real.

As for the inclusion of the last scene, it’s a tricky call. It does spoil that Ahsoka survives most of the Clone Wars, something that was much more of a mystery throughout its run (and into the finale of the first season of Rebels). However, (1) it’s kind of necessary as a capper to the bridging story, and (2) with all the current Ahsoka content (and a show coming out called AHSOKA), I think that horse has bolted, and we’re going to have to accept that she’s a known survivor. I think mitigating it via having a viewing note warning of a minor spoiler is the best middle ground.

I’ve gone back to polish up the Lair of Grievous/Massacre episode. For those of you who don’t know, I combined those two - now, Ventress leaks the location of Grievous’ lair to the Jedi, as a way of getting back at Dooku and his war, which then causes Grievous to directly seek the massacre of Dathomir. It means the weaker Grievous’ lair content has a better purpose, and it makes the massacre of the Nightsisters more personal for Grievous, and a bigger source of guilt for Ventress.

It worked OK before, but the dialogue to bridge the two was quite stilted, with both plots being referenced kind of out of order. Now, via polish and some AI lines, it’s much smoother.

At first, Grievous is dealing with the Jedi, then gets a call from Dooku:
“I understand the Jedi have infiltrated your lair. My former assassin has gone too far. The nightsister cult can no longer be tolerated; mobilise your fleet, and deal with the Jedi - quickly.” - so, he’s tied the plots together more, but still got Grievous focused on the Jedi for now.

Then, after Grievous fends off the Jedi:
“Count Dooku, the Jedi have been defeated.”
“Victory over the clones and the young Jedi was expected. I have learned Ventress has returned to Dathomir. Go there, and wipe the witches out.”
“The time to exact vengeance has arrived. Raaaargh.”

Then, to pad the scenes between Grievous in his lair and his arrival on Dathomir, I’ve added more Dathomir establishing shots, but first, reintroduced the scene of Kit Fisto reporting back to the Jedi temple - but with modified dialogue from Yoda to tie in to the new episode’s overall plot.
“What of your former padawan?”
“His heart was in the right place, but he tried to answer Grievous’ power with his own.”
“To answer power with power, the Jedi way, this is not. When we fight, a danger there is, of making new enemies.”
[cut to Grievous dropping into Dathomir space]

I’ve still got some work to do, but it should be ready in a few days.

And I’ve just fixed Dreams of Destiny’s errant frame.

I’ve finished re-watching every episode in this edit, and written some notes while watching through it all for feedback.

S01E05: I thought this episode was very solid, and everything worked the way I imagine you wanted it to. I do however wish there were eventual plans for an extended version, as I think the episode would be improved with more of the clone training section, it moves by really quickly and admittedly effectively though, so I can imagine this would be low priority for you to add.

S02E03: Maybe I need to re watch this episode again, but to me this was the only episode out of the edit that didn’t work for me. I intentionally didn’t re watch any of the “original” clone wars episodes in some time before watching the edit so I could try and see it for what it was. However to me at least, it felt like this episode had been cut up and stitched back together a bit too much.

In the opening text, it mentions ahsoka is helping train the kids in secret, but throughout the entire episode this doesn’t seem to be the case, as Anakin, and the prime minister of Mandalore both don’t seem surprised by her being there at all. So my first suggestion for this episode would be to remove it being a “secret” that she’s there at all.

Next, I felt confused most of the episode about what the plot really was. It wasn’t clear whether or not to me that Satine knew of the Black Market scheme going on, and it felt odd to me that she was blaming death watch for the Black Market when that doesn’t really seem like something Death Watch would even be able to do since they were not part of the government on Mandalore. I honestly think it may be best to just re introduce the whole food poisoning angle that was in the original episode, because it felt like something was missing in the episode without some form of it.
I also similarly but to a much lesser extent felt that cutting out the kids sneaking into the warehouse and recording the black market deal felt very much like something was… missing. Maybe that’s just me though.

S03E04: This episode was very strong, the only slight criticism I really have is that I think you could keep the scene of Anakin telling R2 to go get help, otherwise to me it just felt like R2 simply disappeared. I think it could be beneficial too to keep some of the cowardice of that one bounty hunter that Aura eventually kills, as it kind of comes a bit out of left field to me otherwise.

S04E07: Another very strong episode, it was overall a very seamless episode where the edits weren’t noticeable which I assume is the overall goal of the project. I do have however one tiny bit of criticism for this particular episode. I feel as though the scene of the fives getting drugged on the way to Coruscant would be beneficial to include. Otherwise it’s confusing as to why he’s acting the way he is, and is acting visually loopy as we see him before he enters the warehouse while trying to reach Rex and Anakin. We visually see that his vision is blurry and it doesn’t ever really explain why. So the audience is probably gonna assume it is because his chip was removed, which then only brings up more questions as to why every other clone that removes their chip in Star Wars cannon seems perfectly fine. (Rex, Wolf, the Bad Batch, etc…)

S02E09: There’s a small typo I believe in the opening text. It says “stetched” not “stretched”.

Finally probably my most controversial opinion would be that you could avoid most of the shifting quality in art style by moving forward S01E07,S02E02 and S02E05 to be the finale of Season 2. This would likely make the edit as a whole “invisible” IMO as that’s the only real thing that would likely stick out to the average “first time viewer”. Though I completely understand wanting some of these episodes in the earlier positions to get the Maul plot started sooner and spread across the whole series.

I hope none of the criticisms come off on the wrong way because I think this project is fantastic, and has already fully replaced the original for me. Though I do miss a few arcs from the original show, such as the younglings arc, and Ventress bounty hunter arc.

Anyways, again this project is amazing, and you should be very proud of what you were able to pull off in transforming the show into something more.

Great feedback, thanks! I really appreciate it. I keep notes of every bit of feedback I get sent, however small, and consider absolutely all of them. I (admittedly slowly) work through all of the changes suggested.

Specific responses:

• It might be worth me opening up discussion on s01e05 again. Back in the day, the thought process was that the Domino Squad arc was paced kind of oddly - they’re terrible, then ‘best clones ever’, then assigned a backwater job, then made 501st for surviving, then save Kamino, then are made ARC troopers for that. I’d thought that it was best (and snappier) to have a more sensible arc of fail > bad posting > succeed. But perhaps something closer to the original is wiser. I don’t think we need two failed training sessions before they succeed, but maybe we could have more of the Rookies episode (just with one training session and a bit less adversary) and end nearer success.
• For s02e03, s03e04 and s04e07, I agree with adding back those few key scenes.
• I think I’m still happy with keeping the Mando/Maul content starting early. I know the art style is slightly different but I don’t think it’s radical enough to be obvious unless you really know, and the feedback on this approach of making them the spine of the show has broadly been very positive.

Thanks again!

Another question for you guys:

How should I be ordering the spreadsheet? Currently, I’m treating the ‘Recommended’ cut as the absolute master, putting all those episodes first, then the extras start appearing at the bottom of that list. But with the release of Citadel, maybe I should be having the whole thing appear in chronological order, and let users rely on the ‘Choose how to watch’ checklists to know whether or not they should skip?

It’s really a question of what is clearer. I want the Recommended Cut episodes to be the most clear, because that’s really the ‘true’ edit, so essentially I’m asking whether the checklists make it clear enough that not everything is for everyone.

(And I’m also still interested in feedback on whether the ‘Skywalker Saga’ cut covers the right episodes)

Thanks honestabe. I think I’ve settled on the middle ground - Recommended, Filoniverse, and Skywalker content is all in chronological order - but the extra ones just focused on random bonus characters or ‘at least this episode isn’t the absolute worst’ I’ll keep beneath.

Yeah but the poisoning storyline suuuuucks. It’s extremely dull, and gives us no value for our main characters. If the line about Maul killing children is a direct reference to that, I’ll trim around it.

Maybe there is just a way to keep the poison without it taking up so much time? Cause I agree it was a bit dull, but feel it may be needed if the black market is brought up at all in the episodes

EddieDean said:

OK, I’ve had some requests lately for how I produce the intros and outros for my episodes.

• Custom credits (feel free to steal mine) run from 01:30.19 to 01:32.08 and that they’re backed by a frame of the starfield from the proper credits
  Let me know if you guys want any of my specific assets.

I may of missed this, but where do we get the credits / opening music if we want to make our own custom episodes?

I’m currently away from my machine, Peon, but I’ll get them over to you ASAP.

Shenanigans said:

I started watching this edit and I’m loving it. But now I’m about to get to s01e08 Children of Night and I’m not sure about this placement. I mean, the designs for Anakin and Obi-Wan are already updated in this episode. They’re supposed to happen waaay later, because they’re closer to their Revenge of the Sith designs. Are there other cases like this in this edit?

Also, some episodes are too long and would benefit from being two-parters. I think anything longer than 40 minutes should be two episodes of 20+ minutes each.

Anyway, these are the only two points I’ve had a problem with. The rest is pretty great. This comment may seem like it’s too critical but I can’t stress this enough: This edit is amazing.

I like to think they just changed clothes. A core tenet of this edit has been making the whole show feel more serialised (especially the Maul/Mandalore stuff), which I think is a decent tradeoff against the costume change. Otherwise, we’d not get any Maul until 40% into the show - something I think would impact its coherence and focus.

As for length, I’ve deliberately gone for breaking stories around their plot. If content works best very long, I’ve left it that way; and if it works best split, I’ve split it. Each episode should be a single, focused, chunk of content.