The Clone Wars: Refocused [COMPLETE] - Taking Requests! — Page 76

Ice said:

A spelling mistake (“Opnion”) in The Enemy Within intro text

Dang it! Thanks!

I’d recommend watching as much of TCW:R as possible because I think I’ve highlighted all of the arcs which give you the most value for money- so if your goal is “maximum good” then that’s what I’m going for here. But if you want to speed run it quickly then the episodes with a red tick by them are the bare minimum to get you ready for other media. Geonosis is good too.

In terms of Anakin/Dooku, technically any fight they have doesn’t conflict with ROTS, so I haven’t actively cut any (other than passively just cutting weaker episodes), but it’s fairly minimal if memory serves.

Same deal with Obi-Wan/Grievous.

The show does avoid having Grievous see Anakin though, so there’s no conflict with Grievous’ “You’re taller than I expected” in ROTS.

I’d recommend you just watch!

Tales of the Jedi

So, there’s an upcoming six episode, 15 minute anthology series set during the prequel timeframe coming soon, called Tales of the Jedi. Three episodes will focus on Dooku, and three on Ahsoka.

A little info has been revealed, a little more (that’s apparently credible) has been leaked, so a plan has been forming.

Since Dooku and Ahsoka are both key to this period, it makes sense to me to incorporate what I can into TCW:R.

POSSIBLE MINOR SPOILERS BELOW

Apparently, some scenes will occur during the Clone Wars:

• A scene of Anakin training Ahsoka, which depending on the model used, might fit somewhere early in season one, perhaps in my early Mandalore episode. That would give us Anakin/Ahsoka before Anakin leaves her to join the main Obi-Wan plotline, and would mean we’d be able to keep Ahsoka’s presence early in the show where it’s needed, and actually get a training scene of them together in early.
• Some additional scenes during the Siege of Mandalore, which would naturally fit there - perhaps flashing back to that early training if the scenes echo one another as leaks imply.

Some episodes we know will occur prior to the Clone Wars, such as Ahsoka’s youth, and Dooku leaving the Jedi order. What I’ll probably do in this case is create a SEASON ZERO, “Prelude to the Clone Wars”, which will feature those elements plus the two prequel movies. (I might eventually cut the prequel movies into episodes, but it’s a far lower priority so I’ll probably leave those as a placeholder in my spreadsheet like I currently do with the ROTS movie.)

I don’t feel like I have to be completely beholden to chronological order, though. For example, it might make more sense to introduce Ahsoka’s backstory episode as part of s01e01, where she joins the main story. I’ll think on that when it appears.

Anyway, I might need a hand making an alternative logo for season zero. Something light touch, changing the logo into either ‘Prelude to the CLONE WARS’ or ‘THE CLONE WARS Prelude to War’, like this.

Anyway, I’m working on Scipio now.

I’m struggling a little on Scipio. It’s an easy episode from one perspective, because it’s a simple linear story. The only real issue is that it’s long, and loses a bit of momentum with some of the political stuff - I just don’t know if it’s good enough to deserve 70 minutes (my longest by far).

It does have good action, good Padmé/Anakin/Dooku content, and a a good focus on the state of the war for this point in the series. It’s just a bit dry for its length, despite a lot of it being relevant.

I’ve got three minor trims to make: (1) Making Anakin and Obi-Wan’s chat lightly reference Ahsoka, (2) a minor line about Padmé’s security, and (3) Removing a hint at the Sidious-Palpatine connection. But I might see if there are some earlier scenes I can cut outright and just cover via the opening text.

Thoughts?

I don’t remember the original episode quite well enough to give any suggestions for cutting etc… But if you’re worried about the length of the episode you could always see if its worth cutting the episode into two parts?

Not sure if that work work at all though, as I haven’t seen these episodes in a couple years.

I think the greater good is keeping it as one here, because the more boring scenes are still necessary for the whole plot, so watching it in one gives the better flow out of slightly weaker content. Same with the light implication I’d like to make by placing the fireside chat about losing Ahsoka at the front.

I struggled to name this one (the Scipio episode).

I settled on ‘The Grasp of Greed’ because I wanted to reference two things: Firstly, the main plot, which is about control of money (and control of the people who control the money); Secondly, the character plot, which is about Anakin’s jealous possessive behaviour towards Padmé.

But it’s probably the title I like the least, of all that I’ve created. I’m open to suggestions for something more appropriate.

(As a note, I’d hoped to get this finished last week but struggled with some technical elements. Should be done next week.)

Maybe a Star Trek title like ‘Avarice Syndrome’, ‘The Web of Greed’, or ‘All that Glitters’?

I have only seen the original episodes once, so I’m a bit fuzzy as to what happens.

Hm, but then I lose the angle of Anakin’s greedy ownership of Padmé. Not that that’s vital, but the character moments are really the core- especially with how I’m including the fireside chat about Ahsoka leaving…

‘Dangerous Desire’, ‘The Peril of Greed’, ‘Cloven Trust’…Just being silly now 😉

Here’s a little demo clip for Scipio. Here I’m editing Obi-Wan’s and Anakin’s conversation to reference losing Ahsoka. Now both the cold open (the fireside chat) and this scene reference it. It isn’t much, but I think I’ve done about as much as the available content allows to have Ahsoka’s loss referenced in actual episodes of the Clone Wars as strongly as it can be.

I’m pretty pleased with my use of ‘but there’s more, isn’t there’ to transition us from the one topic to another.

The only things we lose from this scene by cutting it this way are a bit more of Anakin’s distrust and dislike of Clovis (already well established), focusing it instead on Anakin’s possessive protection of Padmé. We also lose that it’s Yoda who feels Anakin is a bit off, but I think it works better to have Obi-Wan realise it after their fireside chat.

Sounds pretty nice to me

RELEASED - S04E06 - THE HAND OF GREED (v2.1)

• RELEASE VERSION.
• Our sixth episode of season four.
• Comprising the original episodes An Old Friend, The Rise of Clovis, and Crisis at the Heart.
• Also including the video ‘Ahsoka’s Decision’ created by Cinematic Captures on Youtube (used with permission and fully credited), itself a fan-enhanced version of a scene from the unfinished episode In Search of the Crystal from the unfinished Utapau arc.
• Running 67 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 my longest single episode yet. The Scipio arc isn’t quite brilliant, but it has a lot of good moments, and it does a lot of good work to give us the state of the war and many of the major players as we head towards the show’s conclusion. I didn’t cut it down into shorter episodes because there’s no simple breakpoint - it’s one single narrative and treating it as one keeps it all in focus as the plot progresses.

I included ‘Ahsoka’s Decision’ (even though its animation style is slightly different) and modified a little dialogue to do as much as I could to have the loss of Ahsoka visibly affect Anakin in this series - something we didn’t have before due to the show’s cancellation and revival. The new scene hasn’t got quite the same aesthetic, and it’s a little lower visual quality, but it’s the best I can do for now.

Noteworthy changes:

• The episode is titled ‘The Hand of Greed’, emphasising both the main plot and Anakin’s possessiveness toward Padmé.
• The episode is placed here as the first time we see Anakin after the loss of Ahsoka, again to emphasise that angle.
• We use ‘Ahsoka’s Decision’ as this show’s only cold open, mainly to give it a place to exist in this narrative but also to give its unique animation style some room.
• The crawl gives us the Scipio and Anakin/Padmé context in a simple way.
• The remainder of the episode is largely the three original episodes stitched together. They weren’t amazingly paced but there’s very little that isn’t necessary. (Though I am open to suggestions!)
• I changed a little of the dialogue when Obi-Wan visits Anakin’s quarters to add a little more to the Ahsoka angle and try to lightly imply that Anakin’s jealousy here may be related to the loss of Ahsoka.
• I removed Padmé’s guard asking Anakin if Rush Clovis’ account of the assault was true, to cut Anakin acting a little suprised, which might have raised suspicion.
• I removed a light reference to the connection between Palpatine and Sidious, which I’m avoiding making explicit in this show.

This now lightly forms a trilogy intended to give a bit more weight to Ahsoka’s loss in this order - Mortis, Ahsoka’s Fall, and Scipio (with one break in the middle to allow Anakin a breather offscreen).

Onwards to the Order 66 arc!

I like the title!

Yeah, I think it finds the middle ground! I very nearly went with ‘Dangerous Desire’ or another alliterative one, but this one popped into my head and I think it’s cleanest for what I’m going for.

Right, got through the initial planning for the Order 66 arc, and everything’s ready for work on the workprint to begin.

It’s a good arc, this, but it loses momentum in a few places: The capture and return of Tup’s body, Fives spending an episode going into and out of Tup’s room, the Jedi and Kaminoans arguing over which medical centre Tup’s body should go to, and Fives leaving Kamino city and returning to it. So I can smooth a lot of that out.

The main question is what exposition and subplots to cut. I think I want to focus this on the mystery and investigation, and in particular Fives’ point of view. I don’t think we need to see Dooku and Sidious worrying about the plot, other than the last scene where they confirm it’s all sorted. I might cut out enough content that it’s only in that final moment that it’s explicit that Sidious is behind the whole thing. I’ll naturally minimise the Sidious-Palpatine connection, as I have done throughout.

I’m not sure yet on how many of the red herrings to follow, nor when to reveal that the Kaminoans are in on it. I might minimise the amount of confusion Tup shows too, which I think would enhance the mystery. I quite like the early suspicion about the Jedi, since they did ostensibly request the clone army at this point in time. I’ll tease all this out through trial and error.

I can cut a lot of the less useful content if Fives keeps hold of Tup’s damaged chip, but that might mean trimming Fives’ reaction to Tup’s death, since Fives gets captured in that scene (to escape again later). I’ll try that edit early to see how feasible it is with trims and zoomed shots.

I won’t trim much of the initial action scene though, as it’s important at this part in the story that we see just how competent and inter-reliant the Jedi-clone combo has become at this stage in the war. I might cut a lot of the establishing shots and context for Ringo Vinda though, since it’s odd that such a protracted battle can be carried out on a ring station that could feasibly be attacked by orbit far more easily, especially since the Jedi retreat but then appear to have ovwerhelming force there, despite Trench later being seen with a huge force. I know it could technically work, but I don’t want the audience to have to jump through those hoops when there’s more important stuff to focus on.

Either way, it’s going to be a fun one to edit because I always like playing with these narrative challenges. Should come out around 50 minutes long, I reckon.

Just updated The Hand of Greed to v2.1, to fix a tiny error.