Good episode, however there is definitely some audio sync issues most notably from mouth sync. I believe the most off audio is around the 3:30 mark, you can easily tell that the mouth sync is off during this scene especially.

Another slightly off part of the episode for me was how it feels like the final note before the credits show ends a bit short. I’m not sure if there’s anyway to fix this though.

I’ve just watched through, and in VLC the audio did feel off by about 100ms. Though I do often find that playing in VLC, you sometimes need to tweak the sync in playback. Did you watch in VLC?

I’m not sure about that final note, but I’ll check it.

Either way, I have some more time today to work on those last couple of bits of audio I’d like to add, but I feel like this is close to release.

No I streamed it

(RE)RELEASED - S01E04 - Assassin (V2.1)

• RELEASE VERSION, now brought up to my more polished 2.0 standard.
• Our fourth episode of the first season (I’ve shifted the first season around, so check again if you’ve seen this one before).
• Comprising content from the episode originally called Cloak of Darkness.
• 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 a largely untouched version of Cloak of Darkness. It was a middling episode, but with a good focus on Ahsoka and some decent development for her, which deserves early inclusion, plus a good highlight on Ventress which I’ll have pay off in the next episode. It suffered from its core plot being a bit disinteresting, but I’ve remedied that a little by making it more relevant to the current plotlines for my first season.

Noteworthy changes:

• The episode is titled ‘Assassin’, to highlight Ventress as a villain here, and to emphasise the threat to Ahsoka.
• It’s now recontextualised (via the opening text and some subtle new audio) to fit here in the story. In this context, Nute Gunray is wanted specifically because the Republic are undertaking a major hunt for Grievous and he may well know his location.
• In the opening text I also lightly reference Ryloth, which will pay off later.
• I rearranged a couple of intro scenes to best frame the whole story as Ahsoka’s reactions to Venress/Separatist actions, and to frame Ventress as a major focus. Sidious doesn’t refer to Ventress’ failiures, though he still implies some uncertainty, which’ll pay off later.
• I tightened up a few scenes to make them flow together better and give us less jumping around.
• I amended some dialogue so that there’s less name-calling and a little more maturity and competence from Ahsoka, while preserving the slightly careless boldness which she has at this time in the story.
• I also used the opening text and some subtle audio changes to emphasise the angle that the Republic may be infiltrated quite heavily by Separatist spies already this early in the war (as originally hinted at, but never expanded on, in the Malevolence arc).
• I also tweaked audio a little to remove some of Ventress and Ahsoka’s familiarity, which was never justified in the original episode as they were never seen meeting before this. Now, it’s implied that Ventress is known to the Jedi, but not that she’s clashed with Ahsoka.

This one’s all done now, so I can move on to what should be just some minor changes to The 501st Legion before working on the somewhat more complex edits to Resistance on Ryloth.

Cleanup and a little light polish to v2.0 standard for s01e05 THE 501st LEGION now.

Here’s the crawl as I currently have it:

• Conflicts erupt in the early days of the Clone Wars.
• With Nute Gunray freed from Republic custody by the assassin Asajj Ventress, Anakin is no closer to capturing General Grievous.
• As Anakin and the celebrated 501st Legion widen the net, heroic CAPTAIN REX inspects the Republic’s long-range listening stations.

– new page –

• Meanwhile, facilities on the ocean planet Kamino rush to grow and train new CLONE BATCHES to meet the growing demands of war.
• The cadets of DOMINO SQUAD are struggling in their combat training, and risk a lesser assignment far from the front lines.
• But Count Dooku still plans to stop the Republic army in its tracks.

THE CLONE WARS
THE 501st LEGION

Now, there’re a couple of things I’m not quite sure of.
(1) Should I be saying BUT the cadets of Domino Squad…? I’m tending towards not, because it’s not exactly a counter to the sentence before, since they’re just one squad rather than the current Kamino output.
(2) The last line I’m not too sure what to do with. I’d like to set up the big reveal without spoiling it. Count Dooku is technically pulling the strings, but it’s more the fact that Grievous isn’t so much on the run (as the Republic thinks he is) as totally ready to invade Kamino that’s the reveal. Perhaps ‘But Grievous still intends to wipe out every last clone…’, hearkening back to his strategy to attack the clone medical stations in Malevolence?

Anyway, onwards to minor polish!

Initially I wanted to highlight the 501st and Rex with ‘celebrated’ and ‘heroic’ to give a little context (since they’re not in the movies), but I agree they’re a little soft. Perhaps instead I’ll take the opportunity to make it clearer that they’re Anakin’s legion.

“As Anakin and his decorated 501st Legion widen the net, his trusted CAPTAIN REX inspects the Republic’s long-range listening stations.”

Yeah, I like all of these ideas folks, thanks!

Barely anything needs done to this episode, save light polish. I’ve made progress on the key fixes:

1. Here’s the new version of the scene where Fives and Echo meet Ninety-Nine again. In this edit they don’t imply they’ve been away for ages (it’s only been a couple of weeks), and Ninety-Nine doesn’t show off the medal he got from Hevy (since Domino Squad failed their training). From my original edit, I’ve cleaned up the shot where Echo moved his mouth without talking, and also had the music match the emotion onscreen better.

2. Here’s the new version of the transition from Clone Cadets to Rookies. Version one has a fade out on the “two weeks later” text, version two doesn’t. Which one do you think works best? The audio transition here (from the emotional rise into the drumbeat) I think is about as good as I can get it without going very radical to replace it, because after that point it gets problematic. Pulling the drumbeat forwards informed the rest of the edits to the scene.

I’ve also replaced the audio, which fixes all of the popping noises.

Nearly there with this one.

It’s the “Two weeks later” text. On one it fades out, whereas on the other it disappears when the shot changes.

Thanks guys, good notes. Is the transition otherwise OK? Does it feel natural? Does it breathe for long enough?

I’ve just smoothed out the very opening of this episode, so all I’ve got left to do here is a full check-through, particularly on keeping the audio fluid throughout. I’m very close to having the first half-season mini-arc completed, which is a mental milestone for me at least!

I’d love it if anyone was up for reviewing the first five (six if you count the Tartakovsky episode zero) episodes as a whole, since it’s very important to me that the introduction to TCW:R for the theoretical first time viewer (who probably has heard that TCW sucks to begin with) is as good as it can possibly be for convincing an audience that this show is worth watching.

I’d really appreciate that, thanks! I’ll let you (all) know when I’ve finished this current episode, and that’ll give an ideal block.

(RE)RELEASED - s01e05 - The 501st Legion (v2.1)

• RELEASE VERSION, now brought up to my more polished 2.0 standard (especially including fixed audio without pops in this re-release).
• Our fifth episode of the first season. (I’ve shifted the first season around, so check again if you’ve seen this one before).
• Comprising content from the popular Domino Squad arc (Clone Cadets, Rookies and ARC Troopers).
• This episode concludes a mini story arc that I’ve been setting up in the first half of the first season, so the episodes up to and including this one make a good jumping on point if you want to check out this show and this edit.
• Running 46 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.

While adhering to the core of the original story arc (which is one of the best arcs in this show), and without too much restructuring, this edit makes some major changes to Clone Cadets to reframe the whole arc into a new three-act structure. Now, Clone Cadets ends in failiure for Domino Squad, and the Rishi Outpost seen in Rookies is the lesser assignment they’re given as a result. I appreciate that this is quite a radical change but I believe it really works for the better. You can read far more detail on my reasoning here. I placed this episode here because it gives us a good strong mid-season peak and starts to make us care about the Clones, and the early strike on Kamino gives our villains more competence.

Noteworthy changes:

• The episode is titled ‘The 501st Legion’ to highlight the fact that this will be our main clone company that we follow in TCW, and since it’s the ‘prize’ earned by these Rookies through their actions in the episode.
• The opening text now reflects this episode’s positioning as the conclusion of the first half-season’s mini story arc. By this point we’ve been introduced to the main characters and the stakes, and now everything comes together on Kamino. (Well, except for Ahsoka, but I’ve now made it clearer earlier in the season why she doesn’t always appear).
• I reference Nute Gunray in the opening text too, since the reordering allowed me to recontextualise my episode Assassin (formerly Cloak of Darkness) as part of the hunt for Grievous which starts during Malevolence and concludes here, and the interrogation of Gunray as an attempt to learn Grievous’ location.
• I also make clear in the opening text that failiure in combat training means a lesser posting, helping the transition to Rishi later.
• Clone Cadets has been heavily cut down, focusing only on the clones which will matter to the rest of the show or have some emotional value, but most importantly recontextualising the scenes so that Domino Squad’s training ends in failiure (through their own lack of skill and teamwork, not through sabotage). We see Bric’s lack of faith in the clones, then Echo and Fives convinced by Shaak Ti to properly commit to the squad, a single failed attempt (using content from both original attempts and maintaining all of the exposition), Bric and El-Les confirming their failiure (I’ve polished this scene since the earlier release), and then Hevy attempting to go AWOL before being convinced to stay by 99. All other scenes are excluded.
• Rookies begins ‘Two Weeks Later’, with our squad assigned to the Rishi Outpost. It’s largely the same as the original, but I’ve made a few trims here to focus on the key detail and the key characters. There’s less scurrying around on the surface of the moon, and the eel is trimmed, though still present a little. Echo and Fives aren’t made members of the 501st yet.
• From their recovery on Rishi, we transition straight into ARC Troopers’ scene on the bridge with Cody, Rex, Obi-Wan and Anakin, which brings the plotlines together and brings the audience up to date on the plot.
• ARC Troopers is largely unaltered, though I’ve cut Obi-Wan’s underwater action in an already action-heavy episode, and cut the second half of his fight with Grievous, which doesn’t further the plot in a series where Obi-Wan and Grievous already fight loads without changing the status quo. 99 is preserved as much as possible, though I had to cut him having Hevy’s medal, since in this episode Domino Squad didn’t receive one. (I’ve polished this scene since the earlier release too.) At the very end, Rex makes Echo and Fives “ARC Troopers… in the 501st”, bringing their arc in these episodes to a close.

As always, any and all feedback is welcome and encouraged.

UPDATE ON THE STATE OF PLAY-

WHERE WE’RE AT

Just to catch people up to speed, I’d produced the first 30 of ~50 episodes back around mid-June 2021. I was allowing passion and momentum to carry me through getting a lot done, because I really wanted the mental confirmation of having a majority of episodes under my belt. While I focused on churning episodes out, I developed my skills and built up a good body of extremely valuable feedback and ideas from all of you here.

So after finishing my third season (of five), I went back to the beginning, establishing more polished standards to release to, and using my improved skills and community feedback to re-release already completed episodes up to what I’m calling ‘2.0 standard’. I’m sure there’ll always be the odd tweak or improvement that someone might suggest and/or I might pursue, but these revised edits should be as close to final final as any other release you’d find on these forums.

2.0 standard incorporates improved opening credits (using unique franchise credits I’ve made for this show, taking elements from both Mandalorian and Bad Batch), better-timed closing credits, a refined community credit, fixed audio without pops, smoother visual transitions which accurately match the original sources, smoother audio transitions, rethinking every single decision and edit I’ve already made, and restructuring and recontextualising some episodes further to squeeze more value from the content I have. I also remade a couple of my very first episodes from absolute scratch.

It was particularly important to me to make sure that the very beginning of the show was as good as it could possibly be. The first reason being that TCW famously starts particularly badly, so I needed to challenge that knowledge. The second being that this is people’s introduction to TCW: Refocused, so I need to make a compelling argument for TCW:R’s own existence.

Now, with the release of s01e05 to v2.0 standard, I believe I finally have that solid introduction to TCW and TCW:R.

As I came to reorder the first season, Imhotep and others here suggested an order which I thought was really powerful, so I’ve leaned into that for this edit, making those episodes up to s01e05 work like a small story arc with a few ongoing elements, which I think adds value over the original presentation. This focused little arc introduces all of our main characters and the early themes of the show, gives us a good high-stakes peak, demonstrates my technical skills and intentions, and gives some good variety. And as a bonus, it carries us through easily my least favourite (but still necessary) three episodes of this project, so once you’ve finished this arc, you’re over the worst and into the far stronger body of episodes which follow.

So, to summarise:

THE EPISODES UP TO s01e05 MAKE A GOOD SOLID INTRODUCTION TO THE SHOW.
They are very final, having been heavily revised, are of my highest release quality, and form a mini story arc.

I’d recommend that the new (and returning) viewer watch these five episodes (plus episode zero if you want the Tartakovsky microseries to set everything up), and personally I’d be very interested to get feedback on this group of episodes, particularly in how well it works as introductions to TCW and TCW:R (compared to the original launch of the show), and how well the connective tissue works together.

WHERE WE’RE GOING

In terms of what follows, I will of course be polishing the rest of the completed three seasons up to 2.0 standard. There’ll be a couple of extra episodes I’ll release during that polish, one of which will be a bit of an experiment to see if I can make a decent episode out of some unused Ryloth content now that we know Bad Batch returns there (Edit from the future: I’ve done this now), and one which just fits better in season three with my revised ordering. Then I’ll continue working to conclude the show. I have a few more demands on my time these days, so followers of this project may have found the pace of release slowing, but I assure you, my resolve has never been stronger.

That said, despite the polish currently being undertaken, you can watch this show pretty much to completion right now if you want. Season one is already completed to v2.0 standard, so that’s the worst content from the original show already up to a far better quality. The 1.0 versions of seasons two and three are by no means unfinished, and feature all of the key edits I intend to make, so you can watch those if you don’t mind a little less polish. And the final seasons I’ve not touched at all yet (four and five) require very little serious editing, so you can watch the original episodes in my spreadsheet’s recommended order if you don’t mind the trappings of the original release, without my hand.

WHERE WE’VE BEEN

This project is almost a year old now, so please indulge me a little here as we approach its first birthday. When I first had the idea for this edit, it was just some thoughts and a suggestion, and I didn’t really intend to carry it out myself. I never loved TCW, as much as I wanted to. But seeing the initial support for the idea, noticing I had already put a lot of foundational thought into TCW without realising it, and with very very basic editing skills, I decided to crack on with it myself. I had no idea how long it would take, what structure it would take, or how many episodes I would produce, and I certainly had no clue what level of analysis, planning, skill, or community support it would require. But as it grew and cohered it only felt like a more and more worthwhile project. I’ve now fallen properly in love with the show, and my passion for this project is mainly driven now by wanting to give this wonderful community another piece of Star Wars that they can love too, and that fits alongside, supports, and enhances the franchise’s excellent and ever-growing canon.

I’m extremely grateful to all of you, for your support, feedback, ideas, and patience, and extremely proud of what we’ve been able to achieve together. It is an absolute pleasure to work on this project with all of you.

As always, any and all feedback is welcome and encouraged.

Good notes, thanks Vranir. I’ve made those changes and will shortly release a v2.2 containing them all.

• I agree with your text change
• I’ve trimmed Sidious referring to Ventress’ failiures. Now, Dooku says he plans to use Ventress, Sidious simply slowly replies “Ventress…” as if he’s considering it, and Dooku replies affirming his confidence. I didn’t chop any of Ventress and Dooku’s conversation, since he’s just affirming that this is an important mission without room for error, so her success in light of that implies that she took her master’s words to heart.
• I fixed the glitch that was offsetting the voices in the Venator boarding scene.
• The music transition was actually as it was originally, but there was a little noise on the SFX channel that I think made it more punctuated. I’ve toned down that squeak, so it sounds smoother now.

Many thanks buddy. That’ll be available as soon as it’s uploaded.

And that’s reuploaded now.