The Clone Wars: Refocused [COMPLETE] — Page 65

Onwards to my RYLOTH episode. I think I could really do with some extra thinking here, if anyone has any spare.

As a reminder, my episode as it currently stands uses pretty much the entire plot of Shadow Over Ryloth, which is about Anakin and Ahsoka having to break the blockade above the planet, with the emotional core being Ahsoka failing in her first command and having to deal with that. The secondary plot I intercut was from Supply Lines, where Cham Syndulla appears, though the main focus there is on Master Di’s plot as he tries to protect some Twi’leks trapped on the surface, while Bail tries to get some blockade runners from nearby Toydaria to Ryloth in time.

Reviewing what I’d already produced, I think it’s really unacceptable that I left this episode available so long with the huge audio glitch at the end, so I’m very sorry about that. It’s a really poor standard. I know I was keeping up momentum at the time but damn. I let you guys down with that one.

Going into this episode’s polish, I already knew that, because of the reordering, I could have the Toydarian King Katuunko appear in this episode, since now he won’t be killed by Savage until my following one (which makes a nice tight pairing as I can frame it as more immediate revenge). So I was already planning on reintroducing the scenes with Bail and Katuunko, albeit avoiding JarJar if possible.

However, on review, while the structure of the episode is broadly fine, my big takeaway this time was on how much jumping around we do. You’ve got Anakin and Ahsoka, you’ve got all the POV stuff of the Separatist admiral, you’ve got Master Di and Cham, AND you’ve got Bail and Katuunko. There’s too much juggling.

Now that I’ve had more experience at digging into the value of the source content, I think I need to make some changes.

• Mainly, I need to remove most of Master Di, while preserving almost all of Cham. Cham, regrettably, is very passive in this episode, and barely a character at all. But, he’s developed now in both Bad Batch and Rebels, and as Hera’s father, there’s lots to get to know. So I should certainly retain him here. However, as much as it’s a cool little military diversion, I don’t think there’s enough emotional value to Master Di’s protection of the Twi’Leks (using the plan to blow up the ship to block a path), nor of his eventual death. Also, if we do care about Di’s death, it’s a bit of a bummer at the point in the episode where we’re supposed to just be winning - Ahsoka and Anakin breaking the blockade, and Bail dropping supplies. I think I’d like to refocus this section, so that instead we’re focusing on Cham as the person with a problem (we’re starving and on the run), with Bail’s hunt for supplies as the solution, until Ahsoka overcoming her trial wins them all the day. This way we’re focusing far more on the emotional core.
• In doing this, I’ll intercut a lot less of the remaining content too, keeping the episode feeling more ‘blocky’ than parallel.
• The Separatist admiral is definitely our most interesting Neimoidian, as he’s definitely competent, but (1) he’s still a Neimoidian, and (2) he’s surrounded by Separatist tech and in particular chatty Battle Droids, so I want to trim his scenes just down to his most compelling. I might also remove Wat Tambor entirely, because fuck Wat Tambor, but also my possible second Ryloth episode will be about a season later so I don’t think Wat Tambor should be on the planet yet.
• While my artificial scene of Bail hiring the Toydarians was better on this rewatch than I remember it, I’ll be replacing it with ideally just one scene of Bail and Katuunko, without Jar-Jar.

That’s the main stuff, and to be honest that all warrants recreating the episode from scratch, which won’t be as tough as it sounds.

However, also a factor is the plans for my second Ryloth episode. Again, due to Cham’s increased importance, I’m tempted to include more of him. The problem being, I remember Innocents of Ryloth and Liberty on Ryloth both being fairly unemotional and unexciting episodes with just Obi-Wan appearing from our set of main characters.

One option I’ve been playing with here is the inclusion of some of Jedi Crash, which has a great opening action sequence, and is crap otherwise other than showing Ahsoka caring for Anakin. I’ve considered a merge of that with Innocents/Liberty, to show essentially the big three characters split from each other. That might just give both plotlines the balance they each need in order to stand together.

But before I pursue that, I might look into including more from Liberty into this current episode. To memory, the best content there was in seeing Cham’s conversations with Mace, where they discuss Ryloth’s difficult politics, the victims of the war and the freedom fighters, and Cham’s issues with Orn Free Taa. I’ll see if there’s a workable solution there, or default back to the other plans listed here.

The other combo, the least likely I’ll use, might be to put the Master Di content in Liberty/Innocents, perhaps as the setup for things going badly for Cham before the start of that episode. So the first episode would be all Ahsoka’s trial, and the second would have all the Cham scenes.

Anyway! Pile of thoughts. If anyone has ideas there I’d love to hear them.

OK, I think I’ve got an idea which’ll get us a lot more value out of the Ryloth arc.

There’s a lot I don’t like about Liberty on Ryloth - mainly the extremely bland landscape, poor military tactics, and lack of main characters - but there’s a lot of unleveraged value there too. Far more so than Supply Lines, this showcases Cham, his strength of character, and his good political interactions with Orn Free Taa. And contrasting with Innocents of Ryloth, the suffering of the natives is far more pronounced, giving us far better established emotional stakes, and a more competent and threatening opposition. The ending is a good high too (more exciting than ‘we’ll come and pick up Anakin now’ from Storm Over Ryloth), showing the natives properly liberated and incorporating Ahsoka and Anakin as they take out the Separatist bombers to help win the day.

Therefore, let’s consider merging Storm with Liberty. The situation on the ground can be established early to give us the stakes for Ahsoka’s challenge in the skies above, and as the space battles progress, we can intercut with Mace searching for Cham and encouraging him to resist. After Anakin and Ahsoka break the blockade, we can follow Cham and Mace liberating the natives, with their suprise heroic appearance at the end to save them from bombers.

To achieve this I’d recontextualise a few things. We’d establish that Mace was already on the planet when it was overrun. I’d have no major Separatist ground forces on the planet, instead having the situation be entirely a bombing campaign coordinated from the overhead blockade after the massacre seen in Liberty. Rather than making this about retaking what was the capital city, I’d recontextualise that location instead as Wat Tambor’s prison complex. (Which can be the converted capital if you like, but I won’t draw attention to that). I never liked the ‘single force bridge’ entrance, but I think I can trim around that cleanly so that the combined Cham/Mace forces are free to walk up and assault it directly. Oh, and I can of course use my prior Nute Gunray context to help explain why the bombing campaign was so swift and effective. And the distraction of the Kamino attack to explain why the Republic didn’t help at the time.

I think this is the stronger core. Now that Cham is a major player in other media, I think we get good value out of his emphasis here, but it’s Ahsoka who remains our hero.

I’m going to continue reviewing the other Ryloth content to see if there’s anything else I can make work here, including the couple of Ryloth episodes in Bad Batch. I’ll also consider whether any of the spare can make a decent second episode to follow-up later, but I think the Storm/Liberty combo takes some of the pressure off there.

OK yeah, really happy with the Storm/Liberty plan. My rough cut feels like a single coherent journey, with the stakes on the ground enhancing the drama in the skies, and the final conclusion bringing it all together. I’ve reviewed all the franchise’s Cham/Ryloth content, and Liberty gives you everything you need to set that up, so we don’t need to use Supply Lines.

These things are always subjective, of course, but personally I think this is the best narrative one can make from the best moments of the Ryloth arc. Excited to get this one done.

Of course, this’ll mean no need for a second Ryloth episode, but hey. Quality first.

Anyway, feeling like this’ll work nicely has me just throwing some thoughts together about what comes next. There’re two little considerations here.

• In my (new) reordering, I was going to follow up Ryloth with my Nightsisters arc, because that way you get all of the main early battles (up to Sullust at the beginning of Nightsisters), then we get two Coruscant episodes (Death Watch on Coruscant, then the Holocron arc) to imply that both big factions are taking a breather as they bed in for what they now realise will be a long war.
  • (I was also thinking of slightly explaining away Obi-Wan and Anakin’s costume change in Nightsisters by saying they’d been interrupted while meditating with the other Jedi on the future of the war, which might emphasise the ‘long war’ angle.)
• That prior idea also originally had the little bonus of showing King Katuunko being killed in Nightsisters by Savage at Dooku’s command, immediately after showing Katuunko deciding to side with the Republic and aid Ryloth in my Ryloth episode. But, Katuunko doesn’t now appear in my Ryloth plans, so that’s no longer something to consider. (Episode quality without Katuunko trumps the value of including him in just for that soft pairing.)
• However, I should also consider Ahsoka’s discipline. In Ryloth she’s disobedient at a cost of lives, but unpunished. At the start of Holocron, there’s the short Felucia intro where Ahsoka is again disobedient at a cost of lives, but then the council assign her to guard duty, which’ll pay off later in the Holocron arc.
• I could (as Smudger did in his movie edits) shift the discipline so it’s instead referring to her Ryloth disobedience. This’d benefit us (1) because it’d allow her discipline to linger longer, until the finale, adding weight to her punishment, and (2) because it’d explain why she’s out of play during the Nightsisters and Death Watch on Coruscant arcs.
• If I do do that, though, I don’t think the scene belongs at the end of my Ryloth episode, since that’s a happy peak. But it could begin the Death Watch on Coruscant episode, where our characters all return to the planet. The impact of that though, would be putting Death Watch on Coruscant next after Ryloth, and Nightsisters afterward. That’ll probably be fine, but it does mean a little more of a gap where we don’t see Ventress, a little more of a gap where we don’t see Maul, and it means that Sullust in Nightsisters comes after the return to Coruscant, so I can’t quite play up the angle of having many military strikes before a larger breather.

Thoughts?

Good to hear buddy, looking forward to it! I miss having frequent collaborators sharing their opinions and feedback here, but appreciate that this is a far less interesting time for the project as I polish content starting right from the beginning. I’ll be interested to hear your thoughts on the improved 1-5.

Cheers CMMAP, I’ll take silence as affirmation then 😃

Hacai, thanks very much for reviewing this. Glad to hear you found it smooth. Did you think it served well as an introduction to the series? Did you feel it flowed well, and was the emphasised Grievous hunt a fun little addition?

On your notes:

• s01e03’s conveyor belt is tricky, and I think I’ve got that one as good as I can, having tried a lot of alternative approaches. It’s very quick and choppy, but I think that’s my only option to get us from A to B - I have to use Satine’s scenes to permit Obi-Wan’s to progress off-screen, and vice-versa. I think we really have to have this this way, because for our first introduction to the Mandalorians, they really shouldn’t be so cartoonish, but we do have to get through this content for the plot.
• s01e03’s hostage situation is a bit of an oddity, because it was like that in the original. All I trimmed there was a shot of the spider-bot on the table before it falls off. In the original, the guy takes Satine hostage and Obi-Wan just stares, and the guy backs Satine out of the room. When Obi-Wan chases them out of the room they’re nowhere to be seen. This is one of those edits where I don’t have any options for making it better than the original, because the original just did it in that weird way.
• s01e05’s underwater hunt was trimmed, but again even in the original he just teleports quickly to underwater. I cut the underwater action sequence, but perhaps there’s more I can do here. Maybe we don’t have Obi-Wan go underwater at all, just letting it be a concern that isn’t followed up on, then I can use some of his underwater dialogue as they pop back up and attack the city - “Oh shit, they were doing stuff underwater!” I’ll try that approach.

You’re right about the black bars on the sides of the s01e01 video too, I’ll see why that is. Edit: They’re all rendering like that, I must have knocked my render settings off a little. They’re still watchable this way but I’ll roll out updates as soon as I have time.

Haven’t posted here or watched this in a while but wanted to offer a little encouragement!

Then consider me encouraged!

Much appreciated buddy, thanks.

Good notes, thanks GLogus.

You make a good point of having Grievous’ laugh before his ‘proper’ introduction, so I’ve trimmed that. (Harder to smooth the audio there than I was expecting!) I’ve also fixed the flipped frame while I’m at it.

I’m not sure about removing the fades - I’d be interested in others’ opinions on this. Subjectively I quite like them - they feel like a little reset or breather to me. I’m using them here as an alternative to wipes (which tend to be same time/different place, which there’s a fair amount of in this episode), to subtly allow a little time to pass in transit (since both follow a drop into or out of hyperspace). To me it feels OK, but as I say, interested in other opinions here.

As for minimising the Plo content, I think that’s the heart of the episode - it’s an early opportunity to say ‘individual clones matter’ and showcase a little of Plo’s importance to Ahsoka, and give her an emotional plotline which fleshes her out. The medical station stuff ups the stakes of Ahsoka’s diversion, which is why I embedded the one in the other. So I think I’m happy that this structure is the way I want to tell the story of this content.

Keep 'em coming, baby!

It’s interesting that you say that, because for this pass through the episodes I made certain to match my transitions exactly to the timing and settings used by the original sources. That said, when I see a wipe in Star Wars (even the movies) it tends to take me out of it a little, so perhaps it’s that general aversion to fades that you and I share?

Really good steady progress on RESISTANCE ON RYLOTH today.

I’ve done a lot of work on the opening scenes, reworking a lot of dialogue to tie the two plots together.

HERE’S A (ROUGH) CLIP OF THE INTRO (I know there’s one weird shot of Yoda in there, I’ll work around that.)

(This clip will follow from the final line of the opening text, something like “BUT A SEPARATIST SCOUT HAS JUST DETECTED WINDU…”)

We open with a scene of Tambor and his tactical droid, to emphasise that Windu is their primary threat, and to show the suffering Twi’leks very early so we sympathise early.

• Tambor says “The Jedi is progressing faster than expected” (rather than “The Republic”), because it’s only Mace’s small force on the planet as the blockade is not yet broken.
• He then says “target every inhabited village in range” as a means to stop Mace from gaining support locally. This’ll increase the threat against Cham Syndulla, paid off when we see the fire-bombing which ultimately catalyses the Twi’leks. (I’ll be establishing in the crawl that firebombing, from bombers operating out of the blockade - not the city - will be one of the major ways the Separatists are oppressing the resistance).
• Tambor then immediately drives the Twi’leks outside the city as a strategic ploy to delay any bombardment or aggressive attack on the city. I’ll move Tambor’s other dialogue from here - about withdrawing their troops into the city - to much later, to help justify my cutting of the bridge which’ll make the assault on the city easier later.

We then cut to the good guys discussing the same thing, to frame Syndulla as Mace’s solution to the problem on the ground, and set up the political situation early (since it has more importance to Bad Batch and Rebels).

• I cut all of Anakin’s good news, since it hasn’t happened yet.
• I changed Mace’s reports of Obi-Wan’s success into more reports of Tambor’s success, to keep the stakes tight, and make this much more of Mace and the Twi’leks’ final stand.
• Yoda now says “A plan you have to take the city?” (rather than “the bridge”), because I’m minimising that aspect.
• When Palpatine asks about reinforcements, Yularen now replies that he’s working to breach the blockade, rather than his original more pessimism. Mace re-emphasises Syndulla’s importance, but we now know there’ll be action in the ground and the skies.

We then cut to Wat Tambor talking to Mar Tuuk (the Neimoidian) aboard his starship, now showing that Tambor expects an attack and is prepared for it - he’s now a more competent strategist, and anything that happens in the skies is expected by the Separatists.

And finally we cut to the Republic and Yularen arriving guns blazing, in an attack that now has well-established stakes and has been discussed on the ground too, so everything’s neatly tied together.

Though all those scenes I’ve listed above have been chopping around a little, we’ll then spend a long time focusing just on the sky battle, before cutting only to Mace - there’s only two main narratives from here on and we’ll chop between them a lot less. The next scene after the (failed) space battle will be Mace finding the graves from the Twi’lek massacre whilst searching for Syndulla.

I think it works nicely! There’re some more opportunities later to keep the sky and ground plots related to each other too.

As an aside, this new version of Ryloth, focusing on Cham’s doubts about Republic occupation, will serve the following episode well too, where we’ll see more of Mandalore’s hesitance around Republic overreach.

I need some opinions folks: Does this scene work?

Storm Over Ryloth keeps having Anakin report in to Mace, which works nicely paired with Liberty on Ryloth, because it’ll seem like Anakin’s reporting to Mace directly on the ground. If this scene works, it’ll be a really slick bridge between the space action and the ground action, and tie them all together nicely. But if it doesn’t work, I’ll have to just have this as two separate holocalls as in the original.

OK, well that’s great to hear guys, thanks. I’ll definitely add the radio SFX to the first shot of Anakin talking from Mace’s perspective, and tidy up the new audio a little more.

I’ll also see about my options regarding that shot of Yoda turning, which allows me to change Yularen’s voice line. Though with this scene coming later I think the original lines about no reinforcements coming might make sense in context.

I’ll probably follow up this scene with Mace stepping out at the site of the massacre - kicking off his plotline - meaning that those intro scenes I posted above will be more focused on Wat Tambor’s strategising and the space front, so a bit less of an exposition dump across lots of locations.

And Burbin, I agree. I’ve now watched through this pairing a few times as I’ve been working out the right pacing of the scenes, and it definitely feels like it’ll work well as a single story - better than the original (split episodes) and my first attempt (with Supply Lines), I think. Always lovely when a new episode comes together like this.

Ah shit! Shit, shit shit! I can’t use the scene that way because it introduces a continuity error. At the time I want to place this, in the space part of the story Yularen is injured in bed, so he can’t appear here. And since he’s in the middle of so many shots, I can’t crop around him. Balls. I can’t trim his injury either, as Ahsoka’s plot depends on it and he wears a bandage in the space scenes.