nmxuci5970 said:

I haven’t seen you mandalorian episodes although I seen the changes in each and ever single one of them and by the looks of it. Therefore, I’m creating a Clone Wars Stories (Canon) that happen in the time period to make a bit of changes in some of them. Nevertheless, I’m not be able to get as many edits completed by the period as Education is important and schooling. If you’re willling to contribute and ideas as this is WIP project.

Replied in your thread 😃

(RE)RELEASED - S01E10 - The Future of the Force (V2.1)

• RELEASE VERSION, now brought up to my more polished 2.0 standard.
• Our tenth and final episode of the first season, and the second part of the two-part finale.
• (The previous v1.0 version of this edit was called ‘A Strike at the Heart (part 2)’, but it’s been renamed for v2.0.)
• Comprising the original episodes Cargo of Doom and Children of the Force.
• Running 38 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 the second part and conclusion of the Cad Bane / Holocron Heist storyline, and this season’s finale. The split between this episode and the previous one was mainly because the original version of Cargo of Doom (which begins this episode) had a lot of plot happen in its narration, which I needed to preserve via a new opening crawl. There’s nothing too new in this version of the edited episode, mainly some light restructuring and improved audio and transitions throughout.

These are a great set of episodes, and a fitting season finale - Cad Bane is an excellent new villain, we get a great high-stakes romp through space, there are some nice callbacks to earlier events in the season, and we get some great hints at Palpatine’s larger plans. We also get to see more of Ahsoka’s growth (through combat competency, patience, and wisdom), and her relationship with Anakin develops (with him compromising the mission to save her, and trusting her judgment). I also added a scene originally from Lightsaber Lost which, in context, implies that these events have given her an interest in training the future generations (as continued in Rebels and Mandalorian), and reflects back on Anakin losing his own lightsaber in part one.

Noteworthy changes:

• The episode is titled ‘The Future of the Force’ to highlight a few things which’ll grow later. The Jedi children are the subject of the plot and thus the obvious ‘future of the force’, but Sidious’ plans with them are his intention for that future, and Ahsoka’s development as a protector and teacher of new generations is also a direction the force will take her in future.
• Used the opening text mainly as a refresher for the past episode, and to bridge the two stories better than the original’s narration did.
• The two episodes are pretty much back to back with most scenes intact. I trimmed and reordered a few minor scenes for pacing. The bridging scene between the two episodes I’ve combined here is the opening from the second episode, rather than the ending from the first. (Interestingly, these two were originally mutually exclusive!)
• I removed all references to the ‘Kyber Crystal’, which in this episode was needed to unlock the holocron (in contrast with newer (and EU) context that Kyber Crystals are for lightsabers and Death Stars). This also serves to simplify Bane’s need for a Jedi to open the holocron.
• I also removed all references to Master Ropal, since he’s not needed, but also because originally Bane went to all that effort to capture him but then accidentally killed him, which takes away some competency. Now, he always planned to coerce or capture a pursuing Jedi, which seems fine, because we know he can go toe-to-toe with some.
• I removed Obi-Wan’s trip to Rodia, because it’s redundant, is too much jumping around, and because I don’t like the Rodian city’s design (it doesn’t feel very aesthetically Star Wars to me).
• I reworked Sidious’ dialogue on Mustafar to better emphasise his plans with the Jedi younglings - he mentions now a force sensitive army (rather than spies), which aligns better with his more recent reveals (such as his Inquisition and perhaps even Final Order cultists).
• I cut one joke where Rex bumps his head, and all droid banter. The droids still have a functional military purpose and for that they need to speak, but they’re far less goofy.
• Our penultimate scene is of Anakin and Palpatine mulling over the mystery, and our final scene is one from Lightsaber Lost where Ahsoka passes on some recent lessons to the current batch of Jedi Younglings, to wrap up the season and hint at what’s to come.

I’m not quite ready to announce that this episode concludes my season one, because I’d like to make a simple trim to s01e05 (cutting Obi-Wan’s underwater scenes entirely rather than just leaving a bit of them). That’s uploading right now too, so just give me couple of hours and I’ll update the thread title once it’s all good to go!

Right, so with that s01e10 v2.0 complete, and the minor change to s01e05 (removing the underwater scene), it’s finally time to announce:

SEASON ONE COMPLETE!

That’s the full polish/quality pass of the first ten episodes (plus the bonus episode zero), incorporating full reviews of all edits to date and their original sources, masses of community feedback from the v1.0 versions incorporated, the new reordering and additional context it grants, improved music and transitions, and improved intros and outros throughout.

This is intended as a complete, cohesive, end-to-end season of the show, and of course the introductory season for my five-season edit. There are extensive notes on each episode’s placement and edits in the tracker spreadsheet (which you can PM me for) and lower down in this thread’s original post.

Phew!

As always, feedback and discussion is welcome and encouraged. I’m sure there’s the odd nip and tuck I could make in future, but for now, there’s nothing in my (extensive!) notes and I’m proud to put that season in front of you all.

Onwards, then, to the polish for the later seasons! I know I say this every time I say ‘onwards’, but this content’s v2.0 upgrade should take far less time to edit. I was already a half decent editor by the time I came to the 1.0 versions of those episodes, so there’s far less polish work to be done, plus they were already stronger episodes so required fewer edits in the first place.

Thanks to everyone who’s joined me on this ride!

To anyone who watches the full first season, I’d really appreciate any further feedback (even if not particularly constructive), because I’d really like to submit this to IFDB once it’s been seen by enough eyes.

Thanks Vranir, it’s always interesting to see how people have brought things further. I’m interested how you’re managing most of the audio transitions when trimming some of the dialogue you’ve specified, because I often find that each trim needs quite careful audio work to preserve the flow of the background music. This is why I tend to avoid any more subjective cuts and tend toward preservation unless particularly egregious. One of the big changes I made for the 2.0 polish was that I now listen to the edits on a full surround sound system at max volume with muted voices and SFX so I can really feel the music flow. But there are some interesting ideas here!

I’m particularly interested in how you trimmed around the rock worm in The 501st. I kept it because I couldn’t see a clean trim point since Rex’s introduction is him shooting the worm. What was your solution there?

Similarly, I’m curious about what you did about getting Anakin down to Kamino without the underwater scenes. I know originally Anakin says something like “I’ll join you on the surface” and then eventually we just cut to them together on the planet, but I was happy to have them travel down while offscreen in the absence of the underwater content. I’d like to see how you’ve made that slicker!

I’m also interested in your new placement of Grievous’ escape in the 501st, because I remember that bit of audio being a bit messy.

I also wonder if there’s an angle in Ryloth where I can preserve the Twi’leks being kicked out of the city but without the human shield angle…

I’ll keep the word ‘Defences’ because that’s the norm for British English, which sees wider use than American English. Just be glad I haven’t had to talk about Coloured Armour!

I’d recommend that you keep the scene of the droids talking about older models though, because it’s good context for why they can’t just take out the orbital control ships like Anakin does in TPM.

I don’t think I’ll make many changes, but there’s lots to think about here, thanks!

Thanks to your notes Vranir, I’ve just made some light changes to Resistance on Ryloth.

UPDATED - s01e06 - RESISTANCE ON RYLOTH (v2.1)

(Not yet uploaded at time of writing, it’ll be a couple of hours from this post.)

• Removed Wat Tambor’s references to driving the Twi’leks out of the city as a human shield
• Moved the scene of the Twi’leks being kicked out to before Wat Tambor’s plans, so it’s the first shot after the initial establishing shot of the city
• Slightly reworked the opening crawl to reference the massacre and Twi’leks being driven out, to enable the above

I’m not sure why I didn’t do it this way before. It makes sense to open on the Twi’leks suffering, to establish the episode’s emotional stakes, and so the ending brings this full circle.

REQUEST FOR HELP

If anyone’s able to change the colours of just a single item on screen (as opposed to a screen-wide LUT), I’d love to recolour the pink-skinned child that Cham Syndulla holds in his arms into having green skin, so it can be more explicitly Hera. Doesn’t need to be a spot-on job (she can grow into her pigmentation), but hinting at Hera would be a nice nod forward. It’s just three short shots.

It’s still uploading, it’ll be ~45 mins.

(RE)RELEASED - S02E01 - Seven Warriors (V2.0)

• RELEASE VERSION, now brought up to my more polished 2.0 standard.
• Our first episode of season two.
• Comprising the episode originally called Bounty Hunters.
• Running 24 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 the opening episode of my second season. I included ‘in memory of Akira Kurosawa’ from the original episode, and renamed the episode ‘Seven Warriors’, to emphasise the fact that this is an homage to his ‘Seven Samurai’ film.

This isn’t an incredible episode, but it’s perfectly decent and a good season opener, as it achieves a few things: Firstly, it reintroduces our core trio of Anakin, Ahsoka and Obi-Wan, and they all get their moment to shine. But more importantly, it sets the tone for this season, with its emphasis on the rise of scum and villainy, and the impact the war has on the ‘little guy’. We also get our first sighting of Hondo (at least for TCW:Refocused, in a far better episode than his original introduction), who’s a great villain and addition to the franchise. And it also gives us the first seeds of Rebellion, which’ll continue a few times through TCW.

The episode is largely untouched.

Noteworthy changes:

• This episode is titled ‘Seven Warriors’, to emphasise the connection to Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai, and because it sounds cool.
• The opening crawl establishes the state of the galaxy now that the opening conflicts are over and battle lines have been redrawn, leaving many behind. It also emphasises the season’s themes, of bounty hunters and piracy. I chose to also make Felucia’s importance (but remoteness) explicit, because we see it a few times throughout the Clone Wars so I felt the context was valuable.
• I removed the opening search for a medical station, instead just letting them check on Felucia by convenience when passing by on a more important mission. Highlighting that it was a diplomatic mission requiring an ambassadorial shuttle (which is what that shuttle canonically is) helps explain why three Jedi got shot down so easily.
• I removed the large monster from the beginning, since it served no purpose to the story, but was able to preserve the nice familial bickering between our three leads (and fix a small continuity error from the original episode in so doing).
• I trimmed a later reference to the medical station - Obi-Wan’s now resistant to help simply because of the time concern and because, knowing there was a light Separatist presence in the system, their prolonged presence may draw further Separatist attention to the planet. (I feel like this works better, since this episode is also about the main cast having the idea of local resistance, which will eventually grow into the Rebellion.)

Onwards to s02e02 Massacre. I’m going to try my more recent idea to have scenes from Lair of Grievous precede the Massacre portion (with the reasoning being that Mother Talzin leaked its location as revenge against Dooku/the Separatists in the Nightsisters arc), which’ll give us some cool additional scenes and make the Massacre far more personal for Grievous.

Great progress today on my idea for a new version of s02e02 Massacre.

I’ve incorporated about ten minutes of Lair of Grievous, so now it plays as follows:

• Intro makes clear that as revenge for the events of the Nightsisters arc, Talzin has leaked the location of Grievous’ lair (a secret only Ventress knew) to the Jedi. (We assume Ventress told Talzin offscreen in their last episode together.)
• Open on Ventress returning to Dathomir, and being told by Talzin that she should become a Nightsister
• Cut to Kit Fisto entering Grievous’ lair and them finding all of his weird artefacts, Grievous arriving, their first combat (where Grievous loses his legs), Fisto deciding to flee but being stopped by Grievous locking the doors, and Grievous undergoing his painful repairs.
• Transition from Grievous’ repairs into Ventress going through a similar procedure as she’s healed and purified by Nightsister magics, becoming a true Nightsister.
• Return to Grievous’ Lair, where he takes a call from Dooku saying he knows about the Jedi attack, that Ventress has returned to Dathomir, and they can get revenge on Ventress and Talzin. (They leap to revenge as only Ventress knew the location so they must have been the leakers.) Grievous kills Nahdar and Kit Fisto unlocks the doors, and I moved round some scenes so it looks like the right number of clones get killed without needing the fire pit or monster. Kit faces Grievous and flees, and Grievous immediately tells Dooku it’s time for revenge on the nightsisters.
• Back to the Nightsisters celebrating and getting immediately attacked by Greivous, and then the rest of Massacre plays out, with the only changes being making Talzin the one who raises the undead army instead of Old Dahka.

Since Grievous has no visible mouth, and Dooku has his back to the camera quite a lot when he’s in hologram, I was able to do a lot of audio work to keep referencing the Nightsisters throughout the Lair of Grievous content.

The workprint is finished but I want to watch it through first and see if I want to make any other changes since it was a complex one to put together.

But, a question for you guys:

One additional option I have here, is to end with Savage on a rampage in the diner looking for Maul, finding a further clue and getting more of Talzin’s guidance, ending up on the ship which’ll take him to Lotho Minor to find Maul. I originally cut that from the start of the relevant episode, as it wasn’t necessary as an episode introduction (he has the medallion, we can start with him just already arriving at the planet), but if I were to put it here, it would serve to bridge the prior Nightsisters episode (four episodes prior) with the next Savage/Maul episode (four episodes hence). Though it doesn’t directly pertain to the content of this episode, it might provide some good wider continuity and let that plotline feel like it’s still running? What do you guys think?

In fact, I could really do with some feedback on how well that new narrative works right now, so-

WORKPRINT RELEASED - s02e02 - MASSACRE

The link’s in the usual place (replacing the older version 1 of Massacre). Detail on my new idea in the post above.

Ignore the intro and outro, they’re still the old version. (Assume that the introduction tells you that the Nightsisters have leaked the location of Grievous’ Lair, a secret that only Ventress could have known.) But I’m curious to gather feedback on the story ideas presented herein and their execution. Ordering, audio, and transitions are all done, so it plays nicely.

Thanks in advance to anyone who can spare the time!

I’ve tidied that workprint up now so I can at least release a decent review version.

REVIEW VERSION RELEASED - S02E02 - Massacre (V2.0)

• REVIEW VERSION, not quite ready for full release, but presented here for feedback.
• Our second episode of season two.
• Comprising the original episodes Lair of Grievous and Massacre, with a couple of minutes from Brothers (IMPORTANT: The prior v1.x version of this just covered Massacre, so this story is all-new. Worth a look if you’ve seen this one before.)
• Running 34 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 episode is a continuation of the plotline established in the Nightsisters arc, which leads into the Savage/Maul plotline to follow. It’s placed here to allow us to eagerly anticipate and get to Maul within this season, and to make Ventress’ reaction to the events of the Nightsister arc come fairly soon afterwards.

It merges the plotlines of Lair of Grievous and Massacre, to present an all-new story. Lair of Grievous contained some interesting texture and good villainy for Grievous, but had a lot of filler and its emotional core wasn’t strong enough to stand alone. Massacre was always great fun, but it was really Dooku that had the personal grievance against the Nightsisters, not Grievous. So what I’ve done here is had Ventress leak the location of Grievous’ base to the Jedi, as a vengeful strike against Dooku and his war. Here that event is what now draws the Jedi to Grievous’ Lair (rather than pursuing Nute Gunray as in the original), triggering the events of Lair of Grievous. And now, when Grievous initiates the Nightsister massacre in Massacre, the events there (including Ventress and Grievous’ one-on-one duel) are more personal. This also builds on their dislike of each other as seen in the Domino Squad arc. Having Ventress be more directly responsible for the fall of the Nightsisters also adds a new layer to her guilt, which plays nicely with her original lines about this being all her fault, and helps justify the softening of her character that we see later.

Since Grievous has no visible mouth, and Dooku has his back to the camera quite a lot when he’s in hologram, I was able to do a lot of audio work to keep referencing the Nightsisters throughout the Lair of Grievous content.

I also end this episode with some scenes originally from the beginning of Brothers (where Savage finds Maul), showing Savage getting closer to finding Maul and having Dooku and Grievous ominously show further concern. My intention here is to create some anticipation and continue to make this show feel more serialised than anthology. (I’m not sure quite how well this works, so interested in feedback here)

Noteworthy changes:

• This episode is titled ‘Massacre’ after the original episode, since I think it’s a good straight-to-the-point threat. However, now that this version includes some additional content which serves to make the plot more of a series of revenge strikes, I may rename it ‘Retribution’ after I’ve done a bit more work to polish this.
• The opening crawl reestablishes the risk facing the Sith with the various unexpected a results of the failed attempt to kill Ventress. It explains that Ventress leaked Grievous’ location, and makes explicit that it was only her that could have leaked it - which I needed to help explain why Grievous and Dooku tie the strike back to the Nightsisters.
• We open on Ventress returning to Dathomir, and being told by Talzin that she should become a Nightsister.
• Cut to Kit Fisto entering Grievous’ lair and them finding all of his weird artefacts, Grievous arriving, their first combat (where Grievous loses his legs), Fisto deciding to flee but being stopped by Grievous locking the doors, and Grievous undergoing his painful repairs.
• Transition from Grievous’ repairs into Ventress going through a similar procedure as she’s healed and purified by Nightsister magics, becoming a true Nightsister herself.
• Return to Grievous’ Lair, where he takes a call from Dooku informing him that he knows about the Jedi attack, that Ventress has returned to Dathomir, and they can get revenge on Ventress and Talzin. (They leap to revenge since only Ventress knew the location, so she must have been the leaker.) Grievous kills Nahdar and Kit Fisto unlocks the doors, and I moved round some scenes so it looks like the right number of clones get killed without needing the fire pit or monster. Kit faces Grievous and flees, and now free from dealing with the attack on his base, Grievous quickly tells Dooku it’s time for revenge on the Nightsisters.
• Back to the Nightsisters celebrating and getting immediately attacked by Greivous, and then the rest of Massacre plays out, with the only changes being making Talzin the one who raises the undead army instead of Old Dahka.

(I’m not quite sure if ‘Massacre’ still suits this new narrative, so I may rename this? Revenge? Retribution? Escalation? Revenge and Regret?)

I may need to return to this one based on your feedback, but it’s a polished review version for now.
Onwards to s02e03 Corruption on Mandalore!

(RE)RELEASED - S02E03 - Corruption on Mandalore (V2.0)

• RELEASE VERSION, now brought up to my more polished 2.0 standard.
• Our third episode of season two.
• Comprising the original episodes Corruption and The Academy.
• Running 26 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 episode is a continuation of the Mandalore plotline, continuing Ahsoka’s interest in teaching future generations, and giving us our first steps into Ahsoka developing her skills solo.

I wanted to place this episode fairly early because making it now the third Mandalore episode in a relatively short period of time helps establish Mandalore as a key recurring pillar of our show, which’ll pay off once Maul gets involved and carry us through to the finale.

For this episode I wanted to combine all of the best parts of Corruption and The Academy whilst dropping and minimising the weaker elements of both: The plotline about poisoned schoolkids, the academy kids, and the whole idea that the best way to fix corruption is to make a Jedi a schoolteacher. I also wanted to change a LOT of character motivations to make then all a lot more rational. The solution here was a radical restructure of the narrative, placing both Padmé and Ahsoka on Mandalore at the same time, and allowing the academy kids’ interpretation of Ahsoka’s teaching to kick off Satine and Padmé’s investigation, which ends up putting pressure on Almec to expose himself.

The new narrative plays out as follows:

• This episode is titled ‘Corruption on Mandalore’, again highlighting Mandalore as a recurring setting, but also highlighting its corruption to emphasise its internal instability (which we know has a risk of becoming a threat to the wider galaxy). It also serves to inform the viewer that we’re getting a bit of a political episode.
• The opening crawl explains that Padmé’s a hero to Mandalore for protecting its independence, but the war is still putting pressure on supply lines, causing corruption and a black market. For support and advice, Satine requests Padmé’s help. Knowing that Ahsoka’s taken an interest in training, and to help Satine’s work on the future of Mandalore’s peace, she recommends Ahsoka share her experiences at the political academy. (Ahsoka’s there in secret, since there’s still wider Mandalorian mistrust of the Jedi amongst the common population.)
• Using a scene from the episode originally called Assassin, as Padmé and Ahsoka fly to Mandalore, Ahsoka shares her doubts and Padmé reassures her.
• Ahsoka unintentionally inspires the kids to investigate the black market, which they do offscreen, reporting their findings first to Satine (Korkie’s trusted aunt, so a sensible move). THIS is the trigger for the plot - that the black market may be linked to government corruption, not that either exists in isolation.
• Satine tells the kids that she’ll take action but the kids shouldn’t (because they’re kids, so a sensible move), but frustrated, they decide to call Almec, who Korkie also knows.
• Before they can do that, Satine and Padmé go to talk to Almec (who she has no reason to mistrust yet, so a sensible move). He shows little interest, saying it’s probably Death Watch, which Satine finds a bit nonsensical. (This makes the scene in this context a little funny and Almec more flippant, which I think is fun.) Suspicious, and not knowing who else to trust (sensible, because it could be anybody else) Satine and Padmé decide to investigate themselves. I’ve slightly improved this scene since version one of this edit.
• The kids call Almec, who’s already suspicious that Satine may be closing in on him because of their previous conversation, and they tell him they have evidence - which he knows will implicate him. This justifies his fairly radical actions now - he’s more panicked now than in the original episodes. Knowing he has to act fast, he tells the kids to meet him that night.
• The kids attend the academy during the daytime, where they tell Ahsoka about what’s going on. This brings her into the story, and now that she’s grown a little wiser than she was when she was first introduced, she’s wary, and decides to keep an eye on them.
• Late in the evening, Satine and Padmé (who’s always up for capers like this) go and check out the docks, where they see an easily bribed guy. I’ve changed the dialogue “A customs official” to “A government official” to make it explicit that they’ve just had their suspicions confirmed - the black market is tied to the corruption in the government.
• Again, they go to Almec (still sensible because they don’t completely suspect him, and with their new evidence they believe he might be more inclined to help). He rebuffs them once more, and they retreat frustrated for the night.
• Almec now knows for certain he’s made, so while he moves to arrest the kids that night (as he always intended to since the moment they told him they had evidence), off camera he arranges the arrest of Satine. Padmé is unaware of this and doesn’t follow the rest of the plot (she enjoys a good night’s rest in the ambassador’s suite, presumably).
• Ahsoka, now savvy and patient, saves the kids from arrest by Almec’s corrupt guards. They realise that Almec was corrupt and rush to Satine (still sensible as they now realise they’re way out of their depth), only to find her taken.
• Ahsoka puts a plan into motion immediately, giving Almec what he wants (the arrested kids) and impicates Satine (who she knows Almec opposes) in order to gain his trust. This doesn’t work, but only because he’s particularly guarded, but it was a perfectly sensible idea. It also gets her close to the prison.
• She moves to plan B, and tries to free Satine herself. She falls into a trap, where Almec freely reveals his own corruption, but she turns the tables and imprisons him, freeing Satine, and implicitly rooting out Almec’s corrupt network.
• As a note: Plan B also includes using the kids as part of the plan. I thought about trimming this, but I think it ties more into the Ahsoka-as-teacher plotline, and contrasts well against her cautioning patience earlier. She trusts these kids to act even in the face of danger, but she just knows that there was an unsuitable time for it (breaking into a government warehouse) and a suitable time for it (to free someone from illegal imprisonment and root out a usurper). It shows she’s a bit more discerning, even when she’s being bold. This also kind of shows that she expected to be drawn into a trap (and use that to get Almec to confess), if you want to interpret it that way.
• Ahsoka - now no longer required because she’s both taught the kids about corruption AND triggered a series of events which has likely made the population of Mandalore more guarded against corruption - is picked up by Anakin.
• But Padmé, in my version, remains, for a while. She has dinner with Satine, where they discuss their happiness at the outcome while still bemoaning the cost of corruption across the galaxy and within the Republic. But true to her earlier word, Satine now invites her to come and see a new hospital (the one where in the original they saw the poisoned kids, but here free of context it’s just A Good Thing) and enjoy peaceful mandalore to raise their spirits. They toast, and we end the episode. Mandalore’s now left in a better place than in the original version, and having Padmé stay there for a while is a nice way to keep it feeling relevant even if we don’t revisit them again soon.

The amount of polish I’m needing to give this batch of episodes is far smaller now, as I was a better editor when I first produced them, so I’m able to get them upgraded to version 2 a lot quicker lately. But I’m still taking the opportunity to review them fully as I go.

Onwards, to s02e04 Like Father, Like Clone, our Boba Fett episode!

And I’m having a productive day, so-

(RE)RELEASED - S02E04 - Like Father, Like Clone (V2.0)

• RELEASE VERSION, now brought up to my more polished 2.0 standard.
• Our fourth episode of season two, which I’d called ‘Sins of the Father’ for v1 but changed for this release.
• Comprising the original episodes Death Trap, R2 Come Home, and Lethal Trackdown
• Running 48 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 the first (and main) time we see Boba Fett in the Clone Wars, but it’s also a good Anakin episode which becomes a good Ahsoka episode, with a little development for Mace Windu. It’s a great episode that looks lovely and has some good ideas, with a strong emotional core - the battle for Boba’s soul. And hey, we get some more Hondo, who’s always good fun, and there are some excellent ponchos on display too so you know you’re in for a good time. Mainly, all I did was take out a good amount of filler, to let that core plotline remain in focus and be better paced.

Noteworthy changes:

• The episode is titled ‘Like Father, Like Clone’ to emphasise the Jango/Boba relationships, and Boba being tested by his father’s legacy as a bounty hunter.
• The opening text basically just recaps the Jango/Mace/Boba story so far, then sets the episode up exactly the way the original opening did.
• I removed the skeet shooting scene and Boba nearly getting caught alone in the cruiser from the first episode, and took out a little of the other clone cadets where they weren’t relevant to Boba’s journey, before transitioning cleanly into the second episode.
• From the second episode I removed quite a lot that wasn’t relevant - R2 fighting bounty hunters, R2 fighting gundarks, R2 flying all the way to Coruscant to get help. These antics were a bit too goofy and just distracted us from the core of the episode. Having the rescue ship show up at the end without being summoned is understandable since the cruiser had working comms and the Republic would have tracked the crashing cruiser’s distress beacons.
• I also didn’t have Boba’s team appear on the planet the cruiser crashed on - he will have set the trap during the chaos of the lost cadets (expecting the Jedi to see if they could save any bridge survivors, which they don’t know he kidnapped), but left before the larger Republic forces arrived. The story here just focuses on Mace and Anakin searching, getting trapped, and ruminating on Boba before their rescue. I shifted a scene from the third episode to the middle of this drama just for pacing, and to keep Boba in focus.
• From the third episode I only really cut the meat of the traitor Castas subplot, since it wasn’t relevant at all to see his objections. We still see him betray the bounty hunters at Hondo’s bar, and Aurra’s hardline response there, so we don’t lose any character development. Other than that I just made a couple of light trims to dialogue.

Onward to s02e05 Tales of the Lost Clones, my clone loyalty anthology episode. Of all the episodes I produced so far, this was the one left unfinished (since I wasn’t great at audio transitions at the time), so I’m looking forward to having it properly released.