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The Clone Wars: Refocused [COMPLETE] + Subtitles for season one! — Page 3

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Maybe you could merge Supply Lines with Storm over Ryloth and juxtapose the Anakin/space plotline with the Cham Syndulla/that Nikto Jedi scenes. The Toydaria/Lott Dod angle would be gone, while the Jedi general and his clones’ final stand could happen just after the Core Ship is destroyed by Anakin, allowing for the supply ships to break through.

I honestly kind of like the humor involving the B1 droids 😄 though yeah it should be reduced to whenever they don’t break the mood of the scene.

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You’re just one step ahead of me! The elements that comprise the Ryloth arc, plus those that comprise the Children/Ziro arc, followed by Smudger’s third movie (which incorporates both), will be tomorrow’s job.

I think I’m likely to find that the Children/Ziro arc still isn’t great, though I might like to preserve specifically the force sensitive children angle in some fashion, since it also featured in Rebels, and possibly other more recent media.

I shall of course report back!

(I’m just the right amount of ill to not work right now, but just the right amount of well enough to be able to watch and document some Star Wars, so I’m getting through this at a good crack.)

The Clone Wars: Refocused | Andor: Movie Omnibus

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@EddieDean – you, sir, are a hero. I’m a Star Wars nerd, but have just never been able to get into the Clone Wars for all the reasons others have listed here and other forums. Of course, with The Mandalorian heating up and introducing some phenomenal characters and stories introduced in TCW, I’m hopping on the bandwagon in hopes of getting myself up to speed on all things TCW, and I want to lean on your new project for my introduction to all this. I was going to start with Smudger’s fan edits, but then saw this thread and have immediately halted!

So, here’s my question: can I start diving into things now based on your VIDEO criteria, keeping chronology according to SW.com? Or should I wait until you produce a fan edit of your own? And if the latter, you are just one person tackling over 100 episodes of content and I imagine your timeline for release is pretty far in the future – would I be correct in that assumption? And lastly, if that is the case, how should I proceed?! I want to have the best experience with TCW as possible (with hopes of convincing my SUPER skeptical wife to join me [she’s a huge Mando fan and decent SW fan, but she draws the lines at cartoons, and while I’m still willing to be brought to the Dark Side, it’s an uphill battle for her]) while at the same time being realistic enough to still get the fullest enjoyment out of Mando in real-time.

Seriously, cheers for doing this!


EDIT: Signed up for this forum just to contribute here. Legit excited for this!

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I’m not sure how long this will take me. Yes, it’s a large task - 59 arcs to review, 59 episodes to either cut out or edit. But perhaps I produce any edits in priority order (Vs first, then Is, then Ds, then Es, and no Os). And a lot won’t need much at all - just a bit of trimming together and some clean transitions. It’s hard to say.

If you wanted to start now you absolutely could - I’ll put together a progress tracker on the front page which lists out the arcs in their chronology, and marks their importance. But it’ll be a little based on memory since I’m only now going through and doing a proper review of each. I’ll keep it up to date though.

The difference between watching just the best ones in chronological order and watching my eventual output will just be levels of polish, really. It depends how much you want to rely on those. If it were me, I’d wait, because there are plenty of moments in the best arcs which still drag. But see how much progress I make and decide for yourself. I’ll go set up the tracker on the front page now.

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I’ve never been satisfied with the ‘official’ chronological order. I think it moves things around and splits things up too much.

I prefer to watch it as per the document below.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1m3lgle_RFU_STk1NTif4N1DQUJd4rhGCj2pAB3DPNM4/edit?usp=sharing

Being able to just pick out individual arc subjects is also helpful.

Things like the Clovis arc (An Old Friend, The Rise of Clovis, Crisis at the Heart) were officially planned for much earlier in the series and feature the old Palpatine voice actor. The moving of the ‘The Disappeared’ arc is just to move the silliness out of the final third of the series and to tie up the Nightsisters stuff much earlier.

Edit: Moving the Clovis stuff earlier allows for the increasing desperation of the CIS later into the war due to the strangulation of their finances and impetus for the plot to kidnap Palpatine on Naboo.

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Right, McFibb, that’s the front page updated with a full list.

@EVERYONE, feel free to review and challenge that listing on the front page.

Artan42, thanks for this. There were some useful points there, and it encouraged me to take a look at the earlier production orders. I’d already kept a note of the changed character models in case of reshuffling, but ultimately I think I’ll adhere to roughly chronological order but with a real focus on pacing the whole.

The Clone Wars: Refocused | Andor: Movie Omnibus

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EddieDean said:

Artan42, thanks for this. There were some useful points there, and it encouraged me to take a look at the earlier production orders. I’d already kept a note of the changed character models in case of reshuffling, but ultimately I think I’ll adhere to roughly chronological order but with a real focus on pacing the whole.

I don’t really have much useful advice to off other than looking at what you put out here. I’ve never been able to make the idea of TCW films work in my head.
I think the main problem is that the main characters are involved in almost every plot which makes it really difficult to cross events over and have different arcs happening at the same time.

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Yes, that’s one of the issues with trying to produce movies. You have to have plots which can at least be interlaced, but then they’re not particularly cohesive as a whole. And if you’re going to have plot A then plot B as a movie, why not have them separate and not demand two hours in one sitting? One thing you might notice is that in my list of episodes up front, I’ve split it into more arcs than you might have assumed.

For example the popular Yoda arc can really be seen as two arcs - the first episode about Sifo-Dyas, then the second about the Qui-Gon’s life after death. Since they’re not directly a follow-on, you might choose to split them and thus achieve a different pacing.

Similarly, the Return of Maul arc is really three things: The massacre on Dathomir, a less important episode of Ventress trying to find herself, and the actual Return of Maul. We can split that out and have a slower burn, a more developing world, where through focusing on these episodes we’re reminded of their importance, and the whole feels more cohesive and directed.

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Interested in peoples’ thoughts on my arc titles. (Not that I’m going to include them all.) But I feel like there’s value in emphasising that this is a long-term war on many fronts, so as you watch these episodes the feeling of this being a rolling conflict is maintained. Therefore, where possible, I’ve tried to focus on the specific incident as history might record it, so they’re mainly in the format of:

  • The (Second/…) Battle of / Assault on / Siege of / Massacre of / Insurgency on [Location X]
  • The (Second/…) Peace Conference
  • The [X] Crisis
  • The (Attempted) Capture / Kidnapping / Assassination of [Title, Person X]
  • The Return / Liberation / Fall of [Person X]
  • The Mystery of [X]
  • Stranded on [Location X]
  • The [X] Trial (if it’s a more personal episode - ‘Incident’ might be better?)

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Back to finishing off the Ryloth arc:

S01E20 - Innocents of Ryloth - Excludable

The problem with this episode is that it adds nothing at all. Obi-wan goes and rescues some innocents from droids, whilst two clones we never see again in a major way meet a twi’lek child. Innocent people are saved, but it just doesn’t do much that’s too interesting.

S01E21 - Liberty on Ryloth - Excludable

Adds very little. The idea of a freedom fighter being wary of the Republic as well as the Separatists is a bit interesting, but even when you later learn (in Rebels) that this is Hera’s dad this doesn’t really add value.

I think these episodes are a good example of why a different approach is needed for the clone wars. These are often edited as a movie, but they’re just not that good! Yes they present a sequence of events (establishment of a supply base, then a military base, then the breaking of a blockade, then the rescue of innocents, and finally the defeat of the occupier), but I think we need to be honest with ourselves and recognise that that’s just not that interesting as there’s no emotional core.

The highlight of the whole Ryloth arc is definitely Ahsoka’s initial failiure in command, which you could maybe stretch as far as to call Important, so I might present what was The Battle of Ryloth (Excludable) arc instead as The Insurrection on Ryloth (Important) arc featuring Ahsoka’s command intercut with Bail’s attempts to establish supply lines and Cham’s initial resistance, then separately Liberation of Ryloth (Excludable) featuring Mace teaming up with Cham to liberate the planet.

As an aside, I’m coming to realise how dull and uninteresting so many of the CIS hardware and character designs are. I think I’m going to try to avoid using them as much as possible unless they carry relevant context.

(And to be fair to Knight of Kalee, there was a decent B1 Droid joke in one of those episodes)

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S02E01-03 - The Holocron Crisis (Holocron Heist, Cargo of Doom, Children of the Force) - Important

Cad Bane is always good fun. These are visually interesting episodes with a good chaotic threat. These are mostly just decent fun, but I’m calling them important due to the fact that modern SW media seems to be leaning on the force sensitive children angle. We also get some good early relationship between Ahsoka and Anakin, where she’s confident and competent but still a little foolhardy and unrefined, but Anakin is also clearly starting to care for her.

The pacing is a little wonky since the last third has some very quick time jumps, but if it can’t be fixed this’d still be fine. I’d maybe have Anakin and Ahsoka arrive on Naboo before the Rodia plot, to explain why they’re well set up by the time Bane reaches Naboo. And I might trim Sidious’ dialogue to make his reasoning for wanting the force kids more ambiguous, but otherwise this barely needs touching.

Looking at the overall pacing, this would make a great second episode.

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EddieDean said:

Back to finishing off the Ryloth arc:

S01E20 Innocents of Ryloth - Excludable

The problem with this episode is that it adds nothing at all. Obi-wan goes and rescues some innocents from droids, whilst two clones we never see again meet a twi’lek child.

Waxer and Boil show up again in the Umbara arc for a minor but dramatic scene. The child is Numa (I think) and one of the two gets a graphic of her on his helmet. Numa shows up again in Rebels as part of Chem’s unit wearing parts of clone armour in the same colours as Waxer and Boil’s unit (212th? I think they’re part of Cody’s mob).

Not massive issues if you were to cut the episode but due to the same creative team, there’s basically only one episode that doesn’t connect to any other and receives no call backs in Rebels or The Mandalorian, and that’s ‘Lightsabre Lost’. Everything else is called back in some way, small or large, in the future.

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Yeah, I perhaps shouldn’t have said never see again, rather that their identities aren’t important to the overall plot. I’m aware there are references like this throughout, and I used to really enjoy them, but I just don’t think they constitute genuine quality, so I think this edit has to be fairly brutal. I do agree that things like Numa’s references add nice texture, but I don’t think they justify retaining an episode which is otherwise an hour and a half that isn’t fun.

That said, I think I’m coming round to the idea that there’s a core here which represents the real great episodes with emotional resonance, and then some way to present the good moments from across the wider clone wars, of which you could argue that that is one.

Which reminds me, I realised earlier that this period of time is a single war! The Clone War! It isn’t Clone Wars at all! The Star Wars are a collection of wars, of which the Clone War is one such war, which contains multiple battles and crises. Like Yoda says at the end of Attack of the Clones, “Begun, the Clone War has.”

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Artan42 said:

EddieDean said:

Back to finishing off the Ryloth arc:

S01E20 Innocents of Ryloth - Excludable

The problem with this episode is that it adds nothing at all. Obi-wan goes and rescues some innocents from droids, whilst two clones we never see again meet a twi’lek child.

Waxer and Boil show up again in the Umbara arc for a minor but dramatic scene. The child is Numa (I think) and one of the two gets a graphic of her on his helmet. Numa shows up again in Rebels as part of Chem’s unit wearing parts of clone armour in the same colours as Waxer and Boil’s unit (212th? I think they’re part of Cody’s mob).

Not massive issues if you were to cut the episode but due to the same creative team, there’s basically only one episode that doesn’t connect to any other and receives no call backs in Rebels or The Mandalorian, and that’s ‘Lightsabre Lost’. Everything else is called back in some way, small or large, in the future.

And even that’s connected. The old Jedi who teaches Ahsoka in that episode returns in the middle of the Anakin / Bariss duel in the Wrong Jedi (admittedly, it’s an unimportant cameo)

It’s inevitable to cut certain story arcs. That said, imo Innocents of Ryloth is the best of the Ryloth trilogy for its emotional core. It’s the first episode that actually shows the damage of war beyond clones and droids. Storm and Liberation are solid battle episodes, but Innocents focuses on the lesser known combatants in war, and for that reason I suggest it should remain.

Maul- A Star Wars Story

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S03E08 - Evil Plans - Objectionable

This is just way too mundane to be interesting. Padme’s planning a party, the droids go off to get some fruit, R2 goes to the spa, and finally C-3PO gets captured by Cad Bane (who, sure, is always fun, but that doesn’t make this episode any better). You could maybe do something smart here and take the examination of R2-D2 by Grievous in Downfall/Duel of the Droids as what happens when R2 gets captured here, to make these elements something separate which would serve elsewhere.

S01E22, S03E09 - The Liberation of Ziro (Hostage Crisis, Hunt for Ziro) - Objectionable

As for the following plot which begins when Cad Bane gives the liberated plans for the Jedi temple to the Hutts, you could just start that as its own thing by explaining it with the crawl. Bane is competent, we don’t need to see how he acquired the plans, and this is where the story starts.

I like the idea of the council of the Council of the Five Hutts, but I do think their designs are goofy, and I feel like the use of Hutts in the Clone Wars takes away some of their menace. I especially think Ziro’s flamboyance cheapens the Hutts quite a lot, and I can’t believe we have to watch this horribly weird romance between Ziro and Sy Snootles. The idea of Palpatine being directly blackmailed and the senate appearing to have inadequate security make both feel lesser.

There are a couple of decent ideas in here and the first episode is relatively good (if a bit more of the same), such as padme showing some quick thinking and competence, but I don’t think you can separate the good from the bad, and it’s certainly not an important arc.

There’s maybe a brief story here about Obi-Wan teaming up with Quinlan Vos to (fail to) capture Cad Bane, with no Hutt plot whatsoever (Ziro’s body in the background would simply be Cad’s latest victim at the point when Obi-Wan and Vos catch up with him), but I don’t know if it could work.

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EddieDean said:

Right, McFibb, that’s the front page updated with a full list.

@EVERYONE, feel free to review and challenge that listing on the front page.

Artan42, thanks for this. There were some useful points there, and it encouraged me to take a look at the earlier production orders. I’d already kept a note of the changed character models in case of reshuffling, but ultimately I think I’ll adhere to roughly chronological order but with a real focus on pacing the whole.

@EddieDean: THANK YOU! This is awesome. I so appreciate your thoughtful responses and effort in making this happen!

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OutboundFlight said:

Artan42 said:

EddieDean said:

Back to finishing off the Ryloth arc:

S01E20 Innocents of Ryloth - Excludable

The problem with this episode is that it adds nothing at all. Obi-wan goes and rescues some innocents from droids, whilst two clones we never see again meet a twi’lek child.

Waxer and Boil show up again in the Umbara arc for a minor but dramatic scene. The child is Numa (I think) and one of the two gets a graphic of her on his helmet. Numa shows up again in Rebels as part of Chem’s unit wearing parts of clone armour in the same colours as Waxer and Boil’s unit (212th? I think they’re part of Cody’s mob).

Not massive issues if you were to cut the episode but due to the same creative team, there’s basically only one episode that doesn’t connect to any other and receives no call backs in Rebels or The Mandalorian, and that’s ‘Lightsabre Lost’. Everything else is called back in some way, small or large, in the future.

And even that’s connected. The old Jedi who teaches Ahsoka in that episode returns in the middle of the Anakin / Bariss duel in the Wrong Jedi (admittedly, it’s an unimportant cameo)

It’s inevitable to cut certain story arcs. That said, imo Innocents of Ryloth is the best of the Ryloth trilogy for its emotional core. It’s the first episode that actually shows the damage of war beyond clones and droids. Storm and Liberation are solid battle episodes, but Innocents focuses on the lesser known combatants in war, and for that reason I suggest it should remain.

Yeah - bear in mind I’m not arguing about whether or not to include it, just whether or not to consider it ‘core’. It’s not Vital, and I don’t think its connections to other media make it Important, but it’s not Objectionable, so it certainly should still remain available. And I will still be trying to edit its content to present it in the best possible way.

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EddieDean said:

Which reminds me, I realised earlier that this period of time is a single war! The Clone War! It isn’t Clone Wars at all! The Star Wars are a collection of wars, of which the Clone War is one such war, which contains multiple battles and crises. Like Yoda says at the end of Attack of the Clones, “Begun, the Clone War has.”

I can’t recall if it’s singular or plural in ANH but technically there are several wars going on around each other all tied into the main Republic vs CIS war. The Republic invasion of Mandalore, the Shadow Collective vs. Mandalorian war, the CIS vs. the Nightsisters, the Republic vs. various pirates and slavers, the CIS vs. the Hutts, the Onderron rebels vs. the CIS.

It’s an oddity it’s referred to as a ‘clone’ war in the first place where a term like ‘Galactic War’ would suite better, though that is mostly ANHs fault. But the Republic vs. CIS war is the trigger for the other side-wars both sides are fighting so it can be said to be a collection of wars.

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I’ve just rewatched Smudger’s third movie, which links the Ryloth arc and the Holocron Crisis arc. As always with Smudger, it’s extremely technically competent. He uses the scene from the start of the Holocron Crisis where originally Ahsoka gets disciplined for her behaviour in a ground assault to instead refer to her behaviour at the start of the Ryloth arc space battle. It is brilliantly done, and I do have huge respect for Smudger’s work - I just don’t think that releasing as movies is strictly necessary. As I thought when I was watching the episodes in isolation, I think that it works best as three separate stories:

  1. Ahsoka leads a crew to break the blockade of Ryloth - I’d basically use Smudger’s cut plus a little more showing Bail on the delivery side of those supplies.
  2. The remainder of the battle - Good, but not great nor important to the overall show.
  3. The Holocron Crisis arc, in full, as a great and important episode.

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S01E02-04 - Malevolence Arc - Excludable

As an early arc, this one suffers from wooden animation and some quite bland imagery. And it’s yet another Grievous episode where he comes off as quite neutered. Superweapons are generally not very interesting, and the idea that Padme would fall so easily into a trap like this cheapens her (and where’s the advance guard, etc?). Her and C-3PO’s scenes on the ship are also pretty goofy nonsense.

We do get a bit more Ahsoka development here, in particular her relationships with Plo Koon and Anakin, which is good, but we do get more of this in better episodes. And the idea of droids which kill survivors is quite viciously decent. It’s also cool to see the Kaminoan-run medical stations peppered throughout the galaxy. Ultimately though, as is my main metric, it doesn’t add any real value. I think this episode is best trimmed to keep it tight and to the point.

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S01E08-10 - The Capture of Viceroy Nute Gunray - Excludable

The first of these, Bombad Jedi, is absolutely horrible, and unnecessary for the rest of the story.

The second, Cloak of Darkness, is OK. I’m not sure about it. It’s got a bit of corruption, which is good, and some quality Luminara. While I don’t think Ahsoka should be fighting Asajj this early, it’s fairly well done and sassy and there is some good growth for them all. I’d maybe like to find out if I can build something decent out of this plus something else. It’s not a really strong episode but it’s not awful.

The third, Lair of Grievous, is pretty interesting. It’s cool to see Grievous’ origins and repairs, and to see him behaving quite monstrously when damaged. The way Grievous kills Nadar is quite grim and adds a good amount of threat, though there are other elements to this episode which could certainly be trimmed.

Weirdly, these are linked in a way that doesn’t quite work. Episode one captures Gunray, episode two has him escape, but then episode three implies they’ve fallen into a trap, which is fine, but they forget that they were chasing Gunray.

I’m also not a fan of the idea that Dooku is testing Grievous. Dooku is dependent on his droid general, now doesn’t feel like a sensible time to risk his death. And their tension isn’t returned to.

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We must be watching two different shows, because Bombad Jedi is some of the best television I have ever seen.

EDIT: And it is clear foreshadowing to the Darth Jar Jar reveal.

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S01E11-12 - The Capture of Count Dooku - Excludable

I want to like this episode because it introduces Hondo, and the idea of Anakin and Obi-Wan being bound to Dooku is fun. But the execution is poor, it looks crap, it’s got a lot of Jar Jar, and it’s dependent on some clumsy action. This is as good as Excludable if I were to cut around Jar Jar, but it’s Objectionable otherwise.

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Lair of Grievous is one of my favorite episodes from the first season next to Rookies. Have you thought of including this chapter with a very trimmed version of Cloak of Darkness as an extended cold open?