Super interested to hear what material you’ll include from Tales of the Jedi. Only the post-ROTS stuff?

I love these ideas.

Ahsoka 1 - Love the idea of intercutting with Ep. 1. I think I’d be interested to see if it matches tonally.
Ahsoka 2 - YES. The TOTCW episode is a great idea. Splitting them is the best option, IMO.
Ahsoka 3 - So yes, I think it belongs as a coda. I LOVE the idea of taking the in-episode coda from the finale and sandwiching it around this. However, what would the ending of the final episode be? Would it be strong enough?

Dooku episodes - So I’m of two minds here. I think to keep it consistent with what you did for the end of the series, it’s probably best to keep them as separate episodes and say when to watch them. However, I do like the idea of blending them in and splitting TPM into episodes for a season zero. My only thing is that if you did that…I’d really, really want to see the same thing done for ROTS/the final season lol. Especially with the idea of blending in footage from the animated duel sequence. But that’s just me. 😃

Can’t wait to see what you decide to do! Love that you’re including this stuff!

EddieDean said:

On Ahsoka 3, it would play out as Ahsoka 3 followed immediately by the Vader-lightsaber moment. That would still leave the final episode on a strong point - Ahsoka and Rex burying the dead. It just would mean that burying the dead didn’t lead directly into the snow falling on that planet and the Vader moment. But if these are all codas, I think it works fine.

I agree that episodic or blended movies would be ideal, and they’re definitely on the cards, but yeah, for now, I’ll keep it simple! 😉

Love it!

Random…did you notice how in Ahsoka 2, the character design for Obi-Wan is AOTC, but in Ep. 1 of TCW, his design is ROTS?

I will always advocate for the adding of intro content to the first couple of CW episodes (for Ahsoka, Ventress, and Grievous), though I realize that it’s a delicate thing to do.

Hey, I’m watching series 01 now. It’s good, I enjoy the cuts. I’ll make a better review later when I’m done.

Not sure this was asked before, but is there a plan to incorporating the Bad Batch into this series? It’s kind of a successor to the Clone Wars, isn’t it? Although it is rather single-threaded.

I like the thing about showing the phasing out of clones and their replacing with Stormtroopers, the whole arc about Kamino and the disbanding of the grand army.

I would like to see a Rebels cut as well, but I don’t really care or fancy re-watching that space whales nonsense that kind of put the final chapter into Disney-eske territory. Also, Ezra and Zeb are annoying most of the time. If my mind doesn’t fail me, the last 2 series of Rebels get into that kyber crystal business to build the Death Star, which connects to the whole plot of Rogue One, albeit tangentially. (Useless trivia time, there is a Chopper cameo on Rogue One.) Well, perhaps Rebels is not part of the whole project, but we do have some important Ahsoka and Rex episodes!

EddieDean said:

Tales of the Jedi thoughts!

OK, so I’ve just watched through the six Tales of the Jedi shorts which were just released. Firstly, they’re all brilliant. Lovely little vignettes, and I hope for more. But, importantly, they’re all very relevant to The Clone Wars, or at least the prequel era.

I’d appreciate any additional thought you guys can afford here:

SPOILERS BELOW

So, chronologically we now have:

• TOTJ - Life and Death: Ahsoka’s birth and discovery as a Jedi
• TOTJ - Justice: Dooku and Qui-Gon search for a captured Senator’s son
• TOTJ - Choices: Dooku and Mace clash over the Jedi’s role
• THE PHANTOM MENACE
• TOTJ - The Sith Lord: Concurrently with to just after the end of TPM, Dooku becomes Sidious’ apprentice
• ATTACK OF THE CLONES
• THE CLONE WARS BEGIN
• TOTJ - Practice Makes Perfect: From the beginning to end of The Clone Wars, Ahsoka trains against Clones
• REVENGE OF THE SITH
• THE CLONE WARS CONCLUDE
• TOTJ - Resolve: At the end of RotS, Ahsoka meets Bail at Padmé’s funeral, then some time later, defeats an inquisitor and rejoins the fight

So let’s take that bite by bite, Ahsoka’s episodes first.

–

Life and Death

This is the first chronological story now in film or TV media. It’s not particularly illuminating, though it is good. But, like some moments in the Star Wars saga, like Andor’s flashbacks and Mando’s flashbacks, it really belongs around the introduction of the focal character (i.e. early in The Clone Wars) or at a moment when it can support the present-day story.

I don’t think we really have any options for the latter, since taming a beast or showing an innate connection to the natural world doesn’t feature as a major storyline in any of the Ahsoka episodes. It does feature Togruta heavily, which does mean it could possibly pair with the Kadavo slavery arc where they’re captured and Ahsoka is involved in their escape. You could possibly, possibly pair it with the Lurmen arc, but I don’t think that connection is strong enough.

However, TCW:R (and TCW) had a very weak opening, with the Christophsis and Malevolence stories. Both could be suitable - it could open Christophsis, or interleave with it, or it could open Malevolence once we’ve been formally introduced to Ahsoka in the prior episode. (Though, I’m suprised Dave didn’t choose to include Plo Koon in any of these stories, especially the one where Ahsoka is discovered). I think the former is probably a sensible move - either as a cold open to my Christophsis episode (in which case fairly early we get the “I’m Ahsoka Tano” moment), or slightly intercut around the opening - a cold open for her birth, then my episode’s current opening until Ventress is fought, then back to Ahsoka, then a light twist as she walks out of the ship, now a padawan. It could replace the Ventress fight, for a trimmed intro to that plot, but I think even though Ventress doesn’t tie into the episode’s plot, the way she’s used here works well with the focus on her early in this season (and, remember, the original show also had her show up then disappear here too).

I think one of these Christophsis options is where I’m leaning, so we meet Ahsoka and then Anakin does - and this would also help cement her as the core figure of TCW:R.

Now, this content does have a different graphical style, but the Clone Wars are very much a multimedia project, and so is TCW:R. If anyone was watching chronologically, they’d have to shift media as they went. Obviously it’s a bit much to do it in one episode, but here I think story is key - having a compelling opening to the saga and the show trumps visual inconsistency. Plus, it doesn’t feature the same character models, so there’s less of a clash.

–

Practice Makes Perfect

The core of this story is showing Ahsoka during three different stages of the Clone Wars (as illustrated by her three character models matching TCW’s), showing that throughout the wars, Anakin trained her (relentlessly) against Clones, which ultimately helped her win her final fight of the Clone Wars. Again it’s very poignant and good fun, though not vital.

You could make this a flashback in the final episode, but I think that’d distract us from its tension, and besides, the show really feels like it has a gap early where we don’t really see Anakin train Ahsoka. So it’d be nice to see some of that early, to help us build that relationship. In that case, you have two options: Split it or keep it together. Obviously either way, that last segment (set during the final episode) is too light to carry any story on its own, so if you did split it, at the end of the show you’re reliant on the audience remembering the setup, but I think that’s OK. (Though it’s a cute enough moment that I might just add into my own final episode for a little extra flavour.)

But as for the main training sequences (set early in the war, and then when she switches to two lightsabers), again we have some choice. If we want any of it right at the start, we have to split it, which would be fine, and maybe a little early training cut into an early episode would be fun, but then that leaves the two-lightsaber part a bit orphaned.

But here’s an idea: Those two parts together land either side of the transition point where Ahsoka changes character models. (Note: In the earlier part, she’s in a slightly more covered-up version of her usual early outfit, which could also imply a small time skip, but it’s clearly not long after as the clones are still Phase 1) So, why not set it at that transition point? Why not, even, merge it with my existing bonus episode set exactly then - Tales from the Clone Wars, which features some remaining Ahsoka/Padmé content from the Forces of Destiny shorts, plus the as-yet unused early episodes from the 2003 Tartakovsky miniseries (so it’s already multimedia!) To be cute, I could open on Ahsoka’s early clone training until she blacks out, then play out the FOD/2003 content, then fade back in to her waking up in her more mature character model. (Cheekily, that’d also slightly explain why those are cartoon, and also allow them to be a little less than canon if the viewer prefers.)

I think this is quite an elegant one - an enhanced s03e00. It would also really cement that time as Ahsoka’s transition point, with a lot of episodes where she really starts to develop on her own beyond Anakin.

–

Resolve

This one shows Ahsoka, far from the Republic or war, until she’s finally drawn back into the plot (she’ll next appear in Rebels) by an inquisitor. It’s cool and interesting for this to be our first appearance of an inquisitor chronologically, I think! Like my existing thoughts on when flashbacks belong (at the point they become relevant to the present), I’d tend to treat this whole episode as a coda rather than trying to shoehorn the scenes at Padmé’s funeral into ROTS or the final TCW episode. Therefore I think this is indeed TCW:R’s expected s05e05 - “Coda: Ahsoka”.

…Either that, or it belongs in Rebels, at the moment just after the end of season one, where Ahsoka is revealed to the main characters and audience (probably as its own little standalone season one coda, or a season two prelude).

Anyway, that then does raise the question for me regarding what to do with TCW finale’s original in-episode coda (let’s call it “Coda: Anakin”), where Vader finds Ahsoka’s lightsaber. Thematically, it hits really nicely where it is, pinned to the end of the episode (though set much later, during the stormtrooper era of the Empire). Chronologically, it comes after Coda: Ahsoka (at least its intro with clone troopers), and probably before Kenobi (since it implies a glimmer of light is still in Anakin, which we know gets buried much more over time). Perhaps we conclude “Coda: Ahsoka” with it that moment, as a paired “Coda: Ahsoka and Anakin” (to balance “Coda: Maul and Obi-Wan”) or perhaps we simply have three codas.

–

The Dooku Content

Hot dang! GREAT trilogy of episodes, and lots to think about here. Firstly, I don’t think they’re super relevant to the Clone Wars in particular. Dooku, during the Clone Wars, is a loyal villain, but he doesn’t have any strong moments which would be better served by any of this content. BUT they’re useful to the prequel trilogy and the saga as a whole.

Let’s just remember for a moment that I think that Ahsoka’s first episode belongs as a TCW flashback, which makes these the chronologically first movie or TV media. In this case, these episodes actually do a suprisingly useful thing: They do a far better job of introducing us to the Star Wars setting than The Phantom Menace does! While they don’t introduce us to the main characters of the prequels, in a very compelling way they give us exposition on the Republic, the Senate (and its corruption), the Jedi (and their tense role within that power structure and primary use as negotiators before warriors), and the Jedi’s basic powers (lightsaber combat, pushing, choking). It’s an excellent intro for a new viewer!

So, simple option here would be - watch Dooku 1 & 2 before TPM, and Dooku 3 just after, to neatly set up AOTC. (Call that all season zero of TCW:R if you like, “Prelude to the Clone Wars”.)

But, if we can tolerate live action and animation combined, perhaps there’s a blend of TPM and these episodes that could make the experience stronger together. You’d open on Dooku 1, playing out the whole thing, then doing something (an iris wipe, or maybe just something with the crawl if you used Dooku 1 as a cold open) to highlight that Qui-Gon was in both, and hand the story over to him. Then, sometime during the first two thirds of the story (before Mace is seen on the council), intercut with Dooku 2 (which puts Mace on the council and frustrates Dooku). Then, when the gang are on Coruscant, put in Dooku’s conversation with Qui-Gon from Dooku 3, and finally, after the ending (though you could skip the celebration element, for tonal consistency) conclude Dooku 3 on the Yaddle fight. To achieve this last point, you’d change Yaddle’s dialogue so she was implying the other masters had already headed off to Qui-Gon’s funeral.

That intercutting could be a movie, which I think would likely not please enough people to be worthwhile (as this is TPM we’re talking about), but it could be just a series of wildly different length content: Dooku 1 & 2 become TCW:R s00e00, and Dooku 3 becomes s00e03 to be watched after TPM (s00e02).

Thoughts!

The problem with Practice Makes Perfect is that the first part is set in what’s indicated to be shortly after Christophsis (and the following few stories) and that, by extension, those stories are supposed to be a few months after AotC. Obi-Wan still has his AotC hair but doesn’t in Christophsis and Anakin has grown his out a little bit since then. Yoda is even using the exact TCWS1 model.
The problem lies with Ahsoka herself. The change of clothes is fine, it’s a much better outfit than her original one, but her character model is the TCWS3 but one with shorter headtails not the much slighter TCWS1-2 model.

The story has to take place early TCWS1 (i.e. before 2) but Ahsoka looks like she’s from between TCWS2 and 3.

As for Ahsoka’s origin, parts of it can be cut into different episodes I think. Add a flashback style filter to it and it’d fit in the Slavery arc, the hunted by Trandosians arc, and hunted by the clones arc. So no episode is bogged down by the full story but it’s gradually revealed over time.

Ok, so I just finished watching The New Padawan, and it’s a decent start to the series. I think my one major issue with it though, is that you cut so much material. I understand that you used the traitor clone subplot from Hidden Enemy for an anthology episode later, but personally, I wish you’d put it here. Yes, it pushes Ahsoka’s arrival to later in the episode, but it also gives the situation on Christophsis a bigger sense of urgency, as Slick blows up the weapons depo, leaving the republic army drastically underprepared for the separatists’ energy shield. It also explains the importance of Anakin and Obi-Wan’s request for supplies, and also gives Ahsoka more hype, as instead of sending supplies, the council sent Anakin and Obi-Wan a 15 year-old girl. This also justifies the pushing of Ahsoka’s arrival to later in the episode, as she ends up being the resolution to the conflict, helping Anakin and Obi-Wan defeat the battle droids and disable the shield. Also, if you really wanted to You could also intersperse Anakin’s fight with the soda can droids (I don’t remember their proper names) with Pav-ti protecting baby Ahsoka in Life and Death, and use Ahsoka taming the beast to parallel Ahsoka crushing the droids around Anakin, to show Ahsoka’s natural gift for the force. To make the Life and Death stuff seem more natural, you could also add Ahsoka’s birth to the very beginning of the episode, but then there might be too much space between Ahsoka’s birth, and Ahsoka landing on Christophsis if you do add the Hidden Enemy stuff. Overall though, I like what you did with this episode, it took a rough start to the series and made it watchable, which is no small feat. Good job, and I look forward to seeing the rest of your take on this series.

Congrats on getting this all done, Eddie Dean. Really awesome. I plan on watching this when I have the time. I really look forward to it. I haven’t watched TCW (and only did so once) in years so I think I’ll be a good guinea pig to see how it flows/makes sense.

Okay, I have finished season 1. Here follows my feedback with the versions I watched.

s01e05 - The 501st Legion (v2.3)

I think that the story of the domino squad is cut short. How do they move up from a failed team to real troopers? It feels like there is this unanswered matter.

s01e07 - The Death Watch (v2.1)

I think Ahsoka’s punishment should be removed from the start and perhaps moved to the end of the previous episode, because it’s not really relevant to the episode, but it is relevant to the previous one. And episode 9 later on.

s01e08 - Children of Night (v2.1)

Maybe this has been brought up earlier, but this should come later. It’s visible that Anakin and Obi-Wan are dressed differently and thus it’s a posterior event.

s01e10 - The Future of the Force (v2.1)

The final scene is out of context and completely unnecessary. It feels like the lightsaber comment from Ahsoka should have some previous node, which is not the case, and Ahsoka’s motivation are not clear here, except to show the children, which seems… uh… maybe the word is… gratuitous? I don’t know, it just doesn’t fit, in my opinion.

The rest I’ve found to be an enjoyable experience, and much of the fat is indeed gone. Good work!

I’ll be back for the review of season 2.

This looks amazing! Can you please send me a PM with the link? Thank you in advance 😃

EddieDean said:

Thanks, VulgarisMagistralis! I really appreciate this. Have you seen the original show?

You’ve picked out a few of my more radical ideas for this season, so I’m interested to hear others’ thoughts on whether you agree with Vulgaris that I’ve gone too far here. My intention with all of these more broadly was to remove some of that early ‘anthology’ feel and try to have season one feel a bit more cohesive - perhaps I have failed in that and this all feels too fan-edity?

Specific comments:

• On 5, I think this is a necessary evil. The original arc had a very odd structure, where in the first episode the team fail then succeed, becoming “the best team ever”. But then they’re placed on the Rishi moon, which is clearly a lesser posting, but through a few team sacrifices they become Arc Troopers. And then finally they help at Kamino and rejoin the 501st. My intention was to smooth this out - having them fail their training and have the lesser posting at Rishi be a punishment. But THEN, through perserverance and sacrifice, and the success at Kamino, they become Arc Troopers of the 501st in response to all of that. To me, that feels like a smoother three-act structure for them, but I’m interested to know how others feel about how well that lands.

More voices would be appreciated here, if this content is jarring (for the hypothetical first-time viewer) I’ll have to revisit the work.

Having just seen the episode, I think it works fine, until the third act when it suddenly has a time jump to Kamino. I think if you could make a card to show the lapse of time or a montage, then it would work better.
Also I think you should show the part where fives gets his distinguishing handprint on his amour as it’s important important character development for him, especially as he plays an important role in later episodes.

EddieDean said:

Thanks, VulgarisMagistralis! I really appreciate this. Have you seen the original show?

You’ve picked out a few of my more radical ideas for this season, so I’m interested to hear others’ thoughts on whether you agree with Vulgaris that I’ve gone too far here. My intention with all of these more broadly was to remove some of that early ‘anthology’ feel and try to have season one feel a bit more cohesive - perhaps I have failed in that and this all feels too fan-edity?

Specific comments:

• On 5, I think this is a necessary evil. The original arc had a very odd structure, where in the first episode the team fail then succeed, becoming “the best team ever”. But then they’re placed on the Rishi moon, which is clearly a lesser posting, but through a few team sacrifices they become Arc Troopers. And then finally they help at Kamino and rejoin the 501st. My intention was to smooth this out - having them fail their training and have the lesser posting at Rishi be a punishment. But THEN, through perserverance and sacrifice, and the success at Kamino, they become Arc Troopers of the 501st in response to all of that. To me, that feels like a smoother three-act structure for them, but I’m interested to know how others feel about how well that lands.
• On 7, this is definitely valid. Mainly I’m doing it to explain her absence in that episode, which I do a few times in season one. To my mind it’s valuable for making the season cohesive, but again, I don’t know. The scene doesn’t work great as an ending, taking away from their victories, but I probably could do it well enough.
• On 8, I think it’s necessary to get Nightsisters going ASAP, since we make Maul the spine of the show. Sure the characters change models, but it’s not unreasonable they they change outfits, is it?
• On 10, that’s interesting. I’d hoped to emphasise two things here: That after learning that the Sith Lord is interested in force-sensitive kids, Ahsoka has taken it upon herself to invest in the future of the force - a role she takes in both Rebels and Mandalorian. And secondly, that clearly (offscreen) Anakin has been teaching her about his adventures (and in this one, he struggles without his lightsaber).

More voices would be appreciated here, if this content is jarring (for the hypothetical first-time viewer) I’ll have to revisit the work.

On this note, I’m not a first time viewer but my partner was. She’s been able to follow the story quite happily and as someone who hadn’t seen the series in a long time I could follow the series in its entirety quite well.

For 5 I didn’t realized you’d reordered the arch like that! and honestly I think it works better this way hahaha

For 7, although it could come in the previous episode it didn’t detract from my viewing it kind of builds a flow between episodes and arch which I much prefer then standalone episodes (like how the original show was)

For 8, the art style change doesn’t bother me and I don’t think my partner noticed. A necessary evil when it comes to this fanedit. To me, this is much like how they project is a mixed art style project anyway.

For 10, I got what you wanted to emphasize Eddie!

I don’t think your season 1 needs much more attention to be honest (unless you want to incorporate tales of the Jedi). After finishing a full viewing of your series I think the mid season (season 3) needs the most attention. A lot of it flows well but there’s a few noticeable edits that could likely be smoothed out with a V2 -> this was more for the Saw Gerrera arch.

My thoughts and suggestions on S01E02: Malevolence.

• The fade to black when Grievous groans after being told they have to navigate around the nebula is a bit off and sudden.

• Since the Malevolence conflict is presented as happening straight after Christophsis and Ahsoka becoming Anakin’s Padawan, Yoda’s line of ‘twice the trouble they have become’ doesn’t hold up much here I feel.

• For the shortcut, I think it would be beneficial to see Shadow Squadron go through the nebula and see why the Separatists didn’t go through it themselves, a straight hyperspace jump seems unrealistic that the Separatists wouldn’t know about it and make the jump themselves.

• For all the talk about how the Malevolence is such a super and secret weapon, we really should see it get fired and used successfully at least once, maybe at the beginning against Plo Koon’s fleet. I don’t feel it’s enough for us to just get told it’s a powerful ion cannon. I don’t think the VFX for it is goofy.

• Reordering of scenes and removal of Padme’s inclusion and antics aboard the Malevolence is a great plus, great job!

It has been many years since I watched the Clone Wars. I do not remember where I left off, but coming across this felt like I could start over again and watch a more streamlined and higher quality version.

I will start with the spreadsheet. The editor put in quite a bit of effort to have it organized. I found it very generous of him that he provides different recommendations for how to watch these. I personally went with the “recommended” method of watching these. I liked the inclusion of version numbers, length, and when they were last updated. I am someone that likes to see good organization because that typically (but not always) means good quality.

The only minor issue I had with the spreadsheet, which is excellently put together, is that I at times lost track of the line and had to keep scrolling back and forth left and right on the page to figure out where I was. It could be beneficial to cut and paste the right portion of the spreadsheet to a new sheet in order to minimize the clutter on one page. However, the editor should obviously do what works best for him because other than that I have felt his work has been great so far.

Thus far, I have watched the prologue and season 1, episodes 1 - 5. I cannot comment on changes he made as I have no recollection of specific details of the episodes besides general information.

Starting with the prologue, this was the only episode that I found awful. I do not blame the editor, but I was not impressed when I saw the Jedi flying along with 3p0 walking around in disguise for no reason. It definitely felt like this was something meant only for very small children to watch and appeal to nobody else. I understand why he included this intro - as we get to see Grievous, Ventress, and Anakin become a Jedi knight to set up the actual series. I think the editor should include a warning very similar to his episodes 1 and 2 about powering through this if someone does decide to watch.

As for the actual clone wars series, I like the opening for every episode, but even more importantly, the use of introductory text. It really allows the audience to understand what is happening right at the get go, rather than having to watch the first few minutes confused and possibly never figure out what is happening. Confusing the audience always = bad idea. Besides, Star Wars should give us the ‘opening crawl.’

I disagreed with the editor describing the first 2 episodes as weak. I did not find them to be good, but they seemed okay and passable as opposed to my personal animosity for the prologue. They were definitely watchable in my estimation.

I found episodes 3 - 5 to be very solid.

Overall, I did not notice anything out of place visually nor with the audio in what I watched so far. This is a comment from someone who is a non-editor, so somebody else might find something out of place.