Patali said:
Book 2 remains my favorite movie. To me it feels the most like a single movie rather than several TV episodes put together. I say that with love, I’ve watched your first 4 films and think they are all the best way to enjoy these series. But it seems, if you’re keeping almost all of the different plots as you’ve done, that it is a feeling that is impossible to get away from entirely. Book 2 did the best IMO.
I remember you saying that from your initial reviews! That is very interesting, I love that perspective. Personally, I would say it’s my least favorite of my films, but it’s definitely the most unique/individualized out of them all so it makes sense that some would prefer it based on its structure. I agree that in order to make the other films more “movie-like” rather than still feeling somewhat episodic, I would have to cut a lot more content. I could definitely make them all feel like movies, but I think that would bring the series down to ~4 movies instead, and to me, it always feels bad when TV shows are cut down way too much into movies because the character development is so slow in TV shows, I never feel like I’ve connected as I do in movies that are designed to function around that timeframe.
Will be really interested to hear what you think of Book 6 eventually, as it’s structured similarly to Endgame where it doesn’t have a standard movie structure, but rather it’s a long-form sequence of connected building events that culminates in a final battle.
BOBA: I am Boba Fett.
FENNEC: Boba Fett is dead.
BOBA: I was.
CUT
I think that “I was.” line is great. And when you cut out the cringy “left for dead on the sands” and leave it just as “I was.” I feel it implies something greater, like Boba isn’t just referring to the Sarlacc and Jabba’s palace, but even more that he is saying “I was.” as in his whole life from when his father died, that moment in the opening. He was dead inside until he found his new family. It says a lot with two words, and through the magic of editing turns a cringy line into great writing.
Awesome! I love this idea. I will double check the delivery of the line and its tone to make sure it works in my edit, but I’m all for it on paper. Makes a lot of sense thematically. Thanks for the suggestion. As I go through all of the Special Edition edits, I’ll be referring back to your reviews of each movie too, so thanks again for writing those.
milkbundt said:
These all sound amazing! Could you please share a link with me? Thank you so much!
Sent! Would love to hear your thoughts after you watch.
Book 6 update:
I’m ~50% through my first pass of edits on the Battle of Mandalore. It’s a doozy! There is so much going on that is horrendously paced, so I don’t yet have enough to fully share the plan. I’m trying to break down everything in chunks to see what the various elements of the battle there are so I can restructure the whole thing. Currently, I have listed:
Arrival on Mandalore & entry into the base - I am planning on completely altering the whole “native Mandalorians” plotline. I thought it was incredibly distracting and added very little other than some cool-looking primitive armor sets. But overall, very forgettable characters that were tacked on at the last second and given a ton of forced dialogue. I am hoping to reframe all of this as occurring on Nevarro BEFORE they leave for Mandalore. The whole dinner and “boat” journey will act as an Intertribal council/Landsmeet where the various leaders intend to settle their differences and get on the same page before liberating Mandalore. Thankfully, the wastes of Nevarro look quite similar to the nothingness of the Volume setpiece of Mandalore… So with some crops and color grading, I think this might work, but not 100% sure yet. Might have to call an audible and replace it on Mandalore.
Ambushed by Beskar Imperials - Reframing this as our Mandalorians are overwhelmed and pushed back further into the base rather than the show presenting it where they absolutely annihilate the ambush and choose to go deeper.
Trapped by Gideon and Paz’s Last Stand - Restructuring everything here to make it actually make sense why Paz sacrifices himself.
Axe Flies to Space - This one is tough because Axe bails in the initial ambush, and he flies to orbit for SO long. It’s incredibly jarring every time we cut back to him in this plotline. Haven’t decided exactly how I’m going to handle this whole plotline of the TIEs attacking the capital ship just as Axe sends down reinforcements. I can guarantee you that I am not leaving it in the same order/context as the show though, it was extremely poorly executed there.
Bo-Katan Hides while Waiting for Reinforcements - I think it’s incredibly dumb how her squad enters the base, then exits the base and flies to a cave, then flies all the way back to the base and enters again. All the while… We have no idea what the Imperials are doing. Din is randomly wandering around and 1v1,000’ing the Imperials and Gideon while the entire attack force is hiding on a cave farm for 20 minutes. Restructuring all of Bo’s Squad’s movements here. They’re now losing the battle, flee from Gideon, escape into a heavily truncated cave section without flying away, and then will re-enter through the main hanger when the reinforcements join.
Din’s Capture and Break-out - Man, this is a bad sequence of events. Going to try to sync up some events to actually explain how Din breaks free of capture because it’s a huge eye roll why they randomly send him off “for interrogation” with only two lackey guards escorting him away. Makes no sense why Gideon considers him so important and does not oversee him whatsoever, and then freaks out when he escapes, somehow can’t track him down in his own base where there’s a perfect holographic GPS on his every move, then Din somehow wanders into the cloning center and… yeah.
Din Wanders Around - There is a huge chunk of time to solo Din walking around trying to find Gideon. It’s some decent action sets, so I don’t want to cut it, but I need to restructure and pace it differently. The whole timeline of the battle is completely thrown off by this segment. I just don’t understand what the Imperials are doing, there is no urgency whatsoever. No plan to address anything that is happening.
Gideon’s Clones - Maybe this will be a controversial call and someone can persuade me otherwise, but I am planning on cutting everything to do with Gideon’s clone army. It was my #1 worst part of Season 3 because of how shallow and glossed over it was, and Gideon’s rage reaction to their destruction is on my “Top 10 Worst Star Wars Dialogue” list. I thought his reaction was so comically over the top and out of nowhere that it completely took away from the battle with Din. I thought the show always hinted that Gideon was cloning in preparation for Project Necromancy and Snoke/Palpatine, not that he wanted to overthrow the entire Imperial Remnant by himself with his personal army of force-sensitive clones. It’s very easy to remove and I see no benefit to this random alteration at the last minute that has no resolution other than “Oh, look, I accidentally ran into some cloning tubes, let me blow them up real quick”.
Battle with Gideon - I think this is the best part of the whole battle, so I plan to simply do my classic acbagel frame-by-frame edit here.
Ending Sequence - This show ends so abruptly after the scene where Grogu saves them, and unfortunately, there’s not a ton I can do to change it. I’m still hoping to actually be able to show some of the space battle and have Boba join there as the reason the TIE’s aren’t obliterating everyone (seriously… where tf did they go? There are dozens to hundreds of ships in this base and we saw a ton fly to space and obliterate the Mando capital ship, and then they just vanish from the entire episode?) and also add Boba to the ending ceremony. I am planning to redo Armorer’s speech with some AI since I have a great model for her, but overall I just want to extend this sequence. Looking at options for how to slow it all down into more of a montage.
With all that said, I still need to cut 15-20 minutes out of the film, but I think that’s at a healthy place. Back to work!