- Time
- (Edited)
- Post link
Trailer for Star Wars: The Way of Mandalore
The Mandalorian gave life to The Book of Boba Fett, but these stories are part of a larger compilation of the lore of the Mandalorian people. What we are being presented here is essentially “The Mandalorian Bible”, with each book being a tale of the reformation of the Mandalorian clans. Though the show is formatted into telling the stories of Din Djarin and Boba Fett somewhat separately, I am unifying the story into a more chronological compilation and attempting to create the best story possible out of all of the content provided instead of being limited by having to publish different shows/seasons. Though fan-edits have been done to cut whole seasons into a single film, I am not going to limit myself to a trilogy format, as I am simply interested in creating the best narrative possible with all of the content combined. I currently have produced 5 movies worth of content.
The 3 main issues I attempted to fix are:
- Trim down the filler content. The Mandalorian has some incredible story moments, but at times it did struggle with the filler episodes hindering the pacing. I am not going to remove entire episodes altogether, but I will be presenting them in a different order than release and cutting major plotlines in these filler episodes. Since I have the added benefit of including Book of Boba content, I will still have plenty to work with to fill in these gaps. I know at times the story can feel a little “side quest-y”, but seeing the day-to-day life of a Mandalorian can still be beneficial to the larger character arc.
- Maintain character consistency. Re-watching Season 1 of the Mandalorian, there are a handful of moments for Din where he appears to deliver lines out of character for the sake of levity. One moment he is a no nonsense, man of few words, hang you upside down to be devoured by bloodthirsty creatures Mandalorian and the next moment he is cracking a wise-guy comment in a 3 second Marvel-esque reaction shot. These moments are admittedly few and far between, but when they do occur it really feels extremely off putting. I am not talking about removing his consistent and realistic emotions to make him a robot, but trimming down the very random sarcasm lines where his tone is obviously different than how his character is presented 99% of the time. When it comes to Boba, I will be keeping him more in line with the Boba Fett of Legends. Decisive, deadly, less confused, less talkative, etc. I understand his experience with the Tuskens affected him deeply, but it is generally agreed that his new portrayal goes over the top in a way that harms his character as a whole. I want to recreate Legends comics Boba Fett. Din and Boba are the “Messiahs” of the Mandalorian people and I want to maintain that larger than life presentation rather than some of the goofy Disney things that sometimes occur.
- General story improvements. These are things like preserving Din’s face reveal for the end of Season 2 to keep the weight of the first time he removes his helmet. Reducing a lot of the… weirdness in BoBF regarding the mod gang. Reorganizing scenes to keep tension alive longer, going frame by frame in combat sequences to ensure nothing ridiculous is going on etc. There’s a lot of small improvements that add up to improve the flow. I have been greatly inspired by the smudger9 trilogy and some of his ideas will be credited in my films as I find them to be incredible improvements.
BOOK 1: The Mandalorian (2 hours 2 minutes | Covers Mandalorian Episodes 1,2,6,3)
- Heavily trimmed the Mandalorian intro on the ice planet Pagodon. I love this cantina opening sequence as an intro to Din, but it drags on far too long with the ice lake monster and the goofiness of the bounty he collects. I have removed a few lines of dialogue that were overly joke-oriented, and now once Din confronts blue-fish-guy, we immediately cut to him being placed in carbonite on the Razorcrest and he flies off to collect his payment.
- After Din collects his first Beskar square as the down payment, I removed the lines from Herzog’s character to use in the next bounty collection for Grogu.
- Removed Din learning how to ride the Bluurg in favor of some re-cut shots utilizing the conversation in a different manner to show more proficiency from Din
- Removed Din saying “Okay…!” after seeing the repeater gun during the battle at the compound (a moment of the out of character levity I mentioned)
- Removed the entire subplot of the Jawas. Using the idea from Smudger, Din now runs into the Mudhorn accidentally during his travel back to his ship and the fight ensues there. After the battle we cut to him attempting to fix his armor and then he and Grogu continue their journey in the morning.
- The whole plotline of repairing the scrapped Razorcrest is cut, and Kuiil’s compound scenes are edited accordingly. Also use smudger’s idea of showing Kuiil repairing IG-11 here as well once Din leaves for orbit.
- Added the previously cut Herzog line into the scene of Din collecting the large Beskar payment
- Cut talk about the rarity of Whistling Birds as it is strange when the Armorer tells Din how rare they are and to use them sparingly only for him to use them over and over throughout the show
- Removed some Stormtrooper incompetence in the Imperial compound battle
- Cut Din being captured and using his Whistling Birds, it’s much more impactful to see them used later on instead of a mere few minutes after installing them. This whole sequence also slows down the pacing too much during this rushed escape.
- Reordered scenes in Din’s escape from Nevarro to preserve Grief’s survival reveal a bit longer
- When Din lands on the farm world for refuge, cut his line to Grogu “Stay! Stay! I said stay! OK great!” because of the out of character delivery
- Heavily trimmed the Din v Gina battle. She was full on faceplanting him into the ground after punching his Beskar armor with her fist… come on now. They absolutely brutalize each other with punches in armor to the face and no one has any visible damage after. It was bad. It now plays out much more quickly to the conclusion without the eye rolling moments.
- Heavily trimmed the entire stay on this world and all conversations regarding the purpose of Din and Grogu being there. He no longer takes payment to defend the village, no raider battles, no training the villagers etc. He simply goes to the farm to lie low for a couple weeks to lose the heat on him and Grogu.
- There’s a lot of good character development on this world for Din and Grogu, so I feel that cutting the whole thing is bad. This segment on the world lasts a bit under 20 minutes now and is fully focused on the character development without any focus on defending the the village against raiders. When the bounty hunter finally comes for Grogu here, Din knows he has to move on.
- After leaving this world, we reorder the episodes and now move onto the episode 6 content instead of going to Tatooine from here. It makes more sense for Din to travel somewhere familiar for refuge and credits after he was exposed on the last world. The third act of this film is now the prison break episode which gives us a connection to the events on Nevarro and some great content with Mando and Grogu. The storyline here connects so much better to Episode 1-3 compared to the Tatooine arc.
- Trimmed up a bit of the goofiness of the crew here, mostly to do with the Devaronian being an over the top stereotype.
- I have recut the ending of this episode to conclude with Mando giving Grogu the ball on his ship. A wonderful arc of character development has now taken place in the span of this film.
v2 Changes:
(Note, I wasn’t keeping as detailed of a change log when I started way back on Book 1 so there are actually more changes present in this film than the OP shows. But below are the last edits for this final release.)
- Added intro cards
- Adjusted audio levels for balance througout film
- Fixed audio an “pop” bug on a cut
- Extended one more context scene before the mudhorn battle. The reason they have to enter this territory on the way back is because Din is not riding his mount like he did on the way here, so they have to take a different path back. This explains why Kuuil said the mount is necessary, because presumably you should be jumping over all those valleys that the dangerous wildlife resides in.
- Re-added line of the Armorer telling Din to use his Whistling Birds sparingly as they are rare. I had originally cut this because Din uses them extremely not sparingly and fires them all mere minutes after installation… But since I have now removed many uses of this weapon throughout my saga, the line now makes sense so it has returned.
- Trimmed up a good 3 seconds off the Grogu sipping soup gag after the Din-Dune fight. It’s a fine moment that I like to keep in, but it just dragged on cartoonishly long, so now it plays better with the timing of the levity.
- Added ~7 seconds of Razorcrest flying after leaving Sorgan to give a better transition to landing in the hangar
- Touched up color correction layers. This film is looking absolutely gorgeous now!
v3 changes:
- Added new Mandalorian Disney “Star Wars” intro
- Added Razorcrest departing Pagodan shot (Helps with pacing and viewer being able to track where the Razorcrest is going)
- Added Blue guy incessantly asking annoying questions leading to Mando slamming him in carbonite (He now locks him away as soon as he asks about Mandos’ helmets. Helps us get a tiny bit more characterization for Din right off the bat)
- Cut all the other bounty hunters ominously turning to look at Greef & Din when he mentions the special job (Seems goofy that he is talking so loudly that everyone can hear? It certainly seems like a quiet conversation in a bustling cantina)
- Cut Armorer flashbacks in favor of saving them for later on. Din now stares intently at the pauldron being forged, seemingly feeling something but leaving the viewer to guess his emotions at this time
- Added IG saying “The asset” instead of, “Said asset” (Credit to Eddie for pointing out error in the original show)
- Reduced the amount of time in which Din tries to open the door at the mercenary compound. He and IG are standing still out in the open and nobody can shoot them for far too long, again lessening the amount of danger it feels like they are in.
- Adjusted EWEB shot timing to be faster, extended soundtrack, and added shot of Mando taking cover while it is still shooting instead of before it shoots (More logical & more intense now)
- Removed IG trying to needlessly kill Grogu. The bounty for Grogu was clearly stated as “Dead or alive (for more money)”, yet IG says the commission was to terminate him? I never understood that line and it was never explained. There is no longer any danger, so why did IG not attempt to bring Grogu in alive? IG now hints that he would kill him, and perhaps is about to justify his reasoning but Din will now suddenly shoot the droid without even hearing him out, showing his distaste for the machines and that he never intended to actually work with it in the first place.
- After Grogu and Din are attacked by bounty hunters, they walk the rest of the day before making camp at night where Grogu first attempts to heal his wounds. They then continue in the morning onwards to the soon-to-be scrapped Razorcrest.
- Removed Din telling Grogu to spit out the frog and the subsequent giggle & burp. At this point in the story, Din is not at all playing a parental role so it comes across as an inconsistent characterization and cheapens the eventual parental growth he has later on. Also, the burp is kinda corny. There’s plenty of cute Grogu to be had later on.
- Added in Jawa → Mudhorn → Razorcrest plot, but condensed Mando climbing the Sandcrawler, and some other Jawa semantics. With moving the Wetlands to Book 2, we now need one more sequence to keep the pacing of the film. The jawa breaking the ship storyline serves a more logical encounter with the mudhorn, strengthens the bond between Din & Kuiil, and provides some decent characterization for our protagonist.
- When Din is fighting the Mudhorn and is speared for the last time, struggling to maintain consciousness, the Mudhorn is charging but there is WAY too much time that passes showing Din trying to raise his knife before it hits him. I know it’s kind of for dramatic purposes, but it reaaaalllly feels like it should be reaching him by now and it’s not. In fact when you go frame by frame, the distance between Din and the Mudhorn goes back and forth between being closer and farther due to them trying to force some extra shots in. A slight trim helps the situation feel real and also strengthens the suddenness of the battle’s stoppage.
- Removed the obvious “tell” scene that Grogu is about to stop the Mudhorn charge. It’s actually really cool to experience this scene entirely from the perspective of Din now, as it now plays out more mystical and confusing as we see it unfold from the eyes of the Mandalorian.
- Cut a little bit of Jawa egg eating (it drags on so long lol), and Din’s line “I’m surprised you waited.” It’s a tad corny how Kuiil responds after, and I don’t think Din would actually be surprised? Kuiil hasn’t shown any indication of trying to leave him behind before. Now Kuiil simply gives Din a hard time “I’m surprised you took so long” which does feel in line for his character.
- New space travel transition from leaving Arvala to arriving back to Nevarro.
- Cut Grogu waking up before they arrive on Nevarro. He now sleeps through all of hyperspace and surprises Din by waking up to grab the ball for the first time. I felt like that makes the first ball interaction more noticeable, and makes the ball emotionally connected to Din first realizing that Grogu is okay after saving him from the Mudhorn.
- Removed more flashbacks during cuirass construction in order to use later.
- When Din enters the cantina for the first time after donning his new armor, the order of shots in the cantina makes no sense. A ton of people stare at Din the instant he walks through the door, but Greef, who has the clearest view of the door, doesn’t notice him until the last second. I just swapped some of the reaction shots around to make a more logical and impactful presentation.
- Din now takes a new job from Greef without hesitation, looking to distance himself from the events that just transpired with the child. He leaves Nevarro alone after shoving his conscience away. New soundtrack and visuals were created by using content from Seasons 1 & 2.
- Built new travel and landing sequence as Din arrives on the cruddy space station alone for the criminal job he now seemingly took from Greef.
- Cut the part about only the Razorcrest being needed. Now the shock is that Mando learns it’s not a solo hunting job and that he has to work on a team with others when he really just wanted to take this job to be alone. We see that running away from the Child isn’t going to be the solution Din thought it would be, and this problem only compounds itself as the job goes awry and he is betrayed.
- Edited the entirety of the Prisoner episode to remove all references to Grogu. It works REALLY well as Act 2 to show how much Din is in over his head by abandoning Grogu, and how he is suddenly tired of all the “games” that go along with bounty hunting. Through the disaster of this job, he now realizes the mistake he made by turning his back on the fulfillment that true purpose brings.
- When Din attacks the NR droids, I had to cut some reaction shots from the crew. There are moments where the entire combat freezes in time to show a reaction shot and then resumes only after someone’s shocked face, that crap disrupts the whole flow of the action. We now see Din’s combat play out uninterrupted and then learn that everyone was just chilling watching him do it alone.
- Cut a few lines off of Sheehan and Mayfeld’s argument, only the ones that make Mayfeld seem like an idiot for hiding some information for no reason at all. Now it seems like the alarm button actually caught them all off guard which helps build the tension.
- Cut the scene with Devaronian throwing the NR droid and causing an enormous explosion. Are those things floating gas tanks with guns? Not only that, it was a very shoehorned in one-off scene with terrible transition wipes and probably wasn’t filmed for this placement initially anyway.
- Re-added Zero scanning through the Razorcrest’s comms and finding news about Din’s prior Bounty Hunter guild contract. Changed some audio so it doesn’t reveal anything about Episode 3 (since that hasn’t happened yet in my edit), but it works as both another connector to make this new episode placement feel natural, as well as give us a much needed passage of time scene where Din is still trapped in his cell.
- Cut obvious “tell” scene that Din is hiding in the vents watching the Devaronian. More surprising when the rope flies down around his neck.
- There’s been some discussion on whether we leave the fates of the Bounty crew ambiguous or if we show that Din imprisoned them. However, there was one angle we hadn’t discussed yet. Din is getting abused on this mission, he’s angry at both himself and the scum trying to kill him. I don’t think it’s at all out of the picture for Din to kill everyone, as we just saw him killing many Jawas in Act 1 for messing with him as well. Also for me, logic is king and there is no possible way to explain how the Devaronian survived getting crushed by two doors like that, he is clearly reduced to pulp. So in accordance, I have also edited the female Twi’lek to appear to be killed by Din as well. We already clearly see Din kill the droid, the male Twi’lek, and the guy who hired them all, so killing these two off leaves us with only Mayfeld as the sole survivor. (though we won’t find this out until later in the series and I have left his fate the most ambiguous)
- Added flashback sequence when Din finds Grogu’s carrier in the trash. Cutting back and forth between the similarities between his childhood and his time with Grogu. This one is a guilt trip and a tear-jerker.
- Replaced shot of Din clearly deciding not to kill Pershing with a shot of him still pointing his blaster at him. (Dr. Pershing seems extremely afraid still at this point, and it doesn’t match Din’s relaxing body language in the original)
- When Din is confronted by all the Nevarro hunters I rearranged the sequence of him jumping into the astromechs trailer. In the original, he lays around way too long getting shot at and the order of following shots is bizarre. I have recut this scene to be far more action-oriented, and Din now makes the logical decision to attempt to get the droid to drive far sooner. However, he is now interrupted by blaster fire and then attempts again shortly after. I also reduced a few of Din’s killshots as he racks up way too many precise shots and that lessens the danger we feel he is in. (Scene is more intense and more logical now instead of feeling like “How is everyone missing so many shots here?”)
- Similarly, I rearranged some of the killshots and added new SFX when Din is pinned down with the Disrupter rifle. Original was too slow and verging on cheesy, it should now feel more terrifying.
- Cut down looking confused when his flamethrower runs out of fuel, surely he has practiced before? He wiggles his arm in disbelief as it flutters out, all the while everyone stops shooting? Tightened up the shots for intensity.
- Din now experiences the flashbacks of being saved by the Mandalorians as a child as he is currently being saved by them again as he now, as a Mandalorian, is doing the same for Grogu. It is incredibly poetic and the best scene in the film.
- Increased the speed of Din and Greef’s final standoff and fixed a bug in the original show. (They again do the weird thing here where Greef actually gets shot twice by the same blaster bolt. I’ve found this bug in a few other places throughout the show. Someone gets shot, then it cuts to a new camera and that same person gets shot again in the new camera angle. It’s super disorienting, check it out frame by frame on the original sometime. It happens REALLY bad on Werner Herzog’s death)
- Cut Grogu messing with the controls on the way to Sorgan, will use later in the series. (It’s too lighthearted/humorous & doesn’t really fit the tone of the ending)
- Intercut IG-11’s resurrection and Greef’s survival together as a transition between Nevarro and the closing scene on Sorgan. This sets up future films and shows us a gap of time for the travel to take place.
- Film now ends with Mando & Grogu landing on Sorgan and walking out together, the start of a new life.
- Adjusted Credits concept art to coincide with new story order.
BOOK 2: The Reckoning (2 hours 27 miinutes | Covers Book of Boba Episodes 1-4 FLASHBACKS ONLY, and Mandalorian Episodes 4,5,7,8)
- Opens with Book of Boba flashbacks, imagery of the prequels right into Boba waking up in the Sarlaac.
- Cut Boba hesitating to strike the young Tusken. The reinforcements come in quick enough to interrupt his action instead of him pausing here
- Cut some of the fight with the Tusken duelist where Boba gets destroyed. It’s understandable for Boba to lose here, but they make him get beat time too many times first. He should lose this battle, but he shouldn’t be absolutely humiliated in doing so.
- Cut Boba intentionally risking his life to save the Tuskens during the first train attack. Yes, he is starting to vibe with this tribe but he still doesn’t seem to be at a point of willing to die for them yet. I think much of his transformation happens that night while burning the bodies.
- Cut Boba asking the Chieftain for permission to hunt the raiders. They took Boba’s chains off and welcomed him as a warrior, so it doesn’t seem necessary to do all the weird hand gestures about this scenario. Boba just looks at the bodies and heads off to do it on his own.
- Reduced some more hand gesture talk and a lot of the goofiness surrounding the speeder bike delivery and training. (No, it’s not “like a bantha” anymore)
- Removed the crazy parade baton twirl takedown of Boba during the training session before the next train attack
- Trimmed up some bloated dialogue during the Pyke prisoner scene, as well as the Tusken camp scene that night. Less talking from Boba.
- Removed everything to do with the lizard going up Boba’s nose… The whole hallucination is caused by that sand now
- Trimmed some dialogue when Boba presents his tree stick
- After Boba dances around the fire pit with the Tuskens, we now cut into Din being attacked in space by the bounty hunter, leading to his time on Tatooine
- Cut out a lot of the strangeness from the Tatooine mechanic lady throughout the entire episode
- As Din leaves the hanger, I go back to Boba riding into the city to confront the Pykes. We go back and forth between Din and Boba here, as they pass the same landmark seemingly just missing each other.
- Cut the entire scene of spaceship mechanic discovering Grogu, now it is a surprise when Din goes back and sees her with him
- Trimmed a couple lines of mechanic weirdness when Din finds her with Grogu
- We go back and forth through Din and Boba’s perspectives throughout the entire evening and subsequent battle with Fennec. This is presented in a way so the events happen concurrently
- Moved the scene when Boba looks at Jabba’s palace and the gang for the first time. I can’t find any reasonable way to fit this into the timeline, and it is a random placement that doesn’t appear to have been thought through chronologically when filmed. It makes way more sense where I moved it later on.
- Re-edited when Fennec shoots Din in the chest so it doesn’t seem like he stands there motionless for so long before she pulls the trigger. Tightened up the response time and put some new effects around it to help the transition
- Rearranged some shots in the Fennec v Young Bounty Hunter fist fight, for some reason in the release version there are literally back to back action scenes that are in no way connected and it looks awful. Especially when she performs a “takedown” on him, the fight choreography was horrendous and doesn’t match the previous attack at all and I think they were banking on the fact that it is dark and the audience couldn’t tell what’s going on. Well, I noticed, and I fixed it.
- Cut some cheesy lines about being a LEGEND when Din saves Grogu in the hangar. Also tightened up the kill shot so Din again doesn’t stand motionless for such a long time before pulling the trigger. This is the second scene where this happens, and I get that they want the viewer to fully see what’s going on, but real gun fights like this are quick, chaotic, and you usually can’t tell what actually happened until it’s over. I tried to keep these scenarios as realistic as possible.
- As Din flies away from Tatooine with Grogu, we go back to Fennec waking up under the care of Boba at the campfire. Cut all of the scenes regarding Boba finding Fennec and the mod parlor due to continuity errors in the chronology of these events [Thanks RogueLeader for the idea]
- Cut out some of Boba’s lines when he talks to Fennec at the campfire so he doesn’t seem like a moping loser on first impression
- Added the scene where Boba first scouts Jabba’s palace here so it makes it appear as though they arrive during the day and scout the guard’s movements all day long. Added a transition into night. Cut some dialogue to help make sense of this.
- Cut Boba’s romantic goodbye to his Bantha. He now dismisses it in a more professional manner.
- Trimmed some more sad Boba campfire talk
- Trimmed a good deal of the goofy ratcatcher chase and dialogue
- Reframed Boba’s personality to be more authoritative in the final campfire talk about building his house.
- As Boba delivers his final line “You can only get so far without a tribe” we then cut back to Grogu and Din, where Grief offers the job of returning to Nevarro. A perfectly symbolic transition between the two Mandalorians and sets up the next film as well.
v2 Changes:
(I have gone back through every line in this film taking great care to craft the most Legends-esque Boba Fett possible, and I think the results are a massive improvement. Read the edits below.)
- Added Intro Cards
- Adjusted the timing in which Boba awakes from his dreams of him as a child as he lays in the Sarlaac. It is now a more sensible jolt awake that coordinates with his old memories.
- Boba is now less hesistant in striking the tusken dog and shows it no kindness.
- Removed all of Boba talking to the captured Rodian, as at this point in the story he is solely concerned about himself. The Rodian is a loudmouth and gets Boba in trouble by yelling out, leading to the Tuskens coming.
- Reworked the conversation of the kid tusken telling Boba to dig. Boba now talks much less and his overall demeanor is far less cooperative and understanding. Boba is exhausted, frustrated and looking for a way out, not trying to play nice.
- Boba now only scowls at the tusken dog, no longer apologizing. Boba is a mean guy.
- When Boba finds his first water fruit he is now much more direct in drinking it without permission and takes an aggressive stance against the kid rather than trying to appease him.
- Completely transformed the scene of Boba and Rodian digging near the monster! Boba no longer speaks at all here as all he did before was whine and seem weak. I have totally re-cut every shot and remade the soundtrack so that this whole moment now seems like Boba is planning to potentially kill the Rodian in an escape attempt.
- Cut out a few shots of Boba doing absolutely nothing just watching the monster rise out of the sand.
- Trimmed up the monster battle for faster paced action. No more moments of goofy face reactions and such slowing down the intesity of this scene. We want to see a decisive, strong Mandalorian in action, not a scared, confused prisoner. When Fett stands over his kill it really feels like Hardocre Boba is back people.
- Cut out some more Boba confusion in his first gaffi training. I get that he is unfamiliar with the exact dimensions of this oddly shaped weapon, but this is a galactic legend bounty hunter who has wielded hundreds of different weapons in his life. He doesn’t need to be THAT confounded at how a gaffi stick works.
- Cut out one more shot of Boba helping Tuskens in the first train attack. He is just beginning to feel at home here, but I still think in a combat situation that he should be self-centered.
- Cut Boba repeating the same line “I will teach you” and reordered some shots with him and the Chief.
- Trimmed down the Speeder training scenes. Smiling Boba freaks me out and he talks way too much in baby-talk trying to get them to understand. It’s just uncomfortable to hear that from him. And it also feels like they now bond so much more with the lack of verbal communication as they are learning to trust each other in a unique way.
- Boba now talks less to the captured Pykes. He is slightly more demanding.
- Boba now whines less to the Pyke boss on the following protection money conversation.
- Added music in the cantina where Din meets the young bounty hunter.
- Fixed a transition with an audio artifact
v3 changes:
-
Added new Mandalorian Disney “Star Wars” intro
-
There are too many Act 1 story order changes to write in-depth about, so here is the overall new scene order:
Boba escapes Sarlacc --> Fighting monster
Day in Sorgan life + Din entering his room for the first time
Train attacks Tuskens
Continued Din spending time on Sorgan
Boba goes to capture bikes
Din meets Cara
Tuskens attack Train
Bounty Hunter finds Grogu
Boba gifted robes and acceptance
End of Act 1 (~48 minutes): Din flies to Tatooine
- (As I have repurposed the initial Sorgan “restaurant scene” to be used later in the film, I have edited it accordingly, removing all of the references that make it seem like they just landed.)
- Boba does not wake up when the Jawas loot his armor. Now he has an actual reason to search the Sarlacc pit.
- Removed a TON of crappy-looking fast transition wipes.
- Reordered scenes with Tusken dog growling so that Boba now intimidates it and fixed a bad Disney transition cut.
- Quickened the search for black melons so that the monster attacks the Rodian sooner.
- Removed all mentions of the raiders on Sorgan. This planet remains a peaceful refuge until the bounty hunter arrives to haunt Din.
- Reordered shots of the train approaching the Tusken camp for better visual consistency and urgency in its approach.
- Created new back and forth between Din and Cara in their first meeting that no longer requires her joining to defeat the raiders.
- Din now asks the waitress about Cara Dune in a more demanding manner by peppering her with a few questions upfront.
- Cut a Tusken looking at the reflective mirror signal and then panning over to wait to see the train through the binos. What is the point of the mirror if he can just see the train first anyways…?
- During the train attack, cut some scenes of tuskens climbing up the sides after Boba’s speeder gets shot. It now appears to be actually damaged instead of still being able to go full speed for a minute while also burning to a crisp.
- Cut a few shots of combat on top of the train. Just a few were repetitive and poorly choreographed.
- Cut some sequences of the many armed pilot droid going ham on 10,000 levers. We get it, he can make the train go zoom.
- Cut a few sequences of the Tusken Chief combat to keep the focus on Boba.
- Sped up the timing of when a Tusken gets blasted by the tram engine.
- Made it so the train pilot droid actually does commit suicide. This matches Boba’s confused face.
- Cut the “tell” scene that a bounty hunter is at the village. Come on, preserve the mood, and surprise us for once!
- Re-edited the scene where Din talks to the village woman about his future. Without the viewer’s knowledge of the bounty hunter, we are still in “peaceful mode” and perhaps believe that there is a home here for Din and Grogu. The woman does now indeed appear to persuade Din to take his helmet off and stay, but they are interrupted by the bounty hunter which brings him back to reality.
- Re-ordered the scenes of the bounty hunter’s scope to actually make sense now.
- As Din and Grogu leave Sorgan, I have repurposed the Greef calls Din offer to be placed here. This keeps the main plot, Din’s conflict with the Empire, at the forefront of the story while also having another bounty hunter surprise them at the last minute right when they are about to jump to Nevarro. Now the consequences of Din’s actions continually haunt him. The damage from the dogfight grounds the team on Tatooine.
- Removed the hilariously bad death scene of the bounty hunter.
- Removed the head Pyke stirring his tea. Transition works much better to see Boba close a door and then Din open one.
- Removed the Tusken encounter with Din in the desert.
- Re-edited the whole dewback scene. It now plays out quicker and Din only gets shot once. Reduced some of the infantile questions from rookie hunter throughout.
- Cut Boba feeding his Bantha and some of the Rookie pretending to shoot Din while sleeping.
- After Fennec shoots Din (again), I cut the scenes of her taking forever to aim at his unmoving body. The Rookie is now on her almost immediately after that first shot to prevent her double tap.
- Cut all of Fennec and Rookie’s hand-to-hand combat, as well as his incessant moaning for the next minute. She is captured by Rookie and Din peacefully goes over to handcuff her.
- Cut all of Fennec and Rookie’s morning dialogue and her getting shot. We will stay inside the perspective of Din in these events now. It’s enough to know Din returned from securing the dewback and now Fennec is (seemingly) dead. The drawn-out side-character conversation is quite a distraction in this movie format.
- Regraded the scene of Din acquiring the Dewback and going back to the hangar from day-to-night. Disney messed up SO badly on the time of day throughout this and Book of Boba. The chronology was wrecked so this is the best solution.
- Now that we don’t have to see Rookie go through that whole Fennec dialogue, it actually appears that he had some agency in all of these events. He already knew Din had betrayed the guild from the get-go and had been playing dumb to take advantage of Din. This is a proper villain arc and a fun reveal at the end. He still dies though.
- Re-edited the whole hangar dialogue and action scenes to fit into this new theory.
- After Din and Grogu fly away to Sorgan, we see Boba collect Fennec and heals her himself. The extent of her previous injury is never shown or discussed, and we are perfectly fine to believe Boba provided the medical care needed to save her life.
- Inserted the scenes of Boba and Fennec scouting and then acquiring the Slave 1 in an acbagel edited combat sequence to break up Din’s bouncing all over the galaxy to pick up Cara and then Kuiil and then back to Nevarro. The original episode does that all back to back and we desperately need some pacing.
- Cut the “Let’s go over the plan again” talk at the nevarro campfire. I have never in my life seen a show lay out the entire plan so many times. They do this every other episode and it NEVER adds anything at all. It just spoils the next 20 minutes every time.
- Cut the two bodyguards super obviously sneaking up on Din and Cara, legit 20 seconds after Din tells her to keep eyes on them. Greef kills them more suddenly now.
- Re-edited ANOTHER “I have a plan” scene before they just do the whole plan… Preserved some revelations here instead of immediately doing an exposition dump.
- Gideon arrives and ambushes the crew in one extended sequence. It plays out SO much more terrifying without the whole trying to call Kuiil plot here.
- Moved the whole scout bikes kill Kuiil to one uninterrupted scene later after the crew is in more of a standstill period during the EWEB setup.
- In line with the above change, I have completely reworked Moff Gideon’s plan. I never understood his strategy in the original as it was not at all in line with his characterization to attempt a peaceful resolution with Din, especially considering he kills a handful of his soldiers both on screen and off. In my edit, Gideon does not know that the Grogu box is a ploy, so his attempt at a peaceful resolution is due to his not wanting the child to be incidentally harmed. This is why he makes his “until sundown” offer, but when Din attempts to contact Kuiil falsely believing he got away, Kuiil never hears the message at all as it is intercepted leading to Grogu’s capture. The scouts attempt to bring the asset back into town and stop at the checkpoint to confirm.
- As the scouts stop at the checkpoint, they receive orders from the comm man to “double-check” on the asset because Gideon is already exercising violence against his own men. As they promptly do so, they are very quickly set upon by IG-11 (I hate to cut most of the Scout trooper scene as I enjoy that type of Tarantino-esque dialogue, but it does not fit at all in the pacing of the situation or the storytelling logic). This prevents Gideon from ever learning that the child was acquired, so his motivation for allowing the peaceful resolution offer to continue is still sensible.
IG comes flying into town making a mess, and I have reordered some reaction shots of the stormtroopers and our protagonists to actually make sense according to the explosion sounds instead of the wonky order in the original episode. - Touched up some shot timing with the Flametrooper.
- Trimmed off some of Din getting healed by IG-11 for better pacing.
- Cut Din not knowing his way through the tunnels because he “normally enters through the bazaar.” What?? I think that a secret Mandalorian covert would require all of its members to memorize every single inch of those tunnels. This lack of knowledge didn’t even lead anywhere as they almost immediately stumble upon the Mandalorian forge anyways, further demonstrating that Din is a complete moron because he has visited that exact location countless times IN THE SHOW. Now I have presented this segment as if Din is intentionally walking the tunnels looking for where the Mandalorians are instead of aimlessly wandering around being lost.
- Cut a bunch of repetitive lines out of the Armorer scene and removed IG-11 killing the whole stormtrooper scout party off-screen. That took away the tension of the imminent danger. Now it will appear like the troopers we just saw enter are the ones who end up finding the Armorer.
- Removed one additional line of Din trying to persuade IG not to explode himself.
- Removed the stormtroopers lowering their weapons and staring at IG for so long after he reveals the bomb. He now delivers the payload more quickly.
- Removed the “magic hand thing” joke by reorganizing shots of Gideon’s TIE. I also found a bug from the original show in which Din puts his jetpack on, but then in the next wide shot, he is in the background still holding it in his hands. That is now fixed as I reordered the scenes in which he does put the pack on.
- Sped up the timing of Gideon’s TIE getting destroyed.
- Since I am now using Nevarro as a conclusion, I can restore the entirety of the Greef/Din/Cara conversation after the battle.
- The film now ends back with Boba and Fennec talking about the future.
- Adjusted Credits concept art to coincide with new story order.
BOOK 3 (covers Mandalorian Episode 7-11)
- We open this film with the Razorcrest heading back to the farm world.
- After landing, I have cut the Gina v Zabrak duel scene for two reasons. One, it felt odd to open the film with her starring in the show when the previous Chapters opened with Din and Boba. Two, the fight is… subpar. The Zabrak barely even tries to win and it appears as an overly “Hey look we have an actual UFC fighter here” demo of Gina’s real life skills rather than a realistic battle of an adult Human female vs an adult Zabrak male. We now cut from the Razorcrest landing to Din walking into the cantina.
- During Din and Gina’s conversation, the previously unseen Zabrak walks by and drops credits off to Gina and she says “Come back soon,” and then looks to Din and says “I’ve been a lot of things since.” Oddly enough, this now presents to me as though she has been engaging in prostitution for credits in the meantime, which I don’t suppose is a negative thing for her character. Just interesting to note how removing some context has the power to change future scenes like this.
- Cut Gina’s unfounded excuse about not wanting to work with Din because she would have to book passage on a New Republic ship. What…? Didn’t you spend weeks with Din before and know he has his own ship? Why would the two of you have to book passage?
- Cut Kuiil’s rebuild IG-11 scene as the main segment of this was already used in Chapter 1
- Cut Grief “He is trying to eat me!” Bad attempt at forced humor in the writing during an otherwise awe inspiring scene
- Cut “On your wall?” “Go with it” exchange because it is painfully obvious and there’s no way that the scout troopers wouldn’t see what’s going on.
- Cut some scenes of Kuiil riding his Bluurg back. They show this same sort of shot like 4 different times so it gets a bit old by the last one.
- Cut Grief’s “You see? Four” line because they keep speaking like the surrounding imperials are completely deaf
- Cut Herzog’s “We all will be quiet” as it doesn’t seem like a fitting dialogue consistent with his character
- Cut a line off of Herzog’s exchange with Gideon and cut some of the sequence with him getting shot. For some reason they show him getting shot the same exact way twice but from different angles. When you watch frame by frame it is very strange as Herzog reacts to the blaster shot way out of sync with how the effects are coming onto him. Things happen much more suddenly and clearly in my edit.
- Re-sequenced some of the scout trooper bikes chasing Kuiil shots for the overall cohesion of the two scenes going on. Cut Gideon’s “In a few moments… it will be mine” & “It means more to be than you will ever know” lines as they’re too typically villainous and it’s an unnecessary cut away from Kuiil where the tension is supposed to be focused at the moment. We get one shot of Gideon’s silent stare, which tells us that he knows exactly what is transpiring and is simply waiting for confirmation to proceed.
- Cut the shot of Grogu being scooped up off the ground, we now reveal that the scout troopers have him when you see him peek out of the bag in the next scene. We hear the scout troopers talk about how they picked him up later on.
- Moved the scout troopers’ return back to later on, so we stay on Din and crew for some time now.
- Cut Din’s “I’m out of charges” when referring to blowing the vent. Not even sure what he is talking about here, explosive breaching charges? What do you mean you’re out? You never used one. Or indicated you ever had one.
- Cut Gideon’s offer of waiting until sundown, none of that makes sense. In my edit he is giving them one single chance to walk out and then will “soon raze the whole building”.
- Trimmed some of Din’s exposition about his past, they are in a very tense scenario and he goes on and on about being a foundling, not the time for that discussion and it’s not anything new that the audience didn’t just see in the flashback.
- Cut the whole speculation the Gideon “needs” them to get to the kid. None of that is present here. Now they talk about how Gideon knows so much and we cut to the scout troopers returning with Grogu.
- Cut the scout trooper can’t aim gag and the overreaction to getting bit, but I left in the rest of the discussion. I actually love this type of HBO-esque dialogue scene and is something I wish Star Wars would have a lot more of.
- Re-cut the IG-11 attack sequence to reduce the amount of time the other scout trooper stands there doing nothing except watching his partner brutally get his arm broken
- Trimmed a few shots out of IG’s rampage through the city. Some of them were intentionally filmed as gag scenes like the jawa one which I don’t think are fitting the tone here.
- Cut out many shots in the battle that make you go “how are there so many blasters firing and no one is getting hit” as well as shots where they are clearly trying to handhold the viewer into noticing things. Such as when Din spots the open EWEB repeater, it’s such a slow process. Din’s face, then zoom in on the empty EWEB, then make Din react as if he just processed it after staring for multiple seconds, THEN he runs for it. I hate when the combat is drawn out in unrealistic ways like this. This whole battle sequence is meant to be absolute chaos and it hinders the pacing with the constant pauses. They do the exact same thing again when Gideon shoots the EWEB battery. Gideon face shot, camera zoom into battery, back to gideon, new angle as he looks down, and THEN he shoots it. So much downtime that is unnatural and forced. I hope you feel how much more smoothly these events feel without the random delays.
- Cut a couple lines that Gina has already repeated, and cut every single shot of the flametrooper that was meant to induce a “broooo look how badass he looks” reaction.
- Cut a line or two of irrational thinking from Din in regards to IG, I get that he hates droids but he comes off as a complete doofus about it sometimes in a way that harms his character.
- Cut Din’s initial line of “no living thing” because it’s way too on the nose and everyone in the world immediately knows how IG will respond, because he’s “not a living thing” gasp. It’s more touching when IG volunteers this information.
- Cut some lines from the armorer about Grogu that don’t make sense
- Moved the armorer fight to after the crew reaches the lava river and starts to head down. It feels so much more natural for at least a few minutes to have passed before this battle starts instead of 5 seconds after they walk away.
- Re-edited the armorer battle to be far more action packed and less looking like the stormtroopers are trying to commit suicide.
- Cut the IG - Mando talk about how sad he is and the jargon about superseding manufacturer protocol
- Cut Grief saying “He missed us!” about Gideon shooting them. Yeah, no kidding he missed haha… you are not vaporized so… duh.
- Cut some of “the magic hand thing” gag
- Cut some of the final discussion between the 3 that was clearly written to be the end of the season. As this scene ends Act 1 of my film, we need a smooth transition to continue the story into season 2.
- To make this transition between seasons happen without a hitch, we now have Din leave Nevarro and fly straight back to Tatooine to ask for the mechanic’s assistance in continuing the quest that the armorer gave him.
- I can’t believe I’m saying this, but for once thank god that Disney has an obsession with desert worlds. After mechanic tells Din that she doesn’t know where to look for more Mandalorians. I use a spare shot of Din looking dejected, and then transition into the actual Season 2 opener of him walking through a sandy city at night which I have repurposed to also be Tatooine.
- Cut Din telling the Abyssian that he was told that he knew where mandalorians were. In my film it now appears as though Din simply went to the local crime lord for info.
- Cut all dialogue that would confuse the way I have reframed the conversation when he’s hanging upside down. Din is now shocked to learn that another mandalorian is on tatooine because he is already there, and now we immediately cut to abyssian telling Din what city on tatooine the mandalorian is in.
- Cut from crime lord getting eaten to immediately Din traveling to Mos Pelgo based on the info he was given, no need to go back to mechanic and find it as a “lost city”
- Cut a line or two from Cobb that didn’t fit the tone of the scene
- When Din and Cobb encounter the tuskens during the scouting, as soon as they say they want to kill the krayt too, Din and Cobb go back to the village. No more camp fire arguments with them or scouting the cave with the suicidal tuskens the next day.
- Cut the krayt dragon trying to retreat back into its cave segment
- Cut Din’s “Take care of the child” because he immediately jetpack Cobb into the air which is completely contradictory to what he just said. Re-ordered some other voicelines around here to make more sense of the events.
- Completely reworked how the ambush scene happens on the way back to the city. We no longer see all of the goons setting up the whole trap, telegraphing the entire event to the viewer. Now we get some quick back and forth cuts with Din traveling and the upcoming location of the trap, which builds the tension as we can tell something is about to go wrong but have no idea until the last second. Had to edit a lot of scenes to make this happen but I’m liking it a lot.
- As Din leaves on foot from the ambush, we NOW see that Boba is watching him walk back, insinuating that Boba was indeed the one who ordered the thugs to ambush him. This is accompanied by Boba’s theme song.
- Cut Din having to place a bet on behalf of the bug
- Cut mechanic begging for dragon meat
- Cut all scenes of mechanic talking in gecko language and her other cringey lines
- Re-edited a lot of weird talk from gecko scenes, now Mando asks “Is she sure?” instead in reference to the eggs dying in hyperspace and we cut to a scene of gecko nodding.
- Used smudger9’s idea of the altered x-wing confrontation and cut the rest of episode 10 on the ice planet. There is really no valuable character building in that segment and so like my farm world decision I am truncating all of that content into the one main plotline of delivering the gecko.
- Re-ordered some scenes to infer that all of the damage caused to the razorcrest was due to the manual reentry.
- Cut out some gecko kisses and removed the hooded mando spying.
- Re-edited the quarren brother ambush so there are no quarrens and the ambush doesn’t happen, now only the mandalorians fly back in and offer Din a drink. The original scenario was very cheesey and I don’t like Din having to be saved in back to back scenes
- Cut the mando eating a squid, very bad cgi here
- Cut the “gameplan” scene looking at the freighter, it is extremely unneeded and this plot plays out more entertaining to the viewer when we just watch in all unfold live
- Cut “which doors?” gag
- Cut “Put some tea on”
v2 Changes:
- Added Intro Cards
- Flipped direction of travel of opening scene. The original felt unnatural.
- Extended an early shot of Grogu looking at Dune’s credit stack. The previous version cut away too fast and seemed like an oversight on my end.
- Added a new shot of IG-11 pouring drinks to give Din a more reasonable amount of time to lower his blaster since that happens off screen.
- Fixed an audio volume dip on a transition
- Altered the Herzog death to be just slightly less visually abrupt but increased the intensity of the sound effects. We now hear the glass shatter and he is killed immediately after.
- Extended a shot of Gideon in the standoff and extended Kuiils death soundtrack.
- Fixed a couple small audio transitions
- Changed a transition shot for the flamethrower entry
- Re-made the soundtrack for Grogu stopping the flames
- Re-organized the back and forth with Din and IG-11 during the healing scene. Added Din saying “I swore the creed”.
- Added in ~3 minutes of Din and Cobb staying with the Tuskens overnight and scouting the Krayt Dragon. I had originally cut this scene for pacing, but upon rewatching it seemed odd that Din and Cobb went out to scout, met the Tuskens, and drove right back without ever actually scouting. I have heavily cut up and transformed this new 3 minute segment so it accomplishes just what we need in building tension and accomplishing their original goal without wrecking the pacing.
- Unified Credits presentation with other films
BOOK 4 (covers Mandalorian Episodes 12-16)
- As we ended Chapter 3 with Grogu and Din on the path to finding Ahsoka in the beat up Razorcrest, we will now open up Chapter 4 with an introduction that indicates a slight passage of time as they are back on Nevarro getting repairs. We start with Grogu in the school and cut to Din mentioning how he is there only for repairs, but of course he gets dragged into some action with the Imperial base plot.
- I have heavily truncated the opening on this episode in favor of not distracting from the overall plot of Act 1 which is the search for Ahsoka. This is going to be a quicker action sequence to bring entertainment and also give some interesting context of the state of the Empire and its cloning program which helps the viewer unravel the mystery of Moff Gideon’s interest in Grogu.
- In terms of the actual edits to Episode 12, as we now start with Grogu in school with none of the other characters present, so we slowly put the pieces together as to what is happening. I have cut the long gameplanning session explaining what exactly Din and company will be doing, and the cut quickly gives us the necessary info that Din is there for repairs and Grief wants to take advantage of Din’s presence on Nevarro for a quick job. With everything I’ve cut, we still don’t know what exactly the plan or the base is and it helps this whole sequence feel more like a brief introduction to Act 1 instead of a whole Act in and of itself in my film.
- Our reintroduction to Blue Fish Guy is on the speeder where Grief explains his lengthy debt in service to him which is all the context we need to understand why he is there.
- Trimmed a good deal of goofy back and forth fish banter in order to keep the pacing consistent. I’m not going to go over every single line I’ve cut here as I am intentionally cutting a good deal of this episode, so just understand that I have reworked the entirety of Episode 12 to fit into a 15 minute opener.
- As blue fish starts working on the door, Mando flies up and a few seconds later the Stormtrooper falls down. This is our first clue that, “Hey, this is an Imperial base” which is a fun surprise and builds anticipation for the rest of this introductory sequence.
- Cut a couple scenes in the beginning of the base showing how many imperial forces are there, helps the pacing and is also more believable that this is a small hidden research lab instead of a fully patrolled military installation.
- Re-edited some of the combat sequences to be more in line with my logic of combat as explained in my other Chapters.
- Cut Gina telling Din that his jetpack is faster than the speeder, I think he knows that and the way I reedited the dialogue here gives Din more agency and urgency to get to Grogu on his own.
- When Din is flying out of the reactor, cut all 3 stormtrooper kill scenes as his reactions to getting shot are not in line with VFX, and also his blaster mysteriously disappears and reappears in his hand throughout the sequence. He now takes off much quicker as the stormtroopers are right on his trail which helps the pacing of this escape.
- Re-worked the stormtrooper Din shoots to not seemingly intentionally jump into the lava reactor… Again, not going to mention every single combat edit in the escape here, but it’s in line with my other chapters. Hope you guys notice and compare to release. I think you’ll never go back!
- Cut as much of the childish screaming as possible from the transport jumping off the platform scene
- Cut all of the scout trooper speeder bike content in favor of the TIE chase. Now Gina, using sound military experience, instinctively tells Grief to go to the guns before the TIEs even take off.
- Re-edited the TIEs missing so many times, by reversing some shots and reorganizing others it now looks like Gina and Co are imminently doomed until the Razorcrest saves them out of nowhere.
- Cut TIE “locking onto” the Razorcrest because it misses every single shot after that
- Now we cut from Din leaving Nevarro to the Imperial tracker update scene with Gideon. This works better as a plot device because it wasn’t so telegraphed as we didn’t see it be placed in the beginning of Episode 12, and with the truncated focus on the Empire in this cold open segment, seeing the bigger picture Empire earlier helps drive us forward.
- We now cut right out of Gideon’s theme song on his Cruiser straight to the X-wings on Nevarro scene for an awesome Episode 6.5 bridge, showing the current status of both factions.
- With some new scoring, after Gina ponders her role in the New Republic, we cut to Din and Grogu repairing the wires scene with some ominous undertones as we now see these scenes in the order of understanding they are being tracked. I removed all of the dialogue that no longer fits here. It’s just good as a touching moment between the two, a calm before the storm segment.
- Cut Ahsoka’s intro battle sequence in favor of keeping the overall mystery alive longer and focusing on Din and Grogu. The slow drip reveal that the Korvus city is corrupt is much more engaging than realizing it’s bad right away.
- Reduced the amount of time Ahsoka and Din stand motionless when he shoots his rope attack around her. Another example of the “trying to let the audience process the moment” mid-combat that hinders the pacing. Did you see anything like this in the incredible fight choreography of something like the Bourne Identity productions?
- As in my edit, as far as Din understands, Ahsoka is merely taking refuge on Korvus, so I have edited all necessary dialogue so her true intentions aren’t known.
- Cut Ahsoka’s namedrop of Thrawn. It is very out of place in the Mandalorian plot like the audience should be able to tie this into the show, when the only possible way to understand this in canon is from also having watched Rebels. I highly expect that we will be given all of the context we need in the Ahsoka show so this reference shouldn’t matter. It is still very possible this moment happens off screen during my film, so even if it is referenced in another show in a way that is necessary I have multiple options on how to reconcile that. For right now in the present though, it is far less distracting how I have it edited.
- Greatly re-edited the Ahsoka duel and the Din stand off, I have rearranged, trimmed, and reworked many shots to alter how long it takes Ahsoka to win and to hide her getting a lightsaber disarmed. Personally I love how this turned out, but let me know how you like the pacing of this sequence compared to release.
- Changed up the Din and Grogu ball scene on the Razorcrest to become more of a touching, bonding moment instead of the misunderstanding.
- Made some extreme edits to the Tython battle. Far too many to count or list, but you should notice much quicker action, less unlimited spawn point cannon fodder nonsense, less reaction shots and goofiness etc. It now seems much more like a calculated combat assessment test on Gideon’s behalf instead of a foolish blunder of incompetence.
- Re-edited the scene where Din goes back to Gina for help for consistency to my previous adjustments.
- Cut some Mayfield whining when he is released from the scrapyard
- Cut Gina’s “Zeb from Rebels” head slam on the transport driver troopers attack
- Re-edited the pacing of Mayfield/Din’s conversation about them being “the same” for some character consistency with Din.
- Greatly re-edited all of the combat sequences with the primitive locals in line with my previous combat adjustments in this show. Lots of sequences needed tightening up to make sense, such as Din throwing his blaster, the spear, the grenade etc. Just like previous episodes, there are a good deal of cutaways where events happen so slowly. Combat is intense now!
- Re-edited the entire sequence with the Imperial officer to hide Din’s face throughout the confrontation. We won’t see it for the first time until he takes it off for Grogu at the end, that way it’s like the viewer is as Grogu is, which helps bolster an already incredibly emotional scene.
- Some combat adjustments and some Mayfield dialogue trims throughout the rest of the base escape.
- Cut Din’s threatening holocall to Gideon. It is very offputting when he somehow has Gideon’s entire Season 1 monologue memorized word for word, and also I had already edited that dialogue so it wouldn’t work anyway. They now fly straight to the Mandalorians, as I have moved Dr Pershing’s capture scene to later.
- Re-edited the Boba v mandalorian scuffle to be more realistic and have Boba perform a bit better
- The Dr Persching capture is moved to after the recruitment of the Mandalorians. After he is captured we now cut straight to hyperspace.
- Cut the gameplanning scene, this show sure does love laying out the plan beforehand whereas I find events to be much more intriguing when we are simply brought along with the plan in real time as it unfolds instead of spending 3 minutes spoiling all of the surprises before every raid.
- Trimmed up some of the combat where no one is taking cover and 20+ blaster shots miss them
- Cut the Dark Trooper’s dubstep intro and instead replaced it with the later shot of them already fully charged. Like the flametrooper in season 1, it’s too intentionally “broooo these are so badass”. So instead of seeing them charge up over and over, we are now waiting in anticipation for when Gideon deploys them onto our heroes as they are already activated. This helps Gideon seem more prepared for the attack.
- Cut some killshots of stormtroopers where there aren’t blaster scores left on their armor (the deaths look so bad when they don’t CGI the blaster burn effect on the armor)
- When Din hides in the hall, cut shot of him in a position where he easily should have been spotted.
- Cut some bad action scenes with Fennic because of stormtroopers looking beyond incompetent, just standing there doing absolutely nothing and dying for Fennic’s highlight reel
- Sped up some of the overly slow and dramatic attacks from the Darktroopers to help them feel like killing machines
- Cut some more unaware stormtroopers and bad cgi killshots
- Cut Gideon’s “This is where it’s going”. He is much more prepared and intentional in my edit instead of surprised and reactive. The way my combat plays out makes it seem much more like our crew has been out maneuvered.
- Cut some dialogue and shots from Gideon’s talk with prisoner Grogu so his betrayal isn’t so telegraphed
- Cut some more Darktrooper dubstep and Gideon shock. He is now presented as knowing that the Darktroopers would always come back to rescue him in a master stroke of tactics.
- Tightened up a few more shots so there’s less standing around while something urgent is happening
v2 Changes:
- Added Intro Cards
- Added new opening soundtrack
- Increased the speed in which Din and crew are ambushed in Imperial base
- Adjusted some audio transitions
- Cut a tie pilot shot earlier because you could see his thumb press the fire button when he isn’t firing in the next shot
- Fixed a color correction bug
- Unified Credits presentation
BOOK 5 (covers Book of Boba Fett Episodes 1-7, “current” scenes only)
- We open with Boba in the bacta tank, but his flashbacks are of him taking Jabba’s throne from Bib.
- Cut Boba’s line to Fennec, “The dreams are coming back again” as we won’t be using the bacta tank or dream storytelling device again at all
- After Boba suits up, we now go to the ending scene of the regular show. This is where Boba walks around the streets with Fennec, having earned everyone’s respect. This works to show how Boba’s control of the region has already been established and that he is a respected ruler from the very start.
- When Fennec says, “If not us, then who?” in reference to ruling and keeping order, we now cut to Din’s entrance in the BoBF.
- Trimmed some slow combat/reaction times in Din’s bounty capture attack
- After Din limps out of the Klatoonian base, we cut back to Boba.
- Boba walks into Garza’s Sanctuary for the first time and we now see how he is making the rounds to Jabba’s vassals, ensuring everyone remains loyal to him.
- Cut Fennec teaching Boba about the power of fear
- Cut the parkour ninja jump attack and Boba’s slow reactions. He now fires his wrist rocket much quicker.
- Cut 90% of the slow pokey proddy electric attack, Boba gets jumped and blocks some attacks as his guards immediately rush in.
- Cut the entire rooftop ninja parkour chase. From start to finish this action sequence is completely ridiculous. This is probably the worst fight choreography I have ever seen in a Star Wars production.
- The fight starts and ends right here in the street. It is heavily cut down to the bare minimum and as Boba single handedly fends off one of the attackers and knocks him unconscious, we then immediately fade into Boba’s interrogation of this assassin.
- Cut Boba talking about how nice he is in the interrogation.
- Cut some Fennec and Droid back and forth.
- The gag about no rancor is removed. Boba pulls a fakeout beheading on the assassin before dropping him into the pit where it is now assumed he actually is about to get eaten by a real rancor until he confesses.
- Trimmed some of the secretary guys delaying Boba. Boba now acts more forcefully so this plays out quicker.
- Sped up Boba’s blaster draw when the assassin gets assassinated.
- After Boba goes back to Garza and says, “Have I heard what?” we now cut to the Pykes landing on Tatooine. This is now all presented as if the Mayor was trying to divert heat off of himself and get the space needed to defect to them. Garza now tells Boba about the Pykes and he goes back to his castle to make preparations. This is the first time we see a member of the mod gang, and it is now presented as if they are already in Boba’s employ as they have a greatly reduced role in my film.
- As Boba says “Then we will be ready” and the music swells, we now fade back into Din’s collecting the bounty and meeting with his fellow Mandos.
- At the conclusion of this segment as the Armorer says, “What shall I forge for the foundling Grogu?” we now fade into Grogu’s first training scene with Luke. As we near the conclusion of Act 1, we now have been brought up to speed on the 3 main characters, bridging the gap of time between Mando S2 and now.
- After Grogu’s first scenes of content, we go back to Boba’s feast as he gameplans with Fennec about how to prepare for the Pykes. In the original show, they are talking about the Twins and Krrsanstans attack here, but in mine it is edited to be about the Pykes. The droid comes in and cuts Boba off as he asks “What is it?” This is now when we cut to Boba meeting and recruiting the black Wookie for the very first time at Garza’s.
- Boba hosts the meeting with the crime lords to lay the terms of a treaty to deal with the Pykes, and I have made edits to the dialogue here to keep up with the new consistent narrative and order of events I have presented.
- As Fennec and Boba confer afterwards, I have removed the lines about how weak their forces are, instead keeping the focus on this being a good time to reunite with Din.
- We cut from this hint at Din straight into him completing his gift for Grogu.
- If Din’s Darksaber training sequence, I have trimmed or sped up a number of sots that were overly labored to the point of looking obviously fake.
- In the Darksaber duel with the tank Mando, I make my usual combat adjustments removing overly prolonged reaction shots etc.
- As Din flies to Tatooine, we now cut to the scene of the Pykes bombing Garza’s, officially igniting the war against Boba. He and Fennec check out the wreckage and then head straight to the Mayor’s office to question him about the ongoing events.
- This is now the scene where the Mayor has defected to the Pykes as the Twi’lek tries to flee. I have edited many, many aspects of this whole confrontation. Keeping Boba menacing, the action up to par, and a darker tone all around.
- After Boba learns of the Mayor’s defection, we cut back to Din who has just landed on Tatooine to retrieve his new ship. I’m not going to list out every line of cut dialogue, but safe to say if it was something to do with with sex and jawas, or any of the other skin crawling statements from our mechanic lady then it is safely secured in the editing dumpster. She is presented consistently with my other films, still a goofball weirdo but not an absolute clownlike characterization.
- Tons of small changes to tighten up the pacing of the N1 Starfighter reconstruction, mostly to do with removing some random bits of gag-related dialogue.
- As Din completes his test drive and evades the X-wings, I have now repurposed footage of him returning to Tatooine from Episode 7 as though he has just finished his evasion/test drive and is going back to land in the hangar. Fennec awaits Din there as she recruits them for the Pyke battle. Din says, “Tell him it’s on the house” as we cut to Din going to recruit the Freetown folk and assume Fennec brought Din up to speed off camera.
- A major change I have made to this recruitment sequence is that the Marshall does NOT accept Din’s offer, instead leaving the conversation at “We’re square, you and me.” He refuses to assist as this battle doesn’t yet concern him, as Din flies back to Boba empty handed.
- As Fennec explains the situation, we cut back and forth between a couple episodes for a time lapse of Boba setting up his forces. At the conclusion of the voiceover, we now see Boba and Co in the city, ready to make their stand.
- As Boba’s chances are looking increasingly dim, we now cut to the Marshall’s scene with the Pykes, suddenly giving him a reason to get involved in this battle instead of forcing his poor citizens into yet another suicide mission.
- Right as the Marshall finishes up the Pykes and tells his Weequay to gather their troops, Cad comes and does his thing. I cut a good deal of scenes after the standoff battle, as I now try to leave the fates of characters much more ambiguous.
- We cut from here right into Cad telling the Pykes and Mayor what’s going on. Cad says he will smoke Boba out and we cut back to Boba hunkered down in the city.
- As Fennec concludes her SITREP, Cad sneaks up and starts his negotiation with Boba. Boba is presented as much more decisive here, with Fennec not having to explain everything that is going on. She talks Boba down, but doesn’t have to lay out every single reason why. Boba now processes everything on his own.
- As the trap against Boba’s forces plays out, I have re-edited nearly every single scene to help speed things up and make it all seem more deadly. The regular release has sooo much slow motion and strange directing decisions. This sped up attack continues all the way through Fennec’s rescue of the mods.
- Boba and Din’s pinned down conversation has been remade to focus more on their relationship as Mandalorians instead of dreading about how they are going to die. Every viewer knows 100% that neither of them are going to die here, so it’s more dramatic for the focus to be about their growing bond as brothers instead.
- Made massive combat adjustments to the entire battle. Keeping this sped up and realistic, the chaos looks so much better than the constant slow motion reaction shots. I’m not going to list every change here, as if you’ve seen my other Chapters you will know have I have attempted to re-edit every combat sequence already. This editing style has been applied to the entire battle in Act 3.
- As Grogu does not appear on Tatooine in my film, I utilized VFX from AG-83 to put an explosive in Din’s arms instead of Grogu for a few scenes.
- Though I made 50+ edits to the combat sequence, one I do want to highlight is the final duel with Cad. No more Boba laying around getting lectured with the blaster to his head forever, no more seeing him look so depressed about losing etc. The combat plays out smoothly and quickly. Cad rips his helmet off only for Boba to immediately take advantage and get the upper hand.
- As Fennec kills the rest of the Pyke traitors, we then fade to Din heading to visit Grogu. I have combined his initial landing on this planet with the second half of Grogu’s lesson so this epilogue plays out with all of the scenes combined.
- Ahsoka takes the gift right to Luke, who then gives it straight to Grogu to decide. As Grogu ponders his fate, we cut into the final time lapse showing Boba’s established rule as Daimyo, the Marshall’s survival, and then ultimately to Grogu having decided to stay with Din.
v2 changes:
(This one was already pretty much good to go since I had already rendered the most versions of it previously and was working on it most recently. Mostly just needed the presentation brought up to speed.)
- Added Intro cards
- Fixed a couple transitions
- Increased the speed in which Boba kills Cad Bane
- Unified Credits presentation
(The Force Awakens) Heirs of the Force | A Star Wars Legends Re-edit
(The Last Jedi) Fate of the Jedi | A Star Wars Legends Re-edit
(The Rise of Skywalker) Legacy of the Force | A Star Wars Legends Re-edit
(The Bad Batch) Cinematic Version | A More Mature Edit
(The Mandalorian+Boba) The Way of Mandalore | A Compilation Edit
