Acbagel

I hope it’s more than nods and references to the Legends Dawn of the Jedi. It should be an adaptation of that storyline. I’m not saying you need a 1:1 translation of every page, but I would love to see Disney try a faithful adaptation of a Legends storyline for once. Bring it into Disney canon and modernize the presentation for sure, but don’t completely rewrite things and then toss in a few minor easter eggs to the comics and novels. Let us see the Rakata and the Force Hounds as the villains, show the Tho Yor and all the old lore that made the era so rich.

I’m actually pretty interested to see how they handle the Tython v Ahch-To dilemma now. Obviously the comics take place on Tython, which is now in Disney canon from the Mandalorian as an ancient Jedi world, but the Dawn of the Jedi symbol was also on Ach-To, which is halfway across the galaxy. My hope is that they still use Tython for the Je’daii, and then perhaps at the conclusion of the film the Jedi Order can be formed on Ahch-To. Would love to see Ossus included in the storyline too.

Finally, Taika Waititi’s Star Wars film (which is supposedly set 100+ years after Episode 9) was given one promo image at that first Disney Expo it was announced at. And it was a picture of the Tho Yor. So I do believe Disney has had at least some plan in the background to tie in the Dawn of the Jedi content to future events.

fmalover said:

Like I posted earlier, I can’t get excited about this movie because throughout the ST Rey overcomes any and every challenge life throws at her without breaking a sweat. She’s skilled at pretty much everything when we first meet her. One mind probe from Kylo Ren was all it took for her to unlock her full Force potential. Never held a lightsaber before? No problem, she immediately defeats Kylo Ren who had at least ten years of lightsaber training.

Based on all that she should have problem creating a new Jedi Order because she’s Rey, Master of all trades.

This is my biggest concern for the coming movie too. Like… She already defeated Palpatine quite easily. He was the biggest threat we ever had in the saga, so what can now possibly challenge Rey after 15 more years of training?

Honest question. How does anyone go toe-to-toe with her and create any sort of believable threat? Unless it’s Abeloth or a full blown Yuzhan Vong invasion (which would be terrible plots for a singular movie), I just don’t see any threat that can stand against her previously displayed power. Power which she also built up in ~1 year after learning that the force was even real. From feeling “something wake up” inside her to defeating Palpatine in his “all the Sith” form in under a year is just… I’ll say it, impossible.

No one else in Star Wars lore has even come close to that type of power growth. She is absolutely in a league of her own in all of Star Wars lore, Legends and Canon, and to me, it’s just not interesting at all because it feels forced and fake. Anakin took over ~15 years of training with the most talented force users in the galaxy and fighting in a galaxy-wide war and didn’t even come close to the level of power Rey did. He was still very defeatable and had major character flaws. I guess they also went forward with the “Rey is another Chosen One” storyline but even so, she developed 20-30 times faster than the most powerful Jedi ever. It’s frustrating and extremely boring to me. It still hasn’t set in because it doesn’t feel real. It goes against everything I ever learned about the force in my 20+ years of Star Wars fandom.

Hope everyone is enjoying the latest film!

Book 3 is currently in production and I’ve got a brand new Act 1 in a rough cut that is pretty awesome. From the Carnita Arena to Maldo Kreis (the ice planet) without Frog Lady at all to Nevarro, this first Act is action packed! Act 2 is going to be on Tatooine, and Act 3 mostly on Trask.

The main themes so far have been:

Book 1 - Tha Mandalorian: Din’s tension between bounty hunting, the Mandalorian creed, and morality regarding Grogu.
Book 2 - The Reckoning: Din’s coming to terms with his choices as he is now the hunted instead of the hunter, and the parallel journey that Boba goes on in coming to terms with his new identity in a post-empire galaxy.
Book 3 - The Tribes: Din, Boba, and Bo-Katan all search for their purpose in relation to their Mandalorian history.

Looking forward to sharing more throughout the week!

Thanks for all the ideas, everyone! I will be starting my Season 1 rewatch as soon as I finish up on Way of Mandalore and then get to editing this project soon. Probably looking at an early-mid summer release for me. I haven’t even started watching Season 2 yet… But it’s my top priority after Mandalorian.

I did see the Bad Batch Season 3 trailer and it looks promising. Darker, more focused, and I’m glad to see they’re wrapping it all up in a timely manner. I believe we will see Omega in live action at some point as well, so this content will become “essential” for the future of Star Wars shows as well. I’ll be working closely with The Clone Wars legend EddieDean throughout the entirety of production here, and coordinating scenes with his Refocused project to make sure you all can have a smooth and consistent watch through of both shows.

It seems like the most important elements of this show will indeed be the overall Republic–>Empire transition, as well as the character development of Omega rather than the actual Bad Batch themselves, so I’ll be keeping those themes in mind throughout my film creation.

Thanks for the kind works Evansj! I am very pleased with how much more cinematic these films are feeling with the newest version. Speaking of which…

The Way of Mandalore v3 update

Book 2: The Reckoning out now.

• 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.

And that’s only about half of the actual changelog…There’s just too much to even continue writing about. There’s a hundred other minor changes I could dump in here, but you all get the point! This film is uploading now so post here if you’d like to watch and I’ll contact you.

I’m heading out for a few days for Easter weekend, but I’ve already got a new Book 3 Act 1 drafted and I will continue production on that starting Monday.

yoshif8tures said:

Unfortunately your hopes will likely be dashed as this season is goi g nowhere fast. Aside from the ending there was absolutely no plot development at all, and even the ending itself was absurd. 🤦‍♂️

Yeah… It is looking pretty bleak. I am becoming increasingly worried about what I can do with S3 content at this point. I don’t even know how to storyboard options yet. The other seasons all had good mid-season endpoints where the narrative shifts and it was clear on how to end a film. There is absolutely nothing in S3 that looks like a definitive moment to do that with. I still think I’ll be able to combine BoBF content into some of S3. But there’s nothing to make a full film from in S3 yet to follow it up. I really need the next two episodes to be laser focused perfection. I suppose the main theme of Season 3 is like “The quest to retake Mandalore”, but I don’t even understand that… Retake it from what? It’s a wasteland with no one there. Just go land and start building.

Book 2 is still progressing! I am putting a ton of time into it every day, it’s just taking a long time to sift through it all. This changelog is going to be massive. It will look radically different than the previous iteration. I think I’m on pace to have it out this evening, so keep an eye out for the follow up post here later on with the changelog and release info.

I’m going to get on board this Phantom Menace train eventually, I have some stuff I worked on in the past for it. Definitely agree with a lot here. I was planning on dubbing over all of the Neimoidians to help present them as more villainous and assertive. I pulled all the audio voice lines out of the Star Wars: The Old Republic video game which fully voiced the alien Neimoidian language in the studio. It sounds more authentic than some of the other “foreign language” dubs I’ve seen used on them, and it fits into the Legends lore as a bonus! I have over 600 lines with all sorts of varying emotions to sort through in order to build their new dialogue.

Today’s episode has me feeling pretty dejected. That was honestly a terrible experience. This can’t even be considered “filler”, it’s just completely wasted time and money. There was no more time to blow this season if it was going to turn into anything worthwhile. You had 3 episodes (~2 hours of content) to build a compelling narrative out of all the tiny teasers they’ve been throwing out, but they completely blew it with this one. There’s simply no way this season can be good now. Yes, we might get 1-2 entertaining episodes (except we STILL have to waste time on the “rebuilding IG-11” plot) but this has been as disappointing as Book of Boba for me.

I don’t mean to sound so dreary, but my honest reaction is that this sapped almost all of my excitement for the future of the Mandalorian. It took over 2 years to write and produce this? How? With such a long break I’m expecting absolute top tier content and Season 3 has utterly failed to deliver on that.

It’s not even that each of the scenes in this episode were outright terrible and this might have worked in a 15+ episode season, but this is inexcusable in an 8 episode storyline. “Filler” episodes need to provide further characterization and continue to build tension in some way by causing the viewer to become further invested in a particular character. For example, we could have had a filler episode here where we learn more about the Armorer and why she suddenly was okay with Bo taking the helmet off. But no, we go on a side quest to a side quest that only further reinforces the “Din hates droids” personality which doesn’t even make sense after his time with IG. It’s directionless and pointless. 3/10 episode in a 5/10 season.

Great news! Your v1 was absolutely revolutionary in terms of structure and changes for TPM. An update is certainly needed to bring it to a full “release” stage, but that first draft showed some real potential so I am glad to see it back in the works.

Sent!

Book 2 is making great progress, but it is an absolute monster of an update. It’s taking a little bit longer to cook. I was hoping to release today, but it’ll be another 1-2 days before I can have it ready.

I have high hopes for the S3 episode tomorrow, I think we will finally get some clarity on which direction the story is going. Though I don’t believe it’ll provide an indication of an ending. I think it’ll start showing some tension between the Mandalorians and Empire though which should start to lead to a way to reverse engineer my films.

Hey, just checking in on this project to see if it’s still in development.

EddieDean said:

I guess the major question Mando will impose on this edit is “Where in Mando S3 do we get content that feels it could conclude a film?” Because you backtrack from there to the content that needs to be included, and that’ll inform any final decisions regarding the structure of the end of the Mando S2/BoBF content.

Great point Eddie. There’s nothing in S3 so far that even looks remotely like an ending. But the way I’ve been to completely reorder episodes in these first few films, I’m still holding out hope that I’ll be able to do something drastic with the coming 3 episodes.

RogueLeader said:

Just got caught up on Mandalorian and had some general thoughts about tackling season 3.

This may not be necessary for what you might be thinking about right now, but I think there are some tools that could be useful in really transforming season 3 content to fit whatever mold you might have in mind.

Thanks for the input Rogue, I’ll definitely revisit this once I get to S3 material.

Peonthegrate said:

If this ever does happen, my year will be made! It’s probably the one thing holding me back from making the Mando S1 and S2 movies you made into full on replacements of the original. Certainly won’t expect it though.

Some of the scenes in my films are getting upgraded to 4k in v3, but not all. It’s an absolutely brutal task tracing 2+ hours of content frame by frame to match it up exactly to where I made my cuts. At the very least, I know Books 5-7 will all be in 4k, it’s just my older content that I started in 2020 that is lacking in the pristine visual shine.

vranir said:

Same here. It’s a common issue with all the D+ exclusive content though. A lot of the recordings aren’t perfect quality, and it’s especially noticeable in dark scenes like that firelight scene with Boba and Fennic.

Yes, some of it is unavoidable. There is certainly some really bad banding in BoBF in the night content. But the other part in my first couple films is just from a number of contributing factors when I first started this project a few years back.

Book 2 update: I watched the first draft, made some changes, and have to send it out for another bug review first. There are some massive story changes in here so it was a beast to tackle. I’m aiming for a Monday release. In addition, I have begun storyboard work on my new Book 3. You’ll have a brief Ice World experience that you’ve never seen anywhere else!

I finally got a chance to watch your Andor 1 last night. Wow! What a difference the narrative pacing makes. Removing all the Syril scenes through Ferrix makes it feel like Cassian is actually the main character. I was getting major spy film vibes throughout the whole film rather than the slow unfocused drip of the show’s original pacing. This is a format that is FAR more rewatchable than the D+ one. Here’s my official review:

Audio/Video Quality: This edit was required to be streamed through Google Drive, so they typical degradation from that process is to be expected, but it presented as a typical 1080p film without any major quality issues. I was not once distracted due to a lack of quality in the A/V department. Maybe I’m getting spoiled by modernity, but ever since getting a 4k monitor and working with 4k footage, 1080p has started to look blurry to me haha. So since Andor does exist in 4k and that would be peak quality, I will rate this category of the edit a 9/10.

Visual Editing: Throughout the entirety of the film I spent many moments going, “Did MR remove a scene here or not?” And that’s a good thing! The majority of new transitions were completely smooth and unnoticeable, making me have to go back to the changelog to see if there was in fact a scene in between. The addition of subtitles to the Kenari flashbacks was incredible, though I did notice a typo which distracted from the moment. There were maybe 3-5 transitions where I could tell that a change had been made due to some visual jarring (the biggest offender IMO was right before the title card), but overall the large majority of the film was top tier visual editing. I score this category a 9/10 as well.

Audio Editing: Similar to the above, 90% of the film had perfect audio editing. The only hiccups I noticed were tied into some of the same transitions as the video ones above, but there were a few more where the video was great but some distracting audio carried over between cuts. Nothing too distracting again, but I probably noticed 6-7 instances of this. This area scores an 8.5/10.

Narrative: Now the meat of any fan edit, especially a TV to Movie format. The general story pacing was nearly perfect. It actually felt like a different source material due to the new overarching story. Whereas D+ Andor sometimes felt like watching a real life simulator where sad boy eats breakfast with mommy, this one actually felt like a real, mature Star Wars meets Spy Thriller genre. The slow drip of the revelation of this growing Rebel Alliance was my favorite part. Cassian’s character development was incredibly focused and felt very cinema-esque. Removing some of the lengthy Ferrix segments of side characters was a great choice, and all three of those side characters were done to perfection, especially the bit with hiding who is the rat. Even down to the nitty gritty of Bix’s boyfriend losing her in the alley faster makes scenes play out so much better and I LOVE that attention to detail. Cutting out Syril’s whole pursuit of Cassian on his end did wonders for the first half of the film. Seeing his response to the disaster on Ferrix was a perfect introduction to him as a character, but with all the focused headshots looking at the aftermath it seemed like he was going to be further development of him as an antagonist, but that never happened as he disappeared from the rest of the film which was odd as I was waiting for another appearance. Mon Mothma’s initial scene hit HARD this time around, and it felt like an impactful cameo that made perfect sense in this film. Though, I did feel that her character arc did not end up going anywhere afterwards and she didn’t have any conclusion, so I personally think just that one scene would have been all that was needed. Luthen comes across as one of the most interesting characters in the show and my only wish here was that 1 or 2 more scenes were left in with him as he played too small of a role for how much he seemed to affect Cassian. The heist crew was edited to perfection, each side character was given their one moment in the sun to make an impact on Cassian and they never once dragged on or were given too much spotlight. Absolutely phenomenal treatment of the rebel crew. Finally, I think that the film could’ve benefitted from another 20-30 minutes of runtime as it did end quite abruptly for me. Concluding without the actual heist occurring was a tough one for me. In a way, it was poetic, but after so much build up and planning you naturally expect a payoff. Starting the next film with the heist seems to me like I will lose so much of the investment in the characters that I had been building for the last 2 hours, so I’m not yet sure how to feel about that until I watch the sequel. I think that cutting out ~5 minutes of the initial flashback and adding the heist plot would be perfect and still keep the film under 3 hours, especially considering cutting some of the later Mon Mothma scenes. Overall, I greatly preferred this format for rewatchablitily and cannot imagine sitting through breakfast with mommy again, so this is a marked improvement in that sense. I will score the narrative a 8/10, though I will say I generally prefer slow, long form story telling so a near 3 hour runtime would not intimidate me in the least, which is what I think this film needed.

Enjoyment: With everything said above, this film was a thrill. It was so unique in its storytelling, themes, and pacing. This was a true Star Wars spy thriller. The D+ version was a one of a kind experience, but this edit is also one as well. Baking down all of the crazy number of original scenes into a 2.25 hour runtime is no easy task. I enjoyed the film from start to finish, and would rank it an 8.5/10 experience.

Final rating average: 8.6/10

Thanks for making this, I don’t think I ever would’ve rewatched the D+ show start to finish again, but this… this I could go back to.

PsyGemini said:

I’m in the middle of Book 1 (just about to start the prison episode), and I have to say you truly did an outstanding job, man. I really love smudger9’s work, but IMHO he has to cut a little bit too much in order to fit the whole thing in a single-shot narrative.

I specially love how you managed to make the action flow better, taking out the childish out of place humor and, of course, Mando leaving Grogu, then going to the prison job, and then returning was a stroke of genius, it just works so well!

Thanks for the kind words, Psy! So glad you enjoyed the film, looking forward to sharing Book 2 with you very soon.

Some minor nitpicks:

1. 39:05 ; Mando says “I THINK it’s a child”. Oh, you think, dude? Could this be changed to a less dumb “it’s a child” or something?

Haha well how I understood that was he was saying “child” as in a sentient being and not an animal. Din would have never seen that species before so it’s him trying to process what a strange creature he has stumbled upon and how that is his bounty. I don’t personally have a problem with his line there.

2. 42:24 ; There remains a weird jawa chant (“egg! egg!”) from the removed bit.

I didn’t intend to 100% remove them saying “Egg!” Yes, it’s weird, but jawas are weird. Look at how they eat it later. Weird.

Also, I’m kinda split on the new color grading, half of the time it works really well, but the other half it makes everything a little too artificially warm, bright and redish. But oh well, guess this is up to personal taste. I do however will say that:

3. The opening cantina scene looks WAAAAY too bright, the color skin of the bearded guy looks so red it’s almost he became a different species.

That’s because… He’s uh… a Zeltron 😉

4. The black scenes/details are a little low quality video-wise? Very blurred, like we lost some details.I don’t know how to explain, I’m really not into video editing jargons, but maybe it was the black crushing in the processing?

Yes, I joke above, but I am aware of both the color grading being somewhat intense in a few scenes as well as some black crushing going on here and there. At some point in the future I might come across a spare 30 hours to go frame by frame and plug in glorious 4k source footage to fix all these scenes… But that is not today! Maybe a v4 with Mando S4, but I have a great deal to do on this v3 update storywise.

Anyways, will finish watching ep1 today, can’t wait for the next one!! Thanks for this gem!!

It’s my pleasure, I’ll write a brief update on the next film below.

EddieDean said:

Just had a look at the changelog and this second one is shaping up excellently too. I love this structure- Din fails to find a home with the wetlanders as Boba loses his with the Tuskens, then they crossover. Din’s story features Cara and the threat of constant pursuit throughout and becomes a true sequel to the previous one with the return of Greef and Nevarro.

Yes! Thanks for your input on how to get some more consistent themes presented throughout the films. I have just completed my first draft of Book 2: The Reckoning, and will be watching it tonight for a first bug review. The changelog should be mostly updated aside from anything I want to change after tonight. Hoping for another Friday/Saturday release!

Also, I have many thoughts on how to take Mando S3 content, but I might as well save it for when I actually get to building those films. Feel free to share thoughts and speculate solutions in the meantime though!

Thanks for all the kind words, glad you folks are enjoying this one! I had a ton of fun watching it too. I’m excited to continue developing this saga.

I’m hard at work working on Book 2: The Reckoning. I am just finishing up the big picture storyboarding on the scene order, so now it’s down to the nitty gritty of the new changes. Again, you can track the live progress here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1TIVp5tQY9WxxnOe8iRXvG5t4P6vTi1ZCbb8CnxwB_9Q/edit?usp=sharing

Hope to have this out and ready by the weekend! Enjoy Mando day tomorrow, MTFBWY.

Sent!

honestabe said:

I would like a link to Book 1 when you have the opportunity.

I am also just speculating, but the content of Books 6 and 7 are to be determined based upon the current season, correct?

Yes, I’ve begun initial storyboarding on paper but haven’t taken anything to the editing table yet. 4 more episodes to go before I can get a full vision of what I can do.

I do also note some of the current season will be incorporated into Book 5 unless I misread your prior posts.

That’s the plan as of now! Definitely will be using the beginning of Season 3 alongside the Mandalorian content in Book of Boba Fett to create an entirely new timeline of events. This will make the absence between Din and Grogu appear much, much longer.

The Way of Mandalore v3 has officially launched with Book 1: The Mandalorian, released now!

[Book 1: The Mandalorian] DM me for link

[Book 2: The Reckoning] In progress

[Book 3: The Tribes] In progress

[Book 4: The Believer] In progress

[Book 5: The Apostate] In progress

[Book 6: The Convert] In progress

[Book 7: TBD] In progress

I’m hoping to keep up the pace with ~1 week production time for each film’s update, which should leave me in a good spot when it comes to getting a hang of all that Season 3 is doing. Post here or send a DM if you’d like the link to Book 1 for now!

Special thanks to EddieDean for assistance in storyboarding, idea generation, and bug review.

The Way of Mandalore v3 Update

Book 1:

(Before I get into the main changelog, the primary difference here is the creation of a whole new story order. Din no longer goes to rescue Grogu immediately. Instead, he tries to push away the guilt by taking another job. A newly edited version of the Prisoner episode takes place which fits incredibly well thematically in this film. After that job is a complete mess, Din goes back to Nevarro for more work, but stumbles upon Grogu’s carrier in the trash. He expereinces flashbacks, and this is what motivates him to save Grogu.)

• 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.

[Film is going through one final bug check this evening, so I can send out links tomorrow]

Hey, everyone! I am actively editing v3 now and it’s going really well. Doing a top to bottom analysis of each film, so currently going through Book 1. You can track my progress and make suggestions here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1TIVp5tQY9WxxnOe8iRXvG5t4P6vTi1ZCbb8CnxwB_9Q/edit?usp=sharing

spunkmeyer said:

Hi there.

Very interesting reading this thread is. I’d appreciate being linked up at some point.

Keep up the good work. Do you have any hobbies ?

Rob

Thanks, Rob! Do you want to watch the current v2 release or wait ~4 weeks for the v3 release? Hmm, hobbies… Definitely enjoy any sort of good storytelling. Love a good slow paced story based video game (Mass Effect series is my all time favorite), currently reading the Witcher novels for the first time (haven’t played the games yet), and then I enjoy MMA as a sport to watch as well as train physically too. Thanks for asking, glad to have you around.

EddieDean said:

Hell yeah, great to have you back! Really interested to hear more of your plans.

And I’m really interested to hear more of your suggestions 😉 Your brilliant ideas are the main cause of all this new work in the first place so keep piling them on!

jediminecraft said:

Hey! I watched your edit and I really enjoyed the changes you made to the series! However, I do have somewhat of a gripe with the video quality on some of the episodes, and I’ve heard you’re working on a v2 of the edits, so I wonder if you could also make a higher bitrate option with 5.1 audio?

I’m definitely trying to address some of the technical aspects. I think I mentioned it earlier in this thread, but the main cause of those issues is that I actually started working on this project in 2020 with Season 2 coming out. I did a lot of work on some crappy source footage before I even joined here and learned about fan editing. I then built The Way of Mandalore from that same project file rather than starting from scratch not realizing how much the quality differed. That’s why there are some inconsistent blacks/audio. I tried to run it all through an upscaler and it helped in some ways and hurt in others. At this point I’m a bit lost on any good solutions aside from completely recreating half of the project which would delay everything by months, but I’ll ask some others for advice.

Hey guys, just provding an update! I’m finally moved into my new house and finished setting up my office last night. The real work starts this weekend! I’m watching Episode 3 right now. Been reworking some of my storyboards based on Episode 2 and I’m definitely going to be keeping Film 5 entirely free of Grogu so we can actually feel his absence. Will be moving some of the Mando storyline into Act one of Film 6.

Feel free to post any other thoughts for how S3 can change The Way of Mandalore for the better!

yoshif8tures said:

Okay so, so far out of season 2, you could make an arc out of episodes 2, 3, 7, 8, 10 and 12 so far, of which episode 12 is a must watch.
I don’t remember much of season 1 but I think you could make it a story about clones adjusting to life under the empire and take it off of the bad batch.
Focus more on Crosshair, since he is really the only interesting character in this show.

Thanks for the suggestions. I agree, it might be beneficial to keep my edit smaller in scale and only focus on that transitionary story rather than so much about TBB squad specifically.

Thanks, everyone! Great feedback and ideas. I still am leaning towards cutting the croc and somehow making that into a flashback, but am waiting on actually developing that right now so we can see where that plotline goes first. Too many mysteries to begin chopping stuff up right now.

I am putting together a list of all the great receommendations I’ve received for my first 5 films. I might toss it into an excel sheet and have it publicly listed so people can keep track of progress and make comments in case I misssed something in these forums. Really grateful for everyone pitching in!

I’m currently toying with an idea to make Din and Grogu’s absence appear much longer. I really need to see how more of S3 plays out first though so I’m sticking with touching up the earlier movies for edits today. I’m moving this friday to my new house so next week I’ll be much more productive. Looking forward to discussing Wednesday’s episode with you all soon.

The way I’m brainstorming the flashback idea is definitely to use it later on in the show instead of my first film. Like Eddie said, I am trying to get that mysterious slow drip of Din’s character early on. Especially with the new updates coming for that movie.

Honestly, the flashback could be used around the same point in the story (either right before or right after Grogu reunion depending on how that idea plays out) and cut out the whole crocodile fight. It would cut right from “Din” about to say the oath regarding his helmet to him walking into the cave to confront the Armorer about his transgressions. It would make it appear as if he did say those words and is now wrestling with his violation of them.

Hard to speculate as to what else I would keep or cut in the episode as I need more of the season. But the pirate and IG content is up in the air for either cutting or moving around too. When you look at the concept art in the credits, it appears Grogu wasn’t in half of the scenes… Like when Din goes to Bo-katan, she didn’t even react to Grogu and he wasn’t in the concept art there. Makes me wonder if they CGI’d him in later on.

Hey everyone! I’m going to be editing this with new content as the episodes come out. This will be my whole big v2 update with all the changes discussed previously, making this whole edit even more transformative than it already is.

My mind was running wild with ideas as I watched the new episode. My initial plan is pretty radical… I think I want to use some content in here to extend Din’s journey BEFORE he reunites with Grogu. I feel like Grogu didn’t really contribute all that much or go through any meaningful development here.

Also, did anyone else think that opening sequence was a flashback? Any way I could edit it to function as one? I have some cool ideas in my head to test out with this. I am on a business trip out of state for the rest of the week so I’m not able to start testing yet, but I’d love to keep this thread open for discussion and brainstorming together. Looking forward to working with you all through this season and making the best Mando story together!

gurgle1624 said:

I’m just gonna say it now…I’m going to ask for links to any project you’re on. I’ve heard nothing but great things about your edits. The amount of work your putting into these things is above what we deserve. So I’m going to officially ask for the links to:
Heirs of the Force
Fate of the Jedi
Legacy of the Force
The Bad batch
The way of Mandalore

There I did it…Obviously its at your discretion and if their even completed yet.
You will make our family extremely happy if you could send those links.
Thank you and if there’s some place I can donate for your efforts please provide a link as well.
Scotty

Hey, Scotty. I appeciate your excitement and hope the edits deliver what you’re looking for! A few of them are still in the “beta” phase but they’re all fully watchable. I’ll be making more updates throughout the year as well.

No need to donate! Your happiness while watching makes it more than worth it for me. I love Star Wars and it is my pleasure to spread some of that love through fan editing. I’ll send you a DM.