Acbagel

yoshif8tures said:

Hello there, this project looks intriguing, especially since this show is rather dull and repetitive upon rewatch due to the issues discussed above.
How far along are you in the editing process? I very much look forward to t.

Thanks! I’m still only in the first couple hours of material. I finished ~50% of the first film, but then went back to edit TCW Bad Batch episodes first which I’m about 50% through as well. I started dabbling in this a few days ago, but looks like I’m gonna put in another couple weeks on Mandalorian first before coming back to this. Hoping to still have this ready to watch before The Bad Batch Season 2 in January though.

GFiMontis said:

I’d LOVE to watch this Trilogy!

For sure, I sent a DM. Hope you enjoy!

clever-napkin said:

Could I have the links to all three edits, please? This sounds amazing.

Sent, hope you enjoy!

tangelo1023 said:

That’s a terrific idea Acbagel.

Making the prison heist a second act without Grogu turns his eventual rescue a lot more powerful. One thing I would do in this case is take some of those episode 3 scenes where Mando is noticing the absence of Grogu on the ship and pepper them throughout the second act. That way, the audience feels like Grogu is somewhere in the back of Mando’s mind and that it’s weighing down on him. This can also lend a different shade to the betrayal by the heist crew. Somewhere, Mando feels like he has no true “tribe,” for a lack of a better word.

Yes, definitely looking for ways to keep Grogu’s absence noticable when I can in the downtime.

EddieDean said:

Is there a clean way to imply that the prison break job is a regular guild affair?

Yes! That was pretty easy to pull off actually. So an update where I’m at on this idea:

1. I removed the flashbacks from the armorer scenes. I have some good transitions going now, like the over the shoulder pauldron shot in the ship that you suggested, plus my new breastplate transition is smooth as well.
2. Added the extended walking before the mudhorn, needed a new soundtrack there as well.
3. When Grogu is wanting to heal Din at night I tossed some new music in there as well to make it more of an emotional experience instead of an annoyance since I need to soon stress how Din will regret giving Grogu away for a longer period of time.
4. I’ve got the scenes good to go for when Din talks to Karga and gets the job, as well as when he leaves Nevarro and heads to the prison break job alone.
5. I’ve worked through the first half of the prison break episode to get it making sense in our new story order. All is looking good so far. I hit a hiccup regarding how the droid gang member dies. It’s very tied into Grogu, so I’m trying to figure out a good flow of how I can have Din still destroy him without Grogu being present at all. It works because Din already hates droids, the whole gang betrayed him, so it’s easy to have Din blow up that droid immediately with no regrets or hesitation. My struggle is more getting the shots to sync up to make it happen. I haven’t spent a ton of time there yet so I’ll update when I get to it.
6. Still need to work on the destroyed carrier shot as I believe I’ll need to re-cut a good amount there to enhance it enough to make it work as a motivating factor to save Grogu.
7. Also still need to play around with moving wetlands storyline into Book 2. I agree it’s something I’ll need to do, just haven’t gotten there yet.

Overall, this is defintely on track to pan out if I can nail these final (most important) scenes.

Darth Sadifous said:

So I was eager to watch “Book Five” the most as the “present day” parts of The Book of Boba Fett is where I had the most issues with any disney plus series so far. Your fan edit is outstanding; I almost do to feel like I am watching the same content that was originally presented.

I loved how you restructured and repurposed some of the scenes throughout this chapter. You made the “mod squad” not eyeroll inducing and actually presented them as competant scouts in service of Boba’s interest. Another strength of the edit is how Boba starts out as already a sort of feudal lord respected by the townfolk and questioning whether he has choosen the right path by from transitioning from a Bounty Hunter to protector/crime boss from the very beginning. Boba is now assertive and a solid leader instead of being a dumbfounded fish out of water in his own series.

I also enjoyed how you removed some of the slapstick humor I did not think fit in a series about the most badass Bounty Hunter in the galaxy. Grogu not returning to Tatooine now was welcomed too and the Hutts were not missed at all. The intro of Black Krrsantan seemed so much more organic now and less convoluted, as well as all the Rancor material.Bravo! Great job; I cannot wait to watch the rest of the books in your series. May the force be with you!

Wow, thanks so much for taking the time to write out that feedback, Darth! That’s great to hear. I’m happy that all of the changes worked well with you, I’m very pleased with the transformation of Book 5 too! If you’re about to watch the rest of the series, it’s seeming probable that I’ll be updating Books 1/2 here in the next couple days with a few major storyline changes. Your call if you want to wait or just watch now as is!

EddieDean said:

Now, that’s interesting. I don’t think the wetlands planet would make a good ending - episode 3 would be strongest this way - BUT you could use the wetlands content as the Mando opening in your second movie. Boba’s with tuskens thinking he’s found his people, Mando’s with the wetlanders wondering if he can find peace. Boba’s tusken family is killed, Mando gets tracked and has to leave his wetlanders. That segues nicely into Mando being pursued by the bounty hunter onto Tattooine, before the Fennec storyline overlap. Gives us a bit of a break from too much Boba/desert too.

It would also nicely set up movie 2’s conclusion - an opportunity to finally stop being pursued, which we’ve now seen happen to him heavily emphasised in one movie.

I truly hate that you’re right about this haha. It all does make a lot of sense narratively on paper at least… The idea just smacked me while reading the back and forths above and now I can’t get it out of my head as a superior structure. Someone please persuade me otherwise! I feel I am doomed to try this out now.

Edit:

Ah but wait! This means you wouldn’t be able to use wetlands to close out the flashback content. Ach!

True. However, I was thinking perhaps I’d start to bring the flashbacks into play when Din sees Grogu’s carrier in the trash (the event that now changes him as a man). He looks at that destroyed carrier and remembers himself as a helpless kid until someone had to come and rescue him too. A Mandalorian had to rescue him.

Absolutely fantastic suggestions, Eddie and tangelo! I’m pretty sold on this whole flashback idea now, and just reopened the dreaded project files to begin tinkereing again. I think I need to render another version of Book 1 anyway because I noticed that despite saying this:

Acbagel said:

Book 1 Final Changes:

• 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.

I actually forgot to make this change… I meant to swap around some of the walking footage and never did so. Plus on the one scene’s music transition that tangelo pointed out, I did indeed have the soundtrack fading the wrong direction which led to the harsher music change.

tangelo1023 said:

The first half deals with Mando finding Grogu and having a crisis of conscience. It sets up the main emotional arc of the show beautifully, even ending with the first instance of Mando handing the ship part to Grogu. The second half feels like a transition chapter with Mando’s helmet and his sense of identity being discussed. It also deepens the Mando-Grogu relationship, ending with the second instance of Mando handing the ship part to Grogu. … He’s a cipher that slowly gets filled in as the film goes on

Hang with me here as I suggest something… radical. Your discussions above have my brain working overtime on a crazy idea to merely reconstruct half the movie.

What if Din didn’t go back for Grogu immediately after delivering him on Nevarro? What if we see Din struggle internally there when he is about to leave, but he actually does take off and fly right to the prison break job solo? The story beats are now this:

1. Keep same intro, Din starts as a mysterious Mandalorian bounty hunter.
2. First 50 minutes are exactly the same aside from taking out the early flashback sequence.
3. Din has turned in Grogu, goes to get his new list of jobs, and right at the 58 minute mark he hesitates, but DOES fly away.
4. Play out the prison break sequence, edited to be a solo job. Grogu is only in a few minutes of this episode anyhow, and there aren’t any revelations here that aren’t covered elsewhere in the series. Would remove ~5 minutes of this prison break sequence since some scenes refer to Din’s betraying the guild. We are starting to get into his helmet/identity crisis discussions here based on the crew banter.
5. He completes the job, returns to Nevarro, is heading back to collect payment but then sees Grogu’s carrier in the trash. This is now the moment that changes Din.
6. Din has changed, he saves Grogu, flies off to find refuge and we get a shortened wetlands world that concludes the film.

Thoughts? The goal here would be to lessen the feeling of two separate story sequences joined by an interlude, transforming it all into a more cohesive tale of Din’s transformation as a person. Since we would end the film with him rescuing Grogu, it’s now a more defined character journey.

Sent to everyone above & all films are now officially released! Post here or DM me if interested.

EddieDean said:

Just watched your first movie (v3) and absolutely loved it. The opening half in particular is fantastic, with the worldbuilding being extremely strong in terms of the way the user is fed information. The narrative really works, it’s gripping, and it flows really well. I enjoyed this so much I’m going to watch through the corresponding original episodes, in order to challenge it as deeply as I can and give detailed feedback. I’ll do that for all five movies, if you’re interested.

Wow, thanks, thank would be incredible. When I say the films are “final”, I don’t mean to infer I’m never going to update them again or that they are beyond critique/improvements. I only mean that I consider them to be in a final presentable state now where everything should work and flow and be free of bugs. Certainly could have missed things or find need for additional changes, or if someone suggests something brilliant I might try to integrate etc.

But for now, key points:

• I completely agree with your approach. This edit attempts to preserve as much content as possible, which does mean that they’re not quite structured as modern hollywood movies are, so they feel a little more like very long (but well-paced and narratively satisfying) episodes in a series. To me, that’s completely welcome and exactly how I’d do it.
• I think the parts you did cut were exactly right. Extended opening, Jawas, wetlands planet fight, many trims. While it did slightly feel like a ‘series of events’ in the second half, it hung together, and again, it’s totally worth it from my perspective. This is definitive for me.

Glad a lot of this landed well. As I’ve mentioned before on this project, the goal wasn’t necessarily to make traditional movies out of the show, but to simply tell a well-paced story with sensible decisions and character arcs intact. I’m actually glad it retains that “TV show pacing” more than feeling like a standard hollywood film structure. Long form comics and novels are my go-to inspiration, so if we get that sort of drawn out pacing while still moving the main story forward rather than feeling like pointless filler episodes, that’s nailing exactly what I was attempting with the re-edit.

• I think you could get away with cutting a bit more from the wetlands planet, keeping it even tighter on the idea that they attempt to settle (emphasising wannebe-girlfriend and Yoda with the kids) but then realise they’re going to get pursued, forcing them to take the prison break job which concludes the movie. Gina Carrano’s character we know isn’t going to be major to Mando, so she can be pretty heavily minimised - you might even be able to cut the fist fight with her, perhaps going straight from ‘who’s she?’ to their conversation, via some transition or intermediate scene.

Did you find yourself wanting this planet to go by faster? Was it dragging on too long to where it was boring/not developing a character enough? There were a few extra things I could have cut out like you mentioned, but as it was already the shortest “act” in the film, I tried to keep as much as possible that wasn’t directly related to the village defense.

• I had another idea for this section, though I’m not sure how this’d work technically. As I mentioned earlier, your flow of information to the viewer was great - but you could possibly get the flashbacks to Mando as a kid to happen as part of the conversation with the wetlands wannabe-girlfriend character, at the point where she inquires. It would make the wetlands planet a bit more purposeful as a carrier of more worldbuilding. That said, those scenes are quite technically intercut with the forging scenes, so I don’t know quite how easily extracted they can be. (You possibly don’t need to have both forging scenes play out in full either - maybe just a hammer blow for the pauldron, then the full scene later for the full suit.)

I actually really, really like this idea. As you said though, the technical aspects might really restrict the delivery here since the flashbacks are so interwoven into the armor construction scene with clangs and white flashes. However, I could potentially re-cut up the final flashbacks from S01E08 (07?) where Mando tells the full story since those are presented as a whole rather than snippets. But I do love the idea of giving the wetlands world a bit more purpose with that character backstory. Note taken and it’s worth experimenting on.

• I thought it might be nice to have something immediately before the wetlands planet, and between the wetlands planet and the prison break, to pace those transitions, allow time to pass, and show what’s going on with their pursuers/the galaxy. Ideally that second one would be a little more of Greef, or the Imperials, if such content exists. But failing that, before wetlands it could be the Kuiil recovering IG scene, and perhaps the IG repair between wetlands/prison break.

Another good idea I think, however there is a surprising lack of content without Din in Season 1. The only options of “other stuff going on” scenes are the IG repair like you mentioned (which I already did repurpose as a “passage of time” sequence for Din traveling back to Nevarro) and the wetlands village getting wrecked by raiders. So unless I want to show that whole village getting massacred immediately after Din leaves… Haha, that would be freakin dark. I don’t see any other options for content unless there’s something I’m forgetting in Season 2 I could bring back here for.

• I slightly missed the conclusion to the prison break - perhaps a post-credits scene showing the imprisoned teammates would be suitable?

I liked to cut that jail scene of the teammates for 2 reasons.

1. It leaves their fate ambiguous. Did Din kill them, knock them out, lock them up? We don’t fully know what kind of person Din is yet, and I think the mystery benefits his persona at this time.
2. With that mysetery intact, it is much more of a surprise when we see Mayfeld brought back into the story later on in the series. With that jail scene included, you definitely have an expectation that all of them will return. But now it’s more of a shocker to learn that Din didn’t kill Mayfeld (and others, presumably).

Thanks for the comment, that is great content!

Grab yourself a cup of caf, kick back, and check out the Premiere Trailer for Star Wars: The Way of Mandalore.

Stay tuned until the end for a surprise! May the Way be with you-, er… This is the force-, uh… Just enjoy 😉

Peonthegrate said:

Does book 5 also have the previous additions mentioned earlier in the thread like the reintroduction scene of the mods and such?

Yes, everything mentioned in this post is also included which is why the final changes were so short.

I actually am upscaling all of these films to 4k as well unlike that post states, so it’ll now be the best quality footage I can muster up.

EddieDean said:

What runtimes are we ending up with here?

Good question. Each film fluctuated by 1-5 minutes, so we’ve landed at:

Book 1 - 2 hours 11 minutes
Book 2 - 1 hour 50 minutes
Book 3 - 2 hours 29 minutes
Book 4 - 2 hours 26 minutes
Book 5 - 2 hours 24 minutes

Book 5 Final 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

And with that, we are in the final stretch. I’ll be dropping a planned release date announcement tomorrow…

Book 4 Final 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 3 Final 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

Congratulations on your release. The work that’s been put into this is extremely inspiring and I look forward to binging everything when I get time

darthrush said:

Have you considered incorporating Shamook’s redone VFX of Luke’s first entrance in the Mandalorian Season 2 Finale? Some shots don’t look good as far as the mouth movements go but I believe I using a few re-done Shamook shots could really help bridge the Luke we see in the Mandalorian with the more realistic Luke seen in the Book of Boba Fett?

Yes, Shamook’s Luke is already present in that Episode.

And thanks for the feedback everyone else, the story reviews are coming along nicely and the Book 1 upscaling should be done in around 20 minutes. So if that looks good and my settings are correct then I’ll continue ahead full steam.

Book 2 Final 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

DylanB18 said:

A new person joined the vfx team, just for a fun small thing. Welcome DarthHeisenberg!

Thanks, happy to help! DarthHeisenberg is my name on Discord but I’m acbagel on here. Great trailer for this project and I am excited to see your film soon.

Book 1 Final 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!

EddieDean said:

Excellent news, Acbagel- I can’t wait to see this, I think it’s going to be my go-to and I’ve been putting off a rewatch of both shows so that I could watch it all your way. Don’t rush, but I’m very glad your time away was good for you and to have you back!

Peonthegrate said:

Agree with Eddie, I can’t wait to see the final product! Especially Chapter 5 V2 with all the tiny adjustments that had been discusseda few months ago after V1.

I definitely view this as the definitive way to watch the shows IMO!

Thanks for the messages of support, I hope to deliver this story to you soon. I am going through every minute of each film now to get it all ready to go. Definitely making a few more changes here and there and will make a post for each film regarding the final story touch ups.

In terms of tracking my progress on the release, I’m simply going to continue to update this post here rather than spam each phase of progress.

Book 1:

Story Reviewed: [x]
Film Rendered: [x]
Film Upscaled: [x]
Film Uploaded: [x]
Film Released: [x]

Book 2:

Story Reviewed: [x]
Film Rendered: [x]
Film Upscaled: [x]
Film Uploaded: [x]
Film Released: [x]

Book 3:

Story Reviewed: [x]
Film Rendered: [x]
Film Upscaled: [x]
Film Uploaded: [x]
Film Released: [x]

Book 4:

Story Reviewed: [x]
Film Rendered: [x]
Film Upscaled: [x]
Film Uploaded: [x]
Film Released: [x]

Book 5:

Story Reviewed: [x]
Film Rendered: [x]
Film Upscaled: [x]
Film Uploaded: [x]
Film Released: [x]

EddieDean said:

I’ve considered Rebels: Refocused, but others have picked up that task and done it well. I don’t think its need is as intense as TCW:R as it doesn’t need to repackage itself as a more confident show, like I thought was important with this one. So it’s a maybe, but it’s a fairly low priority. I also thought about seeing what could be done if anything with Resistance, since nobody seems to have picked that one up.

What would you personally say is your go-to Rebels edit? As I finish my Way of Mandalore saga, I’ll soon move back to The Bad Batch to bring it more in line with what you did in this project. Hoping to have a combo of these three shows edited that play well together!

That said, I do naturally have plenty of other ideas:

• A lot of editing is done in isolation these days - I might try to make and maintain some kind of master document that can easily allow people to compare SW fan edits down to a shot-by-shot level. I really want to encourage us to work together much more around the releases of SW movies and shows.

That’s an amazing idea! You’re already a leader on this next generation of Star Wars edits and something like this would be a massive task, but could be a game changer for the Star Wars fan editing community. We all definitely need more collaboration in order to make it to the next level, something I’ve been mulling on for my plans in 2023.

• I like interior design and my girlfriend needs a craft room.
• I’m desperately behind on my playing of videogames.
• Oh, and I’d like to write and publish a book that’s high fantasy lovecraftian horror.

Love your work and wish you could edit full time haha, but 100% take time for yourself to get these done too. I have missed so many games I wanted to play too while working on my edits, it’s nice to take a month or two off and relax the mind. I always come back into the edits feeling refreshed and work much faster after the breaks.

EddieDean said:

Whoah, I’ve just realised something: I don’t know if this is an error, I’d assume it wouldn’t be - but near end of the final episode, Jesse says to Rex “Darth Sidious ordered us to kill the Jedi”. Shouldn’t he be saying “Chancellor Palpatine ordered us to kill the Jedi?” Surely the clones wouldn’t have been just given the information that they were controlled by a Sith Lord?

Do you guys think I should modify this?

Any chance you could make Jesse just say “He” instead of “Darth Sidious”, rather than trying to find a way to get “Chancellor Palpatine” to work? Not sure if it works well enough in the context but it would be a much easier touch up, because I do agree that is a very strange Sith name drop.

jkimm said:

Nice color grading! I feel the same about the issues you mentioned. I’m looking forward to seeing how this progresses.

Thanks! I’d love to hear any other suggestions/ideas you have for your ideal edit.

stevepaynter said:

Hello! Yes, I did get an original copy of it. I’ve skimmed through and been inspired by a few cool ideas for sure. I need to sit down and watch the whole thing though. My major complaint in the first half was Bespin music on Alderaan?? What a mortal sin lol. But thanks for the tip! Anything else you’d like to see addressed in this edit that hasn’t been done yet in a way that is satisfactory for you?

I have watched a quite few different edits of Kenobi so when you a have Workprint available send it to me as PM and will happily give you some feedback. What run time are you aiming for? Patterson was 2hrs 29mins but I think anywhere between 2hr -2hr 15m mark would be better.

I am aiming to release my edit in January, so if I have a workprint done before then I’ll send it out to a few people to review. Personally, I feel so much more emotion with longer films compared to short ones. Maybe it’s because I prefer the TV show format in general as I grew up reading long form comic-style storytelling and Star Wars novels, but 2 hour movies rarely impact me enough as it flies through so fast. I’m all about compelling, sensible character development even at the cost of traditional action-movie pacing. So I’m probably looking at closer to the 3 hour range for my edit, but at the end of the day it’s 100% dependant on the quality of the scenes. I pretty much just go scene by scene and if it’s a good and worthwhile one then I keep it, if it’s pointless to the story I’m telling or impacts my character development negatively, then I scrap it. I don’t worry too much about run time as long as the content is good. Sometimes that means a 90 minute movie & sometimes it means a 200 minute movie.

darthrush said:

OT member Phase3 had a wonderful suggestion for altering the final duel in the Kenobi series so that we don’t end on Obi-Wan’s baffling choice to let Vader live. The basic idea is to move the burying obi-wan in rocks to the very end of the duel so that after Kenobi walks away from Vader with a sliced helmet, he screams out “Obi-Wan” then cracks the ground with the force, proceeding to bury Obi-Wan, walk away from the fight the victor. Then Obi-Wan climbs out and the fight is over.

If we can make this work, I think it would make the duel even more amazing than it already is (I quite enjoyed the fight outside of the nonsensical ending where Obi-Wan lets Vader live).

I created a mock-up of this idea. The changes so far:

-Reversing the flow of Kenobi retreating so it links smoothly to the later part of the duel.
-Flip shot of ground breaking for visual continuity.
-Removed Vader’s line “And that is why you will always lose” as he breaks the ground, rough sfx replaced (can be polished later)
-Cropped out vader of wide shot of ground breaking for visual continuity.
-Removed vader’s line “Did you really think you could defeat me?” after he buries him.
-Rearranged shots of Vader walking away for better flow

The one key change remaining to tie this whole idea together is somehow changing the final shots of the rock burying so that Vader’s helmet is still sliced in half. I don’t know who would have the special effects skills to do this but perhaps a community effort would achieve this.

Mock-up of the rearranged duel: https://streamable.com/myzuo3

I 100% agree on a lot of the problems you mentioned here. Personally, I have a whole slew of issues with how that final duel takes place and I will definitely be addressing them in my edit. I will use a lot of your ideas here as inspiration and see if I can come up with any solutions to make this battle play out more in line with how I believe those characters would behave.

g00b said:

Looking forward to this Acbagel!

I watched through Bad Batch and enjoyed its underlying story but it’s overall reliance on repeating the same story arch with accepting Omega’s role in their squad was tiresome and unfortunately most of the episodes felt like filler!

I’m sure you’ll be able to make something quite compelling with what’s there!

I definitely felt the same way! I do know there is a worthwhile story to be constructed out of what they created, it’s just a matter of analysing where that lies and transforming it into a touching experience. I am up for the challenge and always love to hear ideas if you have any.

Phase3 said:

This project sounds really interesting, and I’m looking forward to seeing your edit! I have only watched the first season of The Bad Batch once, but had little interest in watching it again due to the repetitive parts you mentioned earlier (“No, it’s too dangerous”. “Please, Hunta.” “Fine.”), as well as the silly stuff with Omega, where the show becomes a Disney children’s program.

I had wondered about the inclusion of the footage from TCW in an edit of TBB; it doesn’t seem that it would work very well though, once you remove the content with the Jedi.

Indeed, and as my title of the project is “A More Mature Edit” I certainly aim to reduce any and all feeling of that jarring kids-oriented presentation.

You are correct, the Jedi-less TCW content is truly quite dull and I don’t see any way around that. I know Tales of the Jedi is coming out soon but I highly doubt that will influence this project at all either, considering the name haha…

I am very thankful that TBB S2 got pushed back until January as that actually gives me hope on finishing this before then! Hoping to start this in a couple weeks as I finish up my Mando project now.

Hello again!

After some time away I think I’m ready to dive back in and finish my vision for this project.

So what happenerd here is that as I was troubleshooting those issues with the rendering (this was mostly user error on my upscaling process as I mentioned before), I got absolutely annihilated by a Windows update bug that blue screen errored me and forced me to reset device to facotry. Thankfully, I had all my files backed up and I use external HDs for most of my editing stuff anyways, so I only had to deal with the hassle of reinstalling every single piece of software on my PC. It doesn’t appear anything related to the project files was lost, but after this setback I just wanted to step away for a time because dealing with that at the end of an already long and taxing project alongside some very consuming real life situations was definitely the tipping point for needing some rest.

I’m still in the process of re-linking everything in my projects and getting everything setup to finish the project, but I don’t think I lost anything permanently thankfully. I have to head out of state for a work trip the rest of this week so I’m thinking next week is looking probable to get everything done and uploaded. The time away was healthy for me, and I’m going to do one more pass on watching everything from a story aspect again so I can deliver the best final product possible. Looking forward to sharing this soon!

Thanks for your patience and your support

Hey, everyone! Sorry for not posting over the weekend. Unfortunately I made a user error in a couple of the film renders and had to redo them. I actually started working on a drat of this project last year, and then began this version of the project by working on my previously rendered films which is why my quality of the source footage wasn’t the best, so the upscaling here is definitely needed. It’s a lengthy process that is taxing my CPU to the max but it’s making things look much better than my v1 releases.

Still on pace to have these links out very soon, apologies for the delay!

Peonthegrate said:

I actually had another thought while rethinking about the edit, and was curious about your thoughts.

The minute long scene at 38:40 till like 39:40 with Boba in his bathrobe and Fennec feasting at the table always felt a bit weird to me.
Not a fan of any bathrobe Boba moments, and have always found the amount of food to be somewhat cartoonish. As well as not finding any of the dialogue necessary.

I found the whole scene to be one of those “slow Boba moments in his palace” from the original show that I never was a fan of that are mostly cut in this edit.

I was thinking, what if that scene were cut altogether and it cut straight to Garzas sanctuary instead? I’m curious about your thoughts on this and if you think that’s something that can “work”. I thought of this randomly and wasn’t doing a re watch so it’s possible that during a re watch of the whole chapter it may be a necessary scene? I’m unsure, in any case curious what you think.

EDIT: Another reason I don’t think this scene is needed is because the previous scene we get of Boba (at around 20:00) is Boba being very assertive with his final line being “Then we will be ready.” But then the next time we see Boba he is seemingly almost pouting around in his palace eating his chicken in a bathrobe thinking about what to do.

Plus if you cut this scene, that would likely mean you cut straight from Luke saying “The Galaxy is a dangerous place, I will teach you how to protect yourself.” Which would then likely cut to the scene of Black Krassantan causing a ruckus in Garzas Sanctuary, showing the galaxy being a dangerous place so to speak.

Very good point! I agree wholeheartedly, especially on the thematic element of the transitionary line from Luke. I cut that mopey pajama scene and am rendering Book 5 v2 right now! The Way of Mandalore is complete (save for likely 1-2 bug fix updates).

brizcoe said:

I would love to check out your edit, thanks!

I am on pace to have everything ready to send out tomorrow evening!

Peonthegrate said:

Alright, I’ve got some hopefully not too unorganized/vague notes from Chapter 5. I made these as I was watching it.

Overall a great chapter, with most everything being seamless, it turned out quite well.

Now for some of the notes that I think could be improved upon IMO.

1. The scene around the 5 minute mark works surprisingly much better than I thought it would. Taking the last scene of the show to one of the first and making it work as well as it did was pretty impressive. To improve upon it more, if possible I would try and draw as much attention as possible away from the debris that the citizens are cleaning, and shots of the debris.
   This may be difficult while maintaining the music of the scene by making cuts of certain shots of them simply cleaning the debris. So perhaps it could also help to simply change the music that plays during this scene. As I think the music here works, but could possibly be improved upon by picking something with a slightly different tone. Though I’m not sure what that would be.
   TLDR: This scene works pretty well, but I’d cut as many shots of the debris/cleaning of debris that you can while not making the scene feel choppy with the soundtrack.

I was able to remove a couple shots of the civilians picking up the scorched rubble, but watching it back here it doesn’t seem so out of place that the whole scene is worth cutting. I don’t see anything wrong with people working in the background, maybe it’s just a normal teardown/caaonstruction operation? Surely there’s quite a bit of damage that happens around Boba’s town anyways. I got rid of the more distracting shots but I am not too concerned with the rest.

2. The initial cut to Mando behind the curtain felt perhaps a bit too harsh/quick. Though part of me liked it at the same time. I’d mess around with a slower cut if possible that eases you into the new scene and see how it looks and compare which is best/most fitting for the scene.

I extended the Din intro scene here and used a feathered wipe on the transition instead. That should help.

3. The Rancor (fakeout) scene works quite well with the assassin , which I was also surprised by. The main issue with the scene for me however was that you could see the Rancor’s gate/door open too much. I’d try and cut away to the assassins saying the mayor sent him before the viewer can see the gate fully open, revealing that there doesn’t seem to be anything there.

Agreed, I cut the final gate shot so we never seen it open enough where we would have seen at least the Rancor’s foot.

4. As much as I hate to say it as I don’t enjoy the mods, I felt there should be some sort of introduction to them.
   The original (D+) introduction of the mods was quite drawn out and long, and had that awkward scene of Boba talking with the guy in his palace. But I feel it may be a necessary evil, as it just felt odd having the mods show up out of nowhere as they main 2 are honestly fairly “main, side characters” in this. And it just feels odd not having a proper introduction to them.

TLDR: I think it’s a necessary evil to introduce the mods similarly to the D+ show. But perhaps it can be cut up and trimmed a lot to be much better than D+'s. It’s one of the only things that didn’t fully work for me in the edit.

So I did actually have a scene of the mod gang recruitment that worked really well for Boba’s character, but the main problem was actually finding a spot to place the scene. It just felt so random and tacked on, especially considering that the recruitment scene takes place at night whereas the rest of my Boba content takes place in the same daytime hours. But you saying it’s something that doesn’t fully work as-is means I must find a solution as the current placement of things isn’t feeling digestible. I added the mod recruitment scene as Boba’s second scene now, so the scene order goes like:

1. 5 Minutes of Boba intro (in his palace and walking the streets)
2. 5 Minutes of Din intro (fight against Klatoonians)
3. 3 Minutes Boba recruits mods
4. 3 Minutes Din collects bounty
5. 10 Minutes Boba goes to Garza’s and learns of Pykes
6. 10 minutes Din trains with new Mando coven
7. 5 Minutes Grogu training

It all actually balanced out really well timing-wise so I’ll have to do a full rewatch to make sure it all works out narratively still, but it does fix the mod gang problem you had.

5. This is ironic based off of my last point, but I’d try and see if it’s possible to cut/trim up the scene of the mods driving up the the mayor’s office around the 1 hour mark. You didn’t change this scene of them driving up AFAIK so it being a weird scene isn’t on you at all. I just can’t take the scene seriously especially after all the power ranger memes from this scene lol.

TLDR: If possible I’d mess around with cutting/trimming the scene of the mods and Boba driving up to the mayors office.
It’s just a awkward scene because of their out of place speeder bikes and the memes make it even harder to watch. I’d maybe try and cut straight to Boba walking right into the mayor’s building and see how that looks.

I agree with the horrible cartoonish appearance of the bikes, I can just cut straight into Boba walking through the door.

6. At around 1:27:20 the main cast sorta just seems to teleport into Garzas sanctuary. It feels kind of weird. the scene may need cutting entirely, or rearranging. I don’t recall how this sequence played out in the D+ version, so this may be how it was there too. In either case it feels weird having them straight up teleport during Fennec’s monologue.

7. I like the idea of this on paper, though in execution I think it didn’t quite work (yet at least). The idea being that, the Marshall initially declines Mandos offer to help out. I was able to tell where the scene was cut up around the 1:24:15 mark and then again to the 1:31:00 mark. I’d perhaps just revert this to the Original D+, as that seems the easiest way to make the scene feel less “edited”.

I’ll combine these two since it’s all tied together. I did completely rebuild the whole segment here from the ground up. I did end up scrapping the “Cobb refuses” idea and reorganized a ton of scenes around here so it seems less like the crew teleports from the palace to Mos Espa. In order to do this, I did have to remove some of the “planning” scenes to make it happen but they were redundant anyways.

8. In the scene with Cad Bane and Boba talking for the first time, I’d be interested in seeing about cutting some of Fennecs dialogue. I noticed during the D+'s version of the Finale that Fennec seems to be guiding along Boba quite a bit, and though some of that seemed to be cut here, I think it could do with some more cutting. She tends to monologue/explain a bit too much for my liking throughout. Though this may be personal preference.

I had already removed about 75% of her telling Boba what to do in this scene, but I was able to remove one more line from her that was the one that change Boba’s mind, so at least now it’ll seem like he makes the final decision on his own. I’m not able to cut anything else here without losing the tension of the scene though.

9. This is just a personal gripe that has bugged me since I first saw it on D+. But the scene at 1:45:15 as Fennec is driving away to me always felt so weird because of the strange smile of admiration that the Pale mod has at 1:45:19.
   Personal gripe, I’m sure. It just looks so weird to me lol!

Haha, no I agree there. It’s an unnecessary, super corny 5 second camera zoom in on her face for no reason. Easy enough to cut since it’s distracting.

10. at 2:04:38 you can see the D+ “CHAPTER 6 FROM THE DESERS COMES A STRANGER” title card.

Oh that was left in there on purpose, I’m trying out the Theory of Relative Titleography and seeing the “Chapter 6” text should evoke a strong sense of familiarity with watching the D+ version. Kidding… It was a remnant attached to the fade. I fixed it. Thanks for pointing it out!

11. I personally thought what you did with the final montage of Boba getting tribute from everyone in his palace was quite brilliant. Really great idea there. However for me it slightly messed with another one of my favorite scenes (from the D+ version). Which was of Grogu tapping on the glass with the Mandalorian.
    I’d see if there’s any way to perhaps separate the montage of Boba, and the scene of Grogu with Mando in his starfighter some.
    Smudger9 did this scene well, yet very similar in his movie edit. The part that feels a bit off to me in this edit is that Mando being reunited with Grogu should be more… I’m not sure, quiet? I think having the (great, yet not fitting for this scene IMO) music play during their scene together is what throws me off. That and that it was shortened, by not having Grogu tap on the glass.

TLDR: I’d see if you can separate Boba’s montage of getting tribute, and Mando+Grogu reunited scene so it feels more endearing.

I tried to fix this today but I ran out of time. Really having a hard time nailing the timing across these scenes here but I’ll get it done hopefully tomorrow.

It’s a lot of notes I have but I really did enjoy this edit. It’s certainly a very difficult edit to make and I think you’ve done a great job on it. I think with a few tweaks and adjustments it will become the definitive way to view the show (In my opinion of course).

Thanks, this edit is much better after a second pass based on your review.

So I’m finding it’s taking around 14 hours per film to render, upscale, and upload. I’m not actually releasing in 4k because I didn’t notice much difference in the results from the software, but I am upscaling it in HD to remove a lot of the artifacts to simulate a 4k upload. With that said, you can see the math on how long it’ll take! I’ve got 2 PC’s working on rendering and upscaling so it should only be a few days before everything is available to download.

Peonthegrate said:

Sounds great! Would love a link to the updated chapters 1 and 2 when finished

For sure! For the final releases, I have color graded, (hopefully) upscaled to 4k, and unified the logo and credits presentation. Speaking of, check out the new color grading palates I’ve been working on, in addition to the new logo: https://imgur.com/gallery/kBWwrMR

Just a matter of getting everything rendered, upscaled, and uploaded. I might just wait until all 5 are done before sending out so I don’t lose track of having to send a ton of DM’s every time I finish one.

And I suspect I will end up doing a v3 of Books 3/4 since I haven’t received feedback on those yet. All of the other films will be in v3 already upon this release so I’ll count this project done by this weekend aside from some minor bug fixes on those two Books.