Acbagel

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.

Peonthegrate said:

Updated thoughts on Chapter 2:

1. At 21:10, I think this is a bit too harsh of a cut. It’s mostly because of the music transition, perhaps fading it in/out more. Or fading the entire scene/using a wipe could help. something like that.

I was able to stretch out the music fade a little bit more here which helped a lot.

2. Same sort of deal at 30:35 with it being a harsh cut. I’m assuming this is caused by you wanting to remove the “like a Bantha” line of dialogue. I personally have always though that was a good/funny line of dialogue even before the memes, though I understand you wanting to cut it to perhaps make the scene more serious. I’m just unsure if it’s worth removing, if in it’s place is an apparent cut like there is currently.

I had previously tried to use the Tusken moan noise as a transition cut, but like you said it didn’t feel right. Fixed with a simple fade on the music instead of that idea.

3. I’m a bit more indifferent on the lizard now, as I mentioned before as well as another commenter. I think it works… fine the way you have it now. But still personally don’t really see much wrong with it’s original inclusion, though I can see that being personal preference. In any case, the only part of this scene that would feel off to me if I were watching this for the first time, would be the lizard kind of disappears almost between cuts.

The main problem I had with the lizard is all the over-exaggerated faces Boba makes during the whole thing. It comes off as very cartoonish and again, lightening Boba’s character to be more of a jokester instead of a deadly warrior. I think it’s easy enough to assume Boba drops the lizard when the sand is thrown in his face. My wife will be watching this scene for the first time soon so I’ll see if she notices anything as a new viewer.

4. The cut at 51:40 is pretty good, though perhaps could be worth messing with a bit more to see if it can be smoothed out some.

So the idea here was to sync up the Tusken screech with the screech of Din’s ship alarm. I moved some things around to try and make that a clearer now.

5. I think I mentioned this before, but it would be nice if something could be done about the tonal shift in music selection at the segment around 57:00, with Boba and Mando seemingly just missing each other on Tatooine.
   The scene visually works fine mostly, but the soundtracks clash too much in my opinion to where I can’t personally see that segment feeling “official”. Solutions I think would be either changing up/combining the music tracks here, or seeing if you could perhaps even cut Mando walking outside here entirely and just focus on Boba for this small section.

I did some color correction to match the lighting of the two shows a little bit better. As far as the music goes, I did end up reorganizing the entire segment as a whole since the original two soundtracks were just far too conflicting in tone. It should all feel much more unified now as Boba’s portion plays out entirely and then Din walks by the same area in the next scene after Boba leaves.

6. The cut at 59:30 does work for me however because of the music. Though I will say (though this may be difficult to fix) the only thing that feels off about these cuts between Mando/Boba is either the image quality or color grading, I’m unsure which it is. But from my POV at least it seems as though the Boba sections looks marginally nicer compared to Mando’s scene with regards to image quality/colors.

It could just be my imagination however, seems maybe more muted/darker as well. This is likely not your fault but from the original source material I’d wager.

Overall still very much love this Chapter.

My new color grading as well as the new scene order from the fixes above might help with this point here.

Thanks for the feedback, I was able to implement the changes to make a few of those point much less noticeable and as I just rendered the final cut of Book 1, I’m rendering this cut of Book 2 now as I’m moving onto finishing Chapter 3

I’m back into working on this edit to get the final releases out ASAP. I’ve been helping a fellow fan editor on a different Star Wars edit where you’ll see my name in the credits soon. That should be out in the coming weeks, so that’s the primary reason for the delay on this project. I wanted to respond to the last few messages before providing a brief update!

Peonthegrate said:

Awesome! I still also will go back to chapter 2 that you sent me and re review it and the other chapters.

I also wanted to note that the actual visual quality itself in chapter 5 looked great if O remember correctly. Fixed the small issues I had with the other chapter which I assume can be put down to the filesize being a little bit larger for chapter 5.

Thanks again! This feedback has been phenomenal. I’ll be doing the fixes to Chapter 5 here soon. Glad to see I fixed the render issue too, let me know if you have any other recommendations on Chapter 2 as I’ll be onto finalizing that this week.

deagan said:

Awesome work, I’m loving your Star Wars Legends sequel edits!

May I have access to your Mandalorian/Boba/Bad Batch edits as well? You have a great eye for keeping story focus.

Thanks, I appreciate the compliment. Story focus + smooth action is my #1 goal in this project. Sent!

Phase3 said:

Acbagel said:

The problem with the modshop scene as a whole was the massive, unfixable continuity error when they filmed it. This scene takes place in the middle of the night, supposedly right after we see Boba walk up to her in the Mandalorian episode. However, in that same Mandalorian episode, Din comes across Fennec’s body in the morning-afternoon when the suns are bright and shining! So the timeline presented to the viewer is that either Boba waited over 24 hours until the following night to heal Fennec, leaving us with massive questions about why Boba waited so long & how Fennec survived that wound for over a full day bleeding out and cooking in the suns, or that Boba took her to the shop the same night and then placed her still unconscious body back in the sand during the daytime for Din to find in order to trick him…? Neither of those options make sense when you watch a chronological edit, and I truly think the director meant to film that scene as if it happened the same night of the original battle, but forgot about the scene in the Mandalorian where Din finds her body in the daytime.

Hey mate,

Can I make a suggestion? This continuity error could be fixed by changing the daytime scene into a night time scene, or vice-versa depending upon what you want to do. There are many presets available in editing software that allows you to change morning scenes to early evening, or even night time scenes.
This might solve it for you!

Hey! Ya know it’s a good suggestion, however if I were to do a day --> night LUT on the chronology then I instead create a new continuity error in the travel times of the scene. We then are instead stuck with the question of “Why did it take a day to night cycle to reach Fennec on speeders, but he made it all the way back from Fennec to the city in a single night before sunrise on a dewback?” I think the solution I have in currently works pretty well to hide the continuity error in the original show and also removes the very strange mod healing scene which rubbed a lot of viewers the wrong way in the first place anyways.

Atom-88 said:

Finally got around to watching Chapter 1 today and 🤯 absaloutley loved it, I do like the Mandalorian but the filler episodes/parts just slow it down to much which sometimes makes it a chore to watch.
Loves everything done with this edit, everything flowed smoothly and seamlessly (As per usual with your edits😁). Looking forward to watching Chapter 2 soon👍.

Awesome. Thanks so much for the feedback, Atom! I am very happy with the story of Chapter 1 and the only thing I’ll be adjusting in this final release is some new color grading and structuring of the logos/credits. Speaking of which…

Here’s just a little snippet of what I was able to spend some time working on today. New logo coming for my project which will replace the regular “The Mandalorian/The Book of Boba Fett” pop-ups that would normally occur in the show. I don’t quite have a final draft ready to get feedback on, but it is very close and you can get a good idea of how it’ll look. I am going for a merged style of Mando + Boba font/texture combo, while also incorporating the mythosaur skull and a hint of Republic Commando influence snuck in there too! All very Mandalorian-esque. Excited to share my final vision for all of this very soon! I’ll get these final renders done, complete the logo, probably create a trailer and then release everything all at once. Aiming to get it all done within 1-2 weeks. Would really appreciate any feedback on Chapter 3+4 as well as I haven’t heard much on those yet. Thanks everyone!

stevepaynter said:

Hi, Acbagel, were you able to get a copy of Kai Patterson’s edit to watch? The edit is not for everyone (I really enjoyed it though) but there few good ideas in it that you may be interested in. For example, the edit did a really good job of trimming the Leia under the trenchcoat scene when escaping the water moon base. Also, when Kenobi uses the Force to save Leia from falling off the building there is a really good original Star Wars theme. If you would likle a copy let me know and I will PM you.

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?

revel911 said:

Acbagel said:

revel911 said:

Have any thoughts on the two kidnappings of Leia? I haven’t seen anyone solve in a reasonable manner yet.

I wrote about that in my OP. Trying out an idea I haven’t seen attempted yet.

What do you mean “reasonable manner”? Do you have an opinion on what you think does and doesn’t work regarding this topic?

I have seen some amazing cuts of both kidnappings, but when both are included it just feels like “didn’t we just do that?” Or I have seen where individuals try and cut both as one and while a great idea, there isn’t enough footage to explain many of the elements (under water base vs street slums.)

Understood. Well as I wrote in the OP, my initial idea is to combine the Episode 3 capture with the actual end of Episode 2. This way it feels like one, long extended rescue (which is the majority of the Disney show in the first place, just paced poorly) instead of the jarring effect of having Obi-Wan and Leia safe on Mapuzo for so long before resetting back to stage 1 with her getting lost again. Now it’s as though Obi is right on the verge of saving her when Leia slips through his fingers, and he has to travel all through Mapuzo to get back to her, further endangering Luke as he is away.

Sirius said:

Hi, Acbagel. Do you plan to change the ending of the second Vader vs Kenobi fight? Some users here suggested to make the fight end with Vader burying Obi-Wan with the rocks, and after Vader leave the planet, Obi-wan would then free himself thinking about Luke and Leia.

You plan to make something along these lines, the original approach or something different from these two options?

Hey, Sirius! I’ve been toying with this as I do see some major lore flaws in why Kenobi let Vader live there. It is even very inconsistent with the show’s own dialogue. I think others have tried unsuccessfully for Vader to initiate the rock attack after his mask is cut and they have that exchange, so I’m looking into possibly going that route. But as my edit is only an hour in, everything past mid Mapuzo is all vague ideas and notes at the moment. I still find flaws in that idea as I highly doubt Vader would leave Obi-wan without being 100% sure that he was killed.

revel911 said:

Have any thoughts on the two kidnappings of Leia? I haven’t seen anyone solve in a reasonable manner yet.

I wrote about that in my OP. Trying out an idea I haven’t seen attempted yet.

What do you mean “reasonable manner”? Do you have an opinion on what you think does and doesn’t work regarding this topic?

“The Republic has fallen. Sith Lords rule the Galaxy. Obi-Wan Kenobi has lost everything. Everything but hope.” - Kenobi (novel), 2013

I am officially announcing that I am working on a Star Wars Legends inspired edit of “Obi-Wan Kenobi”. I promise this one will be unique!

In light of my work on the Sequel Trilogy transforming it into a relatively Legends-safe storyline, I will also be attempting to do that with the Disney+ show here. While there were some parts I did enjoy with this show, I had major issues with some extremely baffling lore contradictions that took place, in addition to feeling frustrated with some other general directing decisions.

I’d love to have your feedback and suggestions as I create this, so please be open and offer feedback where you feel it is useful.

Major changes in my Kenobi edit:

1. A main problem with this show for me is the depiction of Obi-Wan being another “Sad Luke” type of character. Obi-Wan cutting himself off from the force, succumbing to depression, and his inconsistent motivations towards Vader really ripped me out of the story in a similar way I felt watching the Sequel Trilogy the first time. This… wasn’t the Obi-Wan I grew up with. He was SO different from the Obi-Wan of the dozens of Legends novels, the comics, & games that I had read and played for 15+ years. Obi-Wan was smuggling Jedi, helping the townspeople, staying active to protect Luke. This Disney show was someone else’s vision of Obi-Wan. If you enjoy this new Obi-Wan, no worries! I am happy it brought you joy, but it is a vastly different retelling of a character I looked up to so it was very strange for me to experience this story. Like it was with the Canon Luke vs Legends Luke, it is hard to relate when a character is behaving unlike their previous depiction across hundreds of hours of content. And even with this new version of Kenobi, I didn’t feel like they did a good job of explaining WHY he was so depressed. A few prequel flashbacks don’t convey to me the reason he lost the force and essentially gave up on protecting Luke to the best of his abilities. I didn’t understand why he was so defeated and frankly… a loser. So I want to retell this show with the Kenobi I grew up with, a Jedi hermit consistent with the Legends stories.

2. While the point above is more of a preferential choice, this here is one that I’m going to stand on objectively… Obi-Wan CAN’T first learn that Vader survived at this point in the timeline. There is just no possible way to explain how he has gone 10 years without hearing the name Vader one single time. Unless they wanted to portray Obi-Wan as literally not having left his rock cave one single time in a decade, I cannot fathom how they wrote it in for Reva to inform him for the first time on Daiyu. Vader was a LEGEND in the galaxy post-Order 66. In the old novels, Obi-Wan hears of Vader on the news during a trip to town ~2 months after RotS, which is nearly as soon as Vader had begun his public campaigns for the Empire. 2 months… NOT 10 years. The Disney show made it clear that Obi-Wan was involved in the city to a degree, working jobs, hearing chatter etc. It is just a blatant lore error to write that he hadn’t heard or read one news report, hadn’t talked to Bail about it, hadn’t heard one trader make even the slightest mention of the name “Vader” for 10 years. Now, if you’ve read the behind the scenes on the production of Kenobi, you’ll see the directors realized their mistake… They admitted that they didn’t realize that Obi-Wan knew Anakin was named Vader. They literally just didn’t connect the dots from the plot points in RotS sadly, so in their world they had an excuse that even if Obi-Wan had heard of Vader, he just never realized it was Anakin. I still think that is a foolish explanation, as Obi-Wan definitely would have been able to connect the dots even in their own storytelling version, but objectively this is just a massive flaw that needs to be corrected from the top down.

3. The last major point I’ll mention here is one that many other editors have attempted to fix, but one that I feel I have a unique solution for. The directing for this show as a whole is just subpar. From the general sporadic pacing of the overall storyline, to the poorly written character of Reva (who was setup to have an incredible storyline, they just executed it so poorly), to some of the laughable action sequences (Chase scene, Wade death, Tala stormtrooper god-slap etc) and bizarre character motivations (Vader letting Obi-Wan leave, Roken 180 within 30 seconds, Reva “I let Obi-Wan escape” to “Obi-Wan is the ONLY thing that matters!” etc). There are so many things that kept me from getting absorbed into this story as I should have. I’ll write more in my changelog, but a major unique fix to the pacing is having Obi-Wan and Leia get separated on Daiyu, leading to Obi-Wan being on Mapuzo alone. This helps get rid of the whole “we have to rescue Leia from scratch” all over again plot, because now it seems like Act 2 of the film is a direct continuation of the Act 1 rescue plot. We don’t have the awkward pause of pacing where they are together for the middle portion of the story, and then ripped apart for 20 more minutes etc. I’ll explain more later on, but it is a change that I am very excited about. Many of the major story changes done by other editors will be replicated as well, but I will have some very unique plot deviations too!

Demos:

Before I get into a full changelog, I’m going to leave you with a few ideas I’m developing. I currently have ~1hour of the film in a workprint cut, so I still have a lot to do, but here’s something to whet your appetite for now.

• New Color grading: https://imgur.com/gallery/PSBOr9O

• Fun little scene I’ve been working on. Not finished with audio (matching stormtrooper voice modulation) or visuals (will rotoscope Leia’s head out of everything), but just a concept idea for a new conversation on the Mapuzo tractor. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GR0Kx6FMWOM

• Workprint of Leia and Obi-Wan getting separated on Daiyu: https://streamable.com/4vl02m . Will appear as though the Mapuzo workshop is a part of the Daiyu warehouse. Check out the color grading draft here: https://imgur.com/a/2pVhCkC

• I think I’m scrapping this idea in favor of just having Reva kill him like in Kai’s edit, but here’s a fun little concept for the Grand Inquisitor killing the Tatooine Jedi on the spot: https://streamable.com/9yq57e

Like I said, I’ve got about a full hour of the workprint in a watchable state, but this will be a long production. I’ve got to catch up on watching a few other Kenobi edits to see what works and doesn’t for me personally, watch the original show again, and finish up work on some other projects. Also I’m drooling over the PixelJoker VFX work and am very thankful for his time, will definitely implement his additions when he releases his work to fan editors. But in the meantime I will be writing up my drafted changelog soon. Let me know if you have any questions for now.

Hope survives!

Changelog in progress:

SpectacularSMan said:

Has anyone toyed with the idea of only revealing Leia through Kenobi’s POV? In any cut I have seen so far, her early scenes just seem so jarring compared to the somber time spent on Tattooine. I almost wonder if you could cut everything Leia related prior to Kenobi rescuing her, and have the fact that she is Leia be cemented for the audience at the same time Kenobi meets her. Obviously, SW fans would know who she was based on Organa’s request to Kenobi, but for the pace of the movie both dramatically and scene to scene, it could be an interesting idea to have the audience meet Leia and form their opinions on her personality while Kenobi does.

I looked into doing this, but when Bail calls it is already mid-conversation at the beginning of that scene since the director wrote it in a way where the viewer didn’t need the full context of the conversation since we saw Leia get captured with our own eyes. When you leave that out, it feels extremely jarring to learn of Leia’s capture with only half of a conversation that isn’t meant to be a revelation of the event to the viewer.

Yeah that would make it very confusing when watching TCW or listening to the audiobook novels. I don’t see a major problem with the pronunciation in the first place so I think that’s just a nightmare of a project without much benefit. But major props to anyone who could actually pull it off, I just don’t personally think it’s worth the time and effort.

Ryan_ said:

I forgot to mention this in the review that I send you on The Force Awakens on Discord. I recommend you remove Finn’s sanitation comment. It’s another way to make Finn a joke and just plainless comic relief, a comment that didn’t needed to be there. Finn being a janitor going on the battlefield doesn’t really make any sense.

Saw you asked and just sent the Episode 9 edit your way, sorry I lose track of my Discord conversations sometimes!

I did remove the other comments about his janitorial status, though my reasoning for leaving this one instance in was because I do like his exchange with Han here and it demonstrates Finn really only cared about Rey and not so much for the bigger picture of the Resistance as a whole at this point. I think that helps out the little bit of character development he does get in the next two movies so that’s why I left in this initial comment about it. Thanks for the feedback!

Darth Muffy said:

Intriguing, will keep an eye on this.

Thanks for the support! I hope to bring in new viewers for TBB who were initially put off by some of the storytelling decisions. I think there is a good story buried somewhere in this animation!

Xeifer said:

I friend of mine showed me your edit of OB1 and I thought it was fantastic. I immediately registered on the site to request a link to the Mando/Boba edit and the Bad Batch (please)! Fantastic work!!!

Hey, Xeifer! Hmm, I actually haven’t released an edit of OB1 yet (though I have been working on one behind the scenes, may post about it soon…) You may have me confused with someone else and I don’t want to get credit for the work of the other incredible editors who have released OB1 projects. Hopefully you can find the right editor and thank them for their work!

But in terms of my Mando project, yes I’ll reach out to you! I’ll send you the first 4 films as I need a v2 on my 5th film before feeling good about it.

I haven’t completed my Bad Batch project yet. Aiming for a mid-September release there. You can follow that project here: https://originaltrilogy.com/topic/The-Bad-Batch-Cinematic-Version-A-More-Mature-Edit-WIP/id/90466/page/2

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.

Thank you SO much for this feedback. This is perfect for an editor, as soon as I get time I will be going line by line to fix every one of these points. Just reading through your notes I agree with almost everything there and will be improving every aspect you mentioned. This was a pretty transformative edit with a ton of moving parts so I expected there to be some things that didn’t work, but I’m enthused by that list as it seems like everything there should be fixable. I really appreciate that and will respond in full when I get a chance to work on the film.

gbroyce said:

Acbagel said:

gbroyce said:

link please? would also love to hear what your plans for the next movie are as well as your vision for Episode 9. Also after watching the clips on Vimeo and reading the reason why I almost wish you put palpatine saying “kill him” from ROTS for shadowing his return, but absolutely love the clips and the change list I read through.

Sent! I’ve actually released Episode 8 in its beta form and Episode 9 in an alpha cut, so you can find the links to those threads in my signature.

I thought about adding that “Kill him” line in someway, but since the thought only crosses Rey’s mind in the novel and isn’t actually an audible communication, I think it’s best to just see the results of her thought through her aggression.

Hope you enjoy, feel free to post a review when you watch!

Interesting, that makes sense. A fun note about the audiobook version of the novel is the reader uses snokes voice when reading that line and that is what gave me the idea. But your logic is sound!

It’s a cool idea, and perhaps I’ll look into a bit more when I get back around to my Sequel trilogy edits. I am planning for a few big changes but it’s still quite a bit away. In my series though, Snoke IS Palpatine so I could use either voice as I’m planning on trying to make Palpatine’s return less “random”.

Mario said:

Acbagel said:

Thanks for all the great feedback! Glad you enjoyed many of the changes, and I think it’s a good thing if you don’t notice everything on a first watch, that means it is integrated smoothly. The reason I didn’t have Starkiller destruction setup like HAL’s wonderful edit is that personally I think it is a very tired trope for the “bad guys” to lose mere seconds before they were about to win. This was an awesome, tense storyline decision in 1977 with A New Hope, but we’ve seen that already in Star Wars! With a major complaint of The Force Awakens being how much it resembles A New Hope, I didn’t want that same exact plotline being in here too. I tried to create a more unique version of Starkiller’s destruction so it doesn’t just feel like Death Star 3. I think the way I framed it kept the drama more focused on Rey and Kylo here which is a much more interesting dynamic than another superweapon in my opinion.

Hey Acbagel. I’m sorry for my late response and thanks for your great answer. I understand your opinion and it works really good. But on the other hand really like the dramatic effect if Han dies and to make it more worse the Starkiller destroys the Republic. And it fits a little bit more with General Hux line in Last Jedi “The Republic is no more”
I like both Version and will see which one I prefer for my replacement. Thanks for your awesome work.

I’ll definitely be taking another pass on this whole sequence in the future to try and make it more unique. Who knows how it might change by the final release here! Thanks for your feedback 😃

deagan said:

This sounds awesome, may I have a link to your edits to all of the Sequels?

Sent! Enjoy, feel free to post your thoughts here if you want!

stretch009 said:

Acbagel said:

(Links sent out to everyone who asked above)

Except me 😦

Sorry! Just sent.