Acbagel

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.

jadenkorr41 said:

Heya Acbagel. Not sure if u ever saw my battle of exegol enhanced thread. I was wondering if u have any way of looking to enhance battle of exegol in your next workprint. Particularly my capital ship scene. Sorry I’m not trying to be an attention seeker. It’s more of I like the scene, but im looking for ways to seamlessly incorporate it into TROS, so looking for ideas to toss around.

Hey! Sorry I’m responding a month late, I’ve gotten away from my Sequel Trilogy project to work on other things for a while. I did check out your Exegol thread just now, some very cool ideas there! I’m not sure if it makes much sense in my edit to add more to that space battle as of now, as unfortunately I find that whole battle to be pretty lifeless as a whole. It’s so generic as in “fly around a giant empty gray atmosphere and shoot at millions of star destroyers with no gameplan or strategy whatsoever”. It’s just not a very intuitively setup battle to begin with, and I find the content on the ground of Exegol to be much more engaging so at this point I wouldn’t want to extend that space battle any longer than it already is. When I start work on this film again in the future I’ll reconsider though! Thanks for the comment

Isaac101106 said:

This is the best TROS edit ever when I watch tros I will watch this edit but here are some great things and some things you could fix before the final cut.

Wow! Thanks for saying that. Very nice to hear and I’m glad you enjoyed it. I appreciate you taking the time to review too.

1. The rescoring was perfect but I didn’t like the rescoring in the final battle felt the trailer music was a bit too corny

Understood! Though, it is all of the Jedi force ghosts appearing out of nowhere to fight Palpatine round 3 so I think it’s all a bit corny to begin with haha. I’d say that track fits well in this case

2. There is a continuity error in that kylo gets his helmet repaired before he lands on Mustafar so maybe put the Mustafar scene after he gets his helmet fixed

I did notice that in creating the film but I think just because he rebuilds his helmet doesn’t necessarily mean he has to wear it in every single scene afterwards. In TLJ, Kylo “destroys” his identity in only being a masked figure, so I think it works to have it on and off throughout the film. I wouldn’t call it a continuity error just because he doesn’t wear it in 100% of the scenes after he rebuilds it.

3. I Loved lukes voice in the cave

Thanks! I thought it helped Luke be to Rey what Obi-wan was to Luke. Nice to pay homage like that

4. Rey killing her parents was great but that shot of the ship crashing feels out of place

I somewhat agree here, the ship exploding is kind sudden for them to die like that but I don’t have a better idea off the top of my head on how to communicate their death. Can you think of any other way a child would kill her parents?

5. Another continuity error is the that when kylo turns around to see Han Rey stabbed in the stomach when she was facing his back

I was looking for what you’re saying here but I don’t see it. I think Kylo is turning as Rey is grabbing the saber. I watched it frame by frame and didn’t see anything here that looked wrong.

6. Another excellent feature is kylo on Coruscant but the edges of his face are rough you might need to smoothen it

Thanks! Yeah some of the VFX work here wasn’t fully developed. Will definitely take another pass on scenes like this in the future.

7. The final Battle left me speechless the one we deserved Thank you only thing if you can I know it is very difficult because I tried once but it failed is try to replace Rey’s body with Anakin’s at that second if you can’t I understand you already did enough

Awesome, that’s the goal! That is a good idea and I might try it. Seems kind of difficult to pull off but I’ll see if it’s possible for me.

8. Luke at the end felt very cringed maybe put all the force ghosts in the end

What do you mean he “felt very cringed”? Not sure what you mean by that. What specifically was wrong?

This is great I know it is difficult but you have done an excellent job you said you have only finished 40% but you could after some roughing the edges I believe call this 100% unless you want to change more

And last I have seen many fan edits of TROS No Palpatine, anti cringe, Ascendent, and many more but yours is the best easily because it make a bad unwatchable movie to a good entertaining movie

Thanks again for the review! Very helpful. Yes, I would barely even say this is halfway done and a lot will change before final release next year. Working on other projects in the meantime but I’ll loop back here eventually. Glad you enjoyed, may the force be with you!

Ryan_ said:

Can I have a link? This sounds interesting and I would love to watch this movie and pass off tips.

Sent!

EddieDean said:

This is a really exciting project. I love that you’re hitting the vast majority of the story beats. Other than trimming Boba’s ascent to power, what would you say are your most major cut subplots? (I appreciate you have changelogs but it’s hard to work that out from a process of elimination!)

Thanks for the support! I haven’t even watched my own films all the way through in one sitting yet, so I might make some further changes in the coming weeks but this has been a really fun and refreshing project.

The main cuts I made to BoBF are:

• No exposition dump scenes with Fennec describing everything. I found nearly every scene of these info dumps to be incredibly dull and do nothing to move the plot or provide any needed context.
• No Boba sitting on throne having conversations scenes. Accepting gift after gift, cracking jokes, talking to random farmers about the “troublesome youths”, the mayor’s secretary doing his pony show etc. These are all so slow and again, do nothing to advance the conflict against the Pykes. It’s just people doubting Boba and treating him as a chill dude instead of one of the most intimidating men in the galaxy.
• No mod gang recruitment, no gamorrean recruitment, no Twin Hutts, no Wookie night attack. I did show Kranstan getting recruited as that directly precedes the meeting with all the crime lords so I felt this one helped beef up Boba’s influence and it didn’t seem like he was recruiting for his 10 person gang, it’s more like Kranstan knows who Boba is and joins out of respect.
• No Rancor delivery/petting scenes. The revelation of Boba’s rancor is much more surprising now, and as I’ve made Boba already an established crime lord, we are now sitting in expectation for “when is the rancor going to show?”
• No Grogu on Tatooine

Those are the main ones I can remember! Keeping things focused on the growing Pyke invasion and getting Din and Boba reunited is a clear driving force.

bram222 said:

good work with chapter 2, didn’t like what they did to boba fett but you made it more entertaining to watch. It was some getting used to switching from show to show. But the chronology is nice.

I agree on the lizard. Felt weird “why is he getting a lizard”. Fennec being fixed was fine, as boba explained it to her.

Exited for next chapters.

Thanks! Yeah, this one is structured the most uniquely as the stories intertwine in an odd way chronologically. How I viewed it, as my project is essentially trying to create “The Mandalorian Bible”, is that many books of the Bible were written by different authors and have totally different literary mechanisms. So I’m fine with this Chapter being structured differently than my other films in the series as that is reflective of the Bible as a whole.

Regarding the lizard, I viewed it simply as the Tuskens’ tradition. They gift you a lizard and you get splashed with hallucinogenic sand, that’s how they culturally show their admiration for your work. I don’t see any significance to the lizard that creates any plot expectation for it. But you are the second person who has mentioned it feeling odd, so maybe I am viewing it differently. If someone else gets the wrong vibe from it too then I’ll look into changing it, but I don’t see a problem from where I sit now. Thanks for the feedback!

One more announcement here: I’m renaming this project from The Book of Mandalore to The Way of Mandalore. Calling it “The Book” and using the films as “Chapters” didn’t really make sense with my “Mandalorian Bible” theme. It’s not “The Book of the Holy Bible”, it’s “The Holy Bible” with books… So renaming to “The Way” gives more credence to this “Holy Book” theme while also getting in that awesome phrase that has such great significance to the show. So it’s The Way of Mandalore and each film is a different “book” in that compilation of texts. I’ll be working on making a new logo for it that will replace the regular The Mandalorian logo in my films.

Thanks for following, and I’d appreciate more reviews if anyone has time! Will be rendering v2’s/3’s through the rest of the month.

(Links sent out to everyone who asked above)

SpenceEdit said:

I’m trying out something for that musical transition in the duel.

(sidenote: There will likely be a V3 of this, but with less major changes. So I won’t release that until I’m 100% confident in what I have. I would like for V3 to be the last version.)

The problem with this is that the first part of the duel takes place away from the rocky area, then it cuts to Reva on Tattooine, then back to the duel where they are now in the rocky area. So removing the Reva scene kind of eliminates a smooth and sensible transition to the rocky area.

My goal so far has been to have the motion of the scene basically fool you into thinking they’ve naturally moved into the rocky area, but the audio transition has been incredibly difficult to get right, and it’s not been entirely successful.

So I tried something a bit different. I did end up cutting a bit more of the duel, but the major element missing is just Kenobi rolling around on the ground, so no great loss. I think extended the audio through until it goes silent on a major beat in the action, then kicks back in when Kenobi tries to knock the large rock onto Vader. I think this works a lot smoother than what I’ve had so far. Please take a look and let me know what you think!

FIXED

EDIT: It’s fixed!

Hal 9000 said:

To anyone who removes Bail showing up in person on Tatooine, instead going right from their holo-call to Kenobi digging up the sabers, I have a question: How do you suppose he knew which planet to go to?

The edit I’m toying with (~40 minutes complete) has a much more Legends-esque Obi instead of the new presentation of him where he has to re-learn the force. So when Bail calls, he only hesitates for a moment thinking of Luke, before then going to head out on the mission he has been waiting for for so long. It is clear in my cut that the audience does not see the entire holo-call start to finish, so there’s room for Bail telling Obi offscreen that they’re tracking a ship. The viewer puts the pieces together when Obi lands on Daiyu and tells the official he is tracking a ship. At least to me it seemed very simple to make that connection, but I’ll show some demos soon to see how others feel.

Awesome, very unique idea. Will definitely check out your film tomorrow.

Check out those prediction skills ^^^ I nailed it down to the exact day!

So I did begin on this project again, which mostly consisted of getting reacquainted with my project files as it’s been ~6 months since I last worked on this. If you look back, I had decided to edit an “Episode 0”/Prologue episode using TBB episodes from TCW to help bring consistency to my new presentation of the characters. I did get some work done on this prologue today and am probably ~20% done that, which I estimate will be around 60 minutes long.

I’m not gonna beat around he bush here, the Episode 0 is rather boring. The best part of those TCW episodes in my opinion was the content surrounding the Jedi, so with that stripped away it’s just some pretty generic action scenes for an hour. It’s not great in the storytelling and there’s no way to make it be, but I do think it’s important to reframe our view of these characters for my full TBB edit where I am planning on making a better storyline overall.

As I just put in a full month of editing nonstop with the Mando project (and I’ll still have some updates to make to that), I’m not in any huge rush to complete this. My goal is to have this done a week or two before TBB Season 2 releases in late September so that anyone who wants to start watching that can catch up with this edit.

Change log is fully updated on Chapter 5, which is now rendered and uploaded! I’m sure I’ll need to go through most of these Chapters again for v2’s/3’s after some more feedback rolls in, but this project is officially released now!

Thanks to everyone who helped me work through the ideas. I am very happy with the presentation of this story and will be watching them all with my wife here soon. The Mandalorian is a fantastic addition to Star Wars and my hope is that watching these edits will highlight the absolute best story possible and bring you new joy when you watch.

Hello, I will DM both of you! This thread doesn’t really need to exist though, as you can ask directly on their respective threads found in my signature here or if I happen to be away for some time, on the general request thread here: https://originaltrilogy.com/topic/The-Star-Wars-Fan-Edits-Request-Thread-Request-the-links-to-Star-Wars-fan-edits-here/id/65546/page/7#1490146