Acbagel

Would love to see this Delpheas! The previous version has been my favorite Episode 3 edit I’ve ever seen.

Darth Sadifous said:

Acbagel said:

Darth Sadifous said:

Between this project and Acbagel’s Way of Mandalore fanedit, “This will begin to make things right. I’ve traveled too far and seen too much to ignore the despair in the fandom.” I know someone mentioned he primarily has updates on discord…anything new to report? I have been following the project on youtube and on here mainly. I am eagerly awaiting its release!

This project is still very much alive, folks! Progress has been slower in June/July because PJ has taken some time off for family trips and also took on additional work responsibilities (something also wrecking my The Way of Mandalore timeline!) for the Shelby Oaks film. He has 2-3 weeks left on that film and then should be free to grind out the last chunk of work on Trials of the Master. He is already done with the large majority of VFX and has shown the currently 2 hour 20 minute workprint to some people already. There’s a TON of content that hasn’t been shown in public updates. Even so, he has this VFX left to complete: “Fortress rescue sequence, one extra Vader throne room scene, lots of removal and paint-outs and several meditation environments.” Then soundtrack work, some touch ups/review, final storyline and scene cut/placement decisions and it’ll be ready. It will be released NLT Q4 2023.

Thanks for the update Acbagel; I appreciate it! Your completed Mandalore project and this one are some of my most anticapted edits in a long time. Also, is that the Shelby Oaks film from Chris Stuckman you are referring to?

Yes, that’s the one! He got some unexpected additional responsibilities for it and just had to take some time off from fan editing until he can get through it. Almost done though and you’ll see some public updates in August!

Thanks for the kind words too, I’ll post in my Mandalorian thread later this week with a release date!

Darth Sadifous said:

Between this project and Acbagel’s Way of Mandalore fanedit, “This will begin to make things right. I’ve traveled too far and seen too much to ignore the despair in the fandom.” I know someone mentioned he primarily has updates on discord…anything new to report? I have been following the project on youtube and on here mainly. I am eagerly awaiting its release!

This project is still very much alive, folks! Progress has been slower in June/July because PJ has taken some time off for family trips and also took on additional work responsibilities (something also wrecking my The Way of Mandalore timeline!) for the Shelby Oaks film. He has 2-3 weeks left on that film and then should be free to grind out the last chunk of work on Trials of the Master. He is already done with the large majority of VFX and has shown the currently 2 hour 20 minute workprint to some people already. There’s a TON of content that hasn’t been shown in public updates. Even so, he has this VFX left to complete: “Fortress rescue sequence, one extra Vader throne room scene, lots of removal and paint-outs and several meditation environments.” Then soundtrack work, some touch ups/review, final storyline and scene cut/placement decisions and it’ll be ready. It will be released NLT Q4 2023.

VulgarisMagistralis said:

For something that was meant to be ready in early May, I think it’s safe to assume this project will see the light of day much later than expected, if at all. It kind of reminds me when I was young and they released Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords, and out of nowhere came this ‘Team Gizka’ who declared they were making a The Sith Lords Restoration Project (TSLRP) and it never came to be, except for a leaked torrent. People often have more important things to do and put the project in the background till it’s forgotten…

I guess this fan edit is an example of that phenomenon. I’ll check back on it next year.

This film was never slated for a May release. Some channels on YouTube covered the edit and said it would be cool if it was out for May the 4th but that was never a spoken internal release date. All rumors. Later in 2023 has always been the timeline.

Jar Jar Bricks said:

The guy has clearly already spent a lot of money on the project if you take a look at the behind the scenes video. I think the sunk cost fallacy will ensure we get at least something within the near future.

No sunk costs or anything like that going on. The project will release in full and everything promised will be delivered. There are even extra shots made that might not make the final film cut that will still be made public for other fan editors to use.

leftshoe18 said:

If nothing else I bet we’ll get a reel of the completed scenes he re-shot and did SFX for. But I’m fairly optimistic that we’ll get the completed edit, just a little later than expected.

It’s all good, you’ll get to see the full project in just a few months! Check back in August and you’ll start to see some new previews again.

Sideburns of BoShek said:

Pedro wasn’t in the Season 3 Gallery Doc, other than archive footage from previous seasons. Phil Tippett wasn’t in the doc either, despite being featured in the trailer for it.

It was an hour long commercial really, superficial, and of little interest. It did have a few minutes of the directors talking about their respective episodes. And Favreau and Filoni talking about what they were trying to achieve with season 3. Lots of people in it saying how they grew up with and love Star Wars again. The usual format and talking to camera.

This wasn’t a bad doc, just very bland, and wasn’t really a “Making Of” at all. It is the type of thing you have on in the background while doing something else.

Thanks for the review of this. Kind of what I expected… I don’t think there’s any doubt that the production had some rough patches and that Disney just wants to paint it all with a happy brush. I might still give it a watch in case it helps me with my edits though.

AhsokatheChosenOne said:

Your Mandalorian edits are amazing!! Have you ever considered editing Phantom Menace and Tales of the Jedi together?

Thanks! There’s not much need to do that as EddieDean already has the perfect Clone Wars and Prequel movie experience here: https://originaltrilogy.com/topic/The-Clone-Wars-Refocused-COMPLETE-New-Rebels-Aftermath-Movie/id/80467/page/93#1544720

arabian said:

Hey Achbagel, I didn’t want to just bail after leaving so many comments. I wanted to let you know that I think you’ve done an extraordinary job thus far, but after reading your Book 5 (and all the tremendous amount of work you’ve put in–WOW!), I’ve realized that sadly this is no longer going to work for me personally. Separating Grogu from the Din/Bo-Katan journey takes away a lot of what worked in season 03 for me. I feel that bond that Bo-Katan developed with Grogu, that little “family unit” of sorts that they developed with Din is what enabled her to move on and have her ending in the season. I also feel it helped Din get to the place where he was at the end. So to lose that just hurts the overall emotional core, and just moves way too far from “The Mandalorian” itself.

I know many, many, MANY others are loving what you’re doing, and I’m just one person, but I didn’t want to just dip out and disappear. You’re doing amazing work here; it’s just my personal thing. You’re so awesome at this. Thank you for what you do!

I appreciate the heads up, Arabian! I’ve really enjoyed your feedback and having you in this thread. I highly recommend Smudger’s Season 3 edit for a more traditional experience: https://originaltrilogy.com/topic/Mando-EP4-Return-to-Mandalore-4K-RELEASED/id/103018

I understand my changes are more radical and won’t be for everyone, especially if you loved the D+ version. I view it like my Sequel Trilogy edits where I wouldn’t really recommend them to someone if they loved the Disney Trilogy, but if you have some major problems with it then I go for the more radical alterations. I took the same philosophy for Season 3 content as I personally strongly disliked the original release. I will miss your posts and hope you can continue to enjoy my earlier films!

gurgle1624 said:

I on the other hand believe this is exactly what “The Mandalorian” needed. Everyone is entitled to their opinion and also welcome to create their own vision of what this show should be. I’ll wait until this version is completed and I can see each book as a whole to make a judgement call but the bottom line is its your vision and what makes sense to you and I’m good with that. That’s the great thing about editing, if there’s something you want to change, you can, or even expand on what’s already there.
Really looking forward to seeing your version and enjoying the hard work you put into this project. Sadly some people will not like it and will walk away but that shouldn’t deter you from continuing your personal vision. Make this the project that you want to see and be satisfied with that, don’t worry about us. There will be many versions out there for different tastes.
We’ll be sad to see you go Arabian, I really enjoyed reading your posts. Some of them made me think of this show differently. Good luck too you in the future and hopefully you will return and give some insight in what you think after watching this version.

That’s a great perspective, Gurgle. Thanks for sharing!

I’m back from my trip and planning on doing my final review for this film tonight. Thanks for your patience, everyone.

I am still trying to get some time to do the final viewing and fixes for it, unfortunately! I got slammed with some big projects at work and then my car’s transmission suddenly died this week so I’ve had to go through everything to sell it and get a new vehicle on top of that. I also got scheduled to head out of state on a trip from June 24-29, so we’re probably looking at a first week of July release now. I work in TV advertisement production so when we get a new contract it gets really hectic for a while until we deliver the ad. Sorry for the delay, was making amazing progress for a while and then got crushed by a tough couple of weeks! It’s so close though, as soon as I can get home and make a spare 5-6 hours it’ll be ready for release.

Lifeincontext said:

Anyone heard any updates on this? I’m so stoked for it!

PixelJoker mostly posts updates on his discord channel. Still on track for a 2023 release. He’s had a couple of work projects take priority and then took his family on a vacation so it’s been around 3 weeks since he has posted anything new, but progress is continuing and we will see it release in a few months.

Still reviewing the film, but in the meantime… Check out the trailer!

https://youtu.be/oGjaz-2jc6Q

EddieDean said:

How long is that running to?

~2 hours 15 minutes

In an earlier draft, where you merged the two sets of armourer lines into one scene, I remember a bit of background noise from the rocky planet in some of her dialogue. Have you been able to remove that?

It actually wasn’t the Rock World background. I had just moved around some soundtrack of the Ring World and that track transitioned to the next scene in another part of the Ring station and that’s what caused the difference in background noise. But yes, it is identified and fixed.

arabian said:

Ok, so I haven’t watched Book 4 yet but I wanted to read your changes before I read the Book 5 changes, and sigh, I saw that you cut Din taking off his helmet the first time. This is the same thing smudger did. I’m going to share my thoughts for when he did that as well and why I think it’s such a mistake.

In my opinion, I don’t think that Mando not taking his mask off beforehand works. The idea of it makes perfect sense, right? This way we get the full impact of him taking it off with Grogu, right? However, the full impact simply isn’t there. Look at how it’s written, directed, and acted, how it’s played out on screen when he takes it off the first time… as if Din is dealing with this huge thing of taking off his mask for the first time in front of a lot of people, breaking the code. It’s this huge emotional moment. However, taking his mask off doesn’t effect him even remotely to that degree when he does it in front of Grogu. And that makes absolutely zero sense for a guy who has made such a huge deal about it for four straight “books.”

And, of course, anyone who watched the show knows why… he already DID do that when he took his mask off the actual first time. That time it was hugely difficult for him, he did deal with it, and he realized what mattered was Grogu. So him taking off the mask again so Grogu could see his face was why it was emotionally resonating. That was the beat that hit this time. The first time was about Din and his issues. The second time was all about Grogu and their bond. So cutting that first time takes the DIN character part out. You don’t see Din dealing with all of his mask/face revealing issues when he takes it off for Grogu because it’s ONLY about Grogu now. So to remove the intended first time leaves this gaping character hole. That actual first time is full of heaviness. The second time with Grogu, all that’s left now is the light, the love for Grogu.

Just my opinion

Book 5 sounds amazing.

Thanks for sharing your opinion! Interesting read. I think I have a different perspective on those events though. In the Disney version, Din removes his helmet three times. 1: With IG-11 in Season 1, this doesn’t break the Creed on a technicality of “not in front of a living being”. However, this moment is significant, artistically, because the audience (us) DOES see Din’s face for the first time, and we get a strange feeling that we kind of did violate the Creed by seeing his face. We, as viewers, have now lost the feeling of the mysterious man behind a mask vibe when others in the show still have that feeling. 2. When Din does actually violate the Creed for the first time to interact with the terminal. Other living beings now have see his face, as we viewers have again, and this moment is tense all around, but not necesarrily because his helmet is off. It’s tense due to them seemingly about to be outed as spies. The people who do see his face, aside from Mayfeld who is not a major character in the show, all die immediately as well. Yes, we see Din’s struggle, but it is ultimately not impactful and never spoken of again. 3. When he willingly removes it so that Grogu can see him, also exposing his face to Bo, Cara, Luke, and Fennic. This is by far the most emotional removal scene in general and certainly does carry the feeling that Din doesn’t have any trouble taking the mask off… and that’s the beauty of it.

For 2 whole seasons we have seen Din soften before Grogu as his priorities change. By the time he gets to this moment, it is quite clear that Din cares about Grogu a thousand times more than he does about any oath. He loves his “son” more than anything now and he is willing to sacrifice for him, even his former identity just to be able to look at him with his own eyes. The casual nature in which he removes his helmet “for the first time” in my series is what I think makes this moment so special. It communicates that Din is no longer thinking of himself at all, but solely thinking about Grogu. It also lets the audience exist in this moment from the perspective of Grogu, who has also never seen his face before, which is an incredible experience. My wife watched The Mandalorian for the first time through my edits and she LOVED this moment being the first time she had ever seen Din’s face, and the tears were welling up in her eyes. The unique feeling that we ARE Grogu here is irreplacable, and I do not at all think it removes the emotion because Din doesn’t seem to struggle with the decision like his does in the Imperial base. Again, I think the lack of struggle is the beauty of it all. Din has set all else aside in order to display his unconditional love for his son. As a father myself, that brings emotion into my heart just thinking about it!

I also think it is far more impactful for Din to be banished as an apostate due to him removing his helmet just the once to simply look at Grogu, rather than being forced to in the base. The fact that he chose to violate the Creed and be banished for this one moment that was “optional” per se I think is more significant in terms of his character arc.

I’m finishing a few little touch ups today, organizing the Credits art, and then I’m doing my first full Book 5 workprint watch tonight!

Here it is! I had to summarize a lot of these into just one point or it would be so long it would break the site… but realize when I say “Removed Grogu from Mandalore” that’s like 300+ edits to the visuals and soundtrack. Depending how fast I can bug check and get a little inside feedback, we’re probably within 10 days of release!

Book 5: The Apostate

• Added new Mandalorian Disney Star Wars intro
• While the D+ timeline is pretty confusing with how long Grogu is with Luke before the BoBF reunion, my series of events can play out with a much more logical chronology. Book 5: The Apostate occurs ~6 months after the conclusion of Book 4: The Way.
• New color grading on Ringworld
• The film opens with Din back to bounty hunting and looking for his clan. He has reverted to his state of mind pre-Grogu.
• Cut Klatoonian, “That doesn’t even look like me!” These alien mask prosthetics aren’t the best and sometimes you can see the human mouth inside and it’s really jarring.
• Sped up Din’s reaction to being bit.
• Reduced the number of blaster shots Din takes on his back before responding.
• Trimmed down the shot length where Din walks away from the Klatoonian facility. It is normally cutting to the BoBF title card here with thundering Boba music so I reworked the soundtrack and visuals.
• Cut a bad fade transition in the Armorer talk
• Cut Din jumping off the catwalk like a clown while training with the Darksaber.
• Sped up some of the Armorer’s attacks on Din during training so he doesn’t seem as incompetent.
• Reduced the time that Vizla spends mindlessly looking at the vibroblade Din cuts in half during their duel. Very awkward pause in combat.
• When Din is banished, I have integrated dialogue from their S3E01 talk so that Din has a clearer picture of how he needs to restore himself. He is also the one who now suggests how he can be redeemed, showing that he has knowledge of The Way.
• Cut transport announcer saying they’re flying to Tatooine because in mine they’re about to head to Nevarro.
• Split up Din’s traveling inside the shuttle into two parts, using the first half now and the second half on his way to Tatooine later on.
• New transition for shuttle flying to Nevarro and dropping Din off there.
• Grogu is entirely removed from this planet. (S3E01 content)
• New color grading for Nevarro
• We don’t yet know why exactly Din travels here, but he is quickly set upon by Greef who has all sorts of offers and plans for Din. So Din gets dragged around for a bit listening to Greef’s pitches before the Pirates show up.
• Re-edited the Pirate stand-off so that Greef fires faster to disarm the main one, and also so Din is the one who later kills all 4 of the other guards to further strengthen their grudge against Din specifically.
• Finally, Greef gives Din a moment to tell him why he’s here, and Din explains that he wants IG back. Greef tells him that’s impossible, but Din tries anyway. However, this effort bears no fruit and after all the effort Din is told that he needs to get a different droid.
• To bridge the gap in Din’s journey from Nevarro to Tatooine, we cut to the Armorer swearing in Vizla’s kid into The Way, this also helps establish that the clan has left the Ring World and is now onto the Rock World (which we will visit later in the film).
• Cut some Pelli and Womp Rat nonsense.
• Though it is a great sequence in and of itself, I had to trim over half of the building N1 scene. It just annihilates the pacing, and so I’ve cut it to what is needed to communicate the theme of Din taking pride and ownership in something new.
• Cut out a few lines during the N1 flight test to help with pacing.
• As Din takes the N1 into space during the test flight, he is “pulled over” by the New Republic, but right after he escapes them he is set upon by the pirates from Nevarro who are looking to take revenge on him for killing their men.
• There were SO many VFX bugs in this dogfight… I have fixed everything I could find. From doubled-up frames, explosion lighting coming from the wrong side of the cockpit after blowing something up, blaster fire inconsistency, impossible sequences of events chronologically, ships teleporting all over the place with no real geographical placement etc. Whew. Hopefully, the fight plays out in a way that entertains and you don’t notice all the cover-ups I had to do.
• I have merged the events of Din’s BoBF test flight with the S3E02 landing to get R5 so that these two scenes all play out in one sequence.
• After Din gets R5, he heads to the Mandalore system to begin his journey toward redemption. Knowing that Bo-Katan is in her old world of Kalevala, he stops there first to attempt to recruit her help.
• Removed Grogu from Kalevala with VFX
• After Bo declines Din’s request, he is forced to go to Mandalore alone with R5.
• Removed Grogu from Mandalore with VFX
• Color-graded Mandalore to look more lifeless.
• Din searches through Mandalore Mines all by himself until he is captured by the cyborg.
• Fixed the cyborg’s initial capture of Din. In the original, there are a TON of repeated frames across two different camera angles. I hate that. Now he only gets grabbed once.
• Added a few new wipe transitions throughout the mines to cover up old Grogu scenes.
• Removed Din groaning like he suffered a life-threatening wound after being captured.
• As Din is stuck in the trap, added voice lines from S3E08 where he says “R5, come in R5. I need you, buddy.” This prompts R5 to take off and fly back to Kalevala to get Bo to help.
• R5 goes back to Bo alone and she loads him up in her ship and goes to rescue Din.
• Removed Grogu from Bo’s journey on Mandalore with VFX
• Reordered Bo’s reaction shots to seeing Mandalore’s wreckage during her descent. The original had a glaring bug with her head position snapping instantly between frames, clearly combining two shots that weren’t supposed to go together.
• Reordered shots so that the ship lands, then R5 plugs in to monitor, then Bo leaves. Better logical sequence of events and paces her departure.
• Extended the time Bo looks at the ruined city in the Mines, and then altered the timing in which she puts her helmet pack on. She seemingly realizes she doesn’t have time to reminisce and needs to get to business.
• Rescored Bo’s walk through the mines.
• Removed the weird pause before the ceiling collapses when Bo shoots down the mine monsters.
• Increased the speed in which the monsters attack Bo rather than her missing 5 shots at point-blank range.
• Removed the long shot where Bo shoots the rope to grab the Darksaber but doesn’t pull it back. Now she retrieves it in one fluid motion.
• Cut the tell of the cyborg head not being dead. Din is less injured here and isn’t struggling so badly to speak so I don’t need that extra time anyways.
• After Bo destroys the crab machine, she goes to get Din out as he fades into unconsciousness from the blood loss.
• As Bo pulls Din away, we fade back to Nevarro to see the Pirates begin their invasion.
• After Nevarro is bombed, Din wakes up with Bo at the fire.
• Extended a shot of Bo looking at Din as she is touched by his kind gesture.
• After Bo saves Din from drowning and he is unconscious… again… We cut to Adelphi base to progress the Pirate plot.
• Rescored Din waking up and Bo leaving the Mines.
• Din and Bo now get ambushed quicker, mid-conversation on their flight back to Kalevala. Altered voiceline order and timing.
• Right from Din and Bo jumping to Rock World, we get Teva jumping out of hyperspace to Coruscant.
• Cut Teva “Okay Okay…” not great delivery, and better for his character to not concede.
• After Coruscant, we’re back to Bo and Din landing on Rock World (I’m really upset this planet isn’t named… I hate calling it that)
• Removed Grogu from Rock World with VFX
• Bo-Katan gets accepted into the clan and immediately goes to get her new signet [credit Smudger]
• Teva arrives in his X-wing right after Bo gets her pauldron
• Cut Din telling Bo “it’s up to them now” because that is beyond obvious.
• Altered dozens of voicelines and event orders around the planning Nevarro battle. Changed Bo’s order of the briefing, cut out another “tell the whole plan before doing the plan” segment.
• Fixed some super awkward pacing jumps in the Nevarro battle. Reordered dozens of scenes in order to keep the pace moving smoothly. Typical Acbagel combat fixes that are far too numerous to write down. I’ll let you experience this battle fresh without going into intricate detail!
• After Nevarro is saved and Bo is announced to be the one who will reunite the Clans, Din jumps to go visit Grogu. He is now redeemed, and there is presumably some down time before he will join Bo on her journey, so what better time to go do this?
• Trimmed a few minutes out of Din wandering around watching the droids and such. Nothing wrong with those scenes, but they don’t really fit in this pacing of this epilogue type of conclusion to the film.
• Din waits for Skywalker after R2 shuts off, has his normal conversation with Ahsoka, and we get just the tiniest display of Grogu in training, showing off some new powers. Luke and Ahsoka then talk as we look onto Grogu resting on a rock as I have rescored the ending and… roll credits.
• Unified credits storyline order

This will be my final preview…

…before release.

I’m getting close, my friends. I’m in the last 10% of editing on this. Tomorrow I will have a full working draft and begin looking for the bugs and writing the changelog. Hopefully will have that published very soon, and definitely looking at the full Book 5 release to kick off the summer!

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I now have Grogu completely removed from the entire movie. I just need to go back through and touch up a few spots and watch it all to make sure he didn’t slip through anywhere… But I am very confident this is going to work. These plotlines feel astronomically different without him around. I can’t wait to show you all. We’re in the final stretch! Trying to write the changelog tomorrow. It’s going to be… BIG.

Thanks for all the feedback, I’ll stick to finishing up the final 3 TWoM films and then go back for the final touch-ups on each before going to Bad Batch. I’ll share a Book 5 update at the end of this post.

honestabe said:

• In terms of personal interest, I will join the apparent unanimous agreement to continue with The Way of Mandalore.

This is the way!

• With regard to other edits, I agree with your premise to wait for the PixelJoker edit of Kenobi. No purpose in having to go through duplicate efforts if you already know in advance you want to incorporate portions of his work.

For sure, he is bringing a ton of ideas I had to life through VFX work that is truly next level. Can’t wait for you all to be able to see it!

• Next up I would love updates to the sequel trilogy. A legends compliant version was what I always hoped these would be. I have been wanting to watch your current work prints, but other life matters kept getting in the way.

I’ve grown a lot as an editor since I started working on these 3 years ago. I think I’d be able to have some good updates for it.

• For TPM, do you have any specific ideas? My current favorite edit based on what has been released so far was Cloak of Deception. I am aware another editor is going through VFX enhancements. I still believe there were an avalanche of good ideas in that thread that would enhance the movie. I honestly would not know where to begin on that. However, I do know that somehow Dooku needs to be introduced in that movie.

Yeah, a lot of specific ideas but nothing I want to get into in this thread since it would be too off topic. One day I’ll make my own thread for this when I start working on it. The previously linked community thread has a lot of great discussion though.

• I see you threw in Ashoka. It is far too early at this juncture to discuss an edit, but I was thinking that perhaps those live action shots (to be determined) could somehow incorporate into Revenge of the Sith. While I think it is unlikely, it would be nice to have a non-animated Ashoka fit into the movie in some form.

Mainly threw it in since it’s somewhat tied to my TWoM series. I’m not sure how you’d get Ahsoka series shots to fit into RotS since she is much older in her live action apperances.

DarthMeme said:

Hey Acbagel, thanks for sharing your brilliant edit. I watched it with my family who hadn’t seen the Mandalorian and just wanted to share some thoughts and feedback.

Wow, another first time viewer through my edits! That’s so cool, thanks for sharing all this.

Book 1: Fantastically handled! The prisoner episode happening right after Din gives Grogu and moving the flashbacks was such a genius placement and felt much more emotional. Also love how you actually made the whistling birds rare. Great cuts and pacing throughout however few feedbacks; I noted down at roughly 1:38:55 there was a hiccup in the music audio.

Awesome, glad you liked those changes. The music hiccup comes from the droid corpse landing on the ground at nearly the exact same time as the music track, so it does have a kind of weird rhythm. I’ll make note and see if I can smooth that out any.

At 1:42:30 the jump to Kuiil felt jarring and random I think moving that after Din leaves the rock planet or move it to book 2 would be better.

Yep, definitely agree here! We discussed that a couple pages ago with others and that scene will be moving elsewhere.

Also maybe restore Greer’s survival scene, it felt like his setup of the beskar money in his jacket he showed Mando didn’t get paid off and got my family a little confused XD.

I will do this too. I actually moved it down the timeline by mistake and simply forgot to put it back in…

Book 2: Great thematically paralleled story, loved the build-up of Boba and Mando near encounters. Love how Boba felt more ruthless implying he was going to kill the Rodian! Great use of Kotor cantina music. And I love the decision to stay with Mando and find out the rookie bounty killed Fennic & I like how you implied Fennic already had the cybernetic stomach and Boba patched that up himself.

I’ll be making some new pacing/scene order changes here with some minor improvements, but it’s cool that this one worked out for you.

Book 3: Simply genius moving the New Republic glacier planet encounter after the shady desert planet without frog lady worked so much better. Only thing was at 14:09 I think I noticed the frog lady in that shot.

I love this opener too, one of my favorite changes in my whole saga. But you’re right! The frog is visible for a split second there, must have missed that. I’ll fix it.

Great placement of the Nevarro clone facility plotline, felt less fillery than the original. I do feel that Carson Tega’s Nevarro scene should’ve been moved right after Din leaves Nevarro so it doesn’t feel jarring and then move the Shadow Council scene right after.

Well the reason I moved this was because the chronology doesn’t really line up if the X-wings are immediately to Nevarro. It would take some time for those reports to get out and then their fleet to get there. Maybe it would work to go: Din leaves Nevarro, Shadow Council, Carson lands, Din arrives on Tatooine?

Speaking of which I love that you placed it there made Thrawn’s namedrop in Book 4 feel organic. Only thing is cut the references to Gideon needed Praetorian guards since we never see them till S3.

For sure, that was a main reason why I wanted the Shadow Council moved up. The Book 4 name drop is extremely out of nowhere without the setup, and I thought this discussion in the movie before would really help that feel cohesive and lead into the Ahsoka show. I suspect some of Ahsoka will take place during this time, so maybe there’s a world where I have an Ahsoka edit and you watch one of those films in the midst of my TWoM saga.

Also I love how you made Boba snipe Din that worked nicely though I think perhaps if you can change one of the hired goons line from “grab the child” to “grab the armour” to make it more obvious Boba hired them. Finally love the added music on Traask when Bo rescues Din.

That’s a great idea! That actually might fix this scene. Others had suggested to just have Boba look and then not interfere yet, but that voiceline might make Boba’s presence here feel more impactful. What do others think of that as a solution?

Book 4: Love the use of mix of trailer music in Ashoka’s intro. At 50:45 personally I’d cut Fennic’s line of “the outer rim is under new Republic jurisdiction” since they’re supposed to be in the deep core and I’m pretty sure the ship’s map showed that as well.

Ha! Nice catch, you’re right. Tython is indeed located in the Deep Core so why is she talking about the outer rim? Maybe I can get an AI voice line for Fennec to say “The Deep Core is under new Republic jurisdiction”?

Also at 58:43 I’d cut Mayfield mention of the little green guy, my family got confused to how he knew what Grogu looked like.

Ah, you’re the second one to mention that this line doesn’t feel right. In my mind, since Mayfeld only repeats what Cara just said about “The little green guy”, I intended it to come off as like “The little green guy? Wtf are you talking about?”, but there must be something about his tone and body language that makes people feel his familiarity rather than confusion. I probably will have to cut this if it isn’t communicating the right message.

I can’t wait to see what you got cooking for S3 and Book of Boba!

I’m working on it! This one is taking a LOT longer than normal because I’m doing some heavy VFX, but I promise everyone, I’m making progress! Let’s get some more previews here so you believe me. I have everything done in the Mines through Din getting captured. Now I’m onto Bo-Katan’s journey to rescue Din.

Before -

After (This is when R5 flies back alone, the cockpit opens up and Bo-Katan doesn’t see Din, which is her cause for surprise) -

Before -

After (This is a replaced shot, I took this from on Mandalore and masked out the sky to replace it with the Kalevala skyline so it looks like this happens on the landing platform now) -

Before -

After -

Before -

After (Need to do some more manual blending here) -

Before -

After -

Before -

After -

So look at that, I’m actually doing it! I could spend an eternity trying to perfect each and every shot, but I do want this to come out eventually lol. Near invisible is the goal. There should be nothing distracting that draws your eyes away and makes you notice a bug. So go into this film with fresh eyes, with no preconceived notions that Grogu was ever here!

The Star Wars: The Old Republic video game has a mission called “The Face Merchants” set in the Coruscant underworld where Black Sun has been operating a similar operation. Though the technology back then seems way more archaic as it required invasive surgery from specialized droids/software to reform the faces of the criminals, the concept of altering facial appearances has at least existed in Star Wars aside from this one TCW episode.

https://swtor-archive.fandom.com/wiki/Mission:The_Face_Merchants

As I’ve been working on my Mando Season 3 edit, I’ve run across some very strange bugs in the show. Wondering if anyone has some insight.

What is going on here…? How is R5 already following Din on Nevarro?

That is Season 3 Episode 1, right after they land and walk into town. Din doesn’t even pickup R5 from Pelli until the beginning of the NEXT EPISODE… R5’s texture also looks off, like they didn’t fully touch up his model.

Also, there are a TON of scenes where Grogu completely vanishes from sight. Like one shot he’s hovering right next to Din’s hip, the next he is nowhere to be found.

Again, here is Grogu clearly to the left of Greef.

But then POOF he is instantly gone again.

,

But then in the VERY NEXT SHOT… he is directly behind them walking but his compositing and color looks super wonky as he is very obviously green screened in.

It makes even less sense when you see it play out in video form rather than these stills. I mean there’s at least 5 instances of this where he should be there on the screen based on his previous placement but he’s not, and this occurs not only throughout all of Nevarro, but also later on in the Mines of Mandalore.

Grogu is directly behind Din’s right shoulder -

But then 2 seconds later he is nowhere to be found (Notice how Grogu’s bright flashlight makes no difference on Din’s armor when the light is there in the close up vs when Grogu and the light are missing in the next frame)-

And then 2 seconds after that he is hiding behind a piece of rubble and cave wall that is not seen anywhere else on this set piece -

And it’s not only the visuals that are extremely mixed up, I want you to take a step back and consider if this series of events makes sense to you:

1. After completing his mission and giving Grogu to Luke, Din goes back to bounty hunting for an undetermined amount of time, he tracks down his clan, but it is very quickly discovered that he violated the creed and Din is cast out of his clan as an apostate. He is told his only path to redemption is to bathe in the waters of Mandalore. (Perfect setup for a new and compelling story post-Season 2)
2. Din sulks off to Tatooine to get a new ship, supposedly with the intent to go to Mandalore in it. (This makes sense, if he is going on this new journey, he needs a way to fly to and explore Mandalore)
3. While getting his new ship, he learns that Boba needs help and Din says he will assist, but then suddenly decides that he has to visit Grogu IMMEDIATELY. (Surely, that could’ve waited? Why does he have to go there right this second? This was where the Disney forced reuinion stuff starts to interfere and I start to see evidence of massive plot changes. With no actual urgency in the story, Din tells Boba to wait until he gets back and then rushes across the entire galaxy to check on Grogu. If their reunion wasn’t forced to be included in BoBF for this final battle, there’s no reason at all that this visit to Grogu shouldn’t just happen after the Tatooine battle)
4. Din flies across the entire galaxy to check on Grogu, learns he can’t really interfere and immediately leaves… We then see ALL of Grogu’s Jedi training take place in 20 minutes. (It is VERY confusing how much time passes in these events. How long was Grogu with Luke? Some of the lessons seem like basic Day 1 stuff, so what was he doing with Luke in between seasons? He does all of this training while Din is flying back to Tatooine? I can’t get a grasp on the chronolgy here. I know there’s been a ton of debate about Favreau’s “2 years” comment, but either way, that doesn’t fix the issues here)
5. Din goes straight back to Tatooine to help Boba instead of going to Mandalore (Aside from just zooming back and forth across the entire galaxy for no presented reason and time grinding to a halt, this decision from Din is fine. He already promised Boba he would help him and Din has always been a man of his word)
6. Din fights on Tatooine to stay true to his oath, but WHOA he reunites with Grogu who followed him, and after the battle they jump off to hyperspace. We are left with 0 clues as to where they go or what they intend to do next (We get this whole “solo Din on the apostate’s repentance trail” setup, but then out of nowhere Grogu returns and makes that all seem unnecessary. The first 2 seasons of The Mandalorian were all about how Grogu grows to be Din’s #1 purpose giver, not the Mandalorian clans… So it’s like, wait, does Din even care about being an apostate anymore? He can just stay with Grogu now like he always wanted. Where are they going now? What do they want to do together?)
7. So with Din’s motivations and emotions completely unknown at this point, we learn that offscreen Din meets a Jawa on some unknown planet and that Jawa had already met a random traveler who had somehow made it to the surface of Mandalore and pulled a tome out of the crystal and then sold it to the Jawa and then Din buys that tome… Whew. Then Din, for no apparent reason, goes back to his former Mandalorian clan on their random new rock world hideout, even though he is still a banished apostate, to tell them that he acquired this tome from a Jawa from a traveler who said they made it to the surface. And the Armorer is like, “Ok…? But did you baptise yet?” and Din says no and so is still told to leave, but then he STILL doesn’t go to Mandalore. (Holy crap! This is an absolute mess. First of all, THIS is how we learn that Din still wants to not be an apostate even though he has Grogu again? From an offscreen event? And then Din looks like a complete moron traveling to his old clan to tell them about this third party story with no real information and no actual steps made towards repentance. Grogu is serving no function at all here as he is completely ignored in all of this, so we see that them reuniting changed nothing at all about the plot that was so carefully setup, and learn that Din has reverted back to his secondary motivation of wanting repentance, all through a conversation about an event offscreen.)
8. So now Din goes to Nevarro because he needs IG-11! No other droid will do, that’s the only one he trusts to search for the mines with him. Thankfully, IG-11 is mostly intact, except for one crucial part that would restore his memory. Since no one on the planet has this part, Din leaves empty handed but tells Greef he will be back with the part. (The fact that IG-11 even has any parts usable aside, this is an extremely distracting wrench in the plot structure, and that’s not even considering the whole pirate arc that also gets setup while he’s here. This is where R5 appears somehow, and Grogu is missing from a ton of scenes. This leads me to believe that this whole segment was completely altered in reshoots/post-production.)
9. So Din is apparently now on a mission to search for this part to fix IG before he can go to Mandalore, so hmmm, where will he go to find it? Maybe he will try some scrapyard world like Raxus Pri- wait, what? Why is he suddenly in the Mandalore system? He’s landing on Kalevala from The Clone Wars? So this must be where Bo-Katan is… wait, why does Din think she has or knows where this IG-11 part is? Din lands and… tells her “I’m here to join you in retaking Mandalore”. Uh, ok, that’s new. Bo says no one will follow her without the Darksaber, then Din just says that he is going anyways to explore and he leaves in under 2 minutes. (What the hell is going on? I thought he needed the droid part? Why did he just randomly go to Bo-Katan and want to join her in liberating Mandalore?? Bo-Katan sees Grogu next to him and doesn’t react at all??? Is she not confused how they reunited? Last thing she did with them was that enormously risky quest to rescue Grogu and she saw him leave with LUKE SKYWALKER. Then Din leaves without ever mentioning the droid part and it seems like he is going to Mandalore right now without IG? I am SO lost in this disjointed order of events.)
10. So I guess Din is just suddenly okay with going to the Mines alone without IG since he is already in the Mandalore system and only a few minutes flight away from the planet Mandalo- Oh ok, random scene of Pelli on Tatooine, maybe it’s setting something up with Boba returning to join Din on Mandalore? That would be kind of cool for them to- WHAT?? HOW and WHY is the N1 instantly landing on Tatooine?! Din gets out and tells Pelli he needs the IG11 part…! Wtf is going on?? Why did he go all the way to the Mandalore system to talk to Bo BEFORE getting the droid part if that’s what he still wanted? Now he has to go ALL THE WAY BACK to the system he just came from! But wait! Pelli doesn’t have the part, and the Jawas don’t have it, so she tells him to just take R5 and Din says ok fine. He then flies ALL THE WAY back to Mandalore where he JUST CAME FROM to now go into the Mines with R5 instead of IG… (This is where I gave up on trying to understand what is happening. This order of events is so beyond normal understanding or any form of logical sequencing. And we’re only 5 minutes into Season 3 Episode 2 at this point and we still have an enormous mess of pacing ahead throughout the rest of the season. This is seriously a complete nightmare plot structure.)

Tldr; With those disjointed events that were obviously not intended to be placed in this order and the visual errors showing that R5 and Grogu were originally intended to switch places at certain plot points, it is clear that the reunion was not the original plan and that they had to massively rework Season 3 from top to bottom. It’s like they had originally shot whole planets with R5 and no Grogu at one point, and then re-shot half the scenes again to add Grogu in with a new storyline, but didn’t do a good job as Grogu is still missing from a ton of the new shots and R5 still in the background. This would also mean that Din was supposed to go to Tatooine before episode 2. Din also lands on Nevarro with Grogu still in the bubble instead of the droid port, but then R5 is following him in the next shot… So there are tons of different reshoots and VFX alterations going back and forth and it is a terribly messy presentation. There’s a lot of additional speculation/evidence out there, especially in terms of the S3 ending and some BTS leaks of Gideon scenes that were never used, but wow, from an editor’s standpoint it is crystal clear that this season was so stitched together in post production to become something that is was not originally intended to be.

I found another case of Where’s Grogu? When Din gets captured:

Grogu is right over Din’s right shoulder -

But then 2 seconds later he is nowhere to be found -

And then 2 seconds after that he is hiding behind a piece of rubble and cave wall that is not seen anywhere else -

It’s driving me crazy! You know me, always trying to fix the logical placement of where characters should be. I was able to perfectly correct a few minor mistakes in Seasons 1 & 2 but these are such obvious reshoot scenes or moved around shots that were never supposed to be placed there. It’s impossible to fix!

Thankfully, I’m already removing Grogu from all of this anyways and don’t have to worry about putting him IN where he should be on Nevarro & Mandalore.

Before -

After (this one still needs a little touch up on the structure) -

Before -

After -

Before -

After -

I’ll have some video previews of these Grogu-less mines ready in a few days.

arabian said:

Unless I misunderstood, you’re making new versions of Book 1, 2, 3 and 4, along with eventually dropping these books, correct?

Let me clear up the update/release schedule on some of this stuff. Honestly, I’ll say this is up to you guys! In what order do you want me to work on these things?

1. TWoM Book 5: This is what I’m currently working on. I’m ~40% through editing this. Will cover the storyline from my previous post
2. TWoM Book 6: I already edited so much of Boba’s story from my previous Book 5, so this film is already more than halfway completed. It shouldn’t take too long to release since there will be a lot less removing Grogu from stuff.
3. TWoM Book 7: To complete the saga. Covers Din training as a young Mandalorian after coming back from Luke’s academy through the retaking of Mandalore. Haven’t even started on this aside from basic storyboarding.
4. Minor updates to Books 1-3 story: Touch ups to the first few films (Book 1 ending, IG-11 reconstruction scene moving, Book 2 change of pace between Boba and Din scenes, Book 3 altering Boba’s attempted ambush of Din, some other minor touch ups from Arabian’s feedback etc.)?
5. Updating Books 1-4 to 4k: This one is the monstrosity of a task. This is me manually going frame by frame with all new source footage to replace the crappy imports I had when I began this project in 2019. It will take a LONG time. It’s worth doing at some point for sure though.

(And while not directly related to TWoM, below are my other projects currently on hold that I intend to complete. The order in which I work on all this affects my TWoM releases, so again, maybe a few of you guys rank your interest in these projects and I’ll alter priority order for my projects)

6. Bad Batch film edits that pair with EddieDean’s TCW series
7. Legends Sequel Trilogy updates: Have been planning to update these for a while… been years since my last release and there’s a lot more I could do here. See my sig for links to each thread.
8. Legends Kenobi film: I’ve had this on pause for a while since I started talking with PixelJoker95 for his film, he’s doing something truly incredible with the VFX and re-editing and I’ve just been pitching in on his “shadow council” as a lore review guy. I definitely don’t want to release my edit before his comes out.
9. Episode 1: An Ancient Terror: My TPM re-edit, only got through the first couple scenes but have some cool ideas for it. Check out EddieDean’s Community Focus Thread. I’d try and bring a lot of that to life and add in my own ideas too.
10. Andor, the OT, Ahsoka, non-Star Wars series…? Anything else you’d like to see, go ahead and make a suggestion!

I think I’m gonna wait to watch Book 4, and 5 then because I want to rewatch the new versions of 1, 2 and 3 with any changes that we’re discussed. 😃

Well… Not sure yet how I’m planning on releasing it all, so I’d definitely say go ahead and watch the v3 Book 4 now, especially if you have any feedback for a future update. You’ll probably want to watch Book 5 right away when I release unless you all think I shold pause on that and move to something else.

Go ahead and rank those in terms of your personal interest and I’m open to shifting focus to what you all want to see next.

Sent! Feel free to share your thoughts here once you watch!

Thanks for the feedback, all! Seems pretty unanimous that the newly proposed story structure would be a great benefit if I can technically pull it off in a truly believeable way, and so far, I think I can.

I have been rolling ahead with this idea the last couple days and am currently about an hour into the new film. I have a couple VFX shots to go back and work on in that first hour (need to replace an approach to Tatooine with an approach to Nevarro, trying to swap out the planet backdrops), but a lot of that first hour is content that already doesn’t have Grogu from the Mando BoBF storylines. I have a working draft for early S3 Nevarro, and that wasn’t hard at all (Grogu is already missing from some of the scenes as I showed!), but now I’m into the nitty gritty of the Mines. It’s a lot of work, but I think it’s going well though. Modern editing tools are a great blessing and Grogu’s carrier is a near perfect shape to be able to track masks around. I’ll start sharing some demos of the VFX this week and uploading the clips to make sure the edits are “near invisible” as Peon wrote!

Hey, all! Here’s what is going on with Book 5:

I’m torn. I have two versions of the film now… both are radically different from one another. Let me share my discoveries/dilemmas.

Draft 1 is akin to my previous Book 5 containing most of BoBF presented in typical ACBAGEL fashion. This contains the updates to my Boba story I have previously mentioned.

Draft 2 is a completely new film from the ground up. A film solely about Din’s journey without Grogu. This goes straight from his BoBF scenes to his S3 Apostate arc with the Underworld/Pirates as the main antagonist, concluding with him helping Nevarro and then finally going to check on Grogu once he has regained status as a Mandalorian.

The main reason I felt the need for a different vision for the film after I completed Draft 1 was because I started working on Book 6 and something felt very wrong. I couldn’t place Din’s motives together in any sensible way. In BoBF he is back to his purposeless, violent ways of bounty hunting, then learns how he is an apostate and cast away, has no hope that he will ever reuinite with Grogu, so restoring himself before his people is his only purpose. It is very offputting for him to go through this and then just ignore his apostate status and his Mines of Mandalore quest for SO long. If that apostate theme is introduced here as such an impactful and life changing moment, it needs to be addressed and not pushed off for no discenrable reason, because there’s really nothing else Din would do. That’s all he has left.

Let’s consider the D+ series of events:

1. After completing his mission with Grogu, Din goes back to bounty hunting for an undetermined amount of time, finally tracks down his clan, but very quickly admits he violated the creed and is cast out of his clan as an apostate (Love it all, it makes sense and is hugely impactful. It sets up so many possibilities for the future of Din’s story)
2. Din sulks off to Tatooine to get a new ship, supposedly with the intent to go to Mandalore in it? (Sure, that makes sense. If he needs to fly to Mandalore alone, he needs a way to get there and explore to find the mines)
3. While getting his ship, he learns that Boba needs help ASAP and says he will assist, but then suddenly decides he has to visit Grogu immediately (Starting to confuse me here, I can somewhat understand Din wanting to lend Boba a quick favor, they have some mutual respect going on, and Boba doesn’t care about Din’s violation of the creed so Din is comforted by a Mandalorian that accepts him, but the need to go see Grogu RIGHT NOW throws a massive wrench in the pacing. Surely, that can wait? Why does he have to go there right this second? This was where the Disney forced reuinion stuff starts to interfere… With no actual urgency in the plot, Din tells Boba to wait until he gets back and then rushes to check on Grogu. I get it, he misses him and wants to give him the armor, but there’s no reason at all this shouldn’t just happen after the Tatooine battle. [And this is how I have my Book 5 Draft 1 setup, visit Grogu AFTER Tatooine concludes])
4. Din flies across the entire galaxy to check on Grogu, learns he can’t really interfere and immediately leaves. We then see ALL of Grogu’s Jedi training take place in 20 minutes. (Sigh… Great emotional scenes on their own, but again, we learn there truly was no urgency at all to do this right now and it ends up feeling like a distraction. It strips this visit of much of its emotional weight. When he leaves to go right back to Tatooine it’s like… ok, that was touching but kind of pointless in the overall plot structure. It is also VERY confusing how much time passes in these events. How long was Grogu with Luke? Some of the lessons seem very basic Day 1 stuff, so what was he doing with Luke in between seasons? He does all of this training while Din is flying back to Tatooine? I can’t get a grasp on the chronolgy here)
5. Din goes straight back to Tatooine to help Boba instead of going to Mandalore (Aside from just zooming back and forth across the galaxy for no presented reason, this decision from Din is fine, he already promised Boba he would help him and Din has always been a man of his word)
6. Din fights on Tatooine to stay true to his oath, but WHOA he reunites with Grogu who followed him, and after the battle they jump off to hyperspace, and we are left with 0 clue with where they go or intend to do next (I am definitely on the side of Din and Grogu reuniting in BoBF is the worst thing to ever happen in the Mandalorian. No need to beat a dead horse here as many already share that sort of sentiment, and I had always planned to NOT make them reunite here. The other problem is that the “film”/BoBF ends here. We get this whole solo Din on the apostate’s repentance trail setup, but then suddenly Grogu returns and makes that all seem unnecessary. The first 2 seasons were all about how Grogu grows to be Din’s #1 purpose giver, not the Mandalorian clans… So it’s like, wait, does Din even care about being an apostate anymore? He can just stay with Grogu now like he always wanted. Where are they going now? What do they want to do together?)
7. With Din’s motivations and emotions completely unknown at this point, we learn that offscreen Din meets a Jawa on some unknown planet and that Jawa had already met a random traveler who had somehow made it to the surface of Mandalore and pulled a tome out of the crystal and then sold it to the Jawa and then Din buys that tome… Whew. Then Din, for no apparent reason, goes back to his former Mandalorian clan on their random new rock world hideout, even though he is still a banished apostate, to tell them that he acquired this tome from a Jawa from a traveler who said they made it to the surface. And the Armorer is like, “Ok…? But did you baptise yet?” and Din says no and so is still told to leave, but then he STILL doesn’t go to Mandalore. (Holy crap! This is an absolute mess. First of all, THIS is how we learn that Din still wants to not be an apostate even though he has Grogu again? From an offscreen event? And then Din looks like a complete moron traveling to his old clan to tell them about this third party story with no real information and no actual steps made towards repentance. I mean, this is beyond awful. Grogu is serving no function here as he is completely ignored in all of this, we see that them reuniting changed nothing at all about the plot that was so carefully setup, and that Din just reverts back to his secondary motivation of wanting repentance without showing us anything on screen. No character growth at all for him and Grogu and an absolute mess of his character arc is unfolding)
8. So now Din goes to Nevarro because he NEEDS IG-11! No other droid will do, that’s the only one he trusts to search for the mines with him. Thankfully, IG-11 is mostly intact, except for one crucial part that would restore his memory. Since no one on the planet has this part, Din leaves empty handed but tells Greef he will be back with the part. (More yikes, that fact that IG-11 even has any parts usable aside, this is so forced in… We haven’t seen IG-11 on screen for years. Years in real life and years in the show. But Din NEEDS him right now! He can’t find the mines without him specifically, but not really, he just wants him. Another extremely distracting wrench in the plot structure, and that’s not even considering the whole pirate arc that gets setup while he’s here.)

(Am I missing something here? How is R5 already following Din on Nevarro? Season 3 Episode 1 right after they land and walk. Din doesn’t even pickup R5 from Pelli until the next episode. Also, there are a TON of scenes where Grogu completely vanishes from sight. Like one shot he’s hovering right next to Din’s hip, the next he is nowhere to be found. Here he is clearly to the left of Greef, and then POOF he is gone again, but then in the VERY NEXT SHOT he is directly behind them walking but his compositing and color on the scene looks super wonky. It makes even less sense when you see it play out in video form rather than these stills. I mean there’s at least 5 instances of this where he should be there on the screen based on his previous placement but he’s not, and this occurs throughout all of Nevarro. Am I losing my mind with all this or is this evidence of some massive scene rearranging going on from Disney last minute? It’s like they had originally shot the whole planet with R5 and no Grogu at one point, and then re-shot half the scenes again to add Grogu in with a new storyline, but didn’t do a good job as Grogu is still missing from a ton of the new shots. This would also mean that Din was supposed to go to Tatooine before episode 2. Din also lands on Nevarro with Grogu still in the bubble instead of the droid port, but then R5 is following him in the next shot… So there are tons of different reshoots and VFX alterations going back and forth and it is a terribly messy presentation. This is just at first glance of my editing too, I’m sure there’s a ton more wrong here if you go frame by frame on this world.)

9. So Din is apparently now searching for this part to fix IG before he can go to Mandalore, so hmmm, where will he go to find it? Maybe he will try some scrapyard world like Raxus Pri- wait, what? Why is he suddenly in the Mandalore system? He’s landing on Kalevala from The Clone Wars? So this must be where Bo-Katan is… wait why does Din think she has or knows where the IG-11 part is? Din tells her that he wishes to join her in going to Mandalore. She says no one will follow her without the Darksaber, then Din just says that he is going anyways and leaves in under 2 minutes. (What the hell is going on? I thought he needed the droid part? Why did he just randomly go to Bo-Katan and want to join her in liberating Mandalore?? Bo-Katan sees Grogu next to him and doesn’t react at all??? Is she not confused how they reunited? Last thing she did with them was that enormously risky quest to rescue Grogu and she saw him leave with LUKE SKYWALKER. Then Din leaves without ever mentioning the droid and it seems like he is going to Mandalore right now without him? I am SO lost in this disjointed order of events.)
10. So I guess Din is just suddenly okay with going to the Mines alone without IG since he is only a few minutes flight away from Mandalo- Oh ok, random scene of Pelli on Tatooine, maybe it’s setting something up with Boba returning to join Din on Mandalore? That would be kind of cool for them to- WHAT?? How and WHY is the N1 instantly landing on Tatooine?! Din gets out and tells Pelli he needs the IG11 part…! Wtf is going on?? Why did he go right to the Mandalore system to talk to Bo BEFORE getting the droid part if that’s what he still wanted? Now he has to go ALL THE WAY BACK to the system he just came from! But wait! She doesn’t have the part, and the Jawas don’t have it, so she tells him to just take R5 and Din says ok fine I guess. He then flies ALL THE WAY back to Mandalore where he JUST CAME FROM to now go into the Mines with R5 instead of IG…??? (And this is where I gave up. This order of events is so beyond understanding or any form of logical sequencing it’s not even possible to edit this into anything sensible without RADICAL changes. And we’re only 5 minutes into Season 3 Episode 2 at this point and still have an enormous mess of pacing ahead throughout the rest of the season. This is seriously a complete nightmare plot structure. It is unsalvagable in its current form.)

Din’s apostasy happens in point #1 there and isn’t even resolved through EVERYTHING I wrote there. So so so many random events and distractions, nonsensical plot structure, and blatant mental errors. That is why I had a meltdown after Book 5 Draft 1 and starting to build Book 6.

Let me propose to you an alternative solution:

Book 5 Draft 2:

1. Din’s Ringworld story, he hunts the bounty, and we see what Din is like absent of Grogu. He has reverted back to his old brutal, somewhat purposeless self. Din is banished and I add in dialogue from Mando S3 from Armorer so he has a crystal clear picture of how he can be restored (this just avoids him going to that Rock planet to have a 95% identical conversation that makes him look like a moron).
2. Din takes a transport ship from Ringworld to Nevarro, where we get the scene of him and Greef discussing his desire to fix IG-11 to search the Mines with him. Din is lonely and he is seeking any resemblance of companionship as he feels like he has lost everything. He learns that this task to restore IG-11 is a fools errand and there is no way to achieve what he wants. The man is extremely depressed and hopelessly alone now. He runs into the subsequent trouble with the Pirates on the surface just to add onto his neverending trials. Mando then leaves on another transport ship to go to Tatooine to get his new Razorcrest so he can explore Mandalore.
3. When Din gets to Tatooine, we now get the Pelli building N1 sequence. During the test flight, Din encounters Gorian Shand’s pirates above Tatooine. We get the dogfight scene as in S3 with him testing out the new N1, before he lands back on Tatooine and gets R5 instead.
4. Din, still searching for companionship, goes to Bo-Katan as she is right next to Mandalore where he is headed anyways. She rejects him too, and again, Din sulks off completely alone in his suffering. The rest of the mines play out without Grogu. He gets captured alone and all hope is lost, he has resigned himself to die. (This also explains why he doesn’t even try to fight the freaky droid or try to break out later, he has lost all will to even live)
5. R5 notices Din isn’t coming back to the ship, so he jets out by himself and returns to Bo’s castle. She has a change of heart, curious to see Mandalore for herself, and goes to save Din alone. The rest of the Mines and baptisms play out.
6. Now restored, Bo takes Din back to his ship on Kalevala, only for them to be ambushed and the whole castle to be bombed by Imperials. Din and Bo then escape to the Mando clan rock planet (for the first time now) and she is introduced to the Watch as they are both accepted into the clan.
7. Nevarro is suddenly attacked by the Pirates that have been dogging Din throughout the film and we play out the final storyline of the Mandalorian clan retaking that world as a temporary home. Bo is given a task to go reunite the clans under this new hope for Mandalore, and Din, not only again a Mandalorian, but a Mandalorian hero carrying the Darksaber to bring them all to Mandalore, goes to see Grogu, his true desire, only to realize that he still can’t be with him and has to leave after delivering the armor as we get a tiny glimpse of Grogu training his new Jedi powers. The end.

Having the Nevarro retaking happen as the conclusion of Book 5 serves a few purposes. The first is that it brings the pirates into the story to fulfill the role of the villain for this film which some of Season 3 was lacking as it bounced around random storylines. We open the film with Din hunting criminals, he is attacked by pirates, and then he brings the clan together to save Nevarro from pirate invasion, all while going on a full character arc of personal redemption. We now have a clear and concise antagonist that helps give Din’s journey some guidance. Second, this gives the Mandalorains more agency and power up front, fortelling their strength in being able to retake Mandalore at some point down the road.

I still have to storyboard exactly how Book 6 and 7 would play out on their own now, but essentially, Book 6 would be Grogu training with Luke, Din and Bo reuniting the rest of the clans to prepare to retake Mandalore, and BoBF Boba content (now I can also consider the possibility to have Din and Grogu reunite during this Tatooine battle, as it actually feels like time has passed and each character has grown and changed significantly since they departed one another. We also can see how much Grogu learned from Luke as we’ve seen him train across 2 films and then come in to subdue the Rancor which is an awesome new display of strength). I am considering interweaving Pershing’s storyline throughout a Book 6 as well. Book 7 then addresses Grogu training as a Mandalorian after already training as a Jedi, and then everything to do with retaking Mandalore.

Would love to hear some thoughts on all this! I really like how it gives Din a very personal journey in Book 5, paces out Grogu’s training SO much better through the entirety of 2 films as we really feel his absence, sets up a natural growth of power for the clans reuniting and retaking Mandalore across 3 films, and gives Boba’s final scenes some closure instead of feeling like he just gets written out of the story for all of Season 3.

Awesome! Well deserved. Changed The Clone Wars experience forever!

deagan said:

Acbagel said:
Also, Deagan, what did you think of the Shadow Council scene as a first time viewer? That’s the scene with old imperial officers talking about their future plans/needs. Did the placement work for you? I moved it up in the series to give us a better picture of the state of the Empire compared to where it originally was placed.

I tend to zone out during these sort of council/politic meetings, even watching the prequels (haha). I’m not too sure what “Pershing” is, or what they were getting at with “cloning” (sorry lul), but I don’t think its placement detracted from the story at all - it’s a good break from the action to check in on Gideon. Perhaps I’m not following the story too well, but this just felt like an introduction to a complex group whose plans would be better explained in time.

If anyone has watched Naruto Shippuden, they do a similar meeting with The Akatsuki to introduce the group’s goals, then they expand on the stories of each antagonist in later episodes.

https://youtu.be/moyStmyqQ_w

arabian said:
…with the mention of “I need protection, and we have to get rid of Mandalorians, and Pershing’s research is gone.” I mean, up to the scene prior, all we as the audience knew everyone thought Gideon was dead so WHY would he suddenly need like a ton of continued protection, the covert Mandalorians are all scattered now, and the Pershing message was literally sent 3 days ago where he said ‘I’m still working on it, boss! I’ll do better.’

While I agree with @Arabian that at that moment it seems the Mandalorians have dispersed, my impression was that the Shadow Council was getting close to finding them, and the meeting was ultimately for them to agree to get rid of the “pests.” Seeing as in Book 4, our protagonists successfully breach Gideon’s ship, maybe he was right to request protection from the Council?

As long as ACBagel has a plan to flesh out this group in future Books, I think this scene could pretty much fit anywhere as a breather.

Excited to see what you have next, love the films!

Thanks for the feedback on this, very helpful to read. The “Shadow Council” is something that was established in old Star Wars lore, and is something we get another glimpse of in this Mandalorian story. We get to see the goings on of one particular member of the Council, Moff Gideon, while others (for example, Moff Pellaeon and Admiral Thrawn) are going to be covered in future Star Wars shows (the coming Ahsoka show in August). So the main purpose is just to get a view of Moff Gideon’s tie in to the workings of the Council as a whole.

I’m still leaning toward removing Boba from this scene, as I don’t understand why he is in it. If he shoots Din, he should be fully ready to fight and retrieve his armor, but he just retreats. It felt like Boba gave up on retrieving his armor, because he was intimidated by Din’s ability to beat up some little raiders, but he could have sniped him and moved closer to his armor.

I’m not sure what the solution would be, but I was a bit confused as to why he retreated, even after trying to kill Din.

¯_(ツ)_/¯ Just my two cents!

That makes sense. However, on the flip side, the actual show just has Boba watch Din walk away with the armor and never confront him at all. I don’t know what is worse now since we are presented 3 choices:

1. Boba watches Din and never engages him (the Disney version)
2. Boba snipes at Din but lets him go rather than revealing himself (Acbagel version)
3. Cut out all scenes of Boba in this segment (Deagan proposal)

Unfortunately, all 3 have issues. The main problem with #1 is why would Boba peacefully watch Din leave with his armor? The main problem with #2 is similar, but why does Boba not engage Din in battle personally right there on the spot after shooting at him? The main problem with #3 is that we now present a scenario where Boba is completely unaware that Din, another Mandalorian, is on Tatooine at all. Further, Boba is actively searching for his armor, which Din finds before him, but then Boba never discovers that Din found the armor, so how does Boba know how to track him down later in the show to confront him about the armor?

Any other solutions that we’re not thinking of here?

I have completed the first draft of Book 5, going through the bug & story review phase right now, so we’re still looking good for a this week release. That final battle ended up being a doozy to edit! Had some details I needed to keep consistent throughout the battle and it was a maze of scenes to reorder. I’ll probably have some storyline changes to make so I won’t post the changelog until I get all the finer points worked out, but it’s getting close.

arabian said:

Acbagel said:

arabian said:

Also with regards to Book 5, I also hope that you are leaning more towards including the Pershing stuff, with the final lobotomy scene towards the end. And keeping the Shadow Council scene in Book 5 because I really don’t think it worked in Book 3. (Although, I do know you did a lot of work on Gideon’s hair.)

Are you meaning to say put the Pershing stuff in Book 6? And then add a Book 7? Book 5 is what I’m working on now which is largely the BoBF content and some other Mando stuff.

I don’t know how you’re doing it – and it sounds like you have some exciting plans – but just interweaving the Pershing stuff into the plot, and have the final lobotomy scene with Pershing come into play as a consequence of what side you choose. Many said there was no reason for the Pershing storyline, but I disagree. I DO think it should have been integrated throughout the entire season instead of just a one-off episode, but I think it did have a purpose. And I think that by weaving it throughout will show that purpose.

Pershing chose the wrong side; he chose the Empire (even the remnants), and in the end, we see the consequences of many getting happy results of not doing so (Carga–who only “worked” with Gideon to keep Nevarro safe and then turned against him right away, the Mandalorians getting a home, etc.) and those who didn’t (Gideon) and, of course, Pershing. So when we get our resolution scenes towards the end including the Pershing lobotomy scene, I thought it would add this bitter note, yeah, this is what happens when you stick with the Empire too long… and that those remnants still remain alive and kicking.

Now that I’ve got a full picture of Book 5, I’m officially starting Book 6 production! Hope to answer many of these questions soon. As I like to do, I am going to look for my ending first and then work backwards. My two options are to start with the Nevarro ending and work back from there, trying to extend everything to a Book 6 & 7, or to use the Season 3 ending and work backwards from there.

At this point, I think I am leaning towards a 2-book ending rather than shoving everything into 1 movie. For Book 5, I ended up using very little Luke/Grogu content so I have a good amount of that to show throughout Book 6 to fill in for the weaker parts of Season 3. Not yet sure if that would bump Pershing stuff into Book 7. Running an A/B/C plot with Grogu, Din, AND Pershing in one movie might get a little crowded.

Big Man Toe said:

Acbagel said:

Big Man Toe said:

Working on Book 5? Have you already finished Book 4? Damn you work quick

Yes! I released Book 4 on May the 4th! Been a LOT of late nights getting this series updated, but it’s been worth it.

I’m actually having a ton of fun re-editing Book 5. There was so much untapped potential there that I hadn’t realized before. I’m about 1 hour 30 minutes through the film so far and am anticipating a ~2 hour 10 minutes runtime? So I’m definitely more than halfway, and with such a big chunk of the ending being combat rather than new story, I should make it through the last Act faster than the first 2. I am very confident you guys will be pleased with the new story. It definitely does a gritty, crimeworld Boba Fett justice. And having Mando S3 at my fingertips has helped on Din’s scenes.

I know there’s a lot of talk about a Book 6 or 7 ending, but I just still don’t know yet. I like to let the story write itself rather than me forcing something either way. I love the Pershing storyline and think re-editing that in a new way to lead up to Gideon’s return sounds awesome, but I want a natural flow for the return to Mandalore and just haven’t gotten to the nitty gritty storyboarding of it all yet. Now that I have a clear picture of how my Book 5 is about to end, I am starting to get to seeing a vision for Season 3 content, but the major decisions are still yet to be made. I need to do a full rewatch of Season 3 first too.

Wow I do wanna say your fanedits of Mando and BOBF are my favourite so far. And I would also love a link to Book 4.

Well, thanks! I’m glad you enjoy them. I love Star Wars and would make these just for myself even if I had no one to share with. But it’s a huge honor and pleasure to be able to spread my excitement and my vision with others. Sent you the latest movie

Big Man Toe said:

Working on Book 5? Have you already finished Book 4? Damn you work quick

Yes! I released Book 4 on May the 4th! Been a LOT of late nights getting this series updated, but it’s been worth it.

I’m actually having a ton of fun re-editing Book 5. There was so much untapped potential there that I hadn’t realized before. I’m about 1 hour 30 minutes through the film so far and am anticipating a ~2 hour 10 minutes runtime? So I’m definitely more than halfway, and with such a big chunk of the ending being combat rather than new story, I should make it through the last Act faster than the first 2. I am very confident you guys will be pleased with the new story. It definitely does a gritty, crimeworld Boba Fett justice. And having Mando S3 at my fingertips has helped on Din’s scenes.

I know there’s a lot of talk about a Book 6 or 7 ending, but I just still don’t know yet. I like to let the story write itself rather than me forcing something either way. I love the Pershing storyline and think re-editing that in a new way to lead up to Gideon’s return sounds awesome, but I want a natural flow for the return to Mandalore and just haven’t gotten to the nitty gritty storyboarding of it all yet. Now that I have a clear picture of how my Book 5 is about to end, I am starting to get to seeing a vision for Season 3 content, but the major decisions are still yet to be made. I need to do a full rewatch of Season 3 first too.

EddieDean said:

Acbagel said:

EddieDean said:

Here’s a video clip including both edits.

I got around the Greef situation by just cutting more. It’s not implicit that Greef is meeting Mando a long journey away from the city, so we don’t need travel scenes. Greef begins with his bodyguards, which is sensible even with this interpretation, since they did leave each other on bad terms. That’s the purpose they serve here, then we don’t need to see them again. Then I flipped the scenes so that Greef asks to see Grogu first - and the tension dissipating there as we see that he also genuinely cares for Grogu is what sells us on the fact that they’re now not going to get into conflict. Greef just seems legitimate. Then they talk about the situation a little, but Mando just says “I have a plan.” (I know you like it when we just get straight into the plan, rather than explaining it first!) We then have a quick montage, then just cut straight to Greef escorting Mando to the Imperials - if we notice Greef’s injury, we can assume he faked it to make it look like his capture of Mando was legit. A smooth musical transition helps sell this all too.

For the second scene, “You just got your bell rung, you’ll be alright” is a legitimate statement, rather than Cara being actually worried about his mortality. The flamer then immediately attacks, so we don’t waste any time with them forcing an emotional scene. Grogu works his magic, and IG opens the grate then picks up Grogu. Again the music then carries us to the scene of Mando walking - we don’t need a wipe. Mando updates them on the situation as he’s struggling, then he stops and tells them he can stand. He’s now OK, and has recovered from essentially just a temporarily disorienting knock to the head.

I don’t massively feel like that’s the turning point for him not hating droids - I always felt like that was more of an odd prejudice (plus IG is an assassin droid) that he just gradually gets over.

Interesting, that’s a solid edit and your cuts do work well enough that the concept could work. However, my next concern is that if I do end up altering the ending anyways, we are already looking at a 1 hour 57 minute runtime. Cutting out so much more would be pushing this film too far into the shorter end and I really don’t feel like it slows down too badly anywhere as is. If I were running long, I would definitely feel stronger about cutting there, but the runtime is spot on where I like it and it’s not like those scenes are necessarily bad.

Not so! This is from your book 2, which clocks in longer than the rest at 2:15. So it’s not massively longer, but I do think that both of those scenes hurt the pacing in an already oddly slowly paced finale.

Oh! You’re right, I’m mixing up my own films now. Yes, actually that Book 2 did drag on some so I am back in favor of shortening those scenes. Also, I think we discussed in DMs once, but the Grogu healing thing is pretty wack. I was willing to give it a pass orginally just because it was Yoda’s species and they’re so shrouded in mystery and a unique connection to the force, but they never went any further into his healing ability throughout the next 2 seasons. I am pro-cutting that scene. It also lessens the impact of him blocking the fire later since it’s 2 miracles in 20 minutes.

I loved your book 5, so what you’re saying about it there sounds very exciting!

I’m bringing back the Hutts in a whole new way. I can’t yet write out how it’s all going to play out as I’m still rewriting the Hutt dialogue to tie into the story better, but I’ve got some crazy twists and turns planned. Boba’s reign is going to have a completely different tone. He will be pretty well established to start, and then it slowly starts to break down as the Pyke chaos begins to set in and we see a need for his reliance on the Mandalorians which is such a major theme of The Way of Mandalore. Again, his story will be interwoven with Din’s journey. What makes me the most sad is that it is such a shame that Boba was not in Mando Season 3 content at all. Hopefully we get a Book of Boba Season 2 for a Book 7/8 Way of Mandalore?