Acbagel

Sent to all, and fixed the changelog formatting above and added all the changes! (well… most of them)

honestabe said:

I would like a link for Book 3 at your earliest convenience.

I must say Acbagel, you must really be a glutton for punishment to draft that entire post on your phone. 😃

Haha oh no I actually had it already written in a Google Doc, I just copied and pasted on mobile but couldn’t do all the formatting on there without spending 6 hours on it.

We aaaaaarrreeeeee LIIIIIIIIIVE!

Book 3 is ready to go. Sorry for the poor changelog formatting below. I’m on mobile and can’t make the necessary edits but I’ll clean it up tomorrow (EDIT: Fixed). I wanted to make sure I got this out ASAP though. This log isn’t even complete or 100% accurate as this film kept growing and growing as I edited (EDIT: Yes, it is complete now), so there will be some fun surprises throughout. Book 4 is making great progress too, should have a much shorter turnaround time!

Book 3: The Tribes

• Added new Mandalorian Disney “Star Wars” intro
• The film now opens again on the Carnita Arena scene. This will take place in the Outer Rim and not on Tatooine as in my previous version due to the new story order. The Way of Mandalore takes place within the OneCanon theory, meaning it is ~12 years after RotJ instead of Disney’s proposed ~5 years after. The state of the Empire is as we see it not due to the immediate collapse post-RotJ, but due to the events of the Legends novels. As such:

Mando Season 1: 9ABY, +7 years = 16ABY OneCanon (Black Fleet Crisis begins at the end of the year)
Mando Season 2: 10ABY, +7 years = 17ABY OneCanon (Black Fleet Crisis ends close to the start of the year)
BOBF Season 1: 11ABY, +7 years = 18ABY OneCanon (Corellian Crisis happens sometime during this year, but other than Luke’s cameo in BOBF these stories don’t seem to intertwine)
Mando Season 3: 12ABY, +7 years =19ABY OneCanon (Right after the Hand of Thrawn duology. Mando Chapter 23 provides the perfect context we need about Thrawn’s current whereabouts, and I am moving a scene from there into this Book 3.)
Ahsoka Season 1?: 12ABY, +7 years =19ABY

We can be certain that Thrawn is in the Ahsoka show, and that lines up with his established “wait ten years and I’ll be back” line that he tells Pellaeon. HoT doesn’t have specific dates attached to its events, but the plot does occur over a few months. Luke and Mara marry maybe a month after those books end. That leaves plenty of space for Mando S3 & Ahsoka S1 leading to the inevitable return of our boy in blue himself.

• New color grading on the Arena world.
• Cut the shot of the Gamorrean duelist unconscious in the ring as it’s up and fighting again 2 shots later.
• Re-ordered the shots of the Gamorean getting shot so he doesn’t hold his axe up in the air for 10 seconds of reaction shots in the meantime.
• Cut Crime Lord demanding Din take his armor off “or I’ll kill you”. Din now acts with a more immediate agency before starting the combat.
• Cut all the ridiculous bare-handed punches to Din’s helmet in the combat, and cut some other shots that looked choreographed instead of realistic. Din is much more deadly.
• Cut Din saying “I promise”. Unneeded and sounded a little childish.
• New transitions from crime lord death to flying, to a new Grogu nap sequence to the X-wings waking them up.
• Rescored the X-wing tension scene and from here on out have removed ALL of Frog Lady.
• New color grading on Maldo Kreis (Ice World)
• Moved around the X-wing pilot dialogue across the chase to make more sense.
• Added some manual rotation to the chase scene shots to increase the appearance of the intensity of the Razorcrests motions.
• Masked out the egg basket in a number of shots
• After the ship sinks, Din’s first concern is now finding Grogu.
• Rescored Grogu’s little cave snack adventure.
• Countless edits on the spider chase scenes to preserve story continuity.
• Replaced VFX from Frog Lady’s blaster with Din’s blaster. Din now saves Grogu from the baby spider.
• Edited the X-wing pilot discussion to have story consistency with my previous films.
• New planet departure scene order.
• After Din and Grogu jump, we cut to Boba continuing to search for his armor, which, coincedentally, Din will soon begin doing too. I love the back and forth storyline carrying on from the last film.
• As the Razorcrest is in terrible shape right now, we will now cut back to Din and Grogu’s red wire scene about trying to fix their ship mid-journey.
• Replaced Din’s line to say Tatooine instead of Trask to fit my new story order. Now they go to Nevarro before Tatooine in order to get the needed repairs.
• This is more of a coincidence than anything, but Din directly references his run-in with the New Republic as the cause for needed repairs rather than the Trask fiasco when he talks to Greef. Since my “episode order” is 10, 12, 9, then 11, it’s just funny how the dialogue works out even better than in the original…
• Restored the “Nevarro overview” brief from Cara since I’m no longer using this content as a cold open, and also since I’ve been building up the Imperial presence, hearing more about their operations helps this narrative.
• Removed an ungodly amount of crappy wipe transitions on Nevarro.
• New color grading and source quality upgrade on Nevarro.
• Fixed a Disney bug where Cara raises her blaster in back-to-back scenes when the crew runs into the science techs wiping the drive.
• Hearing Dr. Pershing talk about the cloning program in the same film as The Shadow Council scene (which is ahead) is awesome. It unifies so much of what the “Empire” is doing.
• Restored the scout bikers sequence.
• Cut some shots of the scouts where the speeders look like they are moving way too slowly.
• Cut some cheering reaction shots.
• Fixed a disgusting Disney bug… Come on now: https://streamable.com/plzr9b
• WAY sped up the scout biker with a grenade kill shot.
• Fixed another Disney visual bug of Din in the cockpit. Again he does the same action twice. Lots of little post-production errors in this episode.
• Had to totally re-edit the scene order of the last TIE dogfight. SO many inconsistent distances between shots.
• After Nevarro, we now slide into the Gideon and the Shadow Council discussion. This new placement helps continue to build Gideon as the villain from my last film, expands upon the Imperial conflict we have been focusing more on, ties up the cloning program on Nevarro, gives us our first clues on Thrawn instead of Ahsoka dropping his name out of nowhere, and is a great back and forth since we just were introduced to the New Republic for the first time. You can begin to see that Din is getting leashed into something much bigger than himself. The scene is edited so the dialogue makes chronological sense for this new placement, as well as hair darkening masks placed on Gideon to hide some of the gray.
• New Tatooine color grading.
• Cut a couple of crazy Tatooine mechanic lines. She should be weird but not insane…
• When Din speeders to Mos Pelgo, I cut the nighttime talks with the Tuskens. It seems like he’s asking for directions, even though he just got directions, and it is set at night so it makes it seem like he travels for 20+ hours which makes no sense at all.
• Cut the Krayt Dragon “swimming” directly through the town. I don’t understand the physics behind how those buildings still stand with the size of the dragon. This scene also makes the dragon appear super skinny to navigate through the streets when in the later shots it is WAY more massive in its width.
• As Din rides back from the Krayt battle, we now see Boba on his tail as Boba fires his cycler rifle at Din to initiate the ambush.
• Cut some slow reaction shots and some more people punching Din’s helmet without reacting in the mercenary fight.
• Cut Din and Grogu shrugging at each other after the jetpack kill. It’s a Marvel-esque shot and also Grogu’s head placement doesn’t at all match the next scene.
• New color grade and soundtrack on Din’s walk back to town.
• Changed how Din learns of the nearby Mandalorians. The whole Mechanic knows a Bug who knows a Frog who has a husband who saw a mandalorian is terrible storytelling. I can’t do a ton to fix this all, but I at least cut out the bug middle man so it appears like Mechanic just heard from her contact.
• Cut some more mechanic nonsense. Her saying she likes her steak “medium rare” is way too earthy for me.
• Heavily reduced the “taxi” conversation & plot.
• No egg chamber drama from the Frog Lady.
• We now learn that the Empire placed the tracker on the Razorcrest on Tatooine instead. I removed Gideon’s mustache in all “tracker placed” shots for visual consistency with the shadow council scene.
• Using bits and pieces from the great Smudger9 and my own changes, we now have a travel and landing on Trask that doesn’t display the massive damage on the Razorcrest.
• A new cut from landing straight to the cantina. We don’t need to watch frogs make out.
• New quality upgrade and color grading on Trask.
• Increased the speed at which Din jumps after Grogu in the water.
• Built a whole new sequence for Din being trapped under the gate. Ominous Mandalorian funeral chants play while he is helpless to escape. The end looks nigh.
• Just as Din begins to sink to his doom, once more, he looks up and sees his brothers and sisters in arms come to rescue him. Cue Vode An intermixed with Bo-Katan’s theme.
• Cut some more bad wipe transitions on this world.
• Cut Din saying “mIsSiOn??”
• Cut out Din giving instructions to Grogu on how to behave with the Frogs when he drops him off for babysitting.
• Cut out some stormtroopers flopping around and jumping off the railing when they are barely punched
• Cut out the Mando squad taking forever to take cover under fire while blasters fly all around them.
• Re-edited Din and Bo-Katan’s argument about the deal changing to maintain tension and not have it so Din goes along with her idea. I have left it so we don’t know if Din is going to oppose her, but then the ship nosedives.
• Re-edited Gideon and Imperial Officer’s conversation to make it appear as though Gideon intended to have this ship get raided in an effort to kill Din and Bo. As we’ve seen before, he has no problem sacrificing his troops to accomplish this goal, so now it feels like it’s not a last-ditch effort, but perhaps even Gideon’s plan all along. As we had earlier established that Gideon is already tracking the Razorcrest, this appears to have been in the works for a while. (We even get the Long Live the Empire phrase reinforcement here from the Show Council scene!)
• Completely re-edited the sequence where Bo and the crew are pinned down. I have removed Din from all scenes here as we left him earlier not knowing what he was going to do. We cut back and forth between the crew pinned down and the vessel nosediving until at the last second, Din comes charging in out of nowhere to repay his debt to his Mandalorian family.
• Din now throws the detonators in one fluid motion as he falls from the hail of blaster fire.
• Fixed all the timing of the explosion and fire to actually make sense instead of waiting for a reaction shot from EVERY character while the fireball slowly plumes down the hallway.
• Cut Din saying “Come on follow me”. It’s a better vibe when we just see the Mandalorians work in unison without bay-talking each other.
• Removed some dialogue between Din and Bo-Katan so it remains more confrontational before she thanks him.
• We end with a quick take-off into space followed by a brief scene of Grogu using the force on his own to spin the ball on the stick. At the end of my first film, Din had to give it to him manually, and this now shows the evolution and agency that Grogu is developing through their adventures together as well as hits home the main theme that Grogu is on the path to being a Jedi… and Mandalorian? (Rescored this scene with a track from Star Wars Visions: Ninth Jedi)
• Unified credits based on new story order.

Darth Sadifous said:

Have you thought of potentially digitally adding Pedro Pascal’s head onto Din in the closing shot of season three? I do not know how hard this would be from a technological perspective, but from a character perspective and a story arc I think it could be a nice little payoff. From the end of season two, the show seemed to present conflict for Din in regards to his choice to take off his helmet to look at his child with “his own eyes” (it is like poetry). Then we found he had to atone for this by bathing in the water of Mandalore, kickstarting the quest in season three.

That is a great idea. I’m not sure how realistic I could get it to look… But ya know, when I get there I’m going to try. I’m a fan of it storywise I think.

Gala, if you meant to send something with your message there it didn’t go through right. If you see this, try writing it again so I know what’s going on.

Thanks everyone, hope you enjoy this third film! Crossing my fingers there are no massive bugs, this one went through the ringer a few times before it felt right. Have fun!

Tobar said:

BedeHistory731 said:

Exactly. Hell, TCW did a fine job trampling all over some very good Legends material. I miss Karen Traviss’ Mandalorians. One-dimensional, but still fun.

Karen Traviss was horrible to the fans and did more than her share of trampling on previously established lore. So when she had her meltdown it was one of the best instances of schadenfreude I’ve ever experienced. Still brings a smile to my face.

I had a multi-month back and forth email chain with Traviss when I was a kid about her Star Wars novels. Reading through the Republic Commando series while talking to her about it and having her explain things to me personally absolutely cemented my love of reading for the rest of my life. I don’t even know what happened with what you’re talking about, but she showed me nothing but kindness and genuine interest, and I am forever shaped by what she did.

Update on this! I’ve begun my Season 1 rewatch with the editors googles on. Got through the first 10 episodes and have to say, I’m actually enjoying it more than I did initially. Since I’m watching it trying to see the potential in the storyline, there’s definitely a legit possibility to present this content in a very digestible and entertaining format.

I’ll go more into detail over the coming weeks, but initially I 100% agree with Eddie that Season 1 is two films, with the first being 1,4,7,8,9 as the core narrative (with sprinkles of 5 & 3 to tie it together). Might pull a scene or two from 2 and borrow some of the travel shots, but I’m feeling good about this now. Really looking forward to watching season 2 for the first time too. Once I make these dialogue edits on wrecker, tighten up some of the kiddish nature, and do the ol acbagel frame by frame combat analysis I think we’re going to have a good time watching this together.

I would expect it to come later than May for sure. Based on his discord channel we should all be prepared to wait a number of months at least.

Great suggestion, I fully agree that the world building and self contained storyline in the Pershing episode was some of the most well written and directed content in Season 3. I enjoyed it a great deal. It definitely doesn’t fit into the overall narrative of The Way of Mandalore due to there being no payoff at all, but I am 100% in favor of creating a mini “anthology” episode out of it as an optional bridge between book 5 & 6. I had it planned and spread out throughout my book 6 up until the last episode when it turned out that nothing in it had any impact sadly.

It’ll be a pretty easy edit to complete too. Probably just some minor alterations and a trim or two. I’ll dive into it after I release Book 5.

EddieDean said:

What’re your plans for Luke training Grogu and Grogu rejoining Din?

Grogu trains with Luke across Book 5 and Act 1 of Book 6 before rejoining Din (if I can pull this VFX off) underneath the mines of Mandalore after experiencing a vision of captured Din when he is deciding on the lightsaber v armor scene. R5 flies the N1 back to Grogu, Grogu jumps in and flies it to Bo, then they go to get Din.

So book 6 Act 1 is Grogu training and Din going to Mandalore alone (he receives his “baptism mission” in Book 5 now), Act 2 is Grogu training with Mandalorians and some of the Nevarro battle, Act 3 is the final Mandalore sequence.

Thanks for the feedback Eddie and Peon. I’m still considering all options for Book 6 (and possibly 7). In general, I’d rather conclude my saga on one amazing movie rather than two average movies by padding it with scenes just for the sake of using all the content. I consider this Season 3 content to be more akin to what I had to do with BoBF (where I cut out ~2 hours of raw footage in order to tell a new, focused narrative), but I’m open to being proven wrong if I can find a way to make 2 compelling films. My main concern is my Books 1-5 really don’t have a dip in storytelling quality in any of them. It’s not like Book 4 is “the weakest one” but you have to “power through to get to the good stuff” in Book 5 or something. I think the narrative in all 5 is pretty top tier across the board, so I worry that splitting all of season 3 into two films will cause a drop in quality at the end of the saga and make it drag.

I will soon share my scene structure draft for Book 6 though and see if you all feel like it’s missing anything important. I am, at the moment, suspecting that I can tell the best story possible through ~2.75 hours of Mando S3 content combined with my VFX scenes, but I could be wrong! I’ll give some previews of that next week. The primary cuts I’m planning are the Pershing storyline, the raptor chase, ~50% of the Nevarro scenes and pirates, and the Plazir side quest. So adding any one of those back into Book 6 would require me to add another one of those into Book 7 in order to make 2 hour runtimes. The raptor is I suppose what I’d miss the most, but then I have to add something else into Book 7…? And I really don’t think adding anything else from those other cut segments is beneficial at all. It’s like in my BoBF I reframed everything so those Hutts never come in as they were a huge distraction that never went anywhere at all. I think that a few plot threads in S3 are like that. But if you think any of those above S3 scenes are crucial I’d be interested to hear.

I’m still planning on having Book 3 released Monday/Tuesday. Here’s a draft preview of something I’ve been working on: https://streamable.com/5xcxwl

Minor Mandalorian Season 3 spoilers below!

Well, my friends, we have the complete picture. I think it will be a long while before we get any new Mandalorian content from Disney. That last episode very much felt like a closing chapter. I am curious as to if Mando S4 will ever see the light of day. Perhaps it may come out in 2025 without Filoni’s direct involvement (which seems to have been how the majority of S3 was produced), or even be pushed way back behind Filoni’s movie. Whatever happens with the future of these characters, it’s going to be at least two years before we get anything new here. It definitely cemented my suspicion that I can only make one film out of this whole season.

I had initially planned to use Pershing & Kane’s content as a B plot throughout the whole film, eventually leading to Gideon’s return, but wow that content did not connect to anything whatsoever. I thought this last episode would bring at least a hint of a payoff to the 45 minutes we spent with them out of nowhere, but it rendered it a total waste of time. That’s all getting cut in my edit now.

I have a general storyboarded order of how I want things to play out and it’s a realistic runtime. But I have a TON of VFX to do… I’ll be parterning with at least 3 other editors (Dazman, Movies Remastered, & ildiem) to collab on some scenes we all have interest in making. Next week I’ll share some of my storyboarding ideas for Book 6, so if you have any suggestions in the meantime, please do share.

End of spoilers.

Book 3 update:

I was planning on having this film ready to go on Friday, but upon review… I really need to create a hair darkening mask and track it on Gideon’s Shadow Council scene. The white-grey is just too noticable, even with as many lighting tricks as I can pull off. I need to manually mask him having black hair. I can get it done, it’ll just add a couple days of additional work. Aside from that, I’m going through one final bug fix review and swapping some scenes around, but we’re probably 85% complete at this point. I’m going to shoot for a Monday release of this, and then the turnaround on Book 4 should be much faster as well. Might even get both out next week as I already have Book 4 ~40% updated while I was waiting on some bug review reports on Book 3. Excited to share my new ideas and hear your thoughts as well. Please feel free to share spoilers here starting tomorrow, and let me know if you think anything across all 6 of my books need changing considering the entirety of the character arcs we were provided with.

So many wonderful ideas in here, that’s a lot to unpack! Much of this could turn out very well if the right context can be presented. I especially love the change to include BoBF final battle as part of an episode. Looking forward to seeing how this turns out.

I’m starting to do some VFX removing Grogu from many scenes as well, so DM me if you want to collab on anything and split up the work.

Wow, that finale was shockingly lackluster, and my expectations were not high at all going in.

I am extremely tired of the trope where the captured protagonist gets casually escorted down a hallway by two careless guards and escapes in 20 seconds. Seriously, Gideon? That does not at all seem like a strategic move he would’ve made as how he has been portrayed as so cautious and forwar thinking. Why did he even send Din away in the first place? Apparently he was going to interrogate him, so he valued something Din knew to such a degree that he didn’t want to kill him on the spot. But then to barely send an escort for knowledge that was so valuable that he wouldn’t kill Din in the midst of battle… I’m just not buying that plot convenience.

Then Din almost immediately escapes by wrecking the two miserable armed guards… Then doesn’t pick up their blasters and is whining in the very next scene that he is unarmed?? What? In the words of Qui-Gon, “Are you brainless?”

What happened to all the TIE fighters and Bombers? So they tear the cruiser to shreds in orbit and then just abandon the battle? These ships don’t have hyperdrives, so where did they all go…? Why did they not completely demolish the Mandalorian drop ships or attempt to shoot down all the Mandos jetpacking down? They by FAR outnumbered the Mando fleet and had incredible air superiority.

How did the Darksaber break? It’s made of pure beskar, Din had marveled about it being the most impressive beskar-created weapon he’d ever seen, yet it shatters from a slight squeeze from Gideon’s augmented suit? Yes, I understand that new Phase of Darktrooper armor provided extreme strength enhancements and could likely snap a bone in half, but snap beskar in half…? No. Din’s beskar spear survived an orbital bombardment that blew a starship to scraps and the spear didn’t even have a dent or a scuff. Yet Gideon can casually crush it in his palm? Plus, Bo’s hand was still gripping the saber when he does this move, and she treats it like a bruise or maybe a small broken bone when even if he could generate the strength to crush beskar, her hand should be turned into pulp.

I could go on about the pacing, terrible slew of fast wipe transitions, incomplete VFX etc, but we can all see this episode and season just didn’t get the TLC it deserved. This is a real shame and I am feeling pretty dejected about the state of Star Wars right now. I do have faith in the Ahsoka show, but if that doesn’t generate hype we are headed for some dark times my friends.

Darth Sadifous said:

I finished Book Two and really loved your depiction of Boba Fett. He is calculating and cunning; actually the bounty hunter I always envisioned. It is amazing what some editing can do to really tweak the depiction of a character. I also was generally surprised how well some scenes were reorganized and repurposed to fit your new narrative. Some of the scenes I thought especially worked well was the Sorgan village scenes and what you cut within those I was not sad to see go as it was one of my least liked episodes of season one.

It was a interesting take on cutting out the Fennec and Toro exchange, I am not 100% sure how I feel about its exclusion. I also see you glossed over Fennec being taken to a modder for life saving treatment. I guess we are to assume she has already been augmented before Boba finds her left for dead in the desert. My only very minor grip is I thought some of the early jumps from Sorgan to Tatooine were a bit jarring at times. Overall, great job; I am looking forward to V3 of Book 3 soon and seeing how you shape Boba’s potrayal in “modern day” as that is what I have had the largest issue with in the orginal Book of Boba Fett.

Thanks for the feedback! Glad you enjoyed my take on a Legends inspired Boba. Modern day Boba will come in Books 4 & 5, and I believe you’ll like him just as much! I’m still making great progress on Book 3, definitely will have it ready this week. And the production time on Book 4 will be much quicker since there isn’t a huge story order change like the first 3. I’m actually updating Books 4-6 right now as well while I have a couple more pairs of eyes doing bug reviews on 3, so all of the coming films are making good progress. I just started reorganizing Book 5 in light of Season 3, and then started storyboarding my Season 3 focused Book 6. Can’t wait for this last episode tomorrow so I can finally have the complete picture of what I can do!

Sent to Malgus and gurgle!

Sent!

Darth Sadifous said:

I just finished the first chapter and my favorite part by far to that edit is the new flashback insertion throughout from the pram in the trash to the final standoff between the Mandolorian forces and the bounty hunter guild on Nevarro!The contrast between Din’s introduction to Mandalorian culture and Grogu’s was perfection. The edit seemed seamless upon first viewing and I cannot wait to watch the revised episode II now. Keep up the great work and may the force be with you…always!

Thanks! So glad to hear all that. Looking forward to seeing what you thought of Book 2!

Just wondering, Moff Giedon’s appearance is slightly different in the latest episode of The Mandalorian with him no longer having a moutache. I know it is minor, but are you going to be able to do some digital trickery to account for his change from season one and two to season three if you plan to insert it into Book 3?

I do indeed utilize “digital trickery”!

So the two main differences in Gideon’s Season 2–>3 appearances are:

1. The lack of a mustache
2. Some greying in the hair

My solution:

1. Digitally remove his mustache in all my other Book 3 scenes.
2. Alter the lighting of the Shadow Council scene to keep his hair looking darker.

Yes, Gideon will again have a mustache in Book 4. But as these films take place across weeks-months, I see no problem in Gideon growing facial hair occasionally. It’s a pretty thin and stubbly mustache anyways that could easily be grown in a few days by many men. It was only jarring seeing it in the same movie, but across movies, I don’t think is an issue. And we could even theorize he only shaves to look professional for his Shadow Council meetings anyways.

EddieDean said:

Definitely out of scope for this - I’ve got a lot of respect for the TCW voices and wouldn’t want to recast them even to their original live action equivalents!

It really freaked me out when I heard Lanter’s voice on the Celebration panel and I instinctively related it more to Anakin than Hayden’s voice. Love both men and their performances, it just comes down to time spent hearing each voice, and there’s so much more screen time with TCW Anakin. It has actually evolved to a point where that feels more natural to me now.

Book 3 Update! I have a working draft completed and am beginning the full watch through --> bug fix phase.

RogueLeader said:

Has this most recent episode given you confidence in being able to put together a decent edit for this season?

This episode was exactly what I expected it to be. Getting back on track, but unable to solve the larger issues of the season as a whole in and of itself. I was initially planning on making 2 films out of Season 3 (before it started…), but now I believe it’ll just be the one. And yes, I do have confidence in what I will be able to transform it into. If you have seen my old BoBF edit (Book 5), I believe this will be similar to that edit where I have to MASSIVELY restructure a huge number of scenes in order to tell a new narrative. I am looking forward to getting into this season’s content and starting to work through the maze of scenes soon.

Daiyus said:

I watched Book 1 and Book 2 last night. Oh. My. Word! These are phenomenal. Absolutely fantastic work, and does exactly what I was hoping for; to blend BoBF & Mando perfectly.

I love the restructuring to the first part of Mando’s story, the arc between retrieving Grogu, handing him off and then rescuing him after the prison break works so well! The flashback work is inspired and perfectly reflects the parallels in their histories. The only cut that felt a little awkward to me was Kuill collecting IG-11. It’s a very short sequence that felt a bit out of left-field when I was refocused on Din after the prison break. Chronologically it makes sense where it is now, but thematically maybe it should follow on from the farewell on Arvala before cutting away to Din on Nevarro? Or maybe something of a post-credits thing? I’m honestly not sure exactly where I’d put it, but I just wanted to be honest with you on that one.

Thanks for the review. So glad you enjoyed the new presentation. I’d love to use something else for the IG-11 scene, but there are barely any “travel” scenes in the season that work to bridge a passage of time. Do you think it would feel less awkward for it to be a jump-to-hyperspace immediately followed by a jump-out-of-hyperspace? I typically hate to do that as it feels like a teleport instead of a journey, but I also hate awkward/distracting alternative scene placements.

While Book 1 is practically perfection, Book 2 is even better in my opinion. I wasn’t sure how I’d feel about so much of Sorgan being cut, but it’s absolutely spot on! The two series are beautifully blended together and the feeling that they’re ships in the night is great. Boba’s characterisation is much closer to what you’d expect from the character, brilliant stuff. I’ll be honest, I did miss the rite-of-passage making the gaffi stick, but completely understand why it’s been cut to maintain the characterisation and pacing; the lizard trip was a bit strange in the original material, and it’s hard to see a way to keep the rite and keep it all thematically sound.

Wow! That’s awesome to hear. Book 2 was very difficult to make! EddieDean and I reviewed at least 3 full drafts with different scenes and story orders before settling on this final cut, so that’s amazing to see that it worked out for you. Getting all those events paced out to work narratively was like figuring out a 1,000 piece puzzle haha. I agree, missing out of the gaffi stick carving was my hardest cut to make as well. I wrestled with that one quite a bit, but ultimately it didn’t fit the pacing and this film needed something left on the cutting board for the greater good. Sometimes that happens and if this were a DVD it would definitely be in the “Deleted Scenes” section!

I’m really stoked to see what comes in Book 3 and beyond. I’ve enjoyed Mando Season 3 overall so far, but I was also concerned about how some of the content would fit into a cut like this. Watching the new episode last night has definitely grounded it all a bit for me, and I’m really interested to see how you blend the new content. Overall this has definitely become my definitive way to watch this content on repeat, and it’ll only be new season releases that I watch through D+.

That’s quite the compliment, thank you very much. As I said above, once you watch my coming Book 5, I hope it’ll give some hope for what I may be able to do with Season 3 content. I’m excited to get the last episode soon and start experimenting in the lab.

PsyGemini said:

So I finally sat down to watch the remaining of Book 1. I specially love how the action scenes flow so much better. Mando was such a badass by the end of it. The fight with the droids at the prison was so damn cool!

Thanks so much! I put an absurd amount of time into touching up the action sequences haha. Frame by frame by frame. Every fight. I think it makes a huge difference though.

Those are my only nitpicks:

1 - I really liked having the prison episode here, but maybe trim down even a little bit more the secondary characters? Maybe the chit chat at their introduction, or they walking the corridors? idk, felt like we spend too much time with such expendable characters.

If the film dragged on, I would probably agree with you here, but it’s under 2 hours before the credits so I don’t feel it’s necessary to chop the length any more. We’re going to spend a good 45 minutes with those characters (and one comes back later in the series) so I don’t feel bad about some talking segments here. Plus, it gives us a look into the daily life of a bounty hunter. Din has probably taken dozens of jobs like this and it’s a cool look into his life.

2 - 1:42:28 that cut was VERY abrupt. Maybe a classic wipe transition would help a lot?
However, IMHO, how about moving that scene to just after mando leaves arvala-7? 'Cause we haven’t been with Kuiil for pretty much an hour, so it’s really weird and confusing when he just randomly pops in for a 40 second scene that doesn’t even pay off (in this Book 1, of course) after that.

Yes, a spiral wipe would probably work well here, and I addressed the IG scene above if you have any further feedback.

3 - Din giving Grogu the little ball thing was perfect for the closing moment, however… just the next scene and it’s back at the top of the lever, which kinda completely ruins the moment lmao.

Well that scene takes place in hyperspace, and the next scene where the ball is re-attached takes place once landed on Sorgan. That is many hours-days seperated. Din usually puts the ball back on each time Grogu gets it for a while.

Anyways, onward to watching Book 2, and anxious to getting Book 3! As always, outstanding work! Wish I could be that good of an editor…

Awesome, hope you enjoy the sequel! Book 3 is coming very soon. You can definitely learn, I’m nothing special 😉 YouTube videos can teach you as much as any degree if you are self-motivated.

Darth Niederlander said:

Sorry for being late here,
but can i please have the links to the books ?!

Kind regards,
Little Darth Niederlander

Of course, sent!

Thanks for the support and feedback everyone. So many messages between here and in DMs that are much appreciated.

jedi_bendu said:

timdiggerm said:

I have to say, having someone say the words “Heir to the Empire” is a little on the nose

It’s definitely not as cool as her next line, “I can sense a dark force rising, we have to stop Thrawn before he can issue the last command.”

My favorite was right after that when she enters the World Between Worlds and said, “Perhaps by looking at these specters of the past, we can receive a vision of the future.”

Sent! Hope you enjoy.

Minor spoilers from today’s episode below:

The Shadow Council scene is actually perfect for a spot in Book 3. As soon as I saw it I knew that was a missing piece that I needed in my current film. I’ll trim/edit some dialogue accordingly, but showing Gideon’s presence in the larger Imperial Remnant is perfect for continuing to build him up as a fleshed out villain in Season 2. Additionally, starting to tease Thrawn earlier is way better than the initial name drop from Ahsoka out of nowhere. I’m ~40% through updating Book 3 and starting to plug things into my change log now.

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

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

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

fmalover said:

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

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

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

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

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

Hope everyone is enjoying the latest film!

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

The main themes so far have been:

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

Looking forward to sharing more throughout the week!

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

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

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

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

The Way of Mandalore v3 update

Book 2: The Reckoning out now.

• Added new Mandalorian Disney “Star Wars” intro

• There are too many Act 1 story order changes to write in-depth about, so here is the overall new scene order:

Boba escapes Sarlacc --> Fighting monster
Day in Sorgan life + Din entering his room for the first time
Train attacks Tuskens
Continued Din spending time on Sorgan
Boba goes to capture bikes
Din meets Cara
Tuskens attack Train
Bounty Hunter finds Grogu
Boba gifted robes and acceptance
End of Act 1 (~48 minutes): Din flies to Tatooine

• (As I have repurposed the initial Sorgan “restaurant scene” to be used later in the film, I have edited it accordingly, removing all of the references that make it seem like they just landed.)

• Boba does not wake up when the Jawas loot his armor. Now he has an actual reason to search the Sarlacc pit.

• Removed a TON of crappy-looking fast transition wipes.

• Reordered scenes with Tusken dog growling so that Boba now intimidates it and fixed a bad Disney transition cut.

• Quickened the search for black melons so that the monster attacks the Rodian sooner.

• Removed all mentions of the raiders on Sorgan. This planet remains a peaceful refuge until the bounty hunter arrives to haunt Din.

• Reordered shots of the train approaching the Tusken camp for better visual consistency and urgency in its approach.

• Created new back and forth between Din and Cara in their first meeting that no longer requires her joining to defeat the raiders.

• Din now asks the waitress about Cara Dune in a more demanding manner by peppering her with a few questions upfront.

• Cut a Tusken looking at the reflective mirror signal and then panning over to wait to see the train through the binos. What is the point of the mirror if he can just see the train first anyways…?

• During the train attack, cut some scenes of tuskens climbing up the sides after Boba’s speeder gets shot. It now appears to be actually damaged instead of still being able to go full speed for a minute while also burning to a crisp.

• Cut a few shots of combat on top of the train. Just a few were repetitive and poorly choreographed.

• Cut some sequences of the many armed pilot droid going ham on 10,000 levers. We get it, he can make the train go zoom.

• Cut a few sequences of the Tusken Chief combat to keep the focus on Boba.

• Sped up the timing of when a Tusken gets blasted by the tram engine.

• Made it so the train pilot droid actually does commit suicide. This matches Boba’s confused face.

• Cut the “tell” scene that a bounty hunter is at the village. Come on, preserve the mood, and surprise us for once!

• Re-edited the scene where Din talks to the village woman about his future. Without the viewer’s knowledge of the bounty hunter, we are still in “peaceful mode” and perhaps believe that there is a home here for Din and Grogu. The woman does now indeed appear to persuade Din to take his helmet off and stay, but they are interrupted by the bounty hunter which brings him back to reality.

• Re-ordered the scenes of the bounty hunter’s scope to actually make sense now.

• As Din and Grogu leave Sorgan, I have repurposed the Greef calls Din offer to be placed here. This keeps the main plot, Din’s conflict with the Empire, at the forefront of the story while also having another bounty hunter surprise them at the last minute right when they are about to jump to Nevarro. Now the consequences of Din’s actions continually haunt him. The damage from the dogfight grounds the team on Tatooine.

• Removed the hilariously bad death scene of the bounty hunter.

• Removed the head Pyke stirring his tea. Transition works much better to see Boba close a door and then Din open one.

• Removed the Tusken encounter with Din in the desert.

• Re-edited the whole dewback scene. It now plays out quicker and Din only gets shot once. Reduced some of the infantile questions from rookie hunter throughout.

• Cut Boba feeding his Bantha and some of the Rookie pretending to shoot Din while sleeping.

• After Fennec shoots Din (again), I cut the scenes of her taking forever to aim at his unmoving body. The Rookie is now on her almost immediately after that first shot to prevent her double tap.

• Cut all of Fennec and Rookie’s hand-to-hand combat, as well as his incessant moaning for the next minute. She is captured by Rookie and Din peacefully goes over to handcuff her.

• Cut all of Fennec and Rookie’s morning dialogue and her getting shot. We will stay inside the perspective of Din in these events now. It’s enough to know Din returned from securing the dewback and now Fennec is (seemingly) dead. The drawn-out side-character conversation is quite a distraction in this movie format.

• Regraded the scene of Din acquiring the Dewback and going back to the hangar from day-to-night. Disney messed up SO badly on the time of day throughout this and Book of Boba. The chronology was wrecked so this is the best solution.

• Now that we don’t have to see Rookie go through that whole Fennec dialogue, it actually appears that he had some agency in all of these events. He already knew Din had betrayed the guild from the get-go and had been playing dumb to take advantage of Din. This is a proper villain arc and a fun reveal at the end. He still dies though.

• Re-edited the whole hangar dialogue and action scenes to fit into this new theory.

• After Din and Grogu fly away to Sorgan, we see Boba collect Fennec and heals her himself. The extent of her previous injury is never shown or discussed, and we are perfectly fine to believe Boba provided the medical care needed to save her life.

• Inserted the scenes of Boba and Fennec scouting and then acquiring the Slave 1 in an acbagel edited combat sequence to break up Din’s bouncing all over the galaxy to pick up Cara and then Kuiil and then back to Nevarro. The original episode does that all back to back and we desperately need some pacing.

• Cut the “Let’s go over the plan again” talk at the nevarro campfire. I have never in my life seen a show lay out the entire plan so many times. They do this every other episode and it NEVER adds anything at all. It just spoils the next 20 minutes every time.

• Cut the two bodyguards super obviously sneaking up on Din and Cara, legit 20 seconds after Din tells her to keep eyes on them. Greef kills them more suddenly now.

• Re-edited ANOTHER “I have a plan” scene before they just do the whole plan… Preserved some revelations here instead of immediately doing an exposition dump.

• Gideon arrives and ambushes the crew in one extended sequence. It plays out SO much more terrifying without the whole trying to call Kuiil plot here.

• Moved the whole scout bikes kill Kuiil to one uninterrupted scene later after the crew is in more of a standstill period during the EWEB setup.

• In line with the above change, I have completely reworked Moff Gideon’s plan. I never understood his strategy in the original as it was not at all in line with his characterization to attempt a peaceful resolution with Din, especially considering he kills a handful of his soldiers both on screen and off. In my edit, Gideon does not know that the Grogu box is a ploy, so his attempt at a peaceful resolution is due to his not wanting the child to be incidentally harmed. This is why he makes his “until sundown” offer, but when Din attempts to contact Kuiil falsely believing he got away, Kuiil never hears the message at all as it is intercepted leading to Grogu’s capture. The scouts attempt to bring the asset back into town and stop at the checkpoint to confirm.

• As the scouts stop at the checkpoint, they receive orders from the comm man to “double-check” on the asset because Gideon is already exercising violence against his own men. As they promptly do so, they are very quickly set upon by IG-11 (I hate to cut most of the Scout trooper scene as I enjoy that type of Tarantino-esque dialogue, but it does not fit at all in the pacing of the situation or the storytelling logic). This prevents Gideon from ever learning that the child was acquired, so his motivation for allowing the peaceful resolution offer to continue is still sensible.
  IG comes flying into town making a mess, and I have reordered some reaction shots of the stormtroopers and our protagonists to actually make sense according to the explosion sounds instead of the wonky order in the original episode.

• Touched up some shot timing with the Flametrooper.

• Trimmed off some of Din getting healed by IG-11 for better pacing.

• Cut Din not knowing his way through the tunnels because he “normally enters through the bazaar.” What?? I think that a secret Mandalorian covert would require all of its members to memorize every single inch of those tunnels. This lack of knowledge didn’t even lead anywhere as they almost immediately stumble upon the Mandalorian forge anyways, further demonstrating that Din is a complete moron because he has visited that exact location countless times IN THE SHOW. Now I have presented this segment as if Din is intentionally walking the tunnels looking for where the Mandalorians are instead of aimlessly wandering around being lost.

• Cut a bunch of repetitive lines out of the Armorer scene and removed IG-11 killing the whole stormtrooper scout party off-screen. That took away the tension of the imminent danger. Now it will appear like the troopers we just saw enter are the ones who end up finding the Armorer.

• Removed one additional line of Din trying to persuade IG not to explode himself.

• Removed the stormtroopers lowering their weapons and staring at IG for so long after he reveals the bomb. He now delivers the payload more quickly.

• Removed the “magic hand thing” joke by reorganizing shots of Gideon’s TIE. I also found a bug from the original show in which Din puts his jetpack on, but then in the next wide shot, he is in the background still holding it in his hands. That is now fixed as I reordered the scenes in which he does put the pack on.

• Sped up the timing of Gideon’s TIE getting destroyed.

• Since I am now using Nevarro as a conclusion, I can restore the entirety of the Greef/Din/Cara conversation after the battle.

• The film now ends back with Boba and Fennec talking about the future.

• Adjusted Credits concept art to coincide with new story order.

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

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

yoshif8tures said:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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