EddieDean

vranir said:

But then Anakin is the only one without a full name. Obi-Wan Kenobi, Anakin, Ahsoka Tano, and Plo Koon.

I didn’t mention it above but I’ve shortened Obi-Wan Kenobi to just Obi-Wan also. The rule being that if it’s the first time mentioning your name you get the full thing, but for future references, a shorter version is OK.

Oh, these are fantastic changes, thanks. I’ll include all of those. By removing “Skywalker” I can just get away with “As Anakin and his new Padawan Ahsoka Tano lead the search, Jedi Master PLO KOON picks up Grievous’ signal and moves to intercept.”

Might as well share where I’m at with Malevolence too:

Conflicts erupt in the early days of the Clone Wars.
The Republic faces a dire emergency, as the leader of Dooku’s army, the droid general GRIEVOUS, strikes swiftly from the shadows.
With his new weapon, the battleship MALEVOLENCE, he has been destroying medical stations, killing thousands of wounded clones.
Obi-Wan Kenobi now urgently coordinates the evacuation of medical stations in the Naboo sector, where six have recently been destroyed.
As Anakin Skywalker and his new Padawan Ahsoka Tano lead the search, Jedi Master PLO KOON has picked up Grievous’ signal.
But no fleet that has faced the Malevolence has yet survived…

Notes:

• We capitalise GRIEVOUS, MALEVOLENCE, and PLO KOON, since they’re this episode’s newly introduced focal points. The episode title ‘MALEVOLENCE’ highlights the theme of bad guys being bad guys, and helps our season start from the footing of its villains being legitimate threats - important since they underpin the war and this entire era of Star Wars.
• “Emergency” is now mentioned early, heavily implying that this is the emergency mentioned in the Christophsis episode. Now in context, as soon as the war broke out, at Dooku’s command, Grievous started wrecking the Republic’s ability to field clones.
• Grievous is now “the droid general GRIEVOUS” rather than “GENERAL GRIEVOUS”, since he’s often referred to as the ‘droid general’. In the context of “the leader of Dooku’s army” it leaves more room for the viewer to recognise that he’s a general OF droids, rather than a droid himself.
• “Strikes swiftly from the shadows” I think most clearly implies that he’s appearing, destroying, then escaping, rather than being involved in any prolonged conflicts. It leans into Grievous’ cowardice without that distracting from his villainy. The idea he’s hit a lot of stations (quickly) gives value when Grievous is annoyed his ship has to slowly navigate the nebula, which is the opportunity the Republic need to defeat him - implying they got lucky, maintaining his implicit threat.
• We refer to the Malevolence as both a battleship and a weapon, to mask the fact that in the original episodes, they didn’t know that the “mystery weapon” was a battleship.
• Obi-Wan coordinates “in the Naboo sector” because he has dialogue implying they’re close to Naboo, but specifically “sector” so I can imply the Republic know the rough area where he is, allowing me to pull the scenes with Nala Se earlier since they now don’t know where he’ll strike next, so must evacuate all local stations. This means that there’s more of a race against time now, with Grievous on the hunt while Anakin and Ahsoka fuck about trying to save Plo. It makes their actions reckless (which they’re chided for in the episode) while still being heroic.
• Our “BUT” sentence connects to Plo’s discovery of Grievous, allowing us to open the episode on his ship’s destruction.

vranir said:

I like it.

If I were asked to edit this text (which I do professionally), I would question whether the word “military” is necessary when describing the energy shields.

I’d also ask about the need to call Ventress “a priority target.”

Both of those details could be inferred from the context and just make the sentences wordier.

Grammatically (especially if you remove the “priority target” phrase), you should add a comma before ASAJJ VENTRESS. The comma would make it clear that she is Dooku’s assassin (the only one). Without the comma, the technical meaning is that she is one of his potentially many assassins.

That’s as nitpicky as I can be. Every version of the text has been an improvement over the previous, and as it stands now, it’s quite good.

Lovely detail, thanks!

I had just deleted ‘military’, to replace it with ‘powerful’, but then went back to ‘military’ again. I know the context is there, but this season I really want to emphasise that the Separatist’s attacks are against really sensible military targets, and that they’re targeting them all as a matter of real strategic priority. This adds threat to the Separatists and our villains, that the first season of the show really suffered from. The word ‘military’ was the most explicit way to convey, well, the military theme to the season, in the context of this episode.

Ventress being ‘a priority target’ was also a late addition. My entirely new context for these scenes, which wasn’t present in the original episodes, was that Ventress has drawn them away (whilst jammed) so that the Republic force doesn’t detect or disrupt the landing of the large Separatist fleet. This adds competency to her character, and adds to the episode’s main threat. Making it explicit that the Republic now “fear invasion” but that Obi-Wan and Anakin have really had to drop their duties to pursue her, I think gives the viewer the best possible shot at putting two and two together.

I think I’m OK with leaving it ambiguous how many assassins Dooku has. In my mind he has a whole bunch of non-force assassins, whom he hires as he needs to, but only one capital-A ASSASSIN. I think it’s flexible enough to not be vital, and that adding a comma there leaves you with a few too many in that sentence (“Dooku’s Assassin, Asajj Ventress, a priority target…”).

I know I’ve effectively just said “Yeah nah” to all of your suggestions, but I still really appreciate being challenged in this way, as it forces me to think through my priorities in greater detail, so please do keep this up!

Anyway, let’s focus back on editing. Today and tomorrow I have a good amount of time, and am working through Malevolence still. It’s kind of fine as is, but I’m just tweaking and pruning it, which is taking a lot of time as it’s got a lot of cuts.

Anyway, I’ve taken the recent feedback and been tweaking the Christophsis opening text further. I thought I’d share it here before rendering the episode again. Bear in mind this is our very first episode, so it has to do a little heavy lifting:

Conflicts erupt in the early days of the Clone Wars.
With ANAKIN SKYWALKER’s ascension to the rank of Jedi Knight, his former master OBI-WAN KENOBI has requested a new padawan.
Aided by a small clone squadron, the duo now defend Christophsis, a planet whose crystal factories produce military energy shields.
Count Dooku’s fleet has forced the Republic’s ships to retreat to a nearby medical station, leading to fears of an imminent invasion.
But having detected the distant signal of Dooku’s assassin ASAJJ VENTRESS, a priority target, the Jedi rush to capture her.
They are unaware that comms have just been jammed planetwide…

Notes:

• In this episode we formally introduce ANAKIN and OBI-WAN (hence their full names and capitalisation), and the villain VENTRESS. (Ahsoka doesn’t get named here since she’s only introduced within the episode, but is still made the episode’s largest focus via the episode’s title.)
• The fleet now is “Count Dooku’s” (not “Separatist”), because the character is more important than the faction (in our first episode). This season we’re focusing on the villains, with Dooku as their leader, and both this and the next episode (Malevolence) rely on knowledge that Count Dooku is pulling the strings. This change also adds more weight to why we’d care about Ventress as “Dooku’s assassin”.
• I changed some of the jankier language. It’s now “With Anakin’s ascension to the rank…” rather than “As Anakin has earned the rank…”, which is cleaner, and I’ve kept “But having detected” but dropped “However”, so at least we don’t start two sentences in a row with those slightly jarring context-sensitive words.
• I wanted to keep “But having detected” because it’s the imminent invasion which they miss BECAUSE they’re forced to pursue Ventress, so I needed to maintain the causal link between the two sentences.
• I’ve also made it more explicit that Ventress is a priority target, pulling them away from their other duties, and kept the idea that her signal is “distant”, which gives us leeway in overland travel times and day/night cycles.
• To fit in the fleet status sentence, I’ve had to change the tense, so the Republic fleet has been forced to retreat but then we see that actively in the episode. I think it’s an OK compromise.
• All of the remaining language and references ties into the rest of the season and this episode’s lanugage more accurately.

Solemn.Philosopher said:

EddieDean said:

This is very much a side thing and way lower priority than anything else, but I’ve also been playing with the idea of turning both Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones into TV-length episodes as a season zero. So essentially this show would emcompass the entirety of the prequel era, as an accessible mixed-media episodic show, that was consistent with (and additive to) canon, but focusing on telling the highest quality coherent story.

The huge advantage of this approach is that chopping into episodes and maintaining my opening text means that I can keep certain plot points offscreen and recontextualise and clarify more of the movie content, and allow us to focus only on the best and most necessary content.

That said, I’d fit all of that around the existing show, rather than the other way around. I don’t want that to be mandatory, and I’d far prefer if my TCW:R allows the viewer to slot in their preferred versions of the movies.

I’ve been wanting someone to do this for a long time. I think it would be good for Revenge of the Sith as well, so you can slot in the final four Clone War episodes in between. I know you are basically doing the opposite with the shows (editing the arcs together) and wouldn’t work since I assume you are doing the same with the final episodes.

I guess I’m not technically going purely for aggregation of arcs so much as “quality of experience”. The main advantage to me of chopping the movies into episodes is that we can avoid difficult scenes by simply covering them in the opening text. Off the top of my head, I might like to do the following:

• Exclude the Gungans from Phantom Menace. The conflict is between the Trade Federation and Naboo, and the stakes are the people of Theed. (The Gungans still exist, and are another nation of Naboo, but they don’t need to feature in this war or this story. I think this bends canon without breaking it, and wouldn’t negatively impact your enjoyment of other media.)
• Start with Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon in Theed. They’re with Jar Jar, who’s one of Naboo’s ambassadors to the Republic so is acting as their local guide, perhaps helping them infiltrate the city using his local knowledge - which I think works, because he ends up as a representative in the Naboo delegation in episodes 2 and 3, we’d just be giving him that role earlier (Obviously you’d still minimise some of his more abrasive traits.)
• We get an EPISODE ONE rescuing Padmé from Theed through to Tattooine, Anakin, the pod race and leaving with him. This would be about 50 minutes.
• In EPISODE TWO, we bring Padmé to Coruscant, then back to Naboo. Cutting the Gungans, we emphasise that the droid army is overwhelming Theed’s defences. The Jedi are focused on the Sith Lord, whilst Anakin realises that the droids can be killed by destroying their control ship, and does that. End on Qui-Gon’s funeral but not the street celebration. This would run to about 40 minutes. Perhaps we can explain somehow that Anakin (with his technical knowledge) has worked out that there’s a control ship.
• In EPISODE THREE, we skip ahead to the start of Attack of the Clones. We reestablish the core characters and focus on the Coruscant content up until both parties leave. We use the opening text to explain more clearly how the Trade Federation attack has formed into the nascent Separatist movement.
• In EPISODE FOUR, we focus purely on Obi-Wan and his investigation of the Clone army through to his capture on Geonosis.
• In EPISODE FIVE, it’s Anakin and Padmé on Naboo and Tattooine.
• In EPISODE SIX, we bring Anakin and Padmé to Geonosis and play the remainder out (except the droid factory).

But like I say, this is far, far away for me, it’s definitely outwith the core goal of this project, so I don’t want to put too much thought into it.

jrs81 said:

Not to put any more projects on your plate, but have you considered doing the Battle of Geonosis with a mix of Battlefront II footage and the end of Attack of the Clones? The end of AOTC is such an early CGI Fest, it feels like an animated show!

I quickly threw this together, but wanted to share this idea with more than words. It is definitely too ambitious for me, but could be interesting…
https://mega.nz/file/g1YWWZpJ#GXh5KSkUzGH2r4SK12oS8qv1p4OvflgbeyehxhA4Nto

I wasn’t planning on including any other sources unless it can be seamless, but in the far far future when I come to consider this additional project, I’ll certainly think through others’ approaches.

vranir said:

2. “But” and “However” are awkward starting sentences right next to each other. If you drop the “However” and start with “They are unaware…” it will read more smoothly.

I’ve had more feedback saying the same, so I will look at this again. I’ll check the Ventress stairs audio too.

Very glad your wife enjoyed the intro though!

CMMAP said:

EddieDean said:

A REQUEST

This is a long way off, but now that I’m planning on incorporating Revenge of the Sith into my show, I’d better review some edited versions. So, if you guys have any recommendations for preferred edits, I’d like to hear them. I’ll gladly chop and change between versions, if necessary. Bear in mind, my priorities will be:

• Adhering to franchise canon as closely as possible (rather than bending to match the OT or PT specifically, for example)
• Compelling narratives (like Hal’s reordering of the events which lead to Anakin’s fall) which bend the plot without breaking it
• Characterisation in line with TCW as much as the PT
• A narrative which fits with TCW and the wider franchise, rather than anything too radical
• Attractive additions and cuts which enhance the enjoyment of the story
• 1080p+ video quality, including incorporated deleted scenes

Happy to review supercuts of ROTS/SOM too, if they’re more than just the two official release versions intercut chronologically.

Thanks in advance!

i´m a little confused: Will you incorporate actual visuals from ROTS into your quality cut?
I would be against that…

I won’t be having mixed media episodes, but your conclusion of this show (and the Clone Wars journey) should either end up as:

VERSION 1

• Seasons 1-4
• Martez Sisters arc
• Bad Batch arc
• Revenge of the Sith movie
• Siege of Mandalore arc

or

VERSION 2

• Seasons 1-4
• Martez Sisters arc
• Bad Batch arc
• Revenge of the Sith / Siege of Mandalore cut into about 5-8 episode-length chunks and put in roughly chronological order (but without mixing RotS/SoM in any given episode)

vranir said:

Well done. My wife is going to start the series with me tonight using this version.

Two tiny nitpicks in the opening crawl, both on the second slide:

1. “the duo” comes so far from the reference to ObiWan and Anakin that it might be better to say “the Jedi.”
2. “But” and “However” are awkward starting sentences right next to each other. If you drop the “However” and start with “They are unaware…” it will read more smoothly.

The only other issue I noticed was a big drop in volume when Ventress jumps up the stairs, which lasts for a few seconds/lines of dialogue before returning to normal.

I’ve just changed the duo to the Jedi, and re-released that episode as v2.2.

I think starting with but, however, and, etc is alright though, so I’ve left that as-is.

By way of giving an update, I’ve been working through s01e02 Malevolence lately, bringing it up to standard. This is one of the very first episodes I produced, and quite a complex one too with all the inter- and intra- scene cutting, so it’s taking a while. I’ll be recreating some parts of this from scratch, now that I’m a better editor, to ensure the most polished result.

After this there aren’t any episodes that need nearly as much work done to them, other than my Ryloth episode, so things after this should speed up significantly.

Doesn’t that one just intercut the two release versions chronologically? I know Mechasalesman/Numeraljoker tends towards being a purist/completist, rather than being interested in restructuring.

A REQUEST

This is a long way off, but now that I’m planning on incorporating Revenge of the Sith into my show, I’d better review some edited versions. So, if you guys have any recommendations for preferred edits, I’d like to hear them. I’ll gladly chop and change between versions, if necessary. Bear in mind, my priorities will be:

• Adhering to franchise canon as closely as possible (rather than bending to match the OT or PT specifically, for example)
• Compelling narratives (like Hal’s reordering of the events which lead to Anakin’s fall) which bend the plot without breaking it
• Characterisation in line with TCW as much as the PT
• A narrative which fits with TCW and the wider franchise, rather than anything too radical
• Attractive additions and cuts which enhance the enjoyment of the story
• 1080p+ video quality, including incorporated deleted scenes

Happy to review supercuts of ROTS/SOM too, if they’re more than just the two official release versions intercut chronologically.

Thanks in advance!

RE-RE-RELEASED - S01E01 - The New Padawan (v2.1)

Notes as above. It’s as painless as I can get this content, as far as I can tell, though I still welcome any further feedback!

I’m rendering v2.1 of s01e01 The New Padawan now.

• I took Vranir’s suggestion to re-merge the Yoda/Yularen scene (but preserved my relocation of it), so we don’t dart around as much and we don’t have an awkward transition where Yularen says “I’ll bring Ahsoka to the surface” then we immediately wipe to that happening.
• I also took Vranir’s suggestion to include a (brief) shot of the Republic fleet engaging the Separatists. Now they announce their arrival, then engage, then announce their victory. The original never had this but it’s a good idea.
• Fixed a couple of audio levels to make dialogue clearer.
• To help a little with the abrupt ending to the fight (mostly unavoidable), I did add dialogue of the battle droids shouting “Retreat!” as the cannons start to fire.
• Smoothed out the end audio transition just a touch.
• Brought all music down and all dialogue audio up. I’ve only spot checked this, but it should be fine throughout.
• I’ve slightly tweaked the intro text to make the tense work with the initial onscreen scenes, and to fix travel time complications.

Addressing some other comments:

• Having thought about it I think opening on the retreat is best. It’s a little drama up front by way of establishing the planet and the isolation.
• Vranir, I also agree with your idea to trim Obi-Wan calling Ventress “my sweet”, but the surrounding dialogue couldn’t make that cut work without it feeling abrupt.
• Djonesed, my only option here to end the episode on was a fade (no focus for an iris), but at least it establishes a behaviour my other episodes will follow.
• CMMAP, the ending of the fight is a little abrupt, you’re right, but this is as it was in the original, and the other fighting shots don’t fit with what needs to happen to conclude it more thoroughly. Hopefully the “Retreat!” line helps a bit, but ultimately there’s that one difficult shot of the hardware still marching forwards, which is unavoidable.

Very well!

Re-re-released - s01e00 - Dark Force Rising (v2.1)

With the reintroduced Yoda narration, and the louder Obi-Wan “Yes”.

I think the version without the obvious ignition works, because she clearly ignites it on the upswing. But I’d still punctuate that version with the beefy PWOMP as she brings it up, in that case, as the current version still feels too subtle.

#releasethebeefypwompcut

I think the dialogue works either way, and as Faraday says, it’s nice to hearken back to her origins, before she takes ownership of her new identity.

That said, I’d like to +1 for KEEPING the nice strong lightsaber ignition sound. It’s OK if it has to move to where we believe the ‘current’ one is (if we think there are now two), but that beefy PWOMP really helps sell the drama in the moment, I think.

No tweaks folks? Good as-is?

How’s this version four of the opening to s00e00 Dark Force Rising?

I think it’s getting closer, but that I maybe want to drop the logo in a little more punctually than this current fade.

That’s SO wonderful. Such a powerful conclusion. I’d maybe slightly boost the volume of the lightsaber activation SFX to give it a little more punch, or make sure that its bass component hits nicely, but the flow and clarity of all of the dialogue is flawless.

Thanks oojason, that’s appreciated. It was good of the mods to give Test another chance, but appropriate to uphold the ban after this disregard.

That said, folks, let’s please not discuss any assumptions about mental health. Test hasn’t offered up that information, and true or not, it’s not our place to say. His action was disregard for our culture, the mods’ action was a ban. That’s sufficient here. We owe each other better than to make assumptions like that, and indeed, to disparage those with mental health issues by doing so. I’m content to just dislike Test for his known actions.

Icecream2448 said:

The old SW movies used clearly flipped shots sometimes. I’ve suggested using this excuse before, but if all else fails… claim it’s a reference!

Yeah, we can get away with a few things this way. SW has a few outdated conventions, which permits us to use them if we need to.

Obvious flips are still fairly problematic, though, especially since people will pore over every frame in a Star Wars movie.

sirlegion13 said:

For Ep00, I essentially agree with exactly what Burbin said. I think option 2 is visually the cleanest way possible to present it, but the abrupt music at the title card is a bit jarring. If that can be somewhat gently faded in, then I think you’re golden.

I’m suprised by this, because I thought people would prefer version 3, where we get the opening scene in the office first. The episode title ‘DARK FORCE RISING’ follows nicely from Palpatine backing Anakin’s strength, and nicely precedes opening again on the imperial march over clone troopers, I thought.

The problem with sticking with option 2 is that I don’t think I have the opportunity to amend the audio here - at least without finding some other more radical solution. I feel like the CLONE WARS logo needs to come in on a pretty meaty audio cue, which probably means sticking with what I have, but the audio which precedes it doesn’t mix nicely with the music of Yoda’s narration, which can’t really be changed as the voice track is the same as the music track.

I have indeed! I was talking about that a couple of pages back. It’s not something I’ll put much thought into until I’ve finished seasons 1-5 properly, but I might consider turning episodes I and II into a season zero of TV-length episodes.

I actually did this before with my Hobbit trilogy-to-TV series edit. Cutting down into TV episodes also would give the advantage of giving more space for opening crawls, which means more opportunities for exposition, which means more ability to cut weaker context and potentially recontextualise without breaking canon. I’d love to get rid of the Naboo battle between Gungans and droids entirely.

I do want TCW:R to be able to fit in completely with normal canon, so that you can still consume any of the existing media without feeling like something’s missing.