EddieDean

Episode is close to completion, but it’s had an error in rendering and removed all my audio transitions, so I’ll need to render it again. Should be ready tomorrow morning.

Thank you so much, feedback like that makes it all worth it. I hope you enjoy the rest! ❤️

I’ve just conducted a review of the next episode, our s05e01, covering the Martez Sisters arc. It’s not amazing, but it has some good content regarding the role of the Jedi, and Ahsoka’s development into and beyond the finale. The core of the episode is Ahsoka finding herself, rather than Rafa and Trace Martez, so I’ll try to preserve all the scenes which show Ahsoka doing what a Jedi should. I don’t dislike the Martez sisters as much as some do, but like all things, they should be used here mainly to support the core plotline.

It’s an awkwardly paced quadrilogy, but I think I can do a lot about that.

From the first episode, we can lose a lot. We definitely don’t need the droid action scene - it’s enough to have Ahsoka notice it’s a dangerous droid then have Rafa sell it anyway, to establish the characters. But I might be able to trim more, just focusing on the main introduction to the setting.

The second episode is pretty necessary, as it’s where everything kicks off. It’s not super interesting but it’s almost all important. I would have liked to trim the scene where Trace dumps the spice into space, since it’s such a facepalm, but it’s necessary and I don’t think there’s a way to play it differently.

The third episode is almost all unnecessary. The intros with the torture and prison conversations are good, but then it’s almost entirely action which ends up with them back where they started, so we can skip the lot of it. I can still preserve the Mandalorian scenes, reworking them into other content.

The fourth is mostly necessary. I might trim a little, but the key will just be getting the prison transitions correct so it feels seamless.

I do have an option here to cut more of episode four - Trace and Rafa’s plan to save Ahsoka, and Ahsoka bombing the refinery (and learning a little unnecessary but decent Maul hint), but I think that part is key for Ahsoka’s ‘becoming a wandering Jedi’ storyline.

Should be quite straightforward to edit, either way.

It’s a valid and sensible thought. I spent a while working on the ordering for season one, but I think in this case my current order wins out, because:

1. I wanted to tease out more of an arc to the first season than the original loose anthology feel. Christophsis mentions an emergency that isn’t delivered on in my episode itself (in the original, this was the Hutt baby being kidnapped), so I wanted to follow it up with something I’ve enhanced the emergency nature of - the Malevolence strikes on medical stations
2. It emphasises Ahsoka’s presence as part of the core of this show early, and gives her some nice development while we’re at it
3. It gets us through the worst two episodes quickest

Thank you for your feedback though, please do keep it coming!

(And while I’m posting, I’ll let y’all know I hope to start work on season five this week.)

Thanks! That wasn’t planned in advance but it totally feels right, especially for our season of conspiracy/mystery. I always get a nice kick each time I find a new title that I think highlights the theme better, I like to think it helps the viewer just squeeze that much more value out of the episode by slightly directing their attention.

I’ve broadly been very pleased with all the not-editing elements of this project. No goal runtime, opening text, different music for the intro and outro, concept art on the credits- I think they’ve all been additive in a small way. Increasing the show’s perceived “confidence” in itself was an unwritten goal, because I remember in my original watch-through not being able to trust whether or not a given episode was going to be good or terrible, which made it hard to properly engage and commit.

I love both of these ideas, they feel very legendary/starlight. I see now what you meant about the last shot in Luke’s vision being striking the camera, that does work better for Luke’s shock. And flicking in and out of a fire-enhanced scene works nicely too.

Thanks guys! Doing a whole season in the last two months feels pretty great.

That said, I acknowledge that all of the work on this has been paced very weirdly! So much more time is spent planning than executing, and a lot of editing time is taken up by the intros and outros for each episode. And even with the proper editing of the body content of each episode, a workprint can take no time at all, but then it’s the little explorations and transitions that can take forever. Far more time has been spent on the first two thirds of this series than the last three, though that was always going to be the case with this show. And I know I don’t go back and polish until quite a long time after release, but that’s just how I achieve momentum so I appreciate your patience with that one!

Don’t worry though - I won’t consider this truly complete until every nugget of feedback is processed, and I won’t slow down till then. I really hope at least a few people will give feedback on a full end-to-end viewing.

It’s really exciting to me that I’ll likely have this complete long before the release of the Ahsoka show.

Aha! It’s an interesting concept for sure, and there’re a lot of ways it could be brought to life. I like the idea of the last shot being Kylo stabbing Han, since that wouldn’t be a spoiler in TLJ, and would add a little weight to ‘Luke has a moment’. But there’s definitely a lot of possible content.

Here’s an idea I don’t think I’ve seen here before-

Someone on Youtube has added scenes from the ST to a vision Luke has as he looks within Kylo’s mind during the Rashomon flashback scenes, so that the audience can see the darkness within Kylo that horrified Luke enough for him ignite his lightsaber in reaction:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eg4fZlt197U

I think it works really well, and actually seeing what Luke sees (show, don’t tell) helps the audience understand why Luke considered striking a student.

You could use scenes from all three movies. I’d probably choose the some shots more focused on Kylo than on Sidious, but either way it also adds a layer of irony - played out this way it’s almost like Luke saw a dark future that he feared, but through his fear, he actually brought it to pass.

evansj1983 said:

I just looked and saw your first post was less than two years ago. This is one hell of an accomplishment in that time!

Haha, thank you very much! It is hard sometimes, it’s very full-on. But I want to get this out to you guys. I do look forward to enjoying my other hobbies, though! Once I’ve got season five complete, I’ll be polishing up 2&3 (and probably do a full end-to-end watchthrough/polish pass) and THEN I’ll consider the edit truly complete. But then I’ll still do the additional cuts, albeit at a more relaxed pace.

Right now I keep coming back to the Ahsoka vs Hondo arc, with the Younglings, because the second half of my edit is extremely light on Grievous, and it does show Ahsoka’s competence just before she leaves the order. So that might be the first ‘extra’ I do.

And that’s-

SEASON FOUR COMPLETE, MY DUDES!

RELEASED - S04E10 - THE COSMIC FORCE (v2.0)

• RELEASE VERSION.
• Our tenth and final episode of season four.
• Comprising the original episodes Voices, Destiny, and Sacrifice (the Yoda’s Quest arc).
• Running 51 minutes.
• DOWNLOAD LINK is in the tracker spreadsheet, PM me for access.
• Note: It’s recommended that you download this before watching, rather than streaming it directly from Google Drive.

This is an excellent episode and the original (unintended) season finale of the show.

While fairly heavily restructured, I’ve only really made one significant change - turning the visits to the force-planet and Korriban (“Moraband”) into parts of Yoda’s vision in the Dagobah cave. The vast majority of the content is preserved this way, we just retain more mysticism by keeping these ‘locations’ more ambiguous. Korriban I didn’t have too much problem with being real, but (1) the force-planet beings appear there too, (2) Lots of spiritual stuff including another force vision (which takes Yoda to yet another place) happens there, and (3) the scenes back on Dagobah made a better bookend to the arc.

As I say though, all of the key beats are preserved, and any important mystical dialogue from a cut scene has found its way into another natural location.

Noteworthy changes:

• The episode is titled ‘The Cosmic Force’. I didn’t intend this when I edited Mortis into ‘The Living Force’, but the two do make a natural pairing, and where Mortis’ beings are metaphors for the material world, Yoda’s story is more purely spiritual, so it fits nicely.
• The episode is placed here as we’re pretty much just locked in to release order now. I’ve split it from the first episode of the original four-part arc because it does stand alone, and to let us pace the Mauldalore content around it.
• I use the crawl to link us back to the current knowledge of Dooku being behind the clone army (now that we’ve spent an episode away following the Mauldalore plot).
• From the first episode, I just trimmed the reference to Mortis by name, since it no longer appears in my edit.
• From the first and second episodes, I trimmed two references to midichlorians, just for those who prefer them not mentioned.
• I transitioned from the force cave on Dagobah to Yoda waking up on the force-planet, skipping him travelling there materially and his first dialogue with the force-planet beings. I preserved the dark Yoda fight, and improved an existing poor transition (probably for a commercial break).
• After Yoda has the vision of tranquility, and is struck by Dooku, I instead cut to Dooku instead of Yoda, showing that he may have felt that moment - treating this as the triggering incident which Sidious exploits. This wasn’t strictly necessary, but I think it was a neat addition.
• I removed the final scene of the force-planet beings congratulating Yoda on the force-planet (though moved their important dialogue elsewhere), and removed the flight to Korriban. I also removed the snake made of snakes and the Sith cultists, mainly because they’re not so important, but also because, as this episode makes clear, life after death is not a Sith thing. It also would have left me with an awkward transition.
• Yoda then awakens (after being struck by tranquil Dooku) on Korriban. I would have changed the dialogue from calling it ‘Moraband’ into Korriban, though ultimately I took out the references. It’s still Korriban, sure, but it’s also mostly a vision for Yoda, so it’s up to you how you headcanon this.
• Yoda still encounters Darth Bane, since as he says, Bane is an illusion, not someone alive after death. Plus, it’s cool. I then skip over him encountering the force-planet beings again, though I use some of their dialogue over his meditation on Korriban, implying that they’re more manifest in their own ‘domain’, whatever that means.
• The plot then continues as before, with Sidious and Dooku setting the spirit-world trap, Sifo-Dyas, and Yoda and Anakin fighting Sidious on Coruscant.
• Now though, as Yoda sort-of wins the fight, and struggles with the Sidious cloak and falls, do the force-planet beings’ voices tell him about balance, and “there is another skywalker”.
• Yoda emerges from the Dagobah cave (from the first episode of the arc), which works nicely here too as he’s talking about how powerful Sidious is.
• As a bonus bit of fun here, I realised I had the force-planet beings saying “Yoda, come back to us Yoda” as a bit of spare dialogue, which is said exactly word-for-word by Qui-Gon as Yoda emerges. So I overlaid the two, just like I overlaid Qui-Gon and The Father saying “He is the chosen one” back in my Mortis episode. Why? Why not! Read into it whatever you like. I kinda like the implication that all of these beings exist within the cosmic force, so there’s overlap of identities.
• Qui-Gon escorts Yoda back to his ship, and I changed the dialogue there so he tells R2 “we’re going home”, but I kept the line about how their journey’s just begun, because now it takes a new meaning as a spiritual journey.
• We end on the original final scene of the arc, with Yoda talking to Obi-Wan and Mace in the temple garden.

Onwards to another episode which I should be able to turn around quickly.

Working on Yoda’s Quest now. The original plays out as follows:

• Yoda follows Qui-Gon’s guidance to Dagobah
• Yoda enters the Dagobah cave, where he sees a vision of future turmoil
• Yoda awakens on Dagobah, then sets out for the force planet
• On the force planet, Yoda meets the force-emotion people, fights dark Yoda, then has a vision of tranquility, which ends with Dooku striking him
• Yoda awakens on the force planet, then sets out for Korriban
• On Korriban, Yoda meets an illusion of Darth Bane
• CUT AWAY TO Sidious and Dooku discussing an ‘opportunity’ to attack Yoda spiritually
• On Korriban, Yoda goes deeper, then is drawn into a spiritual conflict with Sidious and Dooku
• Yoda awakens on Korriban, then returns to the Jedi temple

Like with Mortis, I’m not a big fan of being able to materially travel to spiritual locations, so I’d like at least to replace Yoda waking on Dagobah with Yoda waking within the force planet (there’s a perfect shot for this, and it skips his initial discussion with the force-emotion people, while keeping them present and more mysterious).

But then I have two options - Yoda can either awaken from the force planet ‘vision’ (when struck by Dooku) on Dagobah, then fly to Korriban for real, or the Korriban section can remain a vision also.

The advantage of having the Korriban sequence also be part of Yoda’s vision is that I can place the scene of Sidious and Dooku spotting an ‘opportunity’ earlier, so that the ‘tranquility’ Dooku’s strike is what draws him into the Korriban section of his journey. That’d work nicely, as there’s also a useful ‘Yoda opens his eyes on Korriban’ shot.

But the disadvantage there would be the (loose) implication that Sidious can access Yoda when he’s doing spiritual stuff in the Dagobah cave.

Actually, writing that, I’ve realised it’s moot - Sidious needs the Dooku connection (a drop of his blood) to intervene in Yoda’s quest, which he doesn’t have after the Clone Wars. No conflict. I think that’s better.

Woop! I’d love a link to the finished version with the commentary track please!

(SORT OF) RELEASED - S04E09 - SON OF DATHOMIR

• AVAILABLE NOW.
• Our ninth episode of season four.
• Comprising an audio comic version of the canonical Darth Maul: Son of Dathomir comic, created by Audio Comics and The Lore Master on Youtube.
• Running 41 minutes.
• Viewable on Youtube, but its link, and a link to a tool which can DOWNLOAD it, are in the tracker spreadsheet, PM me for access.
• LEGAL NOTE: The Youtube channel providing this fan video asks you to support the original release.

Not technically an EddieDean release, because I’m just pointing you to the appropriate video on Youtube.

This is a very important episode, that many will have overlooked. It’s a canon story, intended as a Clone Wars episode, but released as a comic instead after the Clone Wars got originally cancelled.

It is a vital and exciting step in the Mauldalore plotline, taking us from Maul’s capture to his location in the series finale, as we learn why Sidious chose to spare Maul, and we see the conclusion of Mother Talzin’s presence in the Clone Wars. Plus there’s Mandalorians, jetpacks, and lots of villain-on-villain action. It’s great.

Audio Comics and The Lore Master on Youtube have adapted the material from its original comic format into what they call an ‘Audio Comic’, turning it into fully voice acted visual story, dynamically showing the panels from the comic and including Star Wars sound effects and music, to give us the most accessible and enjoyable version of this canon story. They do this for almost every Star Wars comic out there, and it’s incredible work.

Though it’s a non-commercial fan release, I did ask for permission to include it in my edit, though they didn’t reply. This is fairly moot, however, because I’ve been unable to access the file in my editing software, so have been unable to give it the usual TCW:R trappings. Since the episode is freely available online, I’ve decided to skip trying to fix that right now, and instead chosen to focus on the next episodes. I’ll see what I can do about this sometime in the future.

Onwards to our season four finale, Yoda’s Quest!

RELEASED - S04E08 - THE LEGACY OF SIFO-DYAS (v2.0)

• RELEASE VERSION.
• Our eighth episode of season four.
• Comprising the original episodes The Unknown, Conspiracy, Fugitive, and Orders (the Order 66 arc).
• Running 24 minutes.
• DOWNLOAD LINK is in the tracker spreadsheet, PM me for access.
• Note: It’s recommended that you download this before watching, rather than streaming it directly from Google Drive.

This is a simple edit to The Lost One, which is normally treated as the first episode of the four-part Yoda’s Quest arc, but stands alone so I’m treating it as its own episode here.

Noteworthy changes:

• The episode is titled ‘The Legacy of Sifo-Dyas’, for the intrigue of finally learning more about him.
• The episode is placed here as we’re pretty much just locked in to release order now. I’ve split it from the rest of Yoda’s quest because it does stand alone (with quite a solid conclusion that doesn’t transition cleanly into that arc’s second episode), and to let us pace the Mauldalore content around it.
• I use the crawl to tie it just a little more explicitly to the preceding Order 66 arc, and to help explain Dooku’s later appearance, which is necessary because-
• As usual, I’m removing a scene which links Sidious to Palpatine, which was originally used to bring Dooku into play.

Onwards to another episode which I should be able to turn around quickly.

Fullmetaled said:

EddieDean said:

It’s not something that registered to me as a major issue that needs fixing, and I don’t have any knowledge about how to do it, but I’d incorporate clean alternate voice lines if anyone did the work to produce them.

The reason I was hoping it was possible was because Tim curry feels badly miscasted as palpatine his tone is right but the voice takes me out because I don’t hear palpatine I hear Tim curry.

I get it; I just never registered it as being too noticeably different myself. It’s not something I have the skills for, but as I say, I’m happy to include it if given replacement lines.

Man, I’m really nearing the end now. I count a maximum of nine episodes I need to make - perhaps ten if I add an optional full-length Siege of Mandalore - but only three of those require any real work. I should get two of those done this week, then the final one of season four hopefully two weeks later.

I still need to go back and polish a few episodes round the middle of my series, and respond to a couple of elements of feedback on the more recent episodes, but it’s awesome to feel so close to completion.

Just gauging interest - once I’m done, would anyone like to watch through this together over a period of weeks? I could either do it live so we could chat (round 8:30pm UK time, which is 3:30pm Eastern USA) or just make a regular post here to give us something to orbit around? Might be nice to do in the run-up to the Ahsoka show.

RELEASED - S04E07 - THE RENEGADE (v2.0)

• RELEASE VERSION.
• Our seventh episode of season four.
• Comprising the original episodes The Unknown, Conspiracy, Fugitive, and Orders (the Order 66 arc).
• Running 54 minutes.
• DOWNLOAD LINK is in the tracker spreadsheet, PM me for access.
• Note: It’s recommended that you download this before watching, rather than streaming it directly from Google Drive.

This is the full Order 66 arc, which is a quite popular arc involving the investigation of a clone whose Order 66 protocol triggered early. I’m using this episode as season four’s ‘Clones vs Loyalty’ plot, which I’ve been putting one of in each season so far. (Usually they focus on Rex, whereas this one focuses on Fives, but Rex gets the message at the end and that leads into his actions in the series finale.) It’s fairly decent, but there are two main issues I sought to address:

Firstly, it’s written as a mystery story, presenting its main character (Fives) with many different possible answers - brainwashing, a virus, a tumour, the Jedi, the Kaminoans, etc - but within the first ten minutes of the original arc the mystery is spoiled for the audience by a cutaway that has the bad guys behind it all discussing exactly what it is. This takes a load of momentum out of the story. I’ve remedied this by removing all cutaways to villains explaining the plot, unless they’re acting non-villainous and just discussing the mystery as a mystery. This way, we only learn what Fives knows and what others propose as possibilities (plus the possibility that it’s innocent and Fives is also suffering a similar affliction), so it’s a mystery for the audience too. Only at the very end, after the plot is concluded, do the audience get to see that the Sith believe they’ve caught the Republic in a trap - which hangs over the series from there.

Secondly, there were a lot of unnecessary tangents, which took more momentum out. Tup is captured but then saved, Fives goes in and out of Tup’s room a lot, Fives gets captured and escapes, Fives leaves Tipoca city and returns - all of it just took away from the excitement of the investigation and his attempt to get what he learns to someone he trusts.

Now, the pacing is tight, the investigation is in focus, and the energy is high.

Noteworthy changes:

• The episode is titled ‘The Renegade’, a term used to describe Fives in the episode (and also potentially a misdirect for Tup early on), plus it sounds cool, and it also serves to remind us that the clones can act individually, a plot point which continues to be relevant through to the conclusion.
• The episode is placed here as it’s just a natural place for it - after losing Ahsoka and dealing with the fallout, and reminding the audience of the state of the war in the Scipio arc, the show now starts to focus much more deeply on the mysteries of the Clone Wars and the continued threat of Mauldalore.
• I use the crawl to emphasise the relationship/trust between Jedi and clones, the individuality of many in the 501st, and to lightly set up the opening scene and this episode’s theme.
• From The Unknown, I removed the scenes of Admiral Trench reporting Tup’s killing of Tiplar to Dooku. (It probably still happened offscreen, but the audience shouldn’t see it.)
• I also removed the entire second half, where Tup gets captured by Trench then rescued. Now, when the clones say they’ll take him to Kamino, we transition right there.
• From Conspiracy, I streamlined a lot. Fives’ three conversations with AZI-3 have become just one, covering most of the same beats, though with a little less of AZI-3’s goofiness (here and throughout the edit). Fives’ initial motivation for wanting to run the brain scan on Tup came a little out of left field initially - we rejoined a conversation halfway through - so in this instance I’ve had it appear more that he’s frustrated with AZI-3 for not ensuring his medical opinion got actioned to save his friend, with the escalation for Fives only coming when he hears that Nala Se wants to terminate Tup.
• I’ve shifted a few scenes around to avoid a lot of redundant repeated dialogue (the arc has a lot of cases where two people will discuss something, then one of them will go and discuss the same thing with someone else). The scene where Shaak Ti reports to the Jedi carried all of the information about the mystery and characters’ intentions, so that’s the one I kept, placed a little earlier.
• We still see Nala Se and Lama Su attempt to terminate Tup (as the audience were told was their plan when Shaak Ti reported to the Jedi), but now without knowing that they side with the Separatists, this can be read as either their legitimate medical opinion, or them seeking to protect their corporate secrets/reputation (we know from an earlier arc that they’re at least a little corrupt in a capitalist way).
• To remove Fives getting captured, escaping, leaving Kamino, and returning, I cut his capture from Tup’s death scene. That scene now transitions into a time-of-day change re-estabilshing shot, to imply time has passed. I shifted the scenes of Shaak Ti realising the alarm was in the medical bay to just before that scene, plus the scene of her later getting a report that nobody’s escaped the planet to after the time-shift, to help sell time passing. (This gives Fives time to get away from the medical bay and lost in Tipoca city.) We then rejoin Fives as he acquires a disguise, ready to investigate this further.
• As a note, the above also lets us remove the idea that Fives is going to be mind-wiped. Mind-wiped? Do Kaminoans have that technology? Feels a bit out of left field.
• From Fugitive, it’s mostly just trims for pacing and to remove a few cutaways to villains. As a note, now that we don’t know who’s behind all this, when Fives realises that a Jedi ordered the clone army, that moment hits harder and puts more suspicion on the Jedi/Shaak Ti.
• Most of Orders is intact. The main change was removing Fives telling benevolent characters that the conspiracy goes ‘all the way to the top’, because that would give the Jedi and Anakin reasons to distrust the Chancellor, which I think is just one little step too far, for obvious reasons. It’s still implied that the conspiracy goes very high, though.
• I also trimmed a shot of the flying whales, the redundant taxi driver conversation, a little of other clones hunting for Fives while he’s at the clone bar (though they’re still seen and searching), and Palpatine being a little too sinister in a couple of scenes.
• I merged the final scene of Dooku talking to Shaak Ti (from his perspective) with another of their conversations (from hers), to give more exposition to the audience (and in particular remind us that the creativity in the 501st clones is a slight risk to the Order 66 plans, which is relevant in the series finale). Now it’s finally clear that Nala Se has been working all along to cover this up on behalf of the Separatists, and ultimately succeeded. Dooku’s happy, Sidious is happy, the Republic is in jeopardy.

I’d appreciate reviews of this one, as it has a lot of moving parts.

Onwards to the Sifo-Dyas episode, which only needs one cut so should be a quick turnaround.

WHAT?!

I CAN’T HEAR YOU OVER THE SOUND OF THE COMMENTARY TRACK! CAN YOU PLEASE RE-UPLOAD ONE WITH LOWER VOLUME LEVELS?

It’s not something that registered to me as a major issue that needs fixing, and I don’t have any knowledge about how to do it, but I’d incorporate clean alternate voice lines if anyone did the work to produce them.

Right, it’s complete, save for the usual trimmings, but I need to stop there for tonight. I should get it finished tomorrow.

Awesome, hope you enjoy and feed back!

I’ve seen that clip, I don’t expect to use it though, mostly because I won’t have a place in the narrative for it. But if one becomes apparent, then sure!

I’m rendering a workprint of the Order 66 arc now, so I can check over how the complete new narrative plays out.

My issue with the original finally clicked too - it’s inherently a mystery story, but with no mystery. It’s a 90 minute arc, but where ten minutes in you see the bad guys who are behind it discussing exactly how they’re involved, so there’s no mystery for the audience whatsoever. It’s not fun to watch a character spend 80 minutes catching up to what the audience already knows. (I mean, you could argue that about a prequel series, but that’s not the point! 😉)

Anyway, the entire plot now plays out in pretty much the exact same structure, we just focus on Fives’ perspective so the mystery can unfold for the audience in real time. I did some good condensing work on the second episode too, merging three scenes of Fives in his medical room to just one. That was tricky, as I had to keep the placement of the characters consistent.

Hopefully have this finished today, or tomorrow at the latest.

I’m also planning on checking out a slightly different re-ordering in seasons two and three, with the main goal being to have Maul as an active threat to the galaxy for longer, to slightly pace him better, and to give Ahsoka just a little break in a string of more traumatic experiences.

I’m not quite ready to announce that change formally, as I need to watch it through myself first to see if I need to change any references, but the second tab of my spreadsheet (titled “Ordering working sheet”) shows the planned new ordering, with moved episodes having the letter ‘m’ after their episode number. If anyone’s curious, that is.

We’re nearing the endgame so I’d really like the full end-to-end show to be ready for those who’ll pick it up then.

Really pleased with today’s progress on the Order 66 arc.

Since I was able to remove Fives getting captured from the scene where Tup dies, I’ve got the final two episodes - the second half - down to bang on 30 minutes. I don’t care too much about the length, but really what that trim means is that I’ve been able to keep the pacing of the investigation plot high, so the audience’s focus gets to stay on the intrigue. Fives’ investigation is fully intact, as is most of his tense attempt to get the message to someone he trusts on Coruscant.

I’ve done more in that section to keep the mystery a secret for the viewer. Originally, the audience know from quite early on that Nala Se is in league with the Separatists, and that the Separatists are behind everything. Instead, I’ve kept that offscreen, so that the audience knows only as much as Fives does, so the mystery is higher. Nala Se acts in a way that’s totally valid as someone who wants to cover up a potentially costly mistake, until the very end, where I’ve merged her earlier call with Dooku with her later call with Dooku to have her revealed as a co-conspirator only after Fives is dead, leaving the secret buried (and hanging over the series).

This way, we get the added bonus of discovering that the Jedi may be behind it at the same time as Fives, and having that as a valid supposition for the audience too - we know, after all, that a Jedi ordered the army. This makes Shaak Ti seem a little suspicious too, as the Kaminoan correspondent and the one who brings him to Palpatine before the Jedi.

Until the end, anyone could be responsible - including the possibility that Fives is simply wrong and that the chips (while secretive) are benevolent, and it was indeed a virus causing his and Tup’s erratic behaviour. The tension feels a lot higher like this, and it flows well. There’s a conspiracy without a known conspirator, that gives us momentum all the way through until it gets covered up, and then we learn it’s a worst-case scenario where Sidious behind it all and that it’s some sort of long-planned trap for the Republic.

I also trimmed a shot of the flying whales, the redundant taxi driver conversation, a little of other clones hunting for Fives while he’s at the clone bar (though they’re still seen and searching), and Palpatine being a little too sinister. I also took out a few lines where Fives references Palpatine or says that this goes “to the very top” (though it’s still clear that this is a conspiracy at a very high level) - we just get a bit more plausible deniability from our main characters if Palpatine hasn’t been directly implicated.

I think I’m calling this episode Good Clones Follow Orders, but as usual, I’m open to suggestions.