EddieDean

MVP right here ^^

Unrelated: I desperately hope at least someone is downloading my episodes, because if Google takes me down and I lose my local drives I’d be devastated!

Haha, I appreciate that! Even a little nod like this that I’m on the right track is really helpful. Since this is such a HUGE project, my biggest concern is that I’ve made some key decision in an episode that the majority don’t like, which therefore turns them off to the whole thing. I don’t want to be losing people along the way and then find that when it’s complete there’re very few who enjoy this work. I’d rather put in a few extra hours (what’s a few hours on top of a thousand?) to bring it back on track if there’s something majorly offputting in here.

sirlegion13 said:

I see any change you make as just you executing your vision for TCW:R.

It’s true, sure, and left to my own devices I’m happy to plow on with my vision even if it’s just for an audience of one (me). But for me, Star Wars is to be shared, and I genuinely want others to be able to enjoy this hulk of a show that they might not have otherwise. So I genuinely care to collaborate with, or at the very least listen to, collective concerns.

I already know that this is a project of stages - the core (first pass), some polish I’ve been ignoring, incorporating more feedback, then stretch goal five extended episodes, stretch goal canon cut, stretch goal complete cut, stretch goal prequel movies, stretch goal music, etc etc. I’ve got to wrestle with fanedit.org at some point, and should probably make a trailer once I’ve hit final core (at least). I might not get all the way but it’s clear to me this is a living project. (Hell, maybe one day I’ll even do the episodes I’m ignoring completely, just for the real lunatics amongst you.)

(The big moment I’m excited for is when the core is finished, and you can watch TCW:R end to end. Because then people will be able to feel the flow, the tension, the character arcs in the way that I think is going to be most rewarding - for the show itself and beyond - and that’s really it’s truest test. Right now you’re just seeing individual scenes from an unfinished movie.)

Anyway, that’s a roundabout way of saying that nothing, not even my vision, is set in stone, and I’m always looking to satisfy the majority - or at least keep as many enjoying this as I can.

…But I digress. ‘No news is good news’ is the attitude I’ll take, and I shall plow on!

I also really enjoyed it for the same reasons, but just reading your thoughts there RogueLeader on the ‘modern mythology’ and catharsis, I had a little thought too-

One thing we forget - as both general Star Wars fans (who are famous for griping about Star Wars) and part of the editing community (who over-analyse everything) - is that these ‘collective stories’ are intended to just be fun. We sometimes get too wrapped up in the minutiae or the imperfections and forget that every one of these movies is a wild fun ride one way or another.

(Edit: And high five for someone else who chose their internet name a million years ago and never expected to wear it this long…)

+1 for improved VFX for all scenes and shots, though I respect that that would be extra work!

Perhaps not a very interesting update here, but I’ve just sorted out the ordering for all of the episodes which fit in my ‘extended’ cut of TCW:R.

As a reminder-

• ‘CORE’ TCW:R, AKA the “Quality Cut”, is the best and necessary content to tell the complete Clone Wars story in the most enjoyable possible way. It’s tonally consistent, balanced, flows well, and minimises weak content. This is the cut I’m completing first, and when finished, I’ll consider the TCW:R project complete. This is the version I recommend everyone watches. On my spreadsheet, this is episodes with their numbers marked in green and red.
• “The Mandalorian Cut” is a trimmed version of that, which focuses JUST on content relevant to the Filoniverse (mainly Ahsoka and the Mauldalore stuff). Its episodes are coloured red. This cut is for people who want to speedrun the Clone Wars.
• There are two bonus cuts which I’ll produce AFTER I finish the quality cut, which include bonus episodes, including extended versions of some popular episodes to bring back popular scenes (albeit ones I think aren’t necessary to the quality cut for whatever reason). The first of these bonus cuts is the “Canon cut” (yellow) which focuses on characters from the wider canon, and the “Complete cut” (blue) which adds in everything but the most awful episodes. These cuts are for people who are more tolerant of lower quality and weaker pacing.

Anyway, back to my point - I’ve worked out what order all the bonus episodes (for the Canon and Complete cuts) should be in, fitting around the flow of my Quality Cut. I’ve done this based on pacing (or storytelling) the following, in order of priority- Ahsoka, Ahsoka-Anakin relationship, Anakin, Maul, Rex’s Loyalty focus, Obi-Wan, Padmé, Ventress, Grievous, Dooku, season length. They’re now quite balanced based on those priorities, or placed in a way that they can add a little value to the surrounding content.

You can check that flow on the third tab (Order working sheet) if you’re interested.

Oh, and one side effect of re-thinking this is that I’ve slightly changed the order of the Ahsoka’s Fall / Maul’s Fall episodes, just to give Maul a little time to breathe, and also to give Ahsoka’s Fall time to breathe before we see the fallout on Scipio.

Question: You’re trimming some Reva, but are her motivations (as a padawan who survived the purge) still intact?

SpenceEdit said:

EddieDean said:

I really didn’t think a movie edit was necessary, but reading through your thought process has absolutely sold me.

Likewise, I didn’t feel like music editing was necessary, but all four of those examples have been brilliant. I especially liked Obi-Wan in the water tunnel, and the Vader fight intro, where the music felt like it matched perfectly.

Thanks! I’m really trying to operate from a “what if this was planned as a movie from the beginning?” sort of viewpoint. It’s not necessarily about cutting things you don’t like or adding things you do like. It’s about what makes it feel like a real movie.

Yeah, exactly. I think the approach you’re taking is a powerful one, letting those ‘movie moments’ hit better. And taking care to pace it like a movie could really elevate the existing content. It sounds like you’re not cutting anything too significant anyway, such that this could serve as a pretty clean replacement either way.

I really didn’t think a movie edit was necessary, but reading through your thought process has absolutely sold me.

Likewise, I didn’t feel like music editing was necessary, but all four of those examples have been brilliant. I especially liked Obi-Wan in the water tunnel, and the Vader fight intro, where the music felt like it matched perfectly.

Thanks very much, it’s always great to hear people are enjoying it. Please do keep detailed feedback coming - it’s been a little light of late and I’m quite dependent on it.

I’m not sure I’ll pick up Rebels any time too soon, since I have many further ideas for TCW:R even after I’ve finished with the core release (which we’re not far from now, in relative terms), but at least there are a couple of other Rebels edits in progress with similar goals.

–

In other news, I’m just wrapping up the Ahsoka arc now. There’s a key moment I’ve tried to heighten in this arc via a decision I made right at the outset of this project regarding credits music choices, which I hope is going to add just that much more punch for fans of TCW:R.

Oh, and I don’t think I mentioned it here yet, but I have permission to use the full CG fan version of the ‘fireside chat’ scene from the deleted episode where Anakin and Obi-Wan discuss the loss of Ahsoka, which’ll find itself in the episode I release next after this upcoming one.

Just to be explicit for the purposes of generating some thought, here’re some of the things that scene communicates:

• They have a fun teasing relationship but Anakin still defers to Obi-Wan’s teaching and wisdom
• Anakin is aggressive and focused on martial victory, and usually wins their duels
• Obi-Wan thinks Anakin’s too aggressive and blinded by a need for victory and to prove himself - he’ll remain a Padawan until he’s past this
• Anakin needs reminding by Obi-Wan that Jedi are defenders
• Obi-Wan’s patient, and resourceful even when apparently losing

Scenes from AOTC which could be relevant to those threads:

• Anakin’s eager to protect Padmé - could be read as needing to prove himself
• Anakin rushes after Zam Wesell when Obi-Wan pursues a smarter approach
• Anakin murders the Tuskens - “Mercy doesn’t defeat the enemy, master”
• Anakin vows to Padmé that he’ll find a way to prevent the deaths of those he loves
• Anakin’s captured by Dooku during his attempted rescue of Obi-Wan
• Geonosis fight
• Anakin rushes into the Dooku fight and is defeated

It’s a really nice idea.

The scene itself has a lot of great character work in just a few lines, and some good visual moments too, like Anakin using some very aggressive moves on Obi-Wan.

The scene naturally fits right at the start of AOTC- the episode with the weakest character work- so placed as our (re)introduction to these characters for this movie it implies a lot about their arcs we’re about to see.

I wonder what elements from this scene would make other moments from the film play a little better? Which strong threads are generated in this scene that we might play up?

It’s slightly noticeable if you’ve really taken in the geography and are looking for it, but absolutely passable, and I think when you’re deep in the flow of the movie you’d really struggle to find any kind of objection to it. I don’t think it could really be done better.

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

I’d vote to skip rather than overdoing it. But, if your pipeline is near-lossless you might be able to render it all twice - once for everything BUT overlay, then a separate project to add film grain?

That sounds really good. Of all the skippable content, it’s very safe to assume that Boba, of all characters, made a competent natural Daimyo.

Miche, you had plenty of opportunity to make it clear you weren’t being prejudiced, and you didn’t take that opportunity. Nobody cares if it was just a minor offence, your attitude is unwelcome. There’s no room for intolerance here.

I want to be careful with this one. Ahsoka’s fall is such an important moment, and in the episode it concludes perfectly. The credits, uniquely for TCW, have a somber tone. I’m just wondering if I can pull off some additional value while we’re being somber, without being cheap.

Thing is, I don’t think it’s right for me to release clips of my ideas. I feel like my ideas can only be properly tested when they come at the end of a full watch-through of the arc, to get the viewer in the right mindset. So I don’t want to spoil it in advance.

I think I have three options, so I’ll go with the middle option, and you guys can let me know if I should tone it up or down based on that.

…

As for the arc itself, it breaks naturally into a duology, since it’s so great it needs only minimal cuts. We’ll end one episode when Ahsoka takes the dive into Coruscant’s underworld, then pick up the next episode when she’s fully on her own.

I’m only making a couple of minor trims. The first is cutting around the scene where a sniffer dog picks up her scent and is ignored by its handler clone (silly!), and the second I can’t remember right now because it’s so minor.

I did consider restructuring the story to add a bit more mystery, but ultimately this story is about Ahsoka’s emotional journey, not the mystery, so I think a softer hand is appropriate.

Question for everyone:

I don’t want to take too many liberties here or deviate too far from what feels like it belongs in a TV show, but without revealing my plans, how much would you like me to break your hearts at the end of the Ahsoka’s Fall episode? I have an idea for a change to my usual end credits, but I’m wondering how creative might be a step too far.

In terms of generating a sad moment, where do you guys want this to fall on the spectrum between ‘simple and reflective’ and ‘emotionally devastating’? I think I’m aiming for ‘as heartbreaking as possible without being self-indulgent’.

RELEASED - S04E05 DELIVERANCE

• RELEASE VERSION.
• Our fifth episode of season four. (Note, this is a slight shift in ordering - I’ve now shifted this to after Ahsoka’s Fall.)
• Comprising the original episode The Lawless.
• 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 the excellent conclusion to the original Mauldalore four parter, only lightly touched.

Noteworthy changes:

• The episode is titled ‘Deliverance’, because many get what’s coming to them.
• The crawl just refreshes us on the Mauldalore situation.
• I removed a brief scene of Palpatine acting suspicious, becuase I don’t like this implication at this point in the chronology.

That’s completely awesome to hear Rogue, I love hearing stuff like this. Your Dad sounds great.

I did want to mention that I think I saw a rogue frame during the scene where Dooku hires the bounty hunters. You may have already noticed that and saving it for your next polish export.

Which episode/rough time was this?

Yup, totally makes sense! I’ll see what my options are.

RogueLeader said:
Yes, the additional Qui-Gon bits totally help increase his presence, and it adds to the sense that he is guiding them through this.

Awesome!

Could you just push that line “Trust in the Force” to the shot of Obi-Wan walking with the Daughter? I think I recall that line not being totally necessary for the previous scene, but it benefits Obi-Wan’s lack of questioning.

I could do! I could move it later, so the conversation goes:
Obi-Wan: “I don’t understand.”
Daughter: “When you reach the altar, it will give you what you need.”
Qui-Gon: “Trust in the force.”
This way, it helps justify Obi-Wan essentially being given a useless response by Daughter, though it doesn’t solve the issue at hand.

I think “Take only what you take with you” line does work, but it might be worth playing with alternatives. Maybe cobble together Anakin saying something like, “What’s there?”

I like this, I’ll give that a crack.

Didn’t notice the secret line! Nice touch, I’m glad I came to a similar conclusion.

Oh, another suggestion! I wonder if you could squeeze in Ahsoka saying, “Master!” when Anakin wakes up.

Yes, this is a good shout, I’ll try to do that.

CaptainFaraday said:

I’ve caught up on this thread now, and I’m so excited to watch your Mortis episode. It’s my favourite episode of TCW, and it honestly sounds like you’ve significantly improved it! I’ve been holding off watching TCWR until it was all completed and I had time to watch it, but maybe now is the time to start slowly watching through them. I’m pretty excited.

Thanks, Faraday! I really hope you enjoy it. If I remember right, you were one of the strong voices in support of me keeping this episode back when I announced plans to remove it, so thank you very much for your encouragement!

RogueLeader said:

Eddie, what you’ve done with this episode is brilliant. Watching it I couldn’t even remember what had been cut. It doesn’t necessarily feel like anything is missing.

Thanks so much! I’m really stoked that you enjoyed it. I was really hoping it would work for you guys.

First, some suggestions…

I’ll look into those.

• I can probably extend the opening out of hyperspace, I’m sure I can find the right audio.
• Likewise I can probably do a little more with the introduction to Daughter/Obi-Wan going to the altar. I deliberately put Qui-Gon’s “Trust in the force” late in the prior scene as if it’s slightly hanging over this one, but I don’t think that quite lands. I’ll see what I can source.
• I’ll also think about a clean introduction for Daughter in her conversation with Son.
• I’m not sure about changing lightsaber colours. I always found “Red=Dark” too on the nose, it’s not part of Star Wars’ original language. The death star laser was green, TIE fighter lasers were green, X-Wing lasers were red, force lightning was blue. It was only Vader’s lightsaber that was red originally, and later other Sith. Even in more modern content it’s not always used - the Nightsisters’ magics are green, for example. So I don’t feel like we always need to use that shorthand. (For the same reason, I wish Son didn’t use red lightning - in fact I’d be more inclined to change that to blue.) I also feel like Ahsoka’s not explicitly Sith here, so much as ‘corrupted by the dark’, which is a subtly different distinction. And I don’t have a problem with Son’s tower being green, for the same reason. That said, I also don’t know how to palette shift a single moving component, so I would be very interested to learn how to do that.
• I agree that the resurrection-to-awakening transition is a little too quick. I’ll see if I can let it breathe a little more.

I also was confused about how exactly you used the fireplace eyes shot of Ahsoka. Could you explain that a little more? I may have just missed it.

This relates to Ahsoka’s vision of her future self. I moved an extreme close-up shot of Ahsoka with fire in her eyes to match the dialogue where future-Ahsoka says “There’s a wildness to you little one. Seeds of the darkside planted by your master.” It’s subtle but cute.

I’m still trying to figure out the secret Qui-Gon line you’re referring to! I thought it might be “control your fear” before he sees his mother, but you mentioned that so I guess it isn’t it. Also, did you add something to that voice? Because at first it almost sounded like the Father. Which would raise some interesting questions. Is this a test from Qui-Gon, or from the Father, and Qui-Gon is simply guiding Anakin through the Father’s test? Or, is this all something Qui-Gon has put together to help them through what’s to come? Or, Qui-Gon just guided them to this place (a place he may have once visited himself) and let the Force take it from there? I may have just misheard the voice thing, but I like the mystery of it all.

Secret answer:

So you’ve kind of come round to the same curious implication via an unintended path! The secret line I’ve added is very subtle - at the very end, when Father says “You are the chosen one”, I had Qui-Gon deliver exactly the same line at the same time, so you’re actually hearing both voices. As if when Father accepts it, Qui-Gon’s getting his confirmation too. Is Qui-Gon the Father? Was Father Qui-Gon’s test made manifest? Is Qui-Gon puppeting this entire scenario? Or is he simply witnessing this as Father does? (As an aside, rather than having Father represent balance, as he more explicitly does in the original, I quite like implying here that he’s simply ‘The Force’, and his children are his aspects - the light side of the force, etc. Then his metaphorical death (which more literally happens when Vader kills Palpatine) is later followed by a movie which explicitly states “The Force (re)Awakens”.)

I don’t think this is what you were referencing, but before Anakin enters the Son’s lair, do you have Qui-Gon say, “Take only what you take with you.”? Kind of awkwardly worded but I think it works. Since to me, Qui-Gon’s not talking about what he’s physically carrying, but what he’s emotionally carrying. And this could imply that the darkness within him is what has corrupted Ahsoka, and not the Son. BUT, if the Son is simply a manifestation of Anakin’s own darkness anyway, it’s one in the same.

Yes, that’s the line. I had “-only what you take with you”, so had to use that line’s “take” twice to make a full sentence. I’d prefer a “bring”. (It maybe could become “Trust only what you take with you”?? Would tie in with the earlier line “Anakin will not be easy to deceive.”) It’s definitely the weakest of the added Qui-Gon lines, but your interpretation is what I was going for. I liked one interpretation that “what you take with you” includes the darkness within Ahsoka, since that comes from Anakin’s influence.

Speaking of which, I’m not sure how you interpreted the dagger metaphor, but I took it like this:

The dagger is a metaphor for self-sacrifice. I don’t think Obi-Wan understands this until he sees the Daughter jump in the way to save her father, and then sacrifice the rest of her life force to save Ahsoka. To me, this foreshadows Obi-Wan eventually sacrificing himself to not only save Luke, but transfer “hope” from himself to Luke. I think this is touched on with the “There is no hope” and “There’s always hope!” lines.

That’s absolutely valid! I think there are a lot of options here. For me-

The dagger is Obi-Wan training Anakin as Qui-Gon would have wanted. If Obi-Wan had done that, Ahsoka wouldn’t have inherited Anakin’s darkness (he first wants to use the dagger to “cut her free”). Then at the point where he throws it to Anakin (attempts to give Anakin the training he needs to overcome his darkness), his darkness (Ahsoka in this scenario, perhaps implying Anakin’s persistent attachment issues) catches it and hands it to the Son, representing Anakin’s full corruption. From therein, it represents Obi-Wan’s failiure and Anakin’s Vader persona - it kills the light, and then the balance, so that Anakin (himself, without the blade, redeemed from the dark) can finally kill the dark. (In the real-world scenario, Ahsoka ultimately managed to escape influencing Anakin to the dark, but his attachment to Padmé was the alternate attachment which still led him astray.)

I do wish there was a way to make it clearer that Obi-Wan is getting something from [the dagger] moment. Like, a close up of him observing what’s happening would be nice, but the only sort of close up is when he is shielding his face from the light. Like when the screen goes white, hear Obi-Wan say, “I… understand”, but that might be too on the nose.

That would be nice, but I think it’s best if our characters don’t fully understand what they’ve seen yet. Obi-Wan still needs to go through his failure and find inner peace before he is able to truly commune with Qui-Gon again. And the characters will still ultimately act out much of what they have seen today - it’s only Ahsoka who manages to sever herself from this implied fate. For example, I deliberately placed the most ‘explanatory’ Qui-Gon lines over Anakin sleeping/waking, so they can be remembered or forgotten by him at the viewer’s discretion.

That’s what I love about what you’ve done with this episode. These interpretations were arguably already there, but now they aren’t bogged down by all the other stuff with them trying to get off the planet and what not.

And I think the question of “Balance” benefits the most from what you’ve done with this episode. With the way it ends, there is clear analogy being made to the morality play the Mortis gods depict, and what Anakin eventually does to bring “balance” as George laid it out.

It’s funny, because I think this edit simultaneously simplifies the message, but also, through vagueness, increases the mystery. I could go on more about what I got from this episode but I’ll stop my long post for now. Great job, Eddie!

Exactly! Many of the metaphors were absolutely as written by George/Dave/Christian Taylor, but muddied by a lack of focus and an unnecessary need to hand the viewer too much. It should have been an episode that had people questioning it for years on forums afterwards, arguing about the interpretation of this or that line or action.

(Though, it is kind of fun trying to work out the “true” interpretation when the real answer is “I cobbled some of this together from nonsense”!)

One question though - how did you find the additional Qui-Gon lines? Ultimately a value-add?

Thanks so much for your analysis!