EddieDean

Ice said:

A spelling mistake (“Opnion”) in The Enemy Within intro text

Dang it! Thanks!

Maybe I’ll call it “Maul and Obi-Wan Coda: Old Wounds”.

I don’t think it needs my two minute intro with blue text. There’s a nice Maul moment cold open then we’ll replace the Rebels logo with the coda title, then into the body of the short episode. Viewers can work out its placement from Obi-Wan’s hair colour, and imply that Maul on the run has finally made his way to Obi-Wan after years of searching. (We’ll ignore his extra appearances in Solo and Rebels, as they’re not relevant to this capper to the Clone Wars). I’ll only give it basic end credits too.

I’ve also just decided that I’ll release a single short (~5 min) episode to follow the entire TCW:R, titled CODA: Maul and Obi-Wan, showing their final confrontation from Rebels (and only the surrounding content that immediately supports that). It’s a very important piece of outstanding canon for those who don’t plan to watch that show.

RELEASED - S04E03 THE ENEMY WITHIN - & - S04E04 THE FORSAKEN (V2.0)

• RELEASE VERSIONS.
• Our third and fourth episode of season four. (Note, this is a slight shift in ordering - I’ve now put the Maul episode that was s04e03 after this duology.)
• Enemy Within comprising the original episodes Sabotage and The Jedi Who Knew Too Much, running 45 minutes.
• The Forsaken comprising the original episodes To Catch a Jedi and The Wrong Jedi, running 45 minutes.
• DOWNLOAD LINKS are in the tracker spreadsheet, PM me for access.
• Note: It’s recommended that you download these before watching, rather than streaming them directly from Google Drive.

This is the excellent Ahsoka’s Fall arc, with the original quadrilogy cut into two equal halves, split around the moment she drops into Coruscant’s underbelly (the original end of the second episode).

Noteworthy changes:

• The first part is titled ‘The Enemy Within’, ostensibly talking about how the Trade Federation are attacking Cato Neimoidia (as the crawl makes clear), but then of course referring to both the temple bombing, and the threats from within the Republic, plus lightly Ahsoka’s doubts explored in this arc.
• The second part is titled ‘The Forsaken’, again ostensibly referencing Ahsoka at this moment, but also applicable to Ventress, the people in Coruscant’s underbelly, and ultimately the Jedi for Ahsoka.
• I cut the moment where a sniffer dog catches Ahsoka’s scent but its clone ignores it - the entire purpose of a sniffer dog owner is to trust what they’re telling you!
• I cut Ventress spotting the Loth-cat with Ahsoka’s shadow. It’s a cute moment but I don’t think it fits the tone of the episode. Ventress still hears a noise and tenses, but doesn’t see anything (she just hears an animal squeak).
• I cut the scene of Anakin reporting to the Jedi that he’s caught Ahsoka (while he’s escorting her back), to let me bridge the two episodes better. That scene was wrap-up to give its episode a punctual finish, now not required. The gist of it is echoed immediately after anyway, at what was the start of the next episode.
• I cut the line where Barris says that red lightsabers suit her. I think it takes away from her a little - she’s not gone Sith, she doesn’t think of herself as evil, it’s more that she’s an objector to the war gone radical.
• A slight variation to the last episode’s end credits, just to see if I can break your hearts a little more.

Interested to know what you guys think of the ordering of the first five episodes this season.

Onwards to Scipio, and Anakin dealing with the fallout of this episode.

Also, if you’re reading this message not long after I posted it, I’d appreciate if you’d check my previous post for a sense check!

Sense check please!

I’ve made a major update to the spreadsheet, trying to make it absolutely clear for people which episodes to watch based on their preferences. There’s a new set of content at the top left to this effect. Can you guys please sense-check it and see if it clarifies things?

(Right now it just distinguishes usefully between Core and Filoni-only episodes, but this’ll be more useful once I plug in the ‘bonus’ ones.)

Also, are you guys able to sort the table yourselves? If so, try sorting by episode number!

That’s a huge relief guys, thanks!

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’.