EddieDean

RELEASED - S04E02 - The Living Force (V2.0)

• RELEASE VERSION.
• Our second episode of season four.
• Comprising the original episodes Overlords, Altar of Mortis, and Ghosts of Mortis
• Running 31 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 radical edit of the Mortis trilogy.

I recommend that you watch this episode without reading the following description at all. It is better experienced completely fresh, free from expectation.

…

I had a few major issues with the original story that I wanted to completely change. I felt that the arc was way too explicit about what the Mortis Gods were - real people with real powers that could threaten the Galaxy - whilst also having them be the most on-the-nose, blunt, heavy-handed metaphors for the Force. You can’t have it both ways, because the material conflict is cheapened if the spiritual/metaphorical world can have this level of influence.

Similarly, the planet they’re on seemed to struggle with the same dichotomy: It’s both a real planet in real space and a force nexus with shifting geography and seasons, and it’s inside a space pyramid, and the things that happen there can affect the Galaxy, and they ride around the magical planet on mundane speeder bikes. Again, pick a lane.

I also objected to some major sequences. Having Anakin demonstrate that he’s the literal balance by overpowering the literal lightside and literal darkside was many steps too far for me, and showing Anakin (and the audience) his future (including the destruction of Alderaan and the Vader mask) was both again way too overt, and in the story quite worthless as he literally gets that memory taken away. Likewise, the plot of the Son actually wanting to escape makes uncomfortable implications to the canon, and goes nowhere.

Anyway, I have sought to remedy these things aggressively. If we have to choose what the Mortis Gods are, then like other visions in the canon, they are tests, trials, messages, visions, metaphors, lessons, dream-speak from the Force. Mortis cannot be a real space - it is a dreamscape or vision quest within a force nexus, like the Dagobah cave.

But let’s talk about what’s good in the original episodes! There are some great visions, conversations with ghosts, and mystical nonsense. They all stay. The arc’s most important addition to the canon is Ahsoka’s final interaction with the Daughter, since in future media (including the Mandalorian) she’s sometimes accompanied by Morai.

That element, of Ahsoka and Daughter, drove the shape of the rest of the content and conclusion. It requires that we see the conflict between the Family and the others, so I retained all of the major beats of that conflict.

The major change required to make all of the above work, which affected almost every scene and conversation, was to turn the entirety of the plot into essentially an extended, shared, Dagobah cave vision sequence. The Mortis Gods have been stripped of almost all agency - they are now metaphors made manifest within the dreamscape, like Luke in Vader’s mask from ESB. They exist as guides and trials - until the third act conflict, which empowers them, making them mirrors of our main characters and the forces that surround them. They essentially then grow into performers of a morality play, showing our characters what their actions will cause on the Galactic stage if allowed to play out. The story then, at least, has a full dreamlike narrative - even if not a literal, perfectly logical one.

Oh, and having Qui-Gon’s ghost appear in this arc gave me a lot I could play up - skip the next section if you want more suprises.

Noteworthy changes:

• Regarding placement, this episode feels like it belongs late in the series, at the time of mystery and darkness. Placed here, with the Ahsoka content, it leads very nicely into the next Ahsoka-focused episode (Ahsoka’s Fall, which will also hopefully be made more meaningful with my plans for the following Scipio arc.)
• The episode is titled ‘The Living Force’, for the Qui-Gon connection and because it’s a great pun. It’s also a gentle jab at how ham-fisted and clumsy the original arc was, which I can’t resist.
• The opening crawl reminds us of the Chosen One prophecy (which I’m not a fan of, but this episode is all about that so we might as well lean in), and Qui-Gon’s position as an outsider Jedi and supporter of Anakin. We then recontextualise the original distress signal as explicitly Qui-Gon’s, because I’m heavily playing up his involvement.
• Speaking of which, Qui-Gon is all over this. I got extremely lucky with a bunch of lines from a vision of child Anakin and Qui-Gon from the Tartakovsky miniseries (which I’m not otherwise using in my edit of this show or that one). The lines fit perfectly in a good number of places, and I’ve used them to have Qui-Gon more explicitly involved in the plot, perhaps as its instigator. There’s also a secret Qui-Gon line which I’d be interested to know if anyone spots, with a fun bonus implication.
• References to the planet as a real place have been minimised, to keep it dreamlike. Through the scenes I’ve chosen to cut, there’s now no time spent flying, crashing, or repairing the ship, or riding around on speeder bikes, to also keep it dreamlike.
• Dialogue implying that the Mortis Gods have their own agency have been minimised (until they start to reflect our characters), to also also keep them dreamlike. They almost never talk amongst themselves when our main characters aren’t there.
• Main characters notice the weirdness but question it a lot less, also like a dream.
• Mortis Gods give our main characters far more ambiguous explanations for things. I made certain that there’s a valid metaphorical interpretation for every line of Mortis God dialogue - so like with David Lynch, everything “makes sense” whether the audience understands it or not.
• Before coming to the planet, Anakin has a dream of meeting the Son, to cement him and his conflict with the Dark as the central character and conflict of this story (and because that scene has explicitly dreamlike VFX).
• They are taken to the ‘planet’ via white light instead of seeing the space diamond.
• Reordered some of the visions, mainly for flow and a little extra tension. Anakin’s mother isn’t the Son, that’s left ambiguous (like Han in TROS), though I use some Qui-Gon dialogue to imply it’s an important test/message.
• I removed the scene of Son-gremlin biting Ahsoka to turn her dark - instead she goes dark after the warning from her future self in her vision, and I used a gorgeous shot of her with fire in her eyes to help sell this transition.
• Using the scene where Daughter and Son in beast forms grab Obi-Wan and Ahsoka, we bypass some unwanted content to get Obi-Wan and Daughter to the dagger (which has a valid metaphor that works for how it’s wielded in this episode if you look closely!) and get Ahsoka and Son to the top of Son’s tower for Anakin’s trial.
• I used the scene of Qui-Gon (in ghost form) talking to Anakin to guide him to Son’s tower, instead of to the well of the dark side.
• I quite heavily recut the conflict between Anakin/Ahsoka and Daughter/Son to imply that D/S are empowered by A/A’s conflict. Now, as each of the ‘real’ characters act, their mirror characters act in a similar way, with growing intensity.
• We transition from Anakin using Daughter’s life force on Ahsoka into Anakin waking up at Father’s temple. (Father’s dialogue helps this work just fine.) I’ve had to trim a little of the emotional response to Ahsoka’s resurrection out of necessity, but hey, it’s all a dream now so we don’t need to linger.
• Removed: Anakin isn’t challenged by Father to choose light versus dark (his other actions during this episode prove he’s the Chosen One). He’s not expected to remain on Mortis. The main characters don’t leave, Ahsoka doesn’t get captured, and they don’t return and crash-land then have to repair the ship. Son doesn’t plot to kill Father, and Father doesn’t mourn Daughter for long (they’re not real people!) Son doesn’t show Anakin his future nor does Anakin turn dark before having his memory erased. Son doesn’t want to leave Mortis.
• I hope you like it when the screen fades to white and then a character wakes up confused, because the original did that twice and I’ve added two more!

Anyway, this was an absolute blast to produce. I really disliked the original episode but I think I’ve managed to make something I really enjoy, which hits all of the core beats in a completely new way that feels like it fits a lot better with the canon. I hope you all enjoy it too!

Onward to another great Maul episode, where shit goes DOWN.

Oh MAN you guys, the Mortis episode is rendering now! I’m SO excited to share this one! This one was so much fun to make.

See if you can guess the new title. (It’s not ‘At the Crossroads’, my original idea.) It’s both perfectly fitting and a great pun.

CMMAP said:

EddieDean said:

Here’s another little clip from the episode Mortis: Oops! All dream-speak!

I laughed hard at the rhym 😄 Well done.

Right?! And it’s a good metaphor too. Is he talking about tonight on his weird planet, or in the galaxy as a whole? I’ve kept a lot of dialogue that has dual meanings like that.

RogueLeader said:

Eddie, are music and dialogue pretty separate in the audio tracks? I’m guessing they must be if you’re able to rearrange dialogue fairly well. I’m curious if this would make restoring also feasible (you may have done this already in past episodes and I’ve forgotten/missed it).

Yep, aside from a couple of earlier episodes it’s all nice and separate. Often with echoes there’s residual voice in the other channels, but it’s rare enough.

Rescoring is totally feasible. I’ve done it lightly in a couple of places. Doing it in a major way is something I considered, though it would triple the time it takes me to complete each episode. It’s definitely something I’d consider when I’m all done, or if someone else wanted to experiment I’d be interested.

Good progress on Mortis today!

It all feels good when executed as planned in my previous big post - removing explanations allows it to flow naturally with its own dreamlike logic even without being too clear about what’s going on. While light and dark characters remain clear, the father appears more of a passive guide who resides in a way station than a metaphor for balance.

• I’ve changed more dialogue than I was expecting, to decent effect I feel. Most visions and interactions with the Family are changed to some degree, and I think their conversations are nice and meaningful without being explicit.
• I’ve reordered the early set of visions. Now, Qui-Gon warns Obi-Wan that Anakin needs to find the balance before he encounters Father (and gets sent to bed). And then, Ahsoka meets Ahsoka, waking up fearing for Anakin, before we return to Anakin’s encounter with his mother. It just flows a bit more nicely than the originals.
• I’ve used Anakin’s meeting with Qui-Gon later, to lead Anakin to the ‘dark place’ where he’ll fight dark Ahsoka.
• I’ve not used the scene of Ahsoka being bitten by the Son to become dark, instead relying on her scene with her future self where she’s warned of Anakin’s dark influence. I moved a lovely shot of fire burning in Ahsoka’s eyes during the dialogue where future Ahsoka warns her of the dark within. I think that’ll carry us into dark Ahsoka just fine.

I just need to work on the couple of ending fights now, then I’ll do a pass of un-used dialogue to see if any’s worth salvaging, then it’s just a thorough audio transitions test and finalisation. I’d like to get this right, but I hope to have this finished this week. I’m excited to share it!

inmyslumber said:

Just a heads up that in the tracker, S02E08 and E09 both link to E09 and S02E10 links to E09. Links seem fine for S03 onwards, but it means S02E10 isn’t there.

Good spot!

They were the right episodes, just with out of date numbers in their title.

Fixed now!

Here’s another little clip from the episode Mortis: Oops! All dream-speak!

I wanted to remove the Father’s references to real geography (“nowhere to go”) and replace them with something far more metaphorical, but which still transitioned into him sending Anakin to bed. The following Anakin-Father scene is WAY too explicit with the Father talking about how real they are, so is going to be cut entirely, but some of its dialogue, chopped up and reordered, made a nice segue into Anakin’s bedtime, with more dreamlike logic to it.

Here’s a clip of the new opening to the Mortis episode.

The audio’s not finished yet. The purpose of doing it this way is threefold:

• To cement Anakin’s fate and experiences here as the central focus of the episode
• To layer dreams on dreams early on, to remove all sense of what’s real
• To exclude the pyramid, to remove all sense of geography and real space

(And yep, I’ll fix that messy match cut as Ahsoka walks down the hallway)

I’m making progress on the editing for Mortis now.

I’ve just learned that the dagger, in the original version, does have metaphor assigned to it! Its altar is reminiscent of the Ring of Fire from the Wagner opera ‘Siegfried’, which Siegfried passes through to reach the valkyrie Brunnhilde, “who shall work the deed that redeems the world.” Our dagger, therefore, represents Obi-Wan’s ability to redeem Anakin, and his failure to wield it properly in this metaphor-world represents his future failure to prevent Anakin’s fall and the events that follow.

I was really hoping to see the Boba stuff merged chronologically with the Mando stuff, so this sounds great! I’d thought a little about doing something like this (but still as a TV show), but wasn’t sure where to place Boba’s flashbacks. With movies though, you don’t have that problem, and putting them before a “ships in the night” situation via Fennec for your episode 2 seems like a very elegant approach. For episode 5, making BOBF have the Mando content run more concurrently will be really helpful too, so best of luck with that! I wouldn’t worry too much about leaving it as a long movie, so long as the whole is coherent! But there’re probably a few whole plotlines you can cut if you need.

NFBisms, that was gorgeous - I wonder how many more opportunities to use this kind of direction throughout might be possible?

And Rogue, as ever, I agree with that approach very much. I was a big fan of Reva’s arc and its conclusion, but I agree with the rest - the most powerful character moments should be the axis around which the plot’s logic must flow.

doubleofive said:

…you can’t just add information that’s not there. I don’t care how artificial your intelligence.

You kind of can. You can add detail or colour depth- just not necessarily the detail that was originally there. And depending on how well trained the AI is, it can get increasingly accurate about the detail it adds.

I’m interested to know, Ady, if there’s anything from the Obi-Wan Kenobi series that either confirmed some decision you were on the fence about, or that you’ll change now that you’ve had the additional info?

I’ve just started watching TCW:R with my daughter, and I’ve come to agree with some of the feedback on S01E00 Dark Force Rising, that we shouldn’t see Grievous being trained by Dooku before his big reveal against the trapped Jedi. I’ll shift that scene later in a future release.

I think it’s a difference between having an apprentice (which makes you their master whatever your rank) and being a Master of the Jedi Order, or a Council-level Master, which is a whole other formal thing.

Either way, definitely each to his own, but when canon bends to create new content, the user has a choice of whether to accept the bend in order to enjoy the new content or not.

I’m happy that Vader’s Luke’s father, because that gives me good stories, even though that was a bend of canon not intended during ANH. I’m happy Leia is Luke’s sister, because that gives me good stories, even though that was a bend of canon not conceived until ROTJ. I’m happy that Ahsoka is Anakin’s Padawan, because she’s become one of my favourite characters, even though that was a bend of canon when it was created.

It’s a negotiation between you and the writers: We’ve got a good idea, but you’re going to have to accept this new interpretation of what you may have understood before. And sometimes that means that earlier content loses some value (the Vader suprise, the Yoda reveal), but you have to decide for yourself if the new stuff is worth the bend. For me, new stuff adds way more than it removes, so I’ll take that deal almost every time.

But adding new stuff by bending the rules has been part of Star Wars since the very first movie after the original.

I’ve just had a look at the scene from ROTS about Qui-Gon, and it actually works fine if Obi-Wan’s already somewhat aware, because the way he delivers the line ‘Qui-Gon!’ feels as if he’s receiving confirmation of something he already suspected. Yoda confirms he’s ‘returned from the netherworld’ but then his focus is on teaching Obi-Wan to commune with him. So as long as it’s not completely explicit that Qui-Gon’s behind things in Clone Wars, it works.

A couple of other thoughts: I might try to more dramatically intersplice the scene of Anakin/OWK/Ahsoka fighting with Daughter/Son/Father, to have the metaphor-people’s actions happen with corresponding actions from the real people. In this scenario, Ahsoka is paired to Son, Obi-Wan is paired to Daughter, and Anakin is paired to Father, so ideally I’d do something like showing Son attack Daughter as Ahsoka attacks Obi-Wan, and vice versa, and have Father intervene when Anakin makes some move.

I also think the better placement for Anakin talking to Qui-Gon is later, after Obi-Wan’s had his Qui-Gon conversation, since the latter duo have the stronger bond, and this way Qui-Gon can also be warning Anakin that he’s heading toward the darkness of the Ahsoka fight (whereas in the original placement he’s heading toward balance).

Just to manage expectations, this episode will take a little while! The reordering of scenes should be no trouble, but I’ve got to do a lot of digging through voice lines, and if I want to extend Father’s conversation at the end and make something out of it, that scene could take a lot of iteration to not feel choppy. I’ve got a busy work week this week, but am more free next week.

Evansj, Rogue, I think you’re both right, that I can’t go too explicit on Qui-Gon in the crawl.

Rogue, your idea of keeping it as Qui-Gon’s fighter’s signal is elegant, I think I’ll use that. It’s not too dissimilar from Yoda later following clues around Sifo-Dyas’ lightsaber.

Westry said:

I’m liking what I’ve watched so far. I’m curious which episode you are most proud of?

Tricky question!

My favourites are always those where creative thinking or working has resulted in something I feel is materially better than the original.

S01E01 The New Padawan, whilst far from the most enjoyable episode to watch, is hugely technically complex behind the scenes, and probably the largest ‘quality gain’ compared to the original material, so I’m proud of the achievement there even if the new episode isn’t particularly good. S01E02 Malevolence is similar - not great by any measure, but wildly less painful than the original for me.

I was very pleased with S03E01 The Politics of War, for the new narrative I was able to create, and S02E03 Corruption on Mandalore for similar reasons. I feel like I was able to really elevate those arcs and let the good in them really shine.

S01E06 Resistance on Ryloth, and S02E02 Massacre/Retribution (not quite polished to final yet) I feel are good combination work.

I also liked the smoothing I did in S02E04 Like Father, Like Clone (the Boba Fett arc), S02E07 Monsters (the return of Maul arc), and S03E03 Dissent on Umbara.

I feel like Mortis is going to be very satisfying for me personally, since it feels like this narrative is going to work, and eliminate all of the major issues I had with the original arc, which I didn’t think was possible.

There’re other episodes I might enjoy watching more than these, but those are the ones I’m most proud of.

I’m also broadly very pleased with the reordering, and the work I’ve done to present the episodes more ‘confidently’ than the originals. It feels to me like the whole show tells a coherent and developing story, broken nicely into focused seasons, that’s digestible.

Thanks for asking!

OK, I’ve done another Mortis rewatch (in reverse this time), and I think something’s coming together. It kind of works as a vision of the future of the battle for Anakin’s soul and how dark/light/balance swing as he acts. It also shows Obi-Wan’s failure to control Anakin’s darkness, and Ahsoka’s success in eluding his poisonous influence.

I think the main metaphor-story works as follows:

• This is a place of tests. Temptation is close here. Light, dark, and balance are personified.
• Various wanderings and cryptic visions. Qui-Gon is involved.
• Noble Obi-Wan, beginning to follow Qui-Gon’s more balanced footsteps, is granted a dream dagger, perhaps representing his role as master and fulcrum of their fates.
• Ahsoka’s vision tells her that Anakin’s darkness will poison her to the dark as well unless she leaves him - but then in this world she becomes that vision of her dark potential self (like Luke in Vader’s helmet in the Dagobah cave).
• Anakin faces Ahsoka. She’s displaying all of her worse impulses and resentments. They fight. Obi-Wan joins, but does not use his dagger to save her, representing his failiure to train Anakin (and thus Ahsoka) above their worse impulses.
• Their conflict empowers the metaphor-beings, who fight until Father throws them into the same arena as our characters. (This is the only time we’ll see them appear to have real agency, but I want it to feel like a reaction to what our characters are doing, not independent of it.)
• The dark leaves Ahsoka, but also kills her. (Good enough metaphor for her upcoming fall.)
• Obi-Wan hesitates to use his dream-dagger to kill the Son. He fails to defeat the darkness. (Works nicely with his future character arc.)
• Darkness tries to kill balance, but light tries to save balance, and dies in the process. (It’s not about defeating what we hate, it’s about saving what we love, plus ironically darkness has made things imbalanced anyway. This also works as a metaphor for Anakin’s turn, how he tries to grow in both dark and light under Palpatine, but kills his light instead, becoming Vader.)
• Anakin takes the last of Daughter’s life force to save Ahsoka. He finishes off the light because of his connection to another. (Good enough metaphor.)
• With Daughter (light) now dead, Son (dark) is now more powerful.
• Balance tries to entreat Anakin to recognise his role in all of this.
• To defeat darkness, balance kills itself. Anakin then kils darkness (as he eventually will at the end of his journey).
• Dream ends.

Beyond those mentioned in my previous post, I think we should (and can) drop a few subplots:

• We don’t need the test where Father makes Anakin choose Obi-Wan or Ahsoka, to which he forces both the lightside and darkside to bow to him. Firstly it’s too on the nose, secondly it’s not how his temptation plays out, and thirdly it muddles the Chosen One prophecy by implying that the father wants him to stay and embody the literal balance from Mortis. The better moment here is the conclusion of the second episode, where Anakin can’t let Ahsoka go, and takes the last life from the light side to preserve her. That’s a better metaphor for how his arc plays out.
• We don’t need the visions of the future at all, actually. They don’t really go anywhere. He gets the vision of his future, accepts the darkside in order to avoid that future, threatens Obi-Wan, goes to threaten Ahsoka but she eludes him and rescues Obi-Wan, nearly lets the Son escape, but then the Son disappears and the Father removes that memory. We’re back where we started, with the only real value for the viewer being ‘Anakin’s been tempted by the darkside, and it looks like he’ll do bad things in future’, which this episode’s already doing all over the place. But the temptation here also isn’t how his future arc plays out. Plus it contains a LOT of un-dreamlike mundane travel, and removing this and the above means we actually have no ship or speeder bikes. I could MAYBE put this content in, near the end, but I think it’d be better without.
• We don’t need Son trying to kill Father, since Father doesn’t appear weak until he’s actually fatally stabbed later. All we should preserve of their story is them as metaphors.

Instead, I think we could play it out as follows:

• In the crawl, find some reason to get them there that includes Qui-Gon’s guidance (and use more Qui-Gon VO throughout).
• Using a scene from episode 2, in a dream (its VFX are more dreamlike), Anakin sees himself, and then the Son emerges from the other himself, and threatens him. (This is a good first scene, since it implies the Son is more closely related to the darkness within Anakin, than a character in his own right.)
• Anakin wakes with a start on the ship. Cut that into the original start of the first episode, but remove the diamond, just have white light wash over the ship.
• The party wake up on the planet. Trim a lot of dialogue to not have them question the mundane stuff (like the ship) too much, keep them focused on the weird. They walk outside.
• At the point where Anakin originally reacts to Daughter’s voice (but Obi-Wan and Ahsoka don’t hear it), use Qui-Gon’s voice instead - “He is the chosen one”. THEN, when Daughter appears, it’s with her asking “Is he the one?” We’re now implying some link between Qui-Gon and what’s going on here.
• Have Daughter guide them down the cliff path until they get separated. Daughter walks off, leaving Anakin walking alone, and Obi-Wan and Ahsoka together.
• Obi-Wan and Ahsoka find their ship gone, and then Son appears and taunts them. (Now, because of the inclusion of the original dream scene, he’s taunted all three. The darkside is present here.) He flies away, and they seek shelter.
• Using a scene from episode 3, Anakin (alone) encounters Qui-Gon, who gives him cryptic guidance. Now Qui-Gon is clearly involved.
• Anakin makes it to Father’s monastery. I’ll steal one of his lines from ep3 to replace part of his explanation of what he is: “I am an old fool who believed he could control the future.” No idea what that means, but it’s weird in a good way. They talk about Anakin’s destiny, which is one of the few threads I can do something with. Anakin is invited to stay for the night.
• In a cave, Qui-Gon appears to Obi-Wan. They talk about Anakin. This is all clearly about Anakin, rather than the others.
• Ahsoka receives a vision of her future self warning that there’s darkness in Anakin that will corrupt her if she stays with him - I could use THIS as all the explanation we need for why she’s darkside later??
• Anakin wakes in the temple and encouters Shmi, where he talks about his guilt. She’s not explicitly the Son, it’s left mysterious. We DON’T then have Anakin threaten the Father, because that dialogue is all way too explicit.
• In the morning, Ahsoka and Obi-Wan go wandering and talk about more weirdness, then Obi-Wan is grabbed by Daughter, and Ahsoka is grabbed by Son. I’ll use this to skip over the end of episode one and into episode two. Now we don’t need to have Ahsoka captured as they try to escape, nor Obi-Wan guided by Daughter again.
• I COULD keep Ahsoka being bitten by the Son to explain why she goes dark here, but I think leaving it based on her earlier vision might be better as it’d be less explicitly because of the Son being a real person.
• Daughter takes Obi-Wan to the dagger. I’ll probably add more Qui-Gon voice here.
• Anakin scales a tower (I don’t think I’ll bother explaining why he’s there), and finds dark Ahsoka there.
• NOTE: I COULD precede the previous scene with the one of Qui-Gon guiding Anakin, because he also has lines about ‘it’s very darkside up ahead’ (originally referencing the fire pit where Anakin has the vision). But I think it’s better off early?
• Anakin and Ahsoka fight. Obi-Wan shows up and joins the fight. He considers using the dagger to free Ahsoka.
• With less dialogue, so it’s implied they’re reacting to the chaos around them, Daughter and Son come into conflict. I’ll only show this briefly, before Father forces them into the arena where the others are fighting.
• Ahsoka takes the dagger and hands it to Son, who kills her with a tap to the forehead. (The darkside doesn’t need Ahsoka, just power, or whatever.) Anakin is angry but can’t hurt the Son.
• Son tries to kill Father, Daughter intervenes and gets stabbed. Son flees in remorse (fine).
• The planet goes unbalanced, but Anakin uses dying Daughter to save Ahsoka. Minor wrap-up to these scenes? Might just fade to white.
• The three plus Father appear in the monastery of balance. (Father even says “I have brought you here…” to help with this weird transition.)
• I might extend the above scene by just cutting snippets out of other interesting things the Father says to Anakin throughout the episodes, ignoring geography altogether. Might as well get weird with it if I can make it seem like it has a point.
• Son appears, and they all attack him. Father takes the dagger and uses it to kill himself. (Something something balance).
• But Anakin uses the distraction to properly kill Son. (This works as a metaphor for the very future of Anakin. The dark was the last to fall, as Vader turns to the light to destroy Palpatine, but until The Force Awakens again, the power of light, dark, and balance, is now quieted.)
• In his final words, Father says cryptic stuff about Anakin. The planet shatters and stuff.
• In a flash, the trio awaken on the ship in space, and mysteriously reconnect with Rex.

I think this is a thing, guys!

I’d love to hear any ideas you have, Rogue!

There’s probably a version of this that someone could make that’d be very Lynchian, a real art piece, but that’s probably too far for this edit. It would be good to see the ‘above a convenience store’ version one day though! But some of the logic of Lynch feels like the right approach for this. Perhaps I’ll have the wind through the trees over the end credits, rather than my usual music.

On reflection, I think I’ll end up calling this episode AT THE CROSSROADS, a word used a few times in the episode, and one that’ll imply both a confluence in the force and a metaphorical tipping point. It’ll also lightly evoke Rebels’ World Between Worlds.

Damn, this is a complicated episode. But I think something’s coming together.

I think it’s fine if my edit doesn’t make perfect geographical sense - transitions between scenes and locations can work on ‘dream logic’, and I can use audio effects and fades through white to shift things around if I need to. I think the main logic I need to respect is what characters are with each other at a given time, since it’s a shared dream.

The main thing I want to change is removing the characterisation of the Father, Son, and Daughter as individuals with normal autonomy and desires. If they are simply ‘very powerful beings’, with the ability to have a major impact on the real universe, as the original episode suggests, I think the implications of that are too radical for the canon as we currently understand it. Instead, I’d like them to feel like force beings, dream beings, visions, metaphors, tests, part of the force communicating, and somehow related to Qui-Gon’s journeys through the deep force. I’ll take out almost all of their scenes where they commune alone amongst themselves, and retain only a few of their dramatic interactions in front of our main characters - almost as if in those moments they’re performing some kind of morality play, talking in metaphor. (Let’s David Lynch this shit!)

I won’t have the triad be explicit about what they are - I prefer Father’s later line “I am merely letting the will of the force take place” as an explanation in lieu of anything else.

I can avoid having the planet appear as a diamond in ‘real space’ quite easily, with plenty of material to transition the characters to the planet. The ship they travel in, and speeder bikes, will probably both have to stay, but I want to avoid the characters repairing the ship (from the third episode) - it’s a dream vessel for them whilst they’re in the dream world, not a real material object.

I’ll bring Anakin’s vision of him talking to Son from the second episode to near the start, probably before they all wake up ‘properly’ on the planet, because there’s a good little core there that we can use for focus. I’ll also bring Qui-Gon forward to make his influence more deliberate to their situation, and use more of his voice lines from the 2003 series throughout to make him a bit more ever-present.

I’ll remove the flash of the Son when Anakin’s talking to his dream-mother. That can remain ambiguous, like Han’s appearance in TROS, especially since she nearly verbatim says “no-one’s ever truly gone”.

I might remove Anakin’s vision of the future entirely, but I could end up retaining some of that. I’ll definitely remove Alderaan’s destruction and Vader’s mask, though. I’ll trim most of Anakin being explicitly darkside and anything to do with the Son trying to escape the planet, though probably preserve a little of the Son trying to convince Anakin that he can use the dark to end the Clone Wars and save those he loves. I think I’ll still have the Father remove that vision from Anakin’s memory though.

I would have liked to remove most of the second episode, with the sword, darkside Ahsoka, and the family drama, but I should for the sake of future canon preserve the scene of Anakin using the dying Sister (light side) to save Ahsoka, which’ll mean I have to use some of that. But I think I can cleanly transition through it without needing to hit every beat on the way.

I don’t think I’ll show the main characters talking to Rex at the start of the episode, but I’ll probably have them reappear under mysterious circumstances and talk to Rex at the end, since it keeps things mysterious. In place of the ‘ancient signal’ I’ll probably have Obi-Wan have received what he feels is guidance from Qui-Gon to come here. And I might describe their arrival as via a blind hyperspace jump, guided by the force during meditation? But that might be unnecessary.

As a note on placement, I think this episode will work well this late in the series. This is our season where it’s implied that there’s a lot more beneath the surface than what’s been let on, so going dark and mysterious fits nicely during this period of escalation. And Ahsoka’s warned by a vision of herself that she shouldn’t remain Anakin’s apprentice - which’ll lead nicely into what happens to her only a couple of episodes later now.

Still a loose connection of ideas, but I’ll do another full runthrough shortly and think it all through again.

So, Mortis is going to be a complex episode that’ll take a lot of thought. I’ve been talking for the last eighteen months about how I want it to be less explicit, less on the nose, less demistifying. I’ll do at least a couple of reviews of the existing content, and discuss my ideas here with you guys, before putting pen to paper.

If anyone feels like rewatching those episodes, or at least sharing your own thoughts/preferences/ideas, that’d be very welcome.

The ideal goal here, I think, is making it essentially a shared vision sequence like Luke in the Dagobah cave, only shared between three people, and longer.

I’ll preserve the appearance of Father, Daughter, and Son, though be less explicit about what they are - them being the personifications of light, dark, and balance, just feels way too explicit. It’d be better if they’re left a bit mysterious, perhaps as metaphors as part of the force vision, only lightly hinting at something more, which’ll become a little more curious and interesting when we see their mural in Rebels.

Looking over my thoughts and your comments in this thread so far, some notes to kick us off:

• Qui-Gon appears ‘in person’ in this arc, and I’ve also got some un-used voice lines from the Tartakovsky vision cave sequence which might add some interesting layers here - maybe this is the ‘first contact’ from Qui-Gon from the living force. “You must be tested.” “Trust in the force.” “Anakin, it calls to you.”, etc.
• In the original arc they’re called by an ancient ‘tracking signal’, but in the crawl I might make it more explicit that it’s somehow related to Qui-Gon.
• I’d like to avoid the diamond-shaped planet being so explicitly a thing - I’d rather that they simply transition into the world as if through sleep.
• I’ll keep some of Anakin’s visions near the end, but without showing the Vader Mask - I might replace that with a shot of Anakin and Obi-Wan clashing from this, though we’ll see if I can manage the visual work that’d need.
• I should keep Morai, which means preserving Anakin healing Ahsoka, but I’d like to do that in a way that avoids as much of the family drama as possible. I might add VO of Palpatine saying “use the force to create life” here, too. Perhaps I should use the crawl to make Anakin’s connection to her (and that strong connections are discouraged by the Jedi) more explicit, to hint that this might not be a positive.
• I might END the whole thing with the mind wipe, if possible, so the whole thing remains more residual and dreamlike. Yoda and Anakin do talk about Mortis later, but I’d rather have that imply that only a little of the Mortis vision has been remembered.
• We don’t need to escape the planet only to return to it again an episode later. I’ll smooth out a lot of that.
• I’ll minimise a good amount of the family drama - as much as possible to keep them mysterious while keeping the adventure significant to the main characters.

OK, that episode above is available now! (I posted about it early by mistake.)

Haha, that’d be a wonderful way to ruin everything.

RELEASED - S04E01 - The Old Ways of Mandalore (V2.0)

• RELEASE VERSION.
• Our first episode of season four.
• Comprising the original episode Shades of Reason
• Running 25 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.

Another incredible episode that’s part of the Maul/Mandalore arc. We’re into spoiler territory here so I won’t analyse why it’s great. It’s just great.

Noteworthy changes:

• The episode is titled ‘The Old Ways of Mandalore’, since it features a few key elements that relate to Mandalore’s traditions, both of warfare and lines of succession (and the Darksaber). I also like mentioning the word ‘Mandalore’ in such an episode, to continue to emphasise the importance of the Mauldalore plotline to my series, and to continue to drum up interest for the Filoniverse viewer who’s less familiar with the animated world.
• The opening crawl is just context with a litle spice, plus a light reminder that Almec exists since he’ll be relevant for a few Mauldalore episodes now.
• No actual content edits - just transitions in and out of the credits.

Another very easy episode to help ease me back into editing. But the end of the show needed a lot less attention than the start, so it was always going to be this way!

Onward to Mortis, which is a polarising episode I’ll try to find a balance with - maintaining some of the cool new spiritual elements whilst making it less on the nose and explicit. I don’t think it’ll please everyone, but I think it’ll fit a little better with the way the OT and modern shows seem to be treating the force.