EddieDean

Right, Cranyx, I feel like your really detailed reviews deserve a proper response.

Firstly, and most importantly: I really appreciate you doing this. Your critiques are fair and very precise, which is very valuable. So I’d ask you to please continue doing this as you work your way through the show! If you’re willing, it’d also be good to hear from you what you think does work, because that’s useful reinforcement. For example, (excluding the criticisms you’ve mentioned,) would you say the first season works as a complete end-to-end unit of TV? Is it an improvement over the original couple of seasons of content for you? Does it include and exclude the right episodes?

In general terms, you’ve identified that I’m perhaps too heavy-handed with some cuts (axe versus scalpel, and throwing the baby out with the bathwater, as you say). And with you being very familiar with the base content, I appreciate your perspective that there’s maybe some good stuff I’ve cut that I could have left in. I don’t disagree with that - but this may simply be a matter of different subjective priorities between us, and (respectfully!) it may just be that the original may be a better match for your tastes than this edit. But you’re quite right that I should do what I can to make this not feel like a fan edit.

Taking the opening of the 501st as an example, I agree that the intro doesn’t give us much to work with with the characters, but that’s deliberate - I’m not intending that the audience build an emotional connection with the clones that’ll quickly die, instead wanting only to show that Domino squad has disunity, and I think that the only necessary takeaway from that episode in terms of the clones is the names of Rex, Fives, and Echo, for familiarity that’ll be developed more later.

Similarly, with the invisible Dooku fight in the Nightsisters arc, it is absolutely a good fun scene, and I was suprised to find I wanted to cut it, but while I’m not aiming for a specific runtime in any episode, it was more of a matter of pacing here. It is a scene that the plot can bypass, and the key to this plot was the introduction of Savage and the final five-way combat, which it only took us away from. That said, once that episode is ‘locked in’ (probably after I finish the full series) I’ll release an extended version with that scene added back in. I definitely think that we don’t need to see the other two challenges though, because they’re very redundant action with characters we don’t care about, whose only purpose is to whittle them down to Savage and Feral.

I suppose an important note here for other participants in this thread is that, because I (respectfully) think that Cranyx and I may have differing priorities, I find it particularly helpful when others jump in to agree with Cranyx’s criticisms. (Hopefully it’s clear I still very much respect the feedback, and I’m not trying to dismiss it at all here, so much as wanting to emphasise that in a lot of places I’m fairly confident in my decisions - but having multiple people agree that a certain approach should be reconsidered can help snap me out of that where necessary. You guys know better than me whether or not you’re enjoying an episode, and my assumptions can only take me so far.) For example, the note that the Malevolence should be seen to fire is now received loud and clear, and I’ll add those scenes into the opening of that episode. It’s sometimes hard to find the balance point on the spectrum of ‘goofy looking versus useful to see onscreen’ (among other things). I think you’ll struggle to convince me to reintroduce the Mandalorian conveyor belt of death though…

Other thoughts:

• All of your technical observations (cuts, audio, transitions, dialogue issues, narrative gaps, establishing shots, etc) I’ll review once more for certain.
• s01e01 - I’ll see if I have a better option to transition from the Ventress fight to the arrival of Ahsoka, though if I remember right I can’t move the Yularen scene here because it’s needed to split the Ventress fight, which has gaps. (As you’ve spotted, there aren’t many available establishing shots I could use there either, though I may be able to reorder the opening a little and start on the planet before cutting back to space)
• s01e02 - I get your point on restoring clone dialogue. As I said above, I don’t want to lean too heavily into clones, especially early on, because I want to be clear with the viewer about who our main characters are. But I’ll rethink this and see where restoring it may add value over the current version.
• s01e03 - If I remember right, in the original episode Satine does teleport to Merrick so he can capture her, then once they leave the room Satine and Merrick teleport away, forcing Obi-Wan to run after them.
• s01e04 - I might re-add Ventress placing the bombs. I figured suprise was fun, but perhaps the audience should know. I’m interested what others think on whether the new Ventress dialogue works. I don’t want to edit just for the sake of it, especially if it feels jarring.
• s01e05 - I think I want to stick with my structure, but I’ll certainly review the other smoothings you suggest.
• s01e06 - Same as with 501st, I think these two episodes interleaved is the approach I want to take for the Ryloth arc, but I’ll review your suggestions.
• Openings - While trimming exposition from episodes is one facet of incorporating my opening text, that’s a more minor one; the major factor is that the original episodes had the expository newscasts, which required a replacement. I don’t think I have any alternative options here, so I have to rely on asking the audience to accept the text. Trims to in-episode opening exposition are very minor - I don’t think I’ve ever actually consciously done it.
• Closings - I agree that it’d be nice to have a few options for closing out episodes with music. I like the music that plays over the credits, but transitioning into that music in other ways based on the tone of the ending would be preferable. Music composition/editing is something I have zero skill with, so my only option here is via help from others. I’m certain though, that I don’t want to end on the original series’ bombast.
• s01e07 - Interested in others’ opinions on whether Ahsoka’s discipline belongs in Death Watch as opposed to the finale. Since she’s disobedient at the cost of lives in Ryloth, I think the scene works fine as discipline for that, but I suppose the main question is whether the scene belongs in Death Watch at all, where it serves to take her off the playing field for a bit. I think we had broad agreement that this approach was valid, but happy to reopen that line of thought.
• s01e09 - Yeah, I really don’t like the Mace Windu dialogue in the ending, but I just have no options here. Ropal and the idea of the Kyber crystal is a waste of time plotline that makes Bane seem really weak, which also feels like a trimmed episode that happened offscreen only to be summarised in the following episode’s newscast. It resulted in this awkward scene with Mace, which is a shame.
• s01e10 - Indeed, I’m not American so I’m content to spell the word as “artefact”. You guys can work around that, I’m sure! If it helps, I suggest a headcanon for you that, since Imperials seem to mainly be British, that Galactic Basic uses the British spelling for some words 😉

All said and done, I’ll reiterate that I hope that none of this comes off as dismissive, and I greatly value your input.

This isn’t to hand off the responsibility for this edit, but if anyone did produce alternative cuts of episodes I’ve edited - for example a less radical 501st - I’d happily add my series’ opening and closing conventions (if that was wanted), host them, and add them into my spreadsheet. I’m very open to community collaboration here.

To just add, I currently plan to release extended versions of the following episodes:

• The Nightsisters arc with the invisible Dooku scene
• The Geonisis arc with the Anakin/Ki-Adi-Mundi prongs of the attack
• The Rako Hardeen arc with the Box episode reinserted
• The Umbara arc with more of the visually interesting combat from the first couple of episodes

nmxuci5970 said:

Well look at my thought of politics of war, is my thoughts so bad.

Hey Nmxuci, sorry for not responding to this. I do always read your comments but sometimes I struggle to understand exactly the points you’re trying to get across. I don’t know if this is helpful - I certainly don’t mean it to sound patronising - but perhaps to work around the barrier of understanding it would be better for you to outline your thoughts as bullet points so that I can follow them in a more linear fashion? I apologise that that puts the responsibility on you - but I’m not sure what other options we have, and I would like to understand your thoughts.

In terms of the streamlining and focus, that’s absolutely my main goal. You could definitely get through the series quicker than what I’ve produced, but what I’ve tried to preserve is all of the most important plot and character development to make the later payoff hit best, and to serve other SW media best too. I know this is entirely subjective, but I’m going for ‘most enjoyable’ journey rather than ‘fastest’ journey. One thing you’ll presumably be glad to hear is that my first season skips out a LOAD of guff, getting you up to speed far more quickly. (That season alone cuts out 4h.) So while this isn’t just a whistlestop tour that hits only the major beats, it’s got minimal fat, very minimal annoying stuff, and I’d argue no filler. I don’t think I’ve had any feedback saying either “you’re missing important episode X” or “you could cut useless episode Y” in over a year. (That said, you could skip s02e07. It’s character work but it’s the least important.)

As it stands, seasons are pretty much bang on the length of a Disney live action series, or a Marvel TV series, so I think they’re quite digestible.

The TCW 2003 series episode does use an upscaled source (upscaled to 1080p I think, provided by NumeralJoker) so it does look good. The regular episodes are all 1080p. I did consider using NumeralJoker’s 4K upscales for the regular TCW series but (1) I found that the improvement was minimal given the art style and (2) using source files that large made my editing software really struggle, so it would have made editing way more painful. As it is, they look as good as the original releases - which is fine at first, then better later as the animation and lighting improved. The colours are all as per the originals.

I’ll fire you a PM in case that all sounds good to you - though be aware that the first two episodes are absolutely the worst of my series so you’ve just gotta power through.

Thanks Cranyx, I really appreciate you putting so much detail into your feedback, including reasoning and suggestions. It’s extremely helpful. I won’t go through bit by bit here but I’ll definitely review every point against the edits once more, and fix what I can. Please keep it coming!

vranir said:

It bugs me to no end how often these characters know one another by name when we’ve never seen them interact or have only fought each other in fighters etc.

Maybe we differ on this one, but I’ve always been comfortable that we don’t need to see everything happen onscreen. I’m comfortable that these guys have either met offscreen, or simply have good intel on each other. But I understand the concern.

I’m interested in feedback on some of cranyx’s comments above.

• Should we see the Malevolence fire? I’ve always been against it because I don’t like the effect (and it’s a strong enough ship if we just assume it has EMPs plus heavy laser cannons) but perhaps I’d include it once at some point.
• What do we think about the Ventress line in New Padawan referencing her past with Anakin? It’s not perfect lipsync but I borrowed this idea directly from Smudger because I thought it referenced their past nicely.
• Is the cost of having a slightly janky arrival of Satine worth the benefit of cutting the Mandalorian Bond Villain device?

I’ve edited these to death, but if anyone fancied mocking up alternatives or suggestions here that’d be awesome.

I wish the edit didn’t have to start with the worst episodes!

Finally read through this, it sounds fantastic. Thoughts:

• Not important at all, but is Exegol supposed to be Moraband/Korriban? Wookiepedia doesn’t seem to make that link.
• I love the idea of using Kijimi to enhance the Luke’s inspiration subplot. Some new background voice chatter should be helpful there, like the finale’s "For Skywalker!"s. It’d be great to get graffiti, as people have suggested, maybe even explicitly showing Luke’s face or a stylised version of his facedown on Crait.
• The only change I’d prefer to avoid would be that I’d rather keep the Palpatine reveal early, so it hangs over the movie for longer.
• Well, that and maybe preserving Rey claiming the Skywalker legacy at the end. I think it makes sense for her to declare the identity that she’s worked so hard for.

This next thought might not quote belong here, but shifting the improved Mustafar Minute to the end of TLJ might do us some good. Ending TLJ with Rey shutting out Kylo, then the radio/whispers of ‘find me’ followed by Kylo raiding Mustafar and finding the Dark Power (unidentified) on Exegol means that offscreen time can be spent with the First Order collaborating with Palpatine to enhance their fleet. It would also parallel TFA nicely: TFA has the coda where Rey leaves the main plot to find her hope, and TLJ would have the code where Kylo Ren leaves the main plot to pursue a new power.

CaptainFaraday said:

T-202 said:

EddieDean said:

Right, I’ve finished the JAR JAR VOICE TOOL.

You can find it here. Thanks again to evansj1983 for identifying all the Clone Wars clips.

The spreadsheet now contains a list of 300 Jar Jar voice lines, timecoded and marked as clean or dirty. It also contains a link to the accompanying video file (4GB, ~35 min) featuring all 300 lines in order, indexed back to the spreadsheet and also timestamped in case you want to re-source them for your own edit.

Basically, anyone should be able to now search the spreadsheet for the line, word, or sound they want, then use the video in any editing software that splits audio by track in order to play around with Jar Jar’s audio.

There’s lots of good stuff in there - many references to him supporting a Queen, discussing the Force and the Jedi, being a Senate representative, and having proper motivation and character beyond passivity.

If you notice any errors, let me know, because it’s set up in such a way that I can fix it easily.

Go play!

If you need anymore lines there is always the Disney Infinty 3.0 lines for Jar Jar. Here’s a YouTube link to all of his lines if it helps: https://youtu.be/uoGGwG4-JUU

Eddie being given a whole new source of Jar Jar quotes:

This… is accurate. There’s some good stuff in there though. Here I go again…

That all being said, having basically had to internalise Jar Jar recently through immersion therapy, I do think that if we kind of accept his awkward speech patterns, his character in TPM can be improved by simply giving him actual motivations and cares, like he has in his other sources. I think that’s the big thing I’m going to play with - replacing 'mesa’s and some goofy attributes, but finding replacement lines where possible.

Right, I’ve finished the JAR JAR VOICE TOOL.

You can find it here. Thanks again to evansj1983 for identifying all the Clone Wars clips.

The spreadsheet now contains a list of 300 Jar Jar voice lines, timecoded and marked as clean or dirty. It also contains a link to the accompanying video file (4GB, ~35 min) featuring all 300 lines in order, indexed back to the spreadsheet and also timestamped in case you want to re-source them for your own edit.

Basically, anyone should be able to now search the spreadsheet for the line, word, or sound they want, then use the video in any editing software that splits audio by track in order to play around with Jar Jar’s audio.

There’s lots of good stuff in there - many references to him supporting a Queen, discussing the Force and the Jedi, being a Senate representative, and having proper motivation and character beyond passivity.

If you notice any errors, let me know, because it’s set up in such a way that I can fix it easily.

Go play!

Aye, and I feel like there’s value in curation, since it gives everyone a strong jumping off point without having to crawl through hundreds of pages, and it helps stop great ideas getting buried.

I just looked through the last hundred pages of the Radical Prequel thread and there were so many great ideas posted as mockups but without final collateral - I feel like we as a community should encourage release of finalised high-quality shots and scenes as much as possible so they’re kept available! Things like Snooker’s PC issues mean a lot of her incredible edits were lost to time.

That’s pretty loud and clear then. I’ll give TPM a few weeks more to breathe, then I’ll spin up a ROTJ one.

Hal 9000 said:

I guess we’ll just have to work on the EddieDean Exhaustive and Complete Star Wars Saga Overhaul.

We’ll get more blood from this stone yet!

One thing I did think we’d see more of in the thread (which I’d still like to see personally) for the more frequently edited movies is people advocating for their preferred edits. Not everyone posts a changelog, so it’s sometimes hard to know what’s covered, and sometimes even a changelog makes it hard to get a feel for the major scene changes and stuff. Personally I’m a Hal adherent, but I’m always interested in other approaches, and nobody can watch them all.

Oh shit, I’ve just realised RogueLeader had this idea ages ago!

https://originaltrilogy.com/topic/A-Collaborative-Star-Wars-Saga-Edit/id/60169

Sorry Rogue, I must have subconsciously remembered it. Either way, I’m reposting it here because there’s also good community thought there.

Edit: Jesus, I even suggested getting methodical about stuff there too with spreadsheets and the like.

Another avenue for discussion which we haven’t touched on much here is the aesthetic. There’ll always be a battle between OT-aesthetic purists and modern aesthetic adherents, so maybe that’s less valuable here, but looking through some very old posts from the Radical Prequel thread I noticed some ideas for digital zoom and pan on boring static shots, and enhanced laser effects.

I’d also be interested to see peoples’ preferred colour grades, or have people highlight shots or settings they think are particularly egregious.

For me, I’ve always hated the Naboo plains. They’re so featureless they look fake. Theed and Tattooine have always looked fine to me, but I’ve also always disliked the columns of energy in the Duel of the Fates. I wish that could be muted right down to something more like the Star Destroyer engine rooms, which have a similar geography but without the CG lights.

I’ve updated the OP to aggregate the stuff created and requested so far.

Mrebo said:

I’ve taken the battle droid dialogue (trimmed down) about searching for hidden underwater villages and put it in the mouth of the droid captain in the tank right before we see Qui Gon running. It fills in why they have landed so far from the cities and makes finding Jar Jar feel less random.

Could you share this, Mrebo?

RogueLeader said:

If I were to want to cut any scenes, I think I would cut a lot of the scenes between Nute Gunray and Darth Sidious. There’s a few reasons for doing this. 1) I feel like the pacing just halts every time we cut back to what the bad guys are doing. 3) It feels like a lot of information is repeated in other scenes. 2) I actually think it would serve the narrative more if we kept the Sith’s involvement in the plot as mysterious as we can. I actually wonder how much it would actually hurt the movie if we cut all of Sidious’ scenes. Would it be better if the actual phantom menace was a figure only alluded to in the first film?

I think the only thing to be wary of with this idea is that Maul needs to be in TPM and he needs to be introduced by someone, he can’t come out of nowhere. So we at least need some mysterious figure to put him into the film and then be the shadow behind the threat, which can then become a hanging plot thread.

Other thoughts for the community:

• A few people have mentioned Maul fan-films which are apparently very decent. Can anyone share them, or the relevant clips? I’d be interested to hear how people think they could be included.
• Let’s mock more stuff up! Even if it’s placeholder stuff, it’d be good to visualise more ideas. I’m going to try to finish the Jar Jar voice tool tonight, then I’ll either play round with his lines or try some ideas for the Gungan battle scenes.

Yeah, that’s a good shout. I’ll try to encourage the execution of ideas and creation of collateral independently of subjective opinion, so we build up a library of tangible ideas and assets.

Alright, well I really appreciate the feedback. Looks like I was being a little too pessimistic! Perhaps I was just getting burnt out on crunching through Jar Jar voice lines!

Some good ideas above. I like Omni and Hal’s suggestion that we strive to output tangible collateral, and perhaps I’ll promote it a little more loudly (top of the index and monthly thread, I reckon). So I’ll definitely give the TPM thread time to produce a little more, and finish off some of my own parts of that, before spinning up the next.

I had thought I’d create threads in chronological order, but I agree with RogueLeader that ROTJ is a strong contender for polish, and maybe it’d be more interesting and fresh to skip between movies a bit more. Faraday suggested a vote, so feel free to cast your votes here guys, but I’ll default to ROTJ next after TPM unless a strong majority emerges.

Ah, OK then! Well that’s all pretty optimistic! Perhaps I’ll just leave this one up for more time then, and leave making the second for when the work on this one slows down. In that case, I’ll try to produce some more discussion seeds over there, and see if we can’t squeeze more out of it! When I have time I’ll try to mockup a few of the ideas into new scenes too.

Thanks for the feedback guys!

We’re approaching the end of the first monthly focus thread (The Phantom Menace), so time to reflect!

Was it worthwhile, and should I continue with it? If so, should I start a second monthly thread soon, or should we allow the TPM one a bit more time to stay in focus? Was there anything in the thread OP that wasn’t worthwhile, or that I should add in future?

Right now, I think I’m swinging towards not continuing. While there was some good activity, and we generated some good ideas and collateral, I don’t think it did anything that couldn’t have been done in the existing radical ideas threads. I’m tempted to perhaps do a few deep dives in the existing radical threads for the remaining movies, but I feel like producing more monthly focus threads might just gunk up the forums a bit. That said, I think it was a very fun experiment and I’m pleased with some of the new ideas that emerged!

Oh yeah good shout, I think that’s exactly the kind of thing we need. I really hope we see AlaskaSandman back soon.

I’ll certainly try to get the Jar Jar voice tool completed soon. That won’t be a true component ready to drag and drop into an edit, but it’ll be something that gives people the easiest Jar Jar voice playground.

As for actual edits, things that come to mind:

• Invasion scenes (VFX)
• Intro that works with the invasion angle rather than the negotiation angle (whether or not we have new VFX scenes) - could add AI battle droid voices
• Cutting down the Gungan battle scenes to see if they can precede the other endings (and be minimal)
• Restructured ending(s) (though a lot of editors have recut the ending and I haven’t reviewed those- might be one for Sade’s thoughts if he’s in comparison mode?)

Oh yeah they’re definitely intended to linger. Hopefully by the conclusion of each month we’ll have built up a decent platform of fresh thought on which to build.

What did you learn about the crawls? 😉

(RE)RELEASED - S02E08 - Shadow of Geonosis (V2.0)

• RELEASE VERSION, now brought up to my more polished 2.0 standard.
• Our eighth episode of season two, the first of the three-part Geonosis finale.
• Comprising the original episode Senate Spy.
• Running 23 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 Senate Spy only lightly touched up. It’s one of the less strong episodes, a little clunky and ham-fisted, but it helps set up the remaining two parts of the Geonosis arc (which is excellent) and it’s also got some good Anakin/Padmé tension which’ll pay off in a few places later.

As I was putting this season together (based on the best episodes for this chunk of time, narrative flow, and character balance), it naturally cohered into a season focused on ‘chaos and instability’ (bounty hunters, corruption, rising third parties, and the impact of the war on the ‘little guy’ in the galaxy). There were very few plots about Republic/Separatist conflict in this chunk of time - which is absolutely fine, since the war isn’t our focus (nor our source of enjoyment) so much as the characters within it, and they get good development this season. But the absence of major on-screen conflict worked nicely with the decision to conclude this season with the Geonosis arc (a strong finale), because it gave me the opportunity to present the Geonosis reveal as something a bit more material to the plot. Now there’s a bit more tangible ebb and flow to the war - the Separatists failed to get a swift victory due to the Republic defense of Kamino, so have turned to long-term strategy and investment in a new droid factory so they can come back stronger, and that’ll lead nicely into season three’s political conflict over the creation of more clones, and thus more escalation. That all serves to emphasise Padmé’s role in the war, as well as make it less of a case of “what fight we’re not invested in the outcome of are we watching this week?”

Anyway, my main point here is that, while this is a slightly weaker episode, I’ve polished it a little and emphasised its role within the larger plot, to help squeeze a few more drops of quality out of it.

Noteworthy changes as follows:

• The episode is titled ‘Shadow of Geonosis’ to emphasise the ties to what’s to come.
• The opening crawl highlights the relative quiet and plays up the intrigue.
• Rush doesn’t objectify Padmé in quite as slimy a way, and Anakin’s still jealous but isn’t as overt about his jealousy, so we drop some slapstick.
• Instead of Padmé being poisoned by her drink, which is super obvious, I just had her poisoned by the meal instead.
• Padmé isn’t Clovis’ password (I’ve always hated ‘guess the password’ scenes where the password is an obvious thing that person likes), instead, his holoprojector was just unlocked.
• I slightly reordered the finale to let Clovis being in trouble come first, so we can end on Anakin and Padmé returning.

Onwards to the second battle of Geonosis…

Oh man there’s absolutely loads I could use this for. It could be really helpful for my merged episodes and some of the weaker ones near the start. It could blow this project wide open. I think I should stick to the current plan for now, and make more progress on the episodes ahead of me, before getting even more distracted. But there’s huge potential here.

Lots of new options opening up with the AI voices recently shared here.

In particular, Grievous is quite convincing, so I might be able to use that in my Massacre episode to help bridge the two, something like “I’ll deal with this Jedi distraction then muster my armies to take out those witches!”

Ahsoka and Anakin aren’t bad either, though generally robotic voices are better.