EddieDean

I think it’s the right time to revisit this idea so I’ve updated the OP and reawoken this thread.

Lifeincontext said:

I really liked this episode. It was nice to slow down and spend some time with these characters. I felt like I got to know Ahsoka better, and she deals with a theme that foreshadows Anakin’s struggle. It may not be important to the plot, but it is very important to the characters. Worthy of inclusion for sure. The only thing that felt weird was the abruptness of the ending.

EddieDean said:

REVIEW VERSION RELEASED - S02E06 - ATTACHMENTS (V2.0)

• REVIEW VERSION, not quite ready for full release, but presented here for feedback.
• Our sixth episode of season two.
• Comprising the original episode Jedi Crash.
• 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 by far the least important episode of my edit, featuring a pretty light ‘meeting the natives’ story. It’s skippable, but I’ve included it here for a few reasons: Mainly, because it balances out this place in the season nicely, since this period of time needed more Anakin, more Ahsoka, a little more exploration of the duo both together and apart, and more of this season’s focus on the war’s impact on the little guy. But also, it does begin with a great action sequence I’d hoped to include somewhere, it has a nice little hint at the Holdo Maneuver, and it does show us a little more of what happens on the fringes of the Galaxy, something that’s nice to see in the show but often appears in the show’s weaker episodes.

Good to know you think it fits from a balance perspective. The ending is tricky though. The music is played in the voice track so that final scene’s music can’t change. And it has that major rise, which all I could do was fade out. Perhaps if I move it so that scene isn’t the last one - maybe we have Anakin’s healing, then Ahsoka and Aayla talk, then Aayla and Tee Wat Kaa have their conversation which ends with “I still wonder… at what cost?” as the final line. I think I can modify the audio in that scene more freely, so I could use our typical ending music, which would also help cue the user in that the episode is wrapping up.

I’ll also dig through the second part again (which I’m barely using any of currently) and see if there’s any other scenes I can use to help wrap up the episode. Maybe Tee Wat Kaa talking to the healer Lurmen would bring their story to a better close and help pace it out a little, though I’d have to crop a few shots for that to avoid showing battle droids everywhere, which may not be quite possible. The shot of Republic cruisers arriving is a bit abrupt so I don’t think it’d make it feel less sudden.

Thanks Vranir as ever for the lovely detail. I’ll pore over those suggestions whilst re-watching the episodes, and see what fits. As before I think I swing a little more conservative than you on dialogue trims, but I definitely appreciate the focus your detail provides, it helps me mull these over further.

Artan, I was born in England (so maintain the accent) but have spent the last half of my life living in Scotland, which I love. I no longer consider myself English, with British being more technically correct, though I call myself Scottish wherever that’s accepted. Either way, I think it’s fine to use British/International English in my opening text, rather than American English where they differ. I’m sure the Americans amongst us can be comfortable that there exist alternative - but still valid - spellings for some of these words.

Burbin, I think I’m now falling on the side of trimming Bane recognising Anakin. My headcanon was that (1) Anakin’s a public figure, and/or (2) Bane’s done his research on the Jedi as part of his infiltration of the temple. But perhaps you’re right, it’s a little distracting.

Regarding Obi-Wan’s line, I agree, but I don’t think there’s anything I can do there. That scene has already been heavily butchered to carve it into a shape that’s passable. But even though it’s not delivered on, it’s an OK thing for him to think in the moment. Though perhaps that dialogue swap would soften it a little if I can find a “we’ll” in right tone.

That’s an interesting idea about trimming Bane’s short-lived infiltration. On the one hand it’s quite ballsy, which could add to Bane’s competence. But on the other, as you say, it’s a little absurd and redundant. Removing it would make the tradeoff that Anakin makes more impactful, which is the key emotional point of the episode. I’d be interested to know others’ thoughts on this.

djonesed said:

501st Legion - beginning felt a bit disjointed and tacked on, though I get that it sets up heavy and 99’s sacrifices. everything after the time skip was smooth and felt cohesive. pretty good episode for early clone wars.

I feel like I probably am settled on this one, since I think the current structure is necessary to sell the failure aspect, and set up the characters that remain in the show. But I appreciate the input!

Resistance on Ryloth - transition from retreating ships going into hyperspace fading out to same ships floating in space was awkward. I’d cut from hyperspace shot to anakin talking to ahsoka inside the ship (wipe, radial); music transition from Syndulla’s appearance to Ahsoka with general guy in the medbay was rather abrupt. good episode overall, possibly my favorite so far.

I’m glad you enjoyed it! I know the transition you mean, and interestingly it was actually this way in the original episode (though probably split by an advert break). I’ll see if I can soften it a bit, but if memory serves I tried a few variants which placed other scenes (from the other episodes) there, but found it messed with the story’s pacing.

Right, that’s that ^ episode actually released (as a workprint) now.
(I’d sent the prior message too early.)

REVIEW VERSION RELEASED - S02E06 - ATTACHMENTS (V2.0)

• REVIEW VERSION, not quite ready for full release, but presented here for feedback.
• Our sixth episode of season two.
• Comprising the original episode Jedi Crash.
• 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 by far the least important episode of my edit, featuring a pretty light ‘meeting the natives’ story. It’s skippable, but I’ve included it here for a few reasons: Mainly, because it balances out this place in the season nicely, since this period of time needed more Anakin, more Ahsoka, a little more exploration of the duo both together and apart, and more of this season’s focus on the war’s impact on the little guy. But also, it does begin with a great action sequence I’d hoped to include somewhere, it has a nice little hint at the Holdo Maneuver, and it does show us a little more of what happens on the fringes of the Galaxy, something that’s nice to see in the show but often appears in the show’s weaker episodes.

I didn’t follow it up with its sequel, Defenders of Peace, because that episode is very dull and its villain is very goofy. The Lurmen plot across both episodes feels quite half-baked and rejecting even self defence always just felt silly to me, so I’ve changed the dialogue in the Jedi Crash content that I am using to make them more isolationist and pacifist and less self-destructive.

Noteworthy changes:

• The episode is titled ‘Attachments’ to highlight primarily Ahsoka’s attachment to Anakin (the main focus of the episode), but also Rex’s loyalty to Anakin, and the Lurmen’s attachments to each other and their creed.
• The opening text and title focuses on the episode’s theme of the various connections people have - to their home, their culture, their creed, and each other.
• We open on the battle sequence, unchanged saved for cutting a few bits of silly droid dialogue, continuing through to the crash.
• I slightly reordered the bird-beast attack scenes for tension, so that it begins with Rex being vigilant, then Rex seeing something moving (but not being clear what it is), then the creatures attacking and killing some of Aayla’s party (so we now understand the threat), then a one-on-one fight between one of them and Rex, and then we know that more of them are closing in on Rex as he guards Anakin. The last shot of Anakin before help arrives is of him blacking out, increasing the medical risk angle too.
• I trimmed a bunch of wipes, in so doing, so it doesn’t feel like the episode’s full of wipes.
• I also moved the scene of Aayla’s discussion about the purpose of the Jedi in the war to nearer the end, so it can have more impact to the overall story for the viewer, and skipping it in its original placement serves to bring help to Anakin a little quicker (after a wipe transition to daytime) and lets us cut out a few shots of the Lurmen rolling like a ball, which is a bit goofy.
• I modified dialogue for Tee Wat Kaa, including adding some lines from Defenders of Peace, to make it more that the Lurmen are worried that the Jedi’s presence will draw Separatist attention to their quiet colony, and that they don’t believe in fighting. In his conversation with Aayla, he does now concede that the Jedi fight for peace, though ominously asks ‘at what cost’, to give Aayla (and the audience) something to mull over.
• We end on the episode’s original ending, with Ahsoka and Aayla acknowledging that the Republic will probably find them soon. I didn’t include the shots from the next episode of them being found, which I could have added, because it felt redundant after them saying that. (As a note, the ending music transition was difficult to get decent, because this is one of the few episodes from season one which mixed the music in with its voice/SFX track, making them hard to isolate.)

I don’t love this episode and I don’t think you will either, but as I say, it serves a decent purpose in the grander edit. I’ve just tried to make it as neat as I can.

Onwards to s02e07 Monsters, where we finally get the return of Maul.

I know this isn’t quite the place for it since Smudger’s goal is to turn the TV show into a movie, but insofar as this is the main place for discussing Boba Fett right now-

One thing I thought as I was watching Boba Fett was that those earlier episodes (especially 4) might fit best placed chronologically within the Mandalorian, especially as there’s some overlap.

Something like:
Episode zero: The Boba flashbacks
After the episode where mystery feet appear by Fennec: The Boba/Fennec flashbacks
Mando episodes with Boba/Mando together, concluding with Boba taking the throne
After season two: The present day content

Maybe the show would be called “The Mandalorians”…

Nice, thanks nmxuci. I will be looking for trims like that, and I think you’re right that I won’t need the Mas Amedda scenes.

Artan42 said:

RogueLeader said:

I wanted to chime in and say that I like both of Burbin’s ideas. It did feel funny for Grievous to be focused on the witches before he has even taken care of the Jedi in his lair. Like, he has Jedi running around in his house and he’s like, “I need to go kill Ventress and those witches!”

I think it fits for him. He’s not considering Fisto much of a threat but he’s eager to go out and kill Ventress at last.

Yeah, there’s maybe a middle ground here. If the dialogue is all at the end of the Lair content, then there’s a risk this’ll maybe feel like two episodes stapled together. Having some references during might help smooth it out. I’ll continue to play with it.

Hey neat! I’ve been reading some behind-the-scenes stuff about Clone Wars and it turns out that the original Christophsis episode - which eventually was merged with a trilogy of episodes focused on Jabba’s son to form the movie - was actually called ‘The New Padawan’, just as I called it! That’s a cool little accidental homage.

Edit: Oh, and it turns out that the opening from Brothers (with Savage hunting for Maul) was originally intended as a stinger - it would have been the ending of Bounty (which originally came after Massacre but which I’m not going to place in the main ordering) so it would have served exactly the same purpose as I’m using it for! Double neat!

Back this time last year I was thinking about doing a bit of a community survey and maybe running “focus months” for idea generation and edit highlighting/comparison for specific movies, maybe it’s worth doing that now in a period of relative quiet?

All good thoughts. On the music, the episodes always at least end with the first two piano notes that transition into the credits part of the outro theme, but sometimes I extend the track backwards into the end of the episode’s body, for the sentimental/melancholy feel as you say. One thing I’ve never yet done is incorporated music from another source, such as a soundtrack, or things like Cad Bane’s new theme from Bad Batch into his episodes of Clone Wars. Mainly this is because I don’t have any musical background so I’ve no idea how I’d blend it and transition properly into the end credits - normally I just use the basic fades in my editing software. Perhaps I should look into using audio from other sources at certain points, and properly learn how to do that.

Yes! Spot on. I had thought about that - how Talzin does return from her ‘elective intangiblity’ soon - but that it’d definitely be preferable to at least leave her without physical form in this episode. But I hadn’t thought to use her lovely ethereal voice independently of her body. Your suggestion is exactly the right answer, so I’ll implement that for sure. And the fact that he even calls her out by name is a real bonus that helps sell it. Thanks so much, this is a great solution.

I was thinking a little more about the fate of Talzin - she goes intangible in Massacre (retreating into the force?) then she’s back by the return of Maul (where she sacrifices even more of her physical form), then she’s offscreen for a while (trying to eat a force alignment??) but eventually ‘properly killed’ by Mace and Jar Jar (ugh) in the Bardotta episode I won’t be including in my edit, but then she’s back again in Son of Dathomir (starting off weakened but regaining full strength in that story). I’ll be including Son of Dathomir - in the form of the audio comic from Youtube, which is great - in my edit, because it’s an important episode. But what I like most about Son of Dathomir is that it explains that the reason Sidious captured Maul was specifically to lead to the set of circumstances where he can finish off Talzin properly. And it’s implied in the comics that their confrontation provides her final death - with Palpatine’s presence helping to kill her spiritually rather than just physically. And that’s a really nice thing to include, because it’s yet another thing that helps explain how Palpatine returned and why the intervention of force spirits was necessary in the conflict against him.

EddieDean said:

Onward to s02e06, a new episode using the Jedi Crash duology of episodes. This’ll be the least important episode of my show - and remain marked as a ‘bonus’ episode rather than a main episode in my tracker. However, I’m going to add it presented as the sixth episode of the season because it rounds out exactly what the season needed at this point - a little more Anakin, a little more Ahsoka, a little more of Ahsoka’s development solo, a little extra layer to their relationship, and a little more exploration on the war’s effects on the ‘little guy’. Plus, while it’s quite light, it does feature an excellent bit of opening action that I’d always hoped to include somewhere.

I’ve just conducted a review of this duology. That initial action sequence really is fantastic, and the Ahsoka/Anakin content is pretty decent. The core plotline, about the Lurmen being pacifist (even whilst under attack) feels quite ham-fisted and underdeveloped, and the storyline about the Separatists on the planet is both underdeveloped and very goofy. So I think the right approach here will be to preserve the content from the first episode, cutting a handful of the weaker Lurmen moments, whilst dropping almost the entirety of the second episode, keeping only a handful of pieces of decent dialogue, and probably the very last couple of shots as the Republic ships arrive.

This episode might end up the shortest yet - perhaps around 18 minutes - but I’m not aiming for any particular length and it does serve a wider purpose within this season, especially for the first-time viewer.

I’ll probably use the opening crawl to highlight for the viewer that we really haven’t seen the Separatists much this season, sowing the seeds that’ll pay off in the finale trio of episodes with the reveal of the Geonosis factory.

RELEASED - S02E05 - Tales of the Lost Clones (V2.0)

• RELEASE VERSION, now brought up to my more polished 2.0 standard, and with proper transitions between chapters.
• Our fifth episode of season two.
• A special anthology episode comprising the original episodes Hidden Enemy, Missing in Action, and The Deserter
• Running 45 minutes (with each chapter being 12-15 minutes long).
• 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 special anthology episode focusing on clone loyalty, often with Captain Rex at the center. Aggregating three episodes this way gave me a way to present the audience with three good but short stories carved out of larger and less valuable content, and combining them allowed their core themes to complement and reinforce each other. It also serves to provide a highlight to Captain Rex, whose relationship with loyalty is a secondary - but still important - theme of the show, which I’ve chosen to focus one episode per season on, so it grows gradually whilst not taking too much focus from our core plotlines.

I opted to avoid planetary establishing shots and much exposition, instead letting each chapter stay small scale and isolated from wider context, to allow each chapter’s content and this anthology’s core theme to be the primary takeaway.

Noteworthy changes:

• The episode is titled ‘Tales of the Lost Clones’ to highlight its anthology feel and shared theme. ‘Lost in Spirit’ highlights the traitor clone’s betrayal of his brothers, ‘Lost in Mind’ highlights Gregor’s mental instability which is a major part of his character that we’ll return to in future media, and ‘Lost in Heart’ highlights Cut’s loyalty shifting without beytrayal.
• The opening text emphasises the core theme of the anthology and gives a little highlight to Rex, and makes clear that these stories are not necessarily at the same time in the war. It only mentions our first chapter starting after an ambush, since that’s immediate context that I think is necessary to avoid disorientation.
• Our first chapter is LOST IN SPIRIT, featuring the traitor clone subplot from Hidden Enemy, with barely any trims. I placed this chapter first in this anthology since it features Anakin and Obi-Wan, which serves to ‘hand off’ the plot to Rex and the clones from our more familiar main characters. It would also be less interesting if it followed the other two chapters, since it’s less nuanced, but it’s a good introduction to the idea of clones questioning blind obedience. (As a note, I didn’t want to include this content with the Christophsis storyline because I felt that starting our show with a traitor clone right off the bat raised too many questions.)
• Our second chapter is LOST IN MIND, featuring the Gregor subplot from Missing in Action, the third episode in the four-part Droids in the Void arc. That arc is pretty horrible, full of bland imagery and really childish goofiness, so this is the only time in my edit we’ll see any of its content. The Gregor story, however, was decent, and Gregor returns in later media. I trimmed some of the closing action and as much of the goofy droid behaviour as possible, as well as cutting Gascon’s dialogue down so that he appears more competent and a much more legitimate leader. This episode doesn’t explain why R2 is present, but I don’t think I have a good option here. (The first release of this edit put lots of exposition in the opening text, but it was far too much to ask the viewer to remember.) I think it’s a fair trade-off for the quality we get in return.
• Our third and final chapter is LOST IN HEART, featuring the Cut Lawquane subplot from The Deserter, the second episode in the loose Grievous Intrigue/Deserter duology, with barely any trims. I’ll be eventually making the remaining content into a regular bonus episode, but it won’t be part of the main version of my edit. The Cut Lawquane story is one of the frequently-cited highlights of The Clone Wars, and Cut Lawquane appears in later media, so it was important to include this somewhere in my edit. This was the best episode to end on since it’s got a nice emotional ending with Rex riding away with time to mull over the lessons he’s learned, helping to forment the change in the viewer’s mind too.
• It took me a long time to get the transitions between episodes in a decent place, especially the audio, since it necessitated something that was both an ending and could carry a return to the opening titles. I think and hope I’ve achieved this, but feedback would be appreciated if it still doesn’t work (though I’ve got no idea what I’ll do if it doesn’t).

Onward to s02e06, a new episode using the Jedi Crash duology of episodes. This’ll be the least important episode of my show - and remain marked as a ‘bonus’ episode rather than a main episode in my tracker. However, I’m going to add it presented as the sixth episode of the season because it rounds out exactly what the season needed at this point - a little more Anakin, a little more Ahsoka, a little more of Ahsoka’s development solo, a little extra layer to their relationship, and a little more exploration on the war’s effects on the ‘little guy’. Plus, while it’s quite light, it does feature an excellent bit of opening action that I’d always hoped to include somewhere.

Thanks so much to everyone who gave feedback on s02e02 Massacre. That’s all been extremely useful, and I’m really glad to hear that you all think the idea broadly lands well.

Artan42 said:

Did you do any changes to the music? The scene of the Nightsisters commandeering the AAT sounds very like the Knights of Ren theme.

I didn’t, that’s the original audio!

RogueLeader said:

There are some times where I think a more traditional L or J cut would make for a more natural transition than the more Star Warsy wipe, but that’s just a part of the shows style that you’re trying to stay consistent with, so it is not really a complaint.

I think that’s a valid observation! Whilst wipes are permitted, they’re not the best option, and I think that both in this episode and the wider edit I should always ask if they’re strictly necessary, especially if the audio can carry the transition instead of the video. I’ll review these again.

Burbin said:

The one thing that didn’t really work for me was the way you sprinkled some dialogue from Massacre into LoG, namely both of Grevious’ calls with Dooku. Firstly, I get the idea of trying to more explicitly tie Ventress to the attack on Grevious’ Lair, but it really doesn’t come off that way. The lines from Massacre don’t really gel with the originals, so it ends up feeling like two different conversations happening at the same time. Secondly, I feel that interjecting talk about Ventress and the witches takes away all importance from the immediate plot about Grevious having to fend off against Fisto & company, it makes that confrontation drag as it feels like something we just have to get over with so the real plot of the episode can begin.

In my opinion it would work a lot better if first we focused on Grevious fighting off the intruders on his lair, juxtaposed with Ventress recieving a warm welcome home and celebrating with the night sisters. And then after Grevious has successfully defeated his assailants, he’s contacted by Dooku and comanded to take vengeance against Ventress (now Grevious becomes the assailant!). I would say to remove the first conversation with Dooku entirely, cutting instead from Ventress’ baptism to Grevious fully repaired ready to fight the Jedi again. This makes Grevious feel more isolated as he deals with the surprise intruders on his own, instead of getting a random call from Dooku that aknowledges the intruders but doesn’t make any further remarks or offer any help. Then once he kills Nahdar and the clones and forces Fisto to flee, he is contacted by Dooku simply to command him to attack the witches on Dathomir.

Here’s a rough mockup I did of how it could play out:
https://vimeo.com/667454669

I think Dooku’s expressions and mouth movements sinc up well enough to pass off. I also like that it would remove the bit where Grevious has to coyly tell Dooku that Fisto escaped, framing it as a failure. I’d say he did pretty good for a surprise attack, specially now that it was not a “test” set up by Dooku, I think it’s better to just remove all of that dialogue. This also falls in line of your goal of making Grievous appear more menacing in TCW:R, this is one of the few episodes where we actually see him hunting down Jedi and that bit of dialogue kinda undermines it.

Artan42 said:

The cut to Mas is a bit quick but there’s no way around that.

On these two points, I think there’s something I can do here. I was on the fence about having Dooku discuss Ventress earlier, but perhaps as Burbin says, it’s unnecessary. I might use the other scene of their call to bridge the episodes though, so after Grievous deals with Fisto he’ll take the call with Grievous that he rolls up to on his chair, because that one gives us the most freedom in terms of audio changes. And to extend the transition between episodes slightly, I think there’re some shots of Grievous marshalling the army and then heading to space that I can use there. I’ll explore that idea further.

Artan42 said:

Retribution would be a good name as it ties up the loose ends and opens some new ones in terms of the Savage/Ventress/Grievous/Dooku (and by ecxtention Palps/Talzin) relationships.

I think I’m swinging to Retribution too. Ventress’ leak is her retribution, then Grievous takes his with the Massacre. Since the theme of the episode has changed, I think this is more appropriate.

I’ll leave it a little longer before returning to this episode, just in case more feedback is forthcoming.

One thing I’m still curious about is the addition of the coda with Savage searching the galaxy. Does it work? Does it feel out of place? I wouldn’t add it back to the start of the Monsters episode (where Maul is rediscovered), so I think it belongs here if at all.

And I’m having a productive day, so-

(RE)RELEASED - S02E04 - Like Father, Like Clone (V2.0)

• RELEASE VERSION, now brought up to my more polished 2.0 standard.
• Our fourth episode of season two, which I’d called ‘Sins of the Father’ for v1 but changed for this release.
• Comprising the original episodes Death Trap, R2 Come Home, and Lethal Trackdown
• Running 48 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 first (and main) time we see Boba Fett in the Clone Wars, but it’s also a good Anakin episode which becomes a good Ahsoka episode, with a little development for Mace Windu. It’s a great episode that looks lovely and has some good ideas, with a strong emotional core - the battle for Boba’s soul. And hey, we get some more Hondo, who’s always good fun, and there are some excellent ponchos on display too so you know you’re in for a good time. Mainly, all I did was take out a good amount of filler, to let that core plotline remain in focus and be better paced.

Noteworthy changes:

• The episode is titled ‘Like Father, Like Clone’ to emphasise the Jango/Boba relationships, and Boba being tested by his father’s legacy as a bounty hunter.
• The opening text basically just recaps the Jango/Mace/Boba story so far, then sets the episode up exactly the way the original opening did.
• I removed the skeet shooting scene and Boba nearly getting caught alone in the cruiser from the first episode, and took out a little of the other clone cadets where they weren’t relevant to Boba’s journey, before transitioning cleanly into the second episode.
• From the second episode I removed quite a lot that wasn’t relevant - R2 fighting bounty hunters, R2 fighting gundarks, R2 flying all the way to Coruscant to get help. These antics were a bit too goofy and just distracted us from the core of the episode. Having the rescue ship show up at the end without being summoned is understandable since the cruiser had working comms and the Republic would have tracked the crashing cruiser’s distress beacons.
• I also didn’t have Boba’s team appear on the planet the cruiser crashed on - he will have set the trap during the chaos of the lost cadets (expecting the Jedi to see if they could save any bridge survivors, which they don’t know he kidnapped), but left before the larger Republic forces arrived. The story here just focuses on Mace and Anakin searching, getting trapped, and ruminating on Boba before their rescue. I shifted a scene from the third episode to the middle of this drama just for pacing, and to keep Boba in focus.
• From the third episode I only really cut the meat of the traitor Castas subplot, since it wasn’t relevant at all to see his objections. We still see him betray the bounty hunters at Hondo’s bar, and Aurra’s hardline response there, so we don’t lose any character development. Other than that I just made a couple of light trims to dialogue.

Onward to s02e05 Tales of the Lost Clones, my clone loyalty anthology episode. Of all the episodes I produced so far, this was the one left unfinished (since I wasn’t great at audio transitions at the time), so I’m looking forward to having it properly released.

(RE)RELEASED - S02E03 - Corruption on Mandalore (V2.0)

• RELEASE VERSION, now brought up to my more polished 2.0 standard.
• Our third episode of season two.
• Comprising the original episodes Corruption and The Academy.
• Running 26 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 episode is a continuation of the Mandalore plotline, continuing Ahsoka’s interest in teaching future generations, and giving us our first steps into Ahsoka developing her skills solo.

I wanted to place this episode fairly early because making it now the third Mandalore episode in a relatively short period of time helps establish Mandalore as a key recurring pillar of our show, which’ll pay off once Maul gets involved and carry us through to the finale.

For this episode I wanted to combine all of the best parts of Corruption and The Academy whilst dropping and minimising the weaker elements of both: The plotline about poisoned schoolkids, the academy kids, and the whole idea that the best way to fix corruption is to make a Jedi a schoolteacher. I also wanted to change a LOT of character motivations to make then all a lot more rational. The solution here was a radical restructure of the narrative, placing both Padmé and Ahsoka on Mandalore at the same time, and allowing the academy kids’ interpretation of Ahsoka’s teaching to kick off Satine and Padmé’s investigation, which ends up putting pressure on Almec to expose himself.

The new narrative plays out as follows:

• This episode is titled ‘Corruption on Mandalore’, again highlighting Mandalore as a recurring setting, but also highlighting its corruption to emphasise its internal instability (which we know has a risk of becoming a threat to the wider galaxy). It also serves to inform the viewer that we’re getting a bit of a political episode.
• The opening crawl explains that Padmé’s a hero to Mandalore for protecting its independence, but the war is still putting pressure on supply lines, causing corruption and a black market. For support and advice, Satine requests Padmé’s help. Knowing that Ahsoka’s taken an interest in training, and to help Satine’s work on the future of Mandalore’s peace, she recommends Ahsoka share her experiences at the political academy. (Ahsoka’s there in secret, since there’s still wider Mandalorian mistrust of the Jedi amongst the common population.)
• Using a scene from the episode originally called Assassin, as Padmé and Ahsoka fly to Mandalore, Ahsoka shares her doubts and Padmé reassures her.
• Ahsoka unintentionally inspires the kids to investigate the black market, which they do offscreen, reporting their findings first to Satine (Korkie’s trusted aunt, so a sensible move). THIS is the trigger for the plot - that the black market may be linked to government corruption, not that either exists in isolation.
• Satine tells the kids that she’ll take action but the kids shouldn’t (because they’re kids, so a sensible move), but frustrated, they decide to call Almec, who Korkie also knows.
• Before they can do that, Satine and Padmé go to talk to Almec (who she has no reason to mistrust yet, so a sensible move). He shows little interest, saying it’s probably Death Watch, which Satine finds a bit nonsensical. (This makes the scene in this context a little funny and Almec more flippant, which I think is fun.) Suspicious, and not knowing who else to trust (sensible, because it could be anybody else) Satine and Padmé decide to investigate themselves. I’ve slightly improved this scene since version one of this edit.
• The kids call Almec, who’s already suspicious that Satine may be closing in on him because of their previous conversation, and they tell him they have evidence - which he knows will implicate him. This justifies his fairly radical actions now - he’s more panicked now than in the original episodes. Knowing he has to act fast, he tells the kids to meet him that night.
• The kids attend the academy during the daytime, where they tell Ahsoka about what’s going on. This brings her into the story, and now that she’s grown a little wiser than she was when she was first introduced, she’s wary, and decides to keep an eye on them.
• Late in the evening, Satine and Padmé (who’s always up for capers like this) go and check out the docks, where they see an easily bribed guy. I’ve changed the dialogue “A customs official” to “A government official” to make it explicit that they’ve just had their suspicions confirmed - the black market is tied to the corruption in the government.
• Again, they go to Almec (still sensible because they don’t completely suspect him, and with their new evidence they believe he might be more inclined to help). He rebuffs them once more, and they retreat frustrated for the night.
• Almec now knows for certain he’s made, so while he moves to arrest the kids that night (as he always intended to since the moment they told him they had evidence), off camera he arranges the arrest of Satine. Padmé is unaware of this and doesn’t follow the rest of the plot (she enjoys a good night’s rest in the ambassador’s suite, presumably).
• Ahsoka, now savvy and patient, saves the kids from arrest by Almec’s corrupt guards. They realise that Almec was corrupt and rush to Satine (still sensible as they now realise they’re way out of their depth), only to find her taken.
• Ahsoka puts a plan into motion immediately, giving Almec what he wants (the arrested kids) and impicates Satine (who she knows Almec opposes) in order to gain his trust. This doesn’t work, but only because he’s particularly guarded, but it was a perfectly sensible idea. It also gets her close to the prison.
• She moves to plan B, and tries to free Satine herself. She falls into a trap, where Almec freely reveals his own corruption, but she turns the tables and imprisons him, freeing Satine, and implicitly rooting out Almec’s corrupt network.
• As a note: Plan B also includes using the kids as part of the plan. I thought about trimming this, but I think it ties more into the Ahsoka-as-teacher plotline, and contrasts well against her cautioning patience earlier. She trusts these kids to act even in the face of danger, but she just knows that there was an unsuitable time for it (breaking into a government warehouse) and a suitable time for it (to free someone from illegal imprisonment and root out a usurper). It shows she’s a bit more discerning, even when she’s being bold. This also kind of shows that she expected to be drawn into a trap (and use that to get Almec to confess), if you want to interpret it that way.
• Ahsoka - now no longer required because she’s both taught the kids about corruption AND triggered a series of events which has likely made the population of Mandalore more guarded against corruption - is picked up by Anakin.
• But Padmé, in my version, remains, for a while. She has dinner with Satine, where they discuss their happiness at the outcome while still bemoaning the cost of corruption across the galaxy and within the Republic. But true to her earlier word, Satine now invites her to come and see a new hospital (the one where in the original they saw the poisoned kids, but here free of context it’s just A Good Thing) and enjoy peaceful mandalore to raise their spirits. They toast, and we end the episode. Mandalore’s now left in a better place than in the original version, and having Padmé stay there for a while is a nice way to keep it feeling relevant even if we don’t revisit them again soon.

The amount of polish I’m needing to give this batch of episodes is far smaller now, as I was a better editor when I first produced them, so I’m able to get them upgraded to version 2 a lot quicker lately. But I’m still taking the opportunity to review them fully as I go.

Onwards, to s02e04 Like Father, Like Clone, our Boba Fett episode!

I’ve tidied that workprint up now so I can at least release a decent review version.

REVIEW VERSION RELEASED - S02E02 - Massacre (V2.0)

• REVIEW VERSION, not quite ready for full release, but presented here for feedback.
• Our second episode of season two.
• Comprising the original episodes Lair of Grievous and Massacre, with a couple of minutes from Brothers (IMPORTANT: The prior v1.x version of this just covered Massacre, so this story is all-new. Worth a look if you’ve seen this one before.)
• Running 34 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 episode is a continuation of the plotline established in the Nightsisters arc, which leads into the Savage/Maul plotline to follow. It’s placed here to allow us to eagerly anticipate and get to Maul within this season, and to make Ventress’ reaction to the events of the Nightsister arc come fairly soon afterwards.

It merges the plotlines of Lair of Grievous and Massacre, to present an all-new story. Lair of Grievous contained some interesting texture and good villainy for Grievous, but had a lot of filler and its emotional core wasn’t strong enough to stand alone. Massacre was always great fun, but it was really Dooku that had the personal grievance against the Nightsisters, not Grievous. So what I’ve done here is had Ventress leak the location of Grievous’ base to the Jedi, as a vengeful strike against Dooku and his war. Here that event is what now draws the Jedi to Grievous’ Lair (rather than pursuing Nute Gunray as in the original), triggering the events of Lair of Grievous. And now, when Grievous initiates the Nightsister massacre in Massacre, the events there (including Ventress and Grievous’ one-on-one duel) are more personal. This also builds on their dislike of each other as seen in the Domino Squad arc. Having Ventress be more directly responsible for the fall of the Nightsisters also adds a new layer to her guilt, which plays nicely with her original lines about this being all her fault, and helps justify the softening of her character that we see later.

Since Grievous has no visible mouth, and Dooku has his back to the camera quite a lot when he’s in hologram, I was able to do a lot of audio work to keep referencing the Nightsisters throughout the Lair of Grievous content.

I also end this episode with some scenes originally from the beginning of Brothers (where Savage finds Maul), showing Savage getting closer to finding Maul and having Dooku and Grievous ominously show further concern. My intention here is to create some anticipation and continue to make this show feel more serialised than anthology. (I’m not sure quite how well this works, so interested in feedback here)

Noteworthy changes:

• This episode is titled ‘Massacre’ after the original episode, since I think it’s a good straight-to-the-point threat. However, now that this version includes some additional content which serves to make the plot more of a series of revenge strikes, I may rename it ‘Retribution’ after I’ve done a bit more work to polish this.
• The opening crawl reestablishes the risk facing the Sith with the various unexpected a results of the failed attempt to kill Ventress. It explains that Ventress leaked Grievous’ location, and makes explicit that it was only her that could have leaked it - which I needed to help explain why Grievous and Dooku tie the strike back to the Nightsisters.
• We open on Ventress returning to Dathomir, and being told by Talzin that she should become a Nightsister.
• Cut to Kit Fisto entering Grievous’ lair and them finding all of his weird artefacts, Grievous arriving, their first combat (where Grievous loses his legs), Fisto deciding to flee but being stopped by Grievous locking the doors, and Grievous undergoing his painful repairs.
• Transition from Grievous’ repairs into Ventress going through a similar procedure as she’s healed and purified by Nightsister magics, becoming a true Nightsister herself.
• Return to Grievous’ Lair, where he takes a call from Dooku informing him that he knows about the Jedi attack, that Ventress has returned to Dathomir, and they can get revenge on Ventress and Talzin. (They leap to revenge since only Ventress knew the location, so she must have been the leaker.) Grievous kills Nahdar and Kit Fisto unlocks the doors, and I moved round some scenes so it looks like the right number of clones get killed without needing the fire pit or monster. Kit faces Grievous and flees, and now free from dealing with the attack on his base, Grievous quickly tells Dooku it’s time for revenge on the Nightsisters.
• Back to the Nightsisters celebrating and getting immediately attacked by Greivous, and then the rest of Massacre plays out, with the only changes being making Talzin the one who raises the undead army instead of Old Dahka.

(I’m not quite sure if ‘Massacre’ still suits this new narrative, so I may rename this? Revenge? Retribution? Escalation? Revenge and Regret?)

I may need to return to this one based on your feedback, but it’s a polished review version for now.
Onwards to s02e03 Corruption on Mandalore!

In fact, I could really do with some feedback on how well that new narrative works right now, so-

WORKPRINT RELEASED - s02e02 - MASSACRE

The link’s in the usual place (replacing the older version 1 of Massacre). Detail on my new idea in the post above.

Ignore the intro and outro, they’re still the old version. (Assume that the introduction tells you that the Nightsisters have leaked the location of Grievous’ Lair, a secret that only Ventress could have known.) But I’m curious to gather feedback on the story ideas presented herein and their execution. Ordering, audio, and transitions are all done, so it plays nicely.

Thanks in advance to anyone who can spare the time!

Great progress today on my idea for a new version of s02e02 Massacre.

I’ve incorporated about ten minutes of Lair of Grievous, so now it plays as follows:

• Intro makes clear that as revenge for the events of the Nightsisters arc, Talzin has leaked the location of Grievous’ lair (a secret only Ventress knew) to the Jedi. (We assume Ventress told Talzin offscreen in their last episode together.)
• Open on Ventress returning to Dathomir, and being told by Talzin that she should become a Nightsister
• Cut to Kit Fisto entering Grievous’ lair and them finding all of his weird artefacts, Grievous arriving, their first combat (where Grievous loses his legs), Fisto deciding to flee but being stopped by Grievous locking the doors, and Grievous undergoing his painful repairs.
• Transition from Grievous’ repairs into Ventress going through a similar procedure as she’s healed and purified by Nightsister magics, becoming a true Nightsister.
• Return to Grievous’ Lair, where he takes a call from Dooku saying he knows about the Jedi attack, that Ventress has returned to Dathomir, and they can get revenge on Ventress and Talzin. (They leap to revenge as only Ventress knew the location so they must have been the leakers.) Grievous kills Nahdar and Kit Fisto unlocks the doors, and I moved round some scenes so it looks like the right number of clones get killed without needing the fire pit or monster. Kit faces Grievous and flees, and Grievous immediately tells Dooku it’s time for revenge on the nightsisters.
• Back to the Nightsisters celebrating and getting immediately attacked by Greivous, and then the rest of Massacre plays out, with the only changes being making Talzin the one who raises the undead army instead of Old Dahka.

Since Grievous has no visible mouth, and Dooku has his back to the camera quite a lot when he’s in hologram, I was able to do a lot of audio work to keep referencing the Nightsisters throughout the Lair of Grievous content.

The workprint is finished but I want to watch it through first and see if I want to make any other changes since it was a complex one to put together.

But, a question for you guys:

One additional option I have here, is to end with Savage on a rampage in the diner looking for Maul, finding a further clue and getting more of Talzin’s guidance, ending up on the ship which’ll take him to Lotho Minor to find Maul. I originally cut that from the start of the relevant episode, as it wasn’t necessary as an episode introduction (he has the medallion, we can start with him just already arriving at the planet), but if I were to put it here, it would serve to bridge the prior Nightsisters episode (four episodes prior) with the next Savage/Maul episode (four episodes hence). Though it doesn’t directly pertain to the content of this episode, it might provide some good wider continuity and let that plotline feel like it’s still running? What do you guys think?

(RE)RELEASED - S02E01 - Seven Warriors (V2.0)

• RELEASE VERSION, now brought up to my more polished 2.0 standard.
• Our first episode of season two.
• Comprising the episode originally called Bounty Hunters.
• 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 opening episode of my second season. I included ‘in memory of Akira Kurosawa’ from the original episode, and renamed the episode ‘Seven Warriors’, to emphasise the fact that this is an homage to his ‘Seven Samurai’ film.

This isn’t an incredible episode, but it’s perfectly decent and a good season opener, as it achieves a few things: Firstly, it reintroduces our core trio of Anakin, Ahsoka and Obi-Wan, and they all get their moment to shine. But more importantly, it sets the tone for this season, with its emphasis on the rise of scum and villainy, and the impact the war has on the ‘little guy’. We also get our first sighting of Hondo (at least for TCW:Refocused, in a far better episode than his original introduction), who’s a great villain and addition to the franchise. And it also gives us the first seeds of Rebellion, which’ll continue a few times through TCW.

The episode is largely untouched.

Noteworthy changes:

• This episode is titled ‘Seven Warriors’, to emphasise the connection to Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai, and because it sounds cool.
• The opening crawl establishes the state of the galaxy now that the opening conflicts are over and battle lines have been redrawn, leaving many behind. It also emphasises the season’s themes, of bounty hunters and piracy. I chose to also make Felucia’s importance (but remoteness) explicit, because we see it a few times throughout the Clone Wars so I felt the context was valuable.
• I removed the opening search for a medical station, instead just letting them check on Felucia by convenience when passing by on a more important mission. Highlighting that it was a diplomatic mission requiring an ambassadorial shuttle (which is what that shuttle canonically is) helps explain why three Jedi got shot down so easily.
• I removed the large monster from the beginning, since it served no purpose to the story, but was able to preserve the nice familial bickering between our three leads (and fix a small continuity error from the original episode in so doing).
• I trimmed a later reference to the medical station - Obi-Wan’s now resistant to help simply because of the time concern and because, knowing there was a light Separatist presence in the system, their prolonged presence may draw further Separatist attention to the planet. (I feel like this works better, since this episode is also about the main cast having the idea of local resistance, which will eventually grow into the Rebellion.)

Onwards to s02e02 Massacre. I’m going to try my more recent idea to have scenes from Lair of Grievous precede the Massacre portion (with the reasoning being that Mother Talzin leaked its location as revenge against Dooku/the Separatists in the Nightsisters arc), which’ll give us some cool additional scenes and make the Massacre far more personal for Grievous.

It’s still uploading, it’ll be ~45 mins.

Thanks to your notes Vranir, I’ve just made some light changes to Resistance on Ryloth.

UPDATED - s01e06 - RESISTANCE ON RYLOTH (v2.1)

(Not yet uploaded at time of writing, it’ll be a couple of hours from this post.)

• Removed Wat Tambor’s references to driving the Twi’leks out of the city as a human shield
• Moved the scene of the Twi’leks being kicked out to before Wat Tambor’s plans, so it’s the first shot after the initial establishing shot of the city
• Slightly reworked the opening crawl to reference the massacre and Twi’leks being driven out, to enable the above

I’m not sure why I didn’t do it this way before. It makes sense to open on the Twi’leks suffering, to establish the episode’s emotional stakes, and so the ending brings this full circle.

REQUEST FOR HELP

If anyone’s able to change the colours of just a single item on screen (as opposed to a screen-wide LUT), I’d love to recolour the pink-skinned child that Cham Syndulla holds in his arms into having green skin, so it can be more explicitly Hera. Doesn’t need to be a spot-on job (she can grow into her pigmentation), but hinting at Hera would be a nice nod forward. It’s just three short shots.

Thanks Vranir, it’s always interesting to see how people have brought things further. I’m interested how you’re managing most of the audio transitions when trimming some of the dialogue you’ve specified, because I often find that each trim needs quite careful audio work to preserve the flow of the background music. This is why I tend to avoid any more subjective cuts and tend toward preservation unless particularly egregious. One of the big changes I made for the 2.0 polish was that I now listen to the edits on a full surround sound system at max volume with muted voices and SFX so I can really feel the music flow. But there are some interesting ideas here!

I’m particularly interested in how you trimmed around the rock worm in The 501st. I kept it because I couldn’t see a clean trim point since Rex’s introduction is him shooting the worm. What was your solution there?

Similarly, I’m curious about what you did about getting Anakin down to Kamino without the underwater scenes. I know originally Anakin says something like “I’ll join you on the surface” and then eventually we just cut to them together on the planet, but I was happy to have them travel down while offscreen in the absence of the underwater content. I’d like to see how you’ve made that slicker!

I’m also interested in your new placement of Grievous’ escape in the 501st, because I remember that bit of audio being a bit messy.

I also wonder if there’s an angle in Ryloth where I can preserve the Twi’leks being kicked out of the city but without the human shield angle…

I’ll keep the word ‘Defences’ because that’s the norm for British English, which sees wider use than American English. Just be glad I haven’t had to talk about Coloured Armour!

I’d recommend that you keep the scene of the droids talking about older models though, because it’s good context for why they can’t just take out the orbital control ships like Anakin does in TPM.

I don’t think I’ll make many changes, but there’s lots to think about here, thanks!