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!

To anyone who watches the full first season, I’d really appreciate any further feedback (even if not particularly constructive), because I’d really like to submit this to IFDB once it’s been seen by enough eyes.

Right, so with that s01e10 v2.0 complete, and the minor change to s01e05 (removing the underwater scene), it’s finally time to announce:

SEASON ONE COMPLETE!

That’s the full polish/quality pass of the first ten episodes (plus the bonus episode zero), incorporating full reviews of all edits to date and their original sources, masses of community feedback from the v1.0 versions incorporated, the new reordering and additional context it grants, improved music and transitions, and improved intros and outros throughout.

This is intended as a complete, cohesive, end-to-end season of the show, and of course the introductory season for my five-season edit. There are extensive notes on each episode’s placement and edits in the tracker spreadsheet (which you can PM me for) and lower down in this thread’s original post.

Phew!

As always, feedback and discussion is welcome and encouraged. I’m sure there’s the odd nip and tuck I could make in future, but for now, there’s nothing in my (extensive!) notes and I’m proud to put that season in front of you all.

Onwards, then, to the polish for the later seasons! I know I say this every time I say ‘onwards’, but this content’s v2.0 upgrade should take far less time to edit. I was already a half decent editor by the time I came to the 1.0 versions of those episodes, so there’s far less polish work to be done, plus they were already stronger episodes so required fewer edits in the first place.

Thanks to everyone who’s joined me on this ride!

(RE)RELEASED - S01E10 - The Future of the Force (V2.1)

• RELEASE VERSION, now brought up to my more polished 2.0 standard.
• Our tenth and final episode of the first season, and the second part of the two-part finale.
• (The previous v1.0 version of this edit was called ‘A Strike at the Heart (part 2)’, but it’s been renamed for v2.0.)
• Comprising the original episodes Cargo of Doom and Children of the Force.
• Running 38 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 second part and conclusion of the Cad Bane / Holocron Heist storyline, and this season’s finale. The split between this episode and the previous one was mainly because the original version of Cargo of Doom (which begins this episode) had a lot of plot happen in its narration, which I needed to preserve via a new opening crawl. There’s nothing too new in this version of the edited episode, mainly some light restructuring and improved audio and transitions throughout.

These are a great set of episodes, and a fitting season finale - Cad Bane is an excellent new villain, we get a great high-stakes romp through space, there are some nice callbacks to earlier events in the season, and we get some great hints at Palpatine’s larger plans. We also get to see more of Ahsoka’s growth (through combat competency, patience, and wisdom), and her relationship with Anakin develops (with him compromising the mission to save her, and trusting her judgment). I also added a scene originally from Lightsaber Lost which, in context, implies that these events have given her an interest in training the future generations (as continued in Rebels and Mandalorian), and reflects back on Anakin losing his own lightsaber in part one.

Noteworthy changes:

• The episode is titled ‘The Future of the Force’ to highlight a few things which’ll grow later. The Jedi children are the subject of the plot and thus the obvious ‘future of the force’, but Sidious’ plans with them are his intention for that future, and Ahsoka’s development as a protector and teacher of new generations is also a direction the force will take her in future.
• Used the opening text mainly as a refresher for the past episode, and to bridge the two stories better than the original’s narration did.
• The two episodes are pretty much back to back with most scenes intact. I trimmed and reordered a few minor scenes for pacing. The bridging scene between the two episodes I’ve combined here is the opening from the second episode, rather than the ending from the first. (Interestingly, these two were originally mutually exclusive!)
• I removed all references to the ‘Kyber Crystal’, which in this episode was needed to unlock the holocron (in contrast with newer (and EU) context that Kyber Crystals are for lightsabers and Death Stars). This also serves to simplify Bane’s need for a Jedi to open the holocron.
• I also removed all references to Master Ropal, since he’s not needed, but also because originally Bane went to all that effort to capture him but then accidentally killed him, which takes away some competency. Now, he always planned to coerce or capture a pursuing Jedi, which seems fine, because we know he can go toe-to-toe with some.
• I removed Obi-Wan’s trip to Rodia, because it’s redundant, is too much jumping around, and because I don’t like the Rodian city’s design (it doesn’t feel very aesthetically Star Wars to me).
• I reworked Sidious’ dialogue on Mustafar to better emphasise his plans with the Jedi younglings - he mentions now a force sensitive army (rather than spies), which aligns better with his more recent reveals (such as his Inquisition and perhaps even Final Order cultists).
• I cut one joke where Rex bumps his head, and all droid banter. The droids still have a functional military purpose and for that they need to speak, but they’re far less goofy.
• Our penultimate scene is of Anakin and Palpatine mulling over the mystery, and our final scene is one from Lightsaber Lost where Ahsoka passes on some recent lessons to the current batch of Jedi Younglings, to wrap up the season and hint at what’s to come.

I’m not quite ready to announce that this episode concludes my season one, because I’d like to make a simple trim to s01e05 (cutting Obi-Wan’s underwater scenes entirely rather than just leaving a bit of them). That’s uploading right now too, so just give me couple of hours and I’ll update the thread title once it’s all good to go!

nmxuci5970 said:

I haven’t seen you mandalorian episodes although I seen the changes in each and ever single one of them and by the looks of it. Therefore, I’m creating a Clone Wars Stories (Canon) that happen in the time period to make a bit of changes in some of them. Nevertheless, I’m not be able to get as many edits completed by the period as Education is important and schooling. If you’re willling to contribute and ideas as this is WIP project.

Replied in your thread 😃

Hey buddy, I saw your message over in my thread. I’ve loaded these episodes deep into my brain, so I’m happy to help share any thoughts you might find useful! What are some of this project’s goals?

It’s a decent idea, for the reasons you mention, but I think Christophsis is still the sensible first step.

Ahsoka is great, she’s the heart of this show, she’s now extremely popular, and her legacy is clearly really important to the current world of Star Wars releases. However, it’s worth remembering that Ahsoka was very unpopular on release - by design, so that audiences could see her growth. Also, Clone Wars was a new entry in a franchise which had never once mentioned Anakin having a padawan, especially a youngling (Vader’s secret apprentice being something very different). Because of both factors, the original show had to position her very carefully knowing that she was (1) unexpected (and possibly unwelcome because of that) and (2) at the beginning of her maturity (and for some, again unwelcome because of that). The show ultimately was justified in the way it introduced her, but it did put people off at first. So there’s already good sense to placing Christophsis before a solo adventure.

But also, I think one of the important audiences for this edit in particular is people who either never picked up Clone Wars because of its original (and ongoing) poor reviews, or people who checked out the original Clone Wars but gave up on it early because of the early poor quality, of which Ahsoka’s unwelcomeness was a factor for many. I’ve done what I can to minimise some of Ahsoka’s more abrasive traits whilst retaining a lot of the weaknesses she ultimately grows through, but I think I still need to make sure that Ahsoka is used carefully at first and not forced upon the new viewer, so she’s not overly highlighted at first and there’s lots of other interest and quality to keep audiences of this edit engaged until they grow to like her.

It’s for these reasons that I wanted to ensure the first season was strong, varied and interesting (Mandalorians, Domino Squad, Nightsisters, etc), and with Ahsoka’s appearances being as decent as I could make them (her care for Plo Koon, her boldness/rashness well applied with Luminara, her victory at Ryloth after her earlier failure, her competence and wisdom in the finale). But I wanted to do this with control and balance, hence moving a few scenes around to help explain her absences, so the early skeptic will find her present but not overwhelmingly in focus.

Additionally, while Cloak of Darkness is a decent-ish episode, it is one of the weaker ones in this season, which I think benefits from being made a bit more relevant to the ongoing plot (the hunt for Grievous) once we’re more invested in it. And having the three weakest episodes up front (Cloak, Christophsis, Malevolence) might be too much of an ask.

So yes, it’d be a good introduction to Ahsoka, but I think she’s better framed initially in context as a part of Anakin’s story through the Clone Wars, who grows quickly to the fore once the audience has warmed to her.

CaptainFaraday said:

Have there ever been any attempts to replace the ANH Death Star explosion, to make it a little less of a “firecracker goes pop” affair and make it a bit larger and weightier?

And while we’re on it, something to ruin it down to looking more like the DS2 shell, for OT edits that want to go the ‘single death star’ route?

I think those are all good observations worth thinking about, though I disagree with one: I think having Kylo’s prayer early really works. It makes him appear weak and conflicted right off the bat, which I think is a great introduction to the character. This guy looks like a knockoff Vader, in a real-world context he stands in the shadow of Vader, and having his characterisation be that he’s trying to imitate Vader because it’s important to his identity to carry Vader’s legacy is really interesting. It focuses his storyline on the ‘easiness’ and ‘seductiveness’ of the Dark Side, and then all of the characters in his life challenge that - Rey, Snoke, Luke, Leia/Han - until he turns to the light. I think it works for the arc that’s emerged since the release of TROS.

That said, I love the inclusion of some of his prayer in the whispers Rey hears during the interrogation.

I’m a Starlight adherent, but I’d still agree that “cute boyfriend” is best removed in any version.

Oooh, nice! I missed Hal saying that. It’s a thought I’d had too, but didn’t want to mention because I thought it might be too much of an ask to have a fanedit by one editor directly reference one specific other edit. But I’ll take it please! Purgatorial washed-out Jakku, delicious!

(RE)RELEASED - S01E09 - A Strike at the Heart (V2.0)

• RELEASE VERSION, now brought up to my more polished 2.0 standard.
• Our ninth episode of the first season, and the first part of the two-part finale.
• Comprising the original episodes Holocron Heist and Hostage Crisis
• 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.

These are two Cad Bane centric episodes combined to essentially make the hostage crisis in the senate building a distraction to help enable the holocron heist, using the idea that Smudger9 had for his movie.

This is the first of a two-parter, the second of which combines Holocron Heist’s follow-up episodes, split here mainly because the episode that follows this had a lot of plot happen in its narration, which I needed to preserve via a new opening crawl.

They’re a great set of episodes, and a fitting season finale - Cad Bane is an excellent new villain, we get absolutely all of our main characters going on a great high-stakes romp through Coruscant and space, and we get some great hints at Palpatine’s larger plans and a good chapter in Ahsoka’s growth (more on that in the detail for s01e10).

Compared to the prior version of this episode I’ve only really added polish, mainly including a slicker start (and introduction to Bane) and a cleaner ending. I also took out Ahsoka’s failiure at Felucia and subsequent discipline, since that scene’s now used earlier this season (as discipline for a similar failiure at Ryloth) to help justify why she’s offscreen for a couple of episodes so early.

Noteworthy changes:

• The episode is titled ‘A Strike at the Heart’ to highlight that it’s the first episode in this season where the capital planet - Coruscant - is attacked. It also highlights the personal stakes for Anakin as both Padmé and Ahsoka are put in jeopardy.
• Used the opening text to continue the theme of both sides re-strategising for the long war they now know is coming. I also mention Cad Bane’s ‘network of specialists’ to help explain to the viewer why he appears to have two different teams in this episode, and took the opportunity to emphasise Anakin and Padmé’s relationship as well as Ahsoka’s discipline causing a little growth, which’ll lead nicely into the respect she’s earned by next season.
• The structure of the episode is basically Bane’s introduction via his scenes with the shapeshifter, before he and his larger crew infiltrate the senate and capture hostages, and upon that distraction going to plan he then goes to the Jedi temple to steal the holocron.
• Dialogue changes throughout and intercutting to Ahsoka in the Jedi temple help the two plots run side by side, and there’s some useful Anakin dialogue which in context explains that he’s heading back to the temple in time for the holocron heist, so it all works quite smoothly.
• I trimmed some of TODO-360’s silly banter, though he still appears and is generally set upon and dejected so his characterisation is preserved for his appearances in future media.
• I trimmed some of Anakin going John McClane in the senate building, but only the weaker bits for pacing, leaving the most exciting bits.
• I also trimmed some of the more boring scenes of Cad Bane dealing with obstructions in the Jedi temple shafts, for pacing and to maintain his competency.
• I removed all references to the ‘Kyber Crystal’, which in this episode was needed to unlock a holocron (in contrast with newer (and EU) context that Kyber Crystals are for lightsabers and Death Stars). This also serves to simplify Bane’s need for a Jedi to open the holocron, and means we don’t need the Master Ropal angle later.

Onwards now to Future of the Force, the second part of this duology which completes the first season! I’m away for a little while, but should have it out to you all mid-January.

Brilliant Meeko, thanks very much for this! I do allow myself a little leeway on audio transitions where I can’t quite make it work, since the original show did have similar issues, but I always re-check any raised issues so I’ll see what I can do with these again!

Oh, and for those wondering about the black bars in a couple of early episodes, those’re fixed now.

Good progress on s01e09 - A Strike at the Heart (our holocron heist episode).

I’ve removed the scene I’ve shifted to an earlier episode and got the main body all polished up, including some visual and audio transitions. I’ve also smoothed out the ending scene, which I was never quite happy with. I’m just going to see if I can add a little context to the new beginning of the episode, then I can wrap it up and release it.

Here’s the opening crawl:

• Conflicts erupt in the early days of the Clone Wars.
• As both militaries shift their focus to large-scale strategic priorities, bounty hunters are increasingly hired as precision tools.
• One is the Duros CAD BANE and his network of specialists, hired by the Sith Lord DARTH SIDIOUS to carry out a personal mission.
• Meanwhile, with Anakin back on Coruscant, he and his secret wife Padmé have found a little time to spend together as a couple.
• Ahsoka has performed her duties guarding the Jedi archive with humility, and Master Yoda has now assigned her to the library floor.
• But the Sith Lord’s subterfuge is about to disrupt this brief peace.

I reference Bane’s ‘network of specialists’ in order to justify the fact that he has two apparent crews in this combined episode. I also specifically call out the difference between general ‘archive duty’ and the specific ‘library floor’ to smooth over Ahsoka’s assignment to the archive two episodes prior, but her being walked through the library (and holocron vault) in this episode. The archive can contain many different areas, and this is now a more senior post (for ‘humility’, which was the point of her discipline). I mentioned that it was Yoda who put her there as a way of tipping my hat to a cut scene of Yoda having a feeling that an attack on the vault might be coming. I also chose to emphasise the brief moment of peace the characters are currently enjoying, as it’ll be the last they get for a good while now, and I’m setting up this group of episodes as a brief lull in the war.

That’s a good shout. You could also maybe record an extra line during the officers’ panic as they realise what’s happening - perhaps a panicked “disable the hyperspace tracker!” or more overt “they’ve locked on to the hyperspace tracker!”

That’s a really nice idea, that the tracker itself is like a beacon in hyperspace. They are, after all, “caught on a string”, and a string can be traced back to its source.

One thing you’ll need to contend with if you take that approach though will be the green wireframe flythrough of Snoke’s ship, which they use to illustrate the plan, because that quite clearly zooms right into the centre of the ship.

Just watched this after TFA Starlight and TLJ Rekindled, and WOW. I can’t thank everyone here enough. It was clear, it was more straightforward, it was less of a torrent of ideas, and it demanded far less mental juggling. And, best of all, all of those gorgeous new CG additions and new scenes really, really landed. I can’t believe we finally have this movie in such competent shape. There were a handful of things I’d trim, which were beyond the scope of this project, but FINALLY it feels like the worthy successor to the sequel trilogy and the Skywalker saga that it should have always been. Two years later than I should have been, I’m finally at peace with this movie.

Hmm, well maybe we don’t cut to their reaction shots?

I think I’ve had a workable idea to help justify why the lightspeed ramming isn’t something that’s commonly done!

Why can’t it be done normally?

• It can’t breach shields.

Why can it be done in TLJ?

• Because as part of their infiltration of Snoke’s ship, DJ has just “slice[d] a slit in their shields”!

We’d spoken before about adding a shot of a screen on Holdo’s bridge showing that they’re lined up, as a way of achieving something similar, but what if it shows the ‘there’s a slit’ graphic instead? The shot of the screen showing the slit is even onscreen twice when it’s first shown, slightly differently each time. Plus, the particular ‘slit’ which gets sliced by DJ (as seen in the graphic) is almost exactly the same distance down the wing of Snoke’s star destroyer as the exact line her ship slices through it when it does the ram - just on the other side, so you’d just need to flip the graphic. You’ve then got the officer on the Star Destroyer tapping the screen as if he doubts the visual error - which you could move to before Holdo triggers the attack, to remind the audience what’s up.

As for why the Holdo Maneuver can’t breach shields normally, well, I guess that’s up to the viewer’s imagination, but it certainly works just fine with the fact that every important military asset is shielded - the Second Death Star, most capital ships, Scarif, etc. (Scarif even has a mechanism where you can bypass just a PART of a shield while keeping the rest up, as ‘slicing a slit’ would have done.)

And I know what you’re thinking - in TFA they explicitly use hyperspace to come out UNDER Starkiller Base’s shields. BUT we already have the answer for that - in TFA, it’s said that that shield has a “fractional refresh rate”, which lets them inside.

Merry Christmas you beauties! My official Christmas day is going to be in a week’s time, so I’m just now settling in for a full sequel fanedit trilogy rewatch with a good buddy of mine. Woop woop!

Just out of curiosity I took a look through the old community survey I ran back a year and a half ago.

The vast majority of questions which got a very strong response in favour of a particular change match to changes in this edit - things like the Snoke vats and the timing of the Palpatine reveal, simplifying the Final Order, its fleet, and Palpatine’s motivations. There was also strong support to make Mustafar more obvious, to remove the lightspeed skipping, to change the mechanism for how the force dagger guided Rey, and to make some of the references to prior movies less jarring.

Notably different is that at the time the community really had an issue with Rey Palpatine as an idea, favouring Rey Nobody. There’s still an appetite for a Rey Nobody cut these days but it feels like many people have come around to it more in the last eighteen months, as various edits have been able to integrate the idea more smoothly across the entire sequel trilogy. I’ve certainly flip-flopped back to favouring Palpatine (for the sake of canon, really), so I’m glad we’ve been able to make such peace with it. Similarly there was some split on how Rey self-identifies at the end, but I think this edit does a great job of making the original ‘Rey Skywalker’ moment far more earned.

Thinking back to around that time, we’d just had jonh’s force ghosts scene released. I think that was a really crucial edit for this community, because it gave a lot of us the catharsis we wanted for that key moment, and you could feel the shift back to hope that the movie was salvageable via an edit, which redoubled peoples’ commitment.

There were a few more radical ideas back then which ultimately didn’t lift off - things like changing some of the planets to known ones from the rest of the saga, or making Rey’s force lightning gold. I’m sure there’s still room for them in other edits, but like TFA Restructured and TLJ Legendary, I think this edit has threaded the right balance in terms of adherence to canon. The big thing the survey missed (discussion had only just started on the idea at the time) was making the Skywalker saber cracked like Kylo’s, which I’m so glad got pulled off in the end.

Anyway, I found it interesting to think back to the time when TROS was still fresh and this edit was in the very early stages. It’s amazing how far it’s come and a lasting testament to all of the contributors here for their skill and persistence.

Oop, just caught a little audio glitch in s01e08 - Children of Night. I’ll fix and reupload that soon.

Edit: It’s fixed and rendered, and uploading now. Should be about two and a half hours from now until it’s uploaded.

Edit 2: Uploaded now as v2.1.

For me it’s TFA Starlight, TLJ Rekindled, and TROS Ascendant. All three were finalised after TROS’ release and have similar goals - of making the sequel trilogy as consistent as possible, and strengthening the core character arcs. The changes in TFA Starlight and TLJ Rekindled are respectful to the canon, whilst making changes for the better.

Oh hell yes! I’m really pleased to see this here! If you can share your links please, I’d love to watch these and feed back as you release them.

I’ll definitely be watching this from the perspective of the episode 1 and 2 content being ‘Clone Wars season zero’, to see how well that works.

Question: How are you cutting the end of ROTS? Would the Siege of Mandalore arc naturally interlace with it?

regularjoe said:

How about a community effort to distribute this, I remember last time drive limits were impacting people’s ability to access this.

Anyone should be able to get a Google drive and host. I propose that anyone who downloads it then reuploads it to a Google drive and makes clear in this thread that they can be PM’d for a link.