Then consider me encouraged!

Much appreciated buddy, thanks.

Really interested in this. I’ve only watched the show the once, and don’t have the capacity to load it in and thoroughly analyse it right now, but I think you have exactly the right approach.

That said, if you do a watch-along analysis, I’d love to jump in and join you on that.

How certain are you that you want to run with the movie length idea? I found “as long as necessary” serves my Clone Wars edits well, without binding me to a rough runtime, and that coupled with using text crawls up front allows me to pull weaker content out of the episodes themselves (where necessary) and to pace and bridge the content more freely.

I’ve done work with raw Bad Batch files, so if I can help you with any of the technical stuff, I’ll be happy to.

Cheers CMMAP, I’ll take silence as affirmation then 😃

Hacai, thanks very much for reviewing this. Glad to hear you found it smooth. Did you think it served well as an introduction to the series? Did you feel it flowed well, and was the emphasised Grievous hunt a fun little addition?

On your notes:

• s01e03’s conveyor belt is tricky, and I think I’ve got that one as good as I can, having tried a lot of alternative approaches. It’s very quick and choppy, but I think that’s my only option to get us from A to B - I have to use Satine’s scenes to permit Obi-Wan’s to progress off-screen, and vice-versa. I think we really have to have this this way, because for our first introduction to the Mandalorians, they really shouldn’t be so cartoonish, but we do have to get through this content for the plot.
• s01e03’s hostage situation is a bit of an oddity, because it was like that in the original. All I trimmed there was a shot of the spider-bot on the table before it falls off. In the original, the guy takes Satine hostage and Obi-Wan just stares, and the guy backs Satine out of the room. When Obi-Wan chases them out of the room they’re nowhere to be seen. This is one of those edits where I don’t have any options for making it better than the original, because the original just did it in that weird way.
• s01e05’s underwater hunt was trimmed, but again even in the original he just teleports quickly to underwater. I cut the underwater action sequence, but perhaps there’s more I can do here. Maybe we don’t have Obi-Wan go underwater at all, just letting it be a concern that isn’t followed up on, then I can use some of his underwater dialogue as they pop back up and attack the city - “Oh shit, they were doing stuff underwater!” I’ll try that approach.

You’re right about the black bars on the sides of the s01e01 video too, I’ll see why that is. Edit: They’re all rendering like that, I must have knocked my render settings off a little. They’re still watchable this way but I’ll roll out updates as soon as I have time.

CaptainFaraday said:

You might want to look at EddieDean’s Clone Wars project; he’s probably done the heavy lifting for you in terms of figuring out how to strip things down to thematically relevant narratives and placing them together.

I actually saw this post and intended to chime in last night before I ran out of time.

If you wanted to do AOTC > [something CW] > ROTS as a self-contained trilogy, you have a lot of options, depending on the story you want to tell. Other Clone Wars editors than myself have created movies from this content, a lot of which are really really strong - so it’s worth checking those for ideas and to see what works.

I guess your key decision is Ahsoka/No Ahsoka/Minimal Ahsoka (maybe where you just explain her away as a temporary padawan or something in the crawl).

If you want to tell simply the strongest emotional journey across the Clone Wars, I think Ahsoka would be your focus. That means going a bit off your brief, and having your Clone Wars episode introduce and develop Ahsoka (hard to do in one movie but probably possible), and then conclude with something that overlaps ROTS and the Siege of Mandalore. I think that’d be the best short telling of the Clone Wars. Your Clone Wars episode might have to be something like Ahsoka’s introduction on Christophsis and perhaps the Cad Bane arc (good romp, develops their relationship, also goes the Palpatine/younglings angle), whilst Obi-Wan is off pursuing Darth Maul in advance of the Siege of Mandalore content, before capping it with Ahsoka’s fall. But Ahsoka’s excellent conclusion really depends on Maul, which naturally would suggest that you include TPM in some way, or at least those scenes, perhaps in flashback.

Anyway, I think that probably isn’t exactly what you’re going for. In terms of a more ‘straight’ AOTC > [custom CW movie] > ROTS, your CW could combine one or more of the following, depending on your priorities:

• If you do go Ahsoka, then the Christophsis content from the movie (and its prequels) introduces her (and has a neat cut where you don’t have to get into the Jabba baby). You could conclude on Ahsoka’s Fall to explain her later absence, though without following it up with the Siege of Mandalore for the emotional gut punch. Ahsoka’s best episodes, which also feature the other main movie characters, which would be easiest to include are Storm Over Ryloth, the Cad Bane arc, the Geonosis arc, and the Onderon arc. (She has better solo episodes but I don’t think you’d want those if you were only going to have her in the one movie - you’d want to keep her tied to Anakin’s story.)
• If you want to highlight the corruption growing in Anakin, then Voyage of Temptation, the Slaves of Kadavo arc, and the Rako Hardeen arc emphasise that. Mortis would add to that if you fancy a big force vision quest.
• If you want to give Obi-Wan some more depth, then you’d be well served by the early Mandalore trilogy, almost all Maul content (though that has the above mentioned issues with Maul), Slaves of Kadavo which nearly breaks him, and Rako Hardeen.
• To emphasise the Palpatine angle and the growing darkness, you have to make a call on whether you expose Palpatine=Sidious in this episode or in ROTS, but I’d suggest the Cad Bane arc, Order 66, and the Yoda arc.
• And if you really want to lean into the Clones, to emphasise the war angle, you’d probably be best served by Domino Squad, Deserter, Umbara, and Order 66. But this would be very light on main characters.
• If you wanted to fill in as much as possible that’s related to other SW media, I’d choose Christophsis (introduces Ahsoka and Ventress), Geonosis (returns to Geonosis, all the main characters, has Ahsoka meet Barriss and then traumatises them both), Citadel (introduces Tarkin, and his relationship with Anakin), Onderon (tests Ahsoka, shows an early rebellion, and introduces Saw Gererra), then Ahsoka’s Fall (return of Tarkin, Ventress, Barriss, and exit of Ahsoka). I don’t know how long it would all run, but this is quite a neat collection that I think would work nicely together.
• And finally, if you just wanted a good romp that gets quite close to cinematic stakes and quality (because bear in mind most of the above content wasn’t designed to be consumed in the way you’re intending here), then I’d recommend the Rako Hardeen arc, for Coruscant, bounty hunters, tension between Obi-Wan and Anakin, all the main characters, and a whole bunch of fun. Preceding that with the Cad Bane arc would give you double Cad Bane, more Coruscant focus, and more Palpatine scheming. Perhaps pop Yoda’s quest in there too.

I notice that all of this is extremely light on Grievous. He might not actually appear in any of those I’ve mentioned. While he does appear in a lot of TCW, a lot of the time he feels neutered. He never even sees Anakin (because of ROTS’ line where he’s suprised about Anakin’s height), so ends up in drawn duels with Obi-Wan a lot, and his military strikes are often defeated. Since originally ROTS introduced him afresh, you could just ignore him in TCW and just let ROTS introduce him as it did originally.

Hope that helps! Ultimately I’m a proponent of the other approach - where I think that the best way to enjoy the clone wars is to keep it as a TV show whilst trimming the fat - but I’m happy to continue helping you think through this if you need someone with TCW loaded firmly into their brain.

Good to hear buddy, looking forward to it! I miss having frequent collaborators sharing their opinions and feedback here, but appreciate that this is a far less interesting time for the project as I polish content starting right from the beginning. I’ll be interested to hear your thoughts on the improved 1-5.

Having not paid attention to the intermediate working steps, to me, both the higher and lower of those sound flawlessly integrated, with my preference tending slightly towards the lower one.

OK yeah, really happy with the Storm/Liberty plan. My rough cut feels like a single coherent journey, with the stakes on the ground enhancing the drama in the skies, and the final conclusion bringing it all together. I’ve reviewed all the franchise’s Cham/Ryloth content, and Liberty gives you everything you need to set that up, so we don’t need to use Supply Lines.

These things are always subjective, of course, but personally I think this is the best narrative one can make from the best moments of the Ryloth arc. Excited to get this one done.

Of course, this’ll mean no need for a second Ryloth episode, but hey. Quality first.

Anyway, feeling like this’ll work nicely has me just throwing some thoughts together about what comes next. There’re two little considerations here.

• In my (new) reordering, I was going to follow up Ryloth with my Nightsisters arc, because that way you get all of the main early battles (up to Sullust at the beginning of Nightsisters), then we get two Coruscant episodes (Death Watch on Coruscant, then the Holocron arc) to imply that both big factions are taking a breather as they bed in for what they now realise will be a long war.
  • (I was also thinking of slightly explaining away Obi-Wan and Anakin’s costume change in Nightsisters by saying they’d been interrupted while meditating with the other Jedi on the future of the war, which might emphasise the ‘long war’ angle.)
• That prior idea also originally had the little bonus of showing King Katuunko being killed in Nightsisters by Savage at Dooku’s command, immediately after showing Katuunko deciding to side with the Republic and aid Ryloth in my Ryloth episode. But, Katuunko doesn’t now appear in my Ryloth plans, so that’s no longer something to consider. (Episode quality without Katuunko trumps the value of including him in just for that soft pairing.)
• However, I should also consider Ahsoka’s discipline. In Ryloth she’s disobedient at a cost of lives, but unpunished. At the start of Holocron, there’s the short Felucia intro where Ahsoka is again disobedient at a cost of lives, but then the council assign her to guard duty, which’ll pay off later in the Holocron arc.
• I could (as Smudger did in his movie edits) shift the discipline so it’s instead referring to her Ryloth disobedience. This’d benefit us (1) because it’d allow her discipline to linger longer, until the finale, adding weight to her punishment, and (2) because it’d explain why she’s out of play during the Nightsisters and Death Watch on Coruscant arcs.
• If I do do that, though, I don’t think the scene belongs at the end of my Ryloth episode, since that’s a happy peak. But it could begin the Death Watch on Coruscant episode, where our characters all return to the planet. The impact of that though, would be putting Death Watch on Coruscant next after Ryloth, and Nightsisters afterward. That’ll probably be fine, but it does mean a little more of a gap where we don’t see Ventress, a little more of a gap where we don’t see Maul, and it means that Sullust in Nightsisters comes after the return to Coruscant, so I can’t quite play up the angle of having many military strikes before a larger breather.

Thoughts?

OK, I think I’ve got an idea which’ll get us a lot more value out of the Ryloth arc.

There’s a lot I don’t like about Liberty on Ryloth - mainly the extremely bland landscape, poor military tactics, and lack of main characters - but there’s a lot of unleveraged value there too. Far more so than Supply Lines, this showcases Cham, his strength of character, and his good political interactions with Orn Free Taa. And contrasting with Innocents of Ryloth, the suffering of the natives is far more pronounced, giving us far better established emotional stakes, and a more competent and threatening opposition. The ending is a good high too (more exciting than ‘we’ll come and pick up Anakin now’ from Storm Over Ryloth), showing the natives properly liberated and incorporating Ahsoka and Anakin as they take out the Separatist bombers to help win the day.

Therefore, let’s consider merging Storm with Liberty. The situation on the ground can be established early to give us the stakes for Ahsoka’s challenge in the skies above, and as the space battles progress, we can intercut with Mace searching for Cham and encouraging him to resist. After Anakin and Ahsoka break the blockade, we can follow Cham and Mace liberating the natives, with their suprise heroic appearance at the end to save them from bombers.

To achieve this I’d recontextualise a few things. We’d establish that Mace was already on the planet when it was overrun. I’d have no major Separatist ground forces on the planet, instead having the situation be entirely a bombing campaign coordinated from the overhead blockade after the massacre seen in Liberty. Rather than making this about retaking what was the capital city, I’d recontextualise that location instead as Wat Tambor’s prison complex. (Which can be the converted capital if you like, but I won’t draw attention to that). I never liked the ‘single force bridge’ entrance, but I think I can trim around that cleanly so that the combined Cham/Mace forces are free to walk up and assault it directly. Oh, and I can of course use my prior Nute Gunray context to help explain why the bombing campaign was so swift and effective. And the distraction of the Kamino attack to explain why the Republic didn’t help at the time.

I think this is the stronger core. Now that Cham is a major player in other media, I think we get good value out of his emphasis here, but it’s Ahsoka who remains our hero.

I’m going to continue reviewing the other Ryloth content to see if there’s anything else I can make work here, including the couple of Ryloth episodes in Bad Batch. I’ll also consider whether any of the spare can make a decent second episode to follow-up later, but I think the Storm/Liberty combo takes some of the pressure off there.

Onwards to my RYLOTH episode. I think I could really do with some extra thinking here, if anyone has any spare.

As a reminder, my episode as it currently stands uses pretty much the entire plot of Shadow Over Ryloth, which is about Anakin and Ahsoka having to break the blockade above the planet, with the emotional core being Ahsoka failing in her first command and having to deal with that. The secondary plot I intercut was from Supply Lines, where Cham Syndulla appears, though the main focus there is on Master Di’s plot as he tries to protect some Twi’leks trapped on the surface, while Bail tries to get some blockade runners from nearby Toydaria to Ryloth in time.

Reviewing what I’d already produced, I think it’s really unacceptable that I left this episode available so long with the huge audio glitch at the end, so I’m very sorry about that. It’s a really poor standard. I know I was keeping up momentum at the time but damn. I let you guys down with that one.

Going into this episode’s polish, I already knew that, because of the reordering, I could have the Toydarian King Katuunko appear in this episode, since now he won’t be killed by Savage until my following one (which makes a nice tight pairing as I can frame it as more immediate revenge). So I was already planning on reintroducing the scenes with Bail and Katuunko, albeit avoiding JarJar if possible.

However, on review, while the structure of the episode is broadly fine, my big takeaway this time was on how much jumping around we do. You’ve got Anakin and Ahsoka, you’ve got all the POV stuff of the Separatist admiral, you’ve got Master Di and Cham, AND you’ve got Bail and Katuunko. There’s too much juggling.

Now that I’ve had more experience at digging into the value of the source content, I think I need to make some changes.

• Mainly, I need to remove most of Master Di, while preserving almost all of Cham. Cham, regrettably, is very passive in this episode, and barely a character at all. But, he’s developed now in both Bad Batch and Rebels, and as Hera’s father, there’s lots to get to know. So I should certainly retain him here. However, as much as it’s a cool little military diversion, I don’t think there’s enough emotional value to Master Di’s protection of the Twi’Leks (using the plan to blow up the ship to block a path), nor of his eventual death. Also, if we do care about Di’s death, it’s a bit of a bummer at the point in the episode where we’re supposed to just be winning - Ahsoka and Anakin breaking the blockade, and Bail dropping supplies. I think I’d like to refocus this section, so that instead we’re focusing on Cham as the person with a problem (we’re starving and on the run), with Bail’s hunt for supplies as the solution, until Ahsoka overcoming her trial wins them all the day. This way we’re focusing far more on the emotional core.
• In doing this, I’ll intercut a lot less of the remaining content too, keeping the episode feeling more ‘blocky’ than parallel.
• The Separatist admiral is definitely our most interesting Neimoidian, as he’s definitely competent, but (1) he’s still a Neimoidian, and (2) he’s surrounded by Separatist tech and in particular chatty Battle Droids, so I want to trim his scenes just down to his most compelling. I might also remove Wat Tambor entirely, because fuck Wat Tambor, but also my possible second Ryloth episode will be about a season later so I don’t think Wat Tambor should be on the planet yet.
• While my artificial scene of Bail hiring the Toydarians was better on this rewatch than I remember it, I’ll be replacing it with ideally just one scene of Bail and Katuunko, without Jar-Jar.

That’s the main stuff, and to be honest that all warrants recreating the episode from scratch, which won’t be as tough as it sounds.

However, also a factor is the plans for my second Ryloth episode. Again, due to Cham’s increased importance, I’m tempted to include more of him. The problem being, I remember Innocents of Ryloth and Liberty on Ryloth both being fairly unemotional and unexciting episodes with just Obi-Wan appearing from our set of main characters.

One option I’ve been playing with here is the inclusion of some of Jedi Crash, which has a great opening action sequence, and is crap otherwise other than showing Ahsoka caring for Anakin. I’ve considered a merge of that with Innocents/Liberty, to show essentially the big three characters split from each other. That might just give both plotlines the balance they each need in order to stand together.

But before I pursue that, I might look into including more from Liberty into this current episode. To memory, the best content there was in seeing Cham’s conversations with Mace, where they discuss Ryloth’s difficult politics, the victims of the war and the freedom fighters, and Cham’s issues with Orn Free Taa. I’ll see if there’s a workable solution there, or default back to the other plans listed here.

The other combo, the least likely I’ll use, might be to put the Master Di content in Liberty/Innocents, perhaps as the setup for things going badly for Cham before the start of that episode. So the first episode would be all Ahsoka’s trial, and the second would have all the Cham scenes.

Anyway! Pile of thoughts. If anyone has ideas there I’d love to hear them.

And that’s reuploaded now.

Good notes, thanks Vranir. I’ve made those changes and will shortly release a v2.2 containing them all.

• I agree with your text change
• I’ve trimmed Sidious referring to Ventress’ failiures. Now, Dooku says he plans to use Ventress, Sidious simply slowly replies “Ventress…” as if he’s considering it, and Dooku replies affirming his confidence. I didn’t chop any of Ventress and Dooku’s conversation, since he’s just affirming that this is an important mission without room for error, so her success in light of that implies that she took her master’s words to heart.
• I fixed the glitch that was offsetting the voices in the Venator boarding scene.
• The music transition was actually as it was originally, but there was a little noise on the SFX channel that I think made it more punctuated. I’ve toned down that squeak, so it sounds smoother now.

Many thanks buddy. That’ll be available as soon as it’s uploaded.

UPDATE ON THE STATE OF PLAY-

WHERE WE’RE AT

Just to catch people up to speed, I’d produced the first 30 of ~50 episodes back around mid-June 2021. I was allowing passion and momentum to carry me through getting a lot done, because I really wanted the mental confirmation of having a majority of episodes under my belt. While I focused on churning episodes out, I developed my skills and built up a good body of extremely valuable feedback and ideas from all of you here.

So after finishing my third season (of five), I went back to the beginning, establishing more polished standards to release to, and using my improved skills and community feedback to re-release already completed episodes up to what I’m calling ‘2.0 standard’. I’m sure there’ll always be the odd tweak or improvement that someone might suggest and/or I might pursue, but these revised edits should be as close to final final as any other release you’d find on these forums.

2.0 standard incorporates improved opening credits (using unique franchise credits I’ve made for this show, taking elements from both Mandalorian and Bad Batch), better-timed closing credits, a refined community credit, fixed audio without pops, smoother visual transitions which accurately match the original sources, smoother audio transitions, rethinking every single decision and edit I’ve already made, and restructuring and recontextualising some episodes further to squeeze more value from the content I have. I also remade a couple of my very first episodes from absolute scratch.

It was particularly important to me to make sure that the very beginning of the show was as good as it could possibly be. The first reason being that TCW famously starts particularly badly, so I needed to challenge that knowledge. The second being that this is people’s introduction to TCW: Refocused, so I need to make a compelling argument for TCW:R’s own existence.

Now, with the release of s01e05 to v2.0 standard, I believe I finally have that solid introduction to TCW and TCW:R.

As I came to reorder the first season, Imhotep and others here suggested an order which I thought was really powerful, so I’ve leaned into that for this edit, making those episodes up to s01e05 work like a small story arc with a few ongoing elements, which I think adds value over the original presentation. This focused little arc introduces all of our main characters and the early themes of the show, gives us a good high-stakes peak, demonstrates my technical skills and intentions, and gives some good variety. And as a bonus, it carries us through easily my least favourite (but still necessary) three episodes of this project, so once you’ve finished this arc, you’re over the worst and into the far stronger body of episodes which follow.

So, to summarise:

THE EPISODES UP TO s01e05 MAKE A GOOD SOLID INTRODUCTION TO THE SHOW.
They are very final, having been heavily revised, are of my highest release quality, and form a mini story arc.

I’d recommend that the new (and returning) viewer watch these five episodes (plus episode zero if you want the Tartakovsky microseries to set everything up), and personally I’d be very interested to get feedback on this group of episodes, particularly in how well it works as introductions to TCW and TCW:R (compared to the original launch of the show), and how well the connective tissue works together.

WHERE WE’RE GOING

In terms of what follows, I will of course be polishing the rest of the completed three seasons up to 2.0 standard. There’ll be a couple of extra episodes I’ll release during that polish, one of which will be a bit of an experiment to see if I can make a decent episode out of some unused Ryloth content now that we know Bad Batch returns there (Edit from the future: I’ve done this now), and one which just fits better in season three with my revised ordering. Then I’ll continue working to conclude the show. I have a few more demands on my time these days, so followers of this project may have found the pace of release slowing, but I assure you, my resolve has never been stronger.

That said, despite the polish currently being undertaken, you can watch this show pretty much to completion right now if you want. Season one is already completed to v2.0 standard, so that’s the worst content from the original show already up to a far better quality. The 1.0 versions of seasons two and three are by no means unfinished, and feature all of the key edits I intend to make, so you can watch those if you don’t mind a little less polish. And the final seasons I’ve not touched at all yet (four and five) require very little serious editing, so you can watch the original episodes in my spreadsheet’s recommended order if you don’t mind the trappings of the original release, without my hand.

WHERE WE’VE BEEN

This project is almost a year old now, so please indulge me a little here as we approach its first birthday. When I first had the idea for this edit, it was just some thoughts and a suggestion, and I didn’t really intend to carry it out myself. I never loved TCW, as much as I wanted to. But seeing the initial support for the idea, noticing I had already put a lot of foundational thought into TCW without realising it, and with very very basic editing skills, I decided to crack on with it myself. I had no idea how long it would take, what structure it would take, or how many episodes I would produce, and I certainly had no clue what level of analysis, planning, skill, or community support it would require. But as it grew and cohered it only felt like a more and more worthwhile project. I’ve now fallen properly in love with the show, and my passion for this project is mainly driven now by wanting to give this wonderful community another piece of Star Wars that they can love too, and that fits alongside, supports, and enhances the franchise’s excellent and ever-growing canon.

I’m extremely grateful to all of you, for your support, feedback, ideas, and patience, and extremely proud of what we’ve been able to achieve together. It is an absolute pleasure to work on this project with all of you.

As always, any and all feedback is welcome and encouraged.

(RE)RELEASED - s01e05 - The 501st Legion (v2.1)

• RELEASE VERSION, now brought up to my more polished 2.0 standard (especially including fixed audio without pops in this re-release).
• Our fifth episode of the first season. (I’ve shifted the first season around, so check again if you’ve seen this one before).
• Comprising content from the popular Domino Squad arc (Clone Cadets, Rookies and ARC Troopers).
• This episode concludes a mini story arc that I’ve been setting up in the first half of the first season, so the episodes up to and including this one make a good jumping on point if you want to check out this show and this edit.
• Running 46 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.

While adhering to the core of the original story arc (which is one of the best arcs in this show), and without too much restructuring, this edit makes some major changes to Clone Cadets to reframe the whole arc into a new three-act structure. Now, Clone Cadets ends in failiure for Domino Squad, and the Rishi Outpost seen in Rookies is the lesser assignment they’re given as a result. I appreciate that this is quite a radical change but I believe it really works for the better. You can read far more detail on my reasoning here. I placed this episode here because it gives us a good strong mid-season peak and starts to make us care about the Clones, and the early strike on Kamino gives our villains more competence.

Noteworthy changes:

• The episode is titled ‘The 501st Legion’ to highlight the fact that this will be our main clone company that we follow in TCW, and since it’s the ‘prize’ earned by these Rookies through their actions in the episode.
• The opening text now reflects this episode’s positioning as the conclusion of the first half-season’s mini story arc. By this point we’ve been introduced to the main characters and the stakes, and now everything comes together on Kamino. (Well, except for Ahsoka, but I’ve now made it clearer earlier in the season why she doesn’t always appear).
• I reference Nute Gunray in the opening text too, since the reordering allowed me to recontextualise my episode Assassin (formerly Cloak of Darkness) as part of the hunt for Grievous which starts during Malevolence and concludes here, and the interrogation of Gunray as an attempt to learn Grievous’ location.
• I also make clear in the opening text that failiure in combat training means a lesser posting, helping the transition to Rishi later.
• Clone Cadets has been heavily cut down, focusing only on the clones which will matter to the rest of the show or have some emotional value, but most importantly recontextualising the scenes so that Domino Squad’s training ends in failiure (through their own lack of skill and teamwork, not through sabotage). We see Bric’s lack of faith in the clones, then Echo and Fives convinced by Shaak Ti to properly commit to the squad, a single failed attempt (using content from both original attempts and maintaining all of the exposition), Bric and El-Les confirming their failiure (I’ve polished this scene since the earlier release), and then Hevy attempting to go AWOL before being convinced to stay by 99. All other scenes are excluded.
• Rookies begins ‘Two Weeks Later’, with our squad assigned to the Rishi Outpost. It’s largely the same as the original, but I’ve made a few trims here to focus on the key detail and the key characters. There’s less scurrying around on the surface of the moon, and the eel is trimmed, though still present a little. Echo and Fives aren’t made members of the 501st yet.
• From their recovery on Rishi, we transition straight into ARC Troopers’ scene on the bridge with Cody, Rex, Obi-Wan and Anakin, which brings the plotlines together and brings the audience up to date on the plot.
• ARC Troopers is largely unaltered, though I’ve cut Obi-Wan’s underwater action in an already action-heavy episode, and cut the second half of his fight with Grievous, which doesn’t further the plot in a series where Obi-Wan and Grievous already fight loads without changing the status quo. 99 is preserved as much as possible, though I had to cut him having Hevy’s medal, since in this episode Domino Squad didn’t receive one. (I’ve polished this scene since the earlier release too.) At the very end, Rex makes Echo and Fives “ARC Troopers… in the 501st”, bringing their arc in these episodes to a close.

As always, any and all feedback is welcome and encouraged.

Excellent job, everyone.

Atom-88 said:

Hal 9000 said:

Let’s rent out a theater and have a marathon of Starlight, Rekindled, and Ascendant.

+1 this, all the way👍

I mean, we could do this online via Discord at some point…

A couple more loose thoughts, and responses to other feedback in this thread:

• Starlight / Rekindled / Ascendent is absolutely the canon trilogy for me too. I’m ready for that cinema date with you all.
• The additions when Rey touches the Skywalker lightsaber, and Ben and Han touch Ben’s lightsaber, work nicely with your idea to show Ben owning the Skywalker lightsaber in the TLJ flashbacks. Lightsabers are powerful force artefacts, and I like the idea that that gives them a degree of memory/vision. It also could be understood by the viewer as part of what contributed to Ben’s vision of Han on the Death Star wreckage in TROS, since Ben’s wielding the lightsaber that killed Han.
• In TLJ, can we also please get a flash of sith eyes when Rey on Ach-To “goes straight to the dark”, to tie back to this?
• Regarding the tracking device, could we maybe have a cutaway shot of the light turning on (maybe with a ‘turning on’ sound effect), and then when Han’s disabling it, can we do that as a cutaway too (with a ‘turning off’ effect), just to make that point last a little longer?
• On BMadden’s idea to retain the shot of the gang member being punched into the rathtar’s mouth: While I do enjoy that shot, I’d argue that the way the scene is cut now, with far less visible rathtars, still works better, to emphasise the ‘unknown fear’ aspect. They’re scarier in your imagination, and them being scary makes this scene more tense (and valuable) than if it’s more of an ‘adventure’ scene evading a clear creature.
• On the Jakku colouring, as I said previously I absolutely think that this current version of the film should be considered ‘complete’ and cinema-worthy. It’s certainly not broken anywhere, and the existing grade is fantastic. But if we are thinking about potential tweaks to the Jakku regrade, I’d perhaps retain more blueness in the sky so it’s less blown out, tone the white sand down just a little (so there’s just a hint of yellow-brown), and bring some of the remaining yellow-brown sand shots closer to the new white.
• Counter to hinvention’s opinion, I thought that the changes to the dialogue about the Senate/Hosnian system being targeted really worked.

And another review!

The vital:

• This could have been released in the cinema. It’s of absolute release quality, without glitches.
• This edit is absolutely additive, and in my opinion, easily the best version of TFA I’ve seen. Definitely my archival version of the movie herein.
• This was, to my memory, particularly clear. I don’t know if it’s because I’ve been specifically focusing on the audio and narrative in my TCW edit, or been thinking about audio balance more recently because Dune didn’t quite nail it, but even compared to my memory of the original film, this was particularly clear and coherent. The edit really spoke very clearly to the audience, and it was always precisely understandable what was happening.

The excellent:

• This edit is GORGEOUS. The colours are beautiful across the board, and I noticed it a lot while watching. They never feel artificial, they’re always just the right side of natural, but the film looks great.
• In particular, the whitening of Jakku works really well, making it feel purgatorial, and then the lush greens of Takodana really feel like a breath of fresh air, which syncs very well with Rey’s emotional experience.
• All of the added voiceover effects are really additive. Kylo interrogating Poe, Rey’s lightsaber visions, Rey tapping into the force to survive on Takodana, Finn’s combat with the trooper on Takodana (seriously, well done here - is this you?), Kylo reading Han and Leia’s doubts.
• The trims and darkening of the rathtar sequence worked really, really well. Far more scary and less goofy.
• Revealing Kylo’s inner conflict and weakness earlier, and his family ties a little later, also worked really well for his character.
• Having Starkiller base spend far longer charging - including the changes from Hal’s Restructured, your extra visuals added in a good few shots to achieve this, and the dialogue changes - all worked to really ratchet up the tension before the double gut-punch when it fires. The trims to the air battle served to keep the focus on our emotional investment characters and keep this part of the plot clear and tight.
• It’s really clear - clearer than the original - that while Rey’s a natural force user, she also gets a lot out of her counter-interrogation of Kylo Ren. The moment with her sith eyes hits EXCELLENTLY well. It’s meaningful and powerfully applied here, but it really serves TLJ’s “you went straight to the dark”, and TROS’ main reveal. Probably the single most additive change in this edit, based on the rest of its trilogy.
• Snoke’s “There has been an awakening” is also way more emphatic of this new interpretation than “It is time to complete his training.”
• The entirety of changes brought this film about as far away as I think it can be from the criticism that it’s a rehash of A New Hope.

The great:

• Nothing in this edit breaks canon - it is purely additive and sits perfectly as a replacement to the original. One of its strengths is the few subtle nods forward which pay off in later movies and will serve to make the entire trilogy feel more coherent and planned in advance.
• The new crawl is simply an improvement over the original.
• The trims to humour, while subjective I’m sure, were spot on for my tastes. It retains a lot of the humour whilst just cutting back on going too far in a couple of places as the original did. A few of the jokes some have traditionally objected to in this movie felt less objectionable in light of the broader tightening. That said, I could maybe have dropped the garbage chute callback.
• Your goddamn etched vision of Ach-To, man. Ridiculously good, and I assume even the first-time viewer would spot that, and then match it with Kylo acknowleding her visions of an ocean, to realise when she reaches Ach-To that she’s naturally strong with the force. (Is this a real object you etched, or just CG?)
• All of your other restored and edited scenes were seamless and additive.
• The trims to have BB-8 not reveal the resistance base worked perfectly.
• The subtle hints at Finn’s force sensitivity are welcome.
• Having Rey run explicitly toward Finn on Takodana served both characters well.
• The tension between Ren and Hux felt sharper.
• The ‘R2 is processing’ scenes work really well.
• Loved the VFX of the shield going down.
• All of the changes to the final lightsaber fight and Starkiller’s destruction are really tight.
• All other edits in the changelog work for the better.

Possible revisions:

• With some of the reordering, it felt like maybe you could have got away with fewer wipes? To me it felt like there were just a couple too many. To my memory, the vertical barndoor open wipe from interrogation to doors on the star destroyer shutting could have gone, and perhaps the sideways wipe from star destroyer to star destroyer as Kylo prays also, since the re-establishing shot would have served the same purpose.
• Some of the wipes felt a little slow, and more feathered from Star Wars’ default. I don’t know if this is just because I’ve obsessed about it from my TCW edit - and I appreciate that the franchise isn’t consistent here - but I found that the maximum length of a wipe would be 14/23.95ths of a second, when horizontal, and less otherwise. Though that was with the TV aspect ratio. The two wipes I felt could be served better by being faster and with less feathering (perhaps nearer 0.2 than 0.5) were the iris out from the Star Destroyer back to Jakku, and the transition (I forget which) from Starkiller base surface to the control room.
• In terms of audio balance, as I’ve said, it’s really, really good and clear. Though I felt like the voices on D’Qar were a little too quiet, so I’d maybe bring those up by 15-25%, and conversely the music and some SFX on Starkiller base, especially out in the open and in the control room, could have done with a bit more punch, so I’d perhaps bring those up by 15-30% where that doesn’t drown out the voices.
• While I loved the whitening of Jakku, and you balanced that well with keeping some sandy yellow-brown versus the white, there were a couple of sandy yellow-brown shots earlier on that I would have pulled closer to your purgatorial white. This includes the initial shots, the shot of Rey’s home in the fallen AT-AT, and Finn’s dawn shots.
• It wasn’t completely clear to me about Han’s tracking device on the falcon. You could perhaps draw this out a little more to make it clearer for the audience.
• When you split Rey trying to escape, the tension is higher, but the stormtrooper does say “I’ll tighten your restraints” while not moving. You could have him ignore her the first time (perhaps just saying “dirty scavenger”), then have him say “I’ll tighten your restraints” when he approaches her, for more tension before she goes all peaceful with her successful mind trick.
• There was one final shot of the D’Qar celebration where Rey and Leia are celebrating, where you can see Chewie (or at least some wookiee) at the edge of frame. You could maybe trim this just to completely take him out of this scene, so the first time we see him after Han’s death is his proper mourning shot.
• I didn’t spot the binary beacon at all, though I was looking for it. Could it be brought more to the foreground?

Goddamn. Genuinely, this edit made me fall back in love with Star Wars again, and I can’t credit you for it enough. When Star Wars hits good, it hits real good, and this edit really gets that. Thank you so much for this incredible suite of passionate and respectful changes.

That’s the one! That little hint of orange in the forest shot really does it, I think.

I’d really appreciate that, thanks! I’ll let you (all) know when I’ve finished this current episode, and that’ll give an ideal block.

Ah, brilliant! So essentially with the oscillator changes you’re forecasting that we’ll eventually care more about the New Republic. Nice. I’ve long hoped that we’ll get similar pre-payoff for Snoke and returning Palpatine via the wider universe, too.

Thanks guys, good notes. Is the transition otherwise OK? Does it feel natural? Does it breathe for long enough?

I’ve just smoothed out the very opening of this episode, so all I’ve got left to do here is a full check-through, particularly on keeping the audio fluid throughout. I’m very close to having the first half-season mini-arc completed, which is a mental milestone for me at least!

I’d love it if anyone was up for reviewing the first five (six if you count the Tartakovsky episode zero) episodes as a whole, since it’s very important to me that the introduction to TCW:R for the theoretical first time viewer (who probably has heard that TCW sucks to begin with) is as good as it can possibly be for convincing an audience that this show is worth watching.

I haven’t yet watched this, but I’ve been looking over the changelog.

I can’t quite visualise this one from Visions:

• Change the Starkiller Firing sequence and Oscillator destruction so that Poe’s final bombing run doesn’t destroy the Oscillator. Instead, the weapon fires at the end of Rey’s and Kylo’s battle and the force of the weapon completes the Oscillator destruction.

What’s the motivation behind this change, and why it’s only in Visions as opposed to Starlight core?

And presumably the other two changes in Visions, where Rey only dreams of Luke rather than visits him, are so that a theoretical TLJ edit can imply more time has passed on Ach-To for Rey’s training?

Double Christmas!

Hal 9000 said:

Mustafar sequence, proposed as final:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1UJwqxMyGw1DnzUXtjjo0Lc0wuyDdMvZD/view?usp=sharing

It’s got skenera’s LUT applied as well, so it’d be about how the final, cc’d fan edit will be.

I’ve deliberately stayed away from this discussion so that I could come into the final shot with fresh eyes. I think this is serviceable for sure, and certainly a marked improvement over the original, but coming into it fresh, I felt a little disconnect between the Vader’s castle shot and the following forest flyover. Vader’s castle shot does end by showing some forest behind, but it’s very blink-and-you’ll-miss-it. And then the forest flyover does look appropriate, but doesn’t feel very ‘lava-y’.

I guess what I’m trying to say is, with these establishing shots, we’re trying to take the viewer on this journey:
Red Planet > Vader’s Castle (oh it’s Mustafar!) > Volcanic terrain > Ruined forest > Kylo in the forest (oh Kylo’s doing something to do with Vader!)

But the transition from volcanic to forest could do with just a little more to keep that mental transition smooth.

I’d suggest, if possible, one (or both) of the following:

• A little more time from the biomes shot lingering on the forest.
• In the forest shot, a hint of lava - not necessarily in the middle of frame, but a nice shock of orange somewhere onscreen.

GMatias said:

NeverarGreat said:

Further thoughts on changing The Force Awakens to serve TLJ, I could place some of the footage of the Raddus going to hyperspace into the destruction of the Hosnian system.

It might be going too far to show Holdo staring out of the window at the approaching lasers, but even placing the TLJ ships in the distance going to hyperspace in this shot would help.

If we see Holdo in this sequence, then the only dialogue necessary for the previous scene would be ‘General, the Republic is scrambling the fleet to assist us’.

Not sure if you ever got around to doing this, but I banged out a mockup of this idea tonight using the HAL9000 Hosnian destruction sequence as a base.

https://vimeo.com/503989106

Wasn’t until rereading the post just now that I realized I explicitly have Holdo looking out the window at an approaching laser (!) but I think it still works 😃

Now that Nev’s TFA:Starlight is complete, I’ve just come here, and I can’t believe I missed this post even though it’s nearly a year old. I think this is a brilliant nod forwards that helps achieve more of that cohesive continuity that the sequels lacked.

Anyway, I mainly came here to ask, Nev - while TFA:Starlight was largely built on HAL’s TFA:Restructured, what would you use as your base for TLJ? HAL’s TLJ:Legendary is great, but there’re other edits to TLJ which have built on that base, like Poppasketti’s TLJ:Rekindled.