EddieDean

Ooh, here’s another one:

Lair of Grievous isn’t an episode I’m looking to include in any major way, but its two strengths are (1) showing Grievous’ home lair, and (2) some of Grievous’ viciousness, especially when he kills Nadar.

I was wondering if I could incorporate any of that somewhere - perhaps as a scene to precede a Grievous-heavy episode, and one that follows him taking some damage.

One place it could potentially go is at the start of Massacre, where he’s very fervent about destroying the Nightsisters (even though he’s not encountered them onscreen and their main rival in the show thus far is Dooku). You could establish that, in revenge against Dooku, the Nightsisters have leaked key information to the Jedi order, including the location of the hidden base of Dooku’s top General, Grievous. The Jedi have tracked and attacked Dooku, and now pursue him as he flees. That justifies Grievous seeking repair, and we can get in his furious attack on Nadar. Now, his vengeance on the Nightsisters is also personal. This leak could also be the reason that the Jedi peacefully meet with the Nightsisters later after Maul’s return, which I could also play up. It could also help explain why we don’t see the Separatists much in my season two, if they’re responding to a few implicitly major leaks.

Minor idea:

As part of my restructuring of the first season, I’d been toying with the idea of bringing the scene where Ahsoka gets reprimanded for failing her military command and assigned to Guard duty (for her Felucia failiure at the start of the Holocron arc) to a little earlier - maybe the preceding Duchess of Mandalore episode.

However, I’ve realised that I could use it in context to conclude her Ryloth episode, where she also has a major command failiure. It would help justify why we don’t then see her for a couple of episodes too.

I’ll check that out when I get near.

Hi Vidmaster.

I remember! Your insights would be most valuable. I’ve sent you a link to the tracker spreadsheet so you can see the progress and have access to the download links.

The current status is that I’ve completed three seasons out of five, that’s 30 episodes out of 50, to version 1.

Practically, that means that you could choose to start watching now, and you’d have a good few ahead of you.

However, I’ve just completed the planning and started the execution of a fairly large ‘polish pass’, editing all completed episodes up to version 2.

For the vast majority of episodes, they won’t need much polish. Mainly it’s just light cleanup. However, two things to note:
(1) There are a few early episodes which might need more in depth improvement (Christophsis, Malevolence, and Ryloth), which you might decide are best to see in their v2 form as they’ll be ‘more final’ then.
(2) As part of this polish, I’ve also reordered some episodes. For the most part this shouldn’t matter too much, BUT some of their opening crawls reference each other, so until I’ve gone through and polished up all of those crawls, they might feel a little out of order. As I go through the crawls I’ll also be adding some extra useful information to tighten up the seasonal narratives, which again, you might get more value from if you wait.

So it’s totally up to you of course. I think, if I were in your position, I’d choose to wait for the v2s of each episode. Whether you choose to watch each v2 as I release them, or decide to wait until I’ve released more v2s so that you can binge a few in order, is your call, but your reviews will be most welcome either way.

I’ve just released the first episode to v2 standard (episode zero, DARK FORCE RISING) if you feel like kicking off now.

sade1212 said:

Not to be too Testing about it - and I know there’s been a “FanFix” category of fanedits since time immemorial - but can we collectively stop referring to completely subjective changes as ‘fixes’? Fixes are what Adywan does when he corrects an accidental visual mistake or continuity error, not what’s being done when an editor consciously moves a film away from what was originally intended. Both are totally valid, and half the fun of being in this community is seeing everyone’s very different takes on what can be made from the same material, but surely if there’s anything that’s apparent from the discussions on this website, it’s that there’s a wide variety of opinions about what people do or don’t enjoy or “want to see” in each Star Wars movie.

+1 for more inclusive language

It is a weirdly direct way of asking the question. “Rey whOOo?” It’s aggressive.

That’s why I’d like to remind everyone that we do have the right audio in the right tone to have her snappishly answer “None of your business, that’s who!”

I see what you’re saying. Yoda narration scenes instead of intro text, then smash into TCW:R logo, episode title, then opening scene on coruscant. Worth a play.

Oh, that’s great that you thought the Yavin clone removal was clean, that was definitely the most technically difficult fix I’ve ever had to make. He’s responding to different stimulus originally, there’re some minor clothing changes I needed to mask, I had to zoom a shot to hide the absence of an object in it, the audio needed to slide all over the place, and then after working that out I needed to grab the audio I’d created, export it, add new sound effects which I had to time right, and reinsert it. A proper surgical operation!

I’ve started editing with the audio coming out of my TV (with soundbar) at max volume, rather than my PC speakers, so that I can pick up on the audio a lot more clearly, and ensure it’s high quality even when someone views the episode with high volume.

It is a rather flat opening, you’re right, and I do see the value in maintaining the Yoda intro, both for its charm and as a bookend. I’m interested to see what people think here, but to me, the overriding value in cutting it was that this episode really is now a part of TCW:R, not a standalone thing. It’s here to be tonally consistent with TCW:R and to focus on TCW:R’s characters - not Mon Cala, Dantooine, etc. Those cut shots exist to say “There’s a war on many fronts”, but now that this is episode one of a longer show, we actually see many fronts in the war in our first season.

Perhaps it does feel a little jarring though because we start right in the office - maybe at least a Coruscant establishing shot might ease us into it a little more smoothly.

We also really need to see the droid army really doing damage to Theed (and its people). As it stands, there’s like one tank and about five droids that we see there. The final conflict in TPM should have been in Theed, not in the featureless fields. The entire Gungan plotline is skippable.

I totally respect that perspective, it’s certainly the least important scene of the episode.

The reason I think it’s worth keeping (in that position) is twofold:

• Firstly but leastly, because it shows Grievous being “trained in your Jedi arts by Count Dooku”
• Secondly and mostly, because in it, Dooku tells Grievous to use fear, to break the enemy before he engages them. And then, on Hypori, that’s exactly what Grievous does, to great effect. Now, Grievous did that because he was taught to, making him the well-trained warrior, and more importantly, Dooku is the calculating, smart, tactical commander. I think this pair of scenes is additive to both characters.

This is very much a side thing and way lower priority than anything else, but I’ve also been playing with the idea of turning both Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones into TV-length episodes as a season zero. So essentially this show would emcompass the entirety of the prequel era, as an accessible mixed-media episodic show, that was consistent with (and additive to) canon, but focusing on telling the highest quality coherent story.

The huge advantage of this approach is that chopping into episodes and maintaining my opening text means that I can keep certain plot points offscreen and recontextualise and clarify more of the movie content, and allow us to focus only on the best and most necessary content.

That said, I’d fit all of that around the existing show, rather than the other way around. I don’t want that to be mandatory, and I’d far prefer if my TCW:R allows the viewer to slot in their preferred versions of the movies.

Right, just done a bit of extra thinking on the structure of my last couple of seasons. A bit of shifting I think really tightens up the whole of TCW into neat, digestible, thematic arcs.

• SEASON ONE: “Conflicts erupt in the early days of the Clone Wars.” Focus on the bad guys’ initial strikes, and the Anakin/Ahsoka relationship. This set of ten episodes is nice and tight, as previously discussed.
• SEASON TWO: “The Clone Wars spread chaos and instability across the galaxy.” Focus on the scum and villainy emerging as the war becomes a long war. We don’t see the Separatists much until the finale. (Also, I realised I have to rename my Boba Fett episode to ‘Like Father, Like Clone’.) This set of nine episodes is also fairly tight. It does have a space for one more, and while I don’t want to force it to be ten episodes, that one more could maybe be:
  • Nothing, because it already works just fine.
  • My ‘Return to Ryloth’ episode, where Obi-Wan and Mace deal with Cham Syndulla and Orn Free Taa. These are all, however, secondary characters, in a plot that’s not amazing, in a season that’s already a little light on our main characters.
  • Zillo Beast. I’d want to remove certain elements like Palpatine’s scheming and the ion bomb (which, other than releasing the Zillo Beast, is a great weapon that they really should use again but don’t), but this is a big silly romp with all our main characters that’s a fan favourite. If it has good Anakin/Ahsoka stuff then it’s a strong frontrunner as we need that at this point in the season.
  • I don’t think I want to use Lightsaber Lost or Assassin (both quite redundant and now butchered for parts), nor Grievous Intrigue (and its follow-up from The Deserter) because it’s not a main character story (though there may be something that can be done to merge Grievous Intrigue with the lovely crash from Jedi Crash). There’s nothing else I’d really consider from the episodes with Ahsoka’s original model.
• SEASON THREE: “Shades of grey emerge as the Clone Wars grow more complex.” Focus on the war escalating and testing our characters, and a lot of temptation. We return to quite a lot of Separatist plots. I had said on the previous page that I needed to reinstate Citadel to balance out the season, but actually I’ll use Kadavo instead. I like Kadavo a lot more, and it also fits well with the shades of grey theme. (Citadel will have to be a bonus episode.)
• SEASON FOUR: “Conspiracies abound as the Clone Wars spin out of control.” Focus on unpredictable events and mystery. We don’t see much war, but we feel its effects very strongly. This structure now differs from my original plans. It’ll now be ten episodes, NOT NECESSARILY IN THIS ORDER, OR WITH THESE NAMES:
  • SHADES OF REASON, where Maul takes Mandalore. Opening on Maul, not our main characters, emphasises his ascension and the focus on the Mauldalore plotline.
  • MORTIS, now a dark herald of what’s to come.
  • THE LAWLESS, where Maul rules Mandalore and Palpatine cleans house. I’ll probably put this a little later.
  • AHSOKA’S FALL (two parter), which, you know.
  • SCIPIO, which follows Ahsoka’s fall, and incorporates the ‘fireside chat’ to emphasise Anakin’s dark actions here as related to Ahsoka’s Fall
  • ORDER 66, our fourth and final ‘just clones’ episode, neatly bringing Rex’s journey to where it needs to be for the finale.
  • SIFO-DYAS, where Yoda and Mace learn how fucked the whole situation probably is.
  • SON OF DATHOMIR, closing the Nightsisters plotline, and putting Maul back on the board.
  • YODA’S QUEST, a nice dark study of the mysteries behind the war, and more. Probably a nice finale too.
• That fourth season is now not just light on Ahsoka but also light on Anakin, but that’s OK. We’re in the endgame now, and all of that stuff is tight. It’s almost like the fall of Ahsoka is the show pulling the handbrake and going into an uncontrolled slide. You don’t know what you’re going to get as the focus shifts, but it’s all great. I’m glad this batch doesn’t include the Ventress/Boba episode, which is too weak, nor the Younglings/Ahsoka episode, which is redundant this late in Ahsoka’s story and not dark enough for this point in the war.
• SEASON FIVE: “Darkness falls on the galaxy as the Clone Wars draw to a close.” The fifth season changing structure is what enabled me to redesign the fourth. Realising that Revenge of the Sith is a vital part of the Clone Wars journey, means that the final season will be about eight episodes worth of volume, and lets me shift some other fifth season episodes backwards into the fourth. The fifth now is:
  • MARTEZ SISTERS gives us the welcome return to Ahsoka after a long absence, and sets up the season’s plot. Edited more tightly, this’ll be far more fun than it originally was, and be a fine premiere (since Ahsoka is our MAIN main character).
  • BAD BATCH (two episodes) gives us our final Anakin/Obi-Wan/Rex/Padmé content before the finale(s). This is technically your fifth ‘mostly just clones’ episode too, if you like. I’m quite pleased with how that’s all ended up.
  • REVENGE OF THE SITH is our penultimate arc (and is about three or four episodes long by volume)
  • THE SIEGE OF MANDALORE is our conclusion (and is two or three episodes long)
• For the Revenge of the Sith / Siege of Mandalore overlap, I’ll give the viewer two options.
  • Option 1) Watch RotS (one movie) then Siege of Mandalore (two episodes)
  • Option 2) Watch a chronological intercutting of RotS / SoM I’ll produce as 6/7 episodes.

There we go. Five seasons. Pretty much bang on ten episodes each, without having to force it. Tight, thematic seasons that flow right, and fit into and develop the wider war. A balance of characters each season, and tight character development per season. The best plotlines set up early and constantly developed throughout. Optional bonus episodes. I think this is it.

Love to have your feedback when you do!

Yeah, Nelvaan and Palpatine’s kidnapping really are quite secondary to the plot of TCW, so a far lower (and thus later) priority. And more likely I’ll be just presenting those scenes in order, rather than anything fancy.

(RE)RELEASED - s01e00 - DARK FORCE RISING (v2.0)

• RELEASE VERSION, now brought up to my more polished 2.0 standard.
• Our special ‘episode zero’.
• Comprising the Muunilinst, Yavin and Hypori arcs from the Tartakovsky Microseries.
• Source video is Numeraljoker’s upscaled version, used with permission and credited.
• Running 51 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.

The microseries is great, but features characterisation that doesn’t quite align with TCW’s refinements of the characters. It’s also something of an anthology, with quite a few side plots (which I cut here, but you’ll optionally see later in my show). I focused on the characters and elements which best support and enhance the remainder of my Clone Wars: Refocused show, so that this can be viewed as a pretty necessary episode zero. This episode doesn’t feature the TCW:R opening text that the other episodes in my edit will use, instead allowing a hybrid incorporating the microseries’ initial narration to lead us in.

Noteworthy changes:

• The episode is titled ‘Dark Force Rising’, as a bunch of ‘dark forces’ rise: The Clone Army is the Republic’s Dark Force, Anakin is drawn to the darkside in his battle with Ventress, and of course Palpatine’s dark plan is coming to fruition, causing the whole force to fall out of balance towards the dark.
• Anakin is a major focus, highlighting his strength, relationship with Palpatine, and hints at his darkness, and with far more faith from Obi-Wan bringing their relationship far closer to how it appears in TCW proper. (Thanks Delpheas for a lot of the inspiration here.)
• Dooku’s machinations are the secondary focus. We see him train Ventress (far earlier, for balance, focus and story flow) then send her to challenge Anakin, then we see him train Grievous (from the second part of this microseries) then send him to Hypori to kill Jedi and spread fear (as Dooku taught Grievous in their sparring session).
• The remaining focus is on showing at least some clone competency, focusing on their training and hardware, and the elements we’ll see later in TCW. I tended towards favouring the more grounded action, like we see outside of Tartakovsky’s eccentricities.
• The whole is quite radically reshaped, so that it flows nicely and feels more like a single narrative, with the Republic reacting to Dooku’s bold moves. We intercut both a little more and a little less in places as felt appropriate and natural.
• The clones no longer follow Anakin to Yavin, with the scenes there reworked so that Ventress simply removes his escape, forcing their conflict. Obi-Wan doesn’t send the clones - partially due to having to wrap up matters on Muunilinst, and partially due to trusting Anakin despite his (now reduced) disobedience, which is more in line with his later trust.
• I moved the shot of Yoda having an “oh shit” meditation moment to right after Anakin’s just completed his rage-fueled attack on Ventress. Now in context, he’s reacting to feeling the darkness rise in Anakin. A viewer could choose to imply that it’s this feeling which compels him to agree to Knight Anakin and later grant him a Padawan, in the hopes of keeping him on the right path.
• No Dirge/Lancers, since they’re not referenced in TCW again and feel aesthetically very different.
• No TPM Anakin/Qui-Gon vision, since it had no place here and I’ll use some of its dialogue in other episodes.
• No Dantooine/Ilium/Mon Cala, because they distract from the core narrative. (These have been included in a ‘Tales from the Clone Wars’ bonus episode, s03e00.)
• No Nelvaan or kidnapping of Palpatine, because they are set later in the war. (I may eventually turn these into later bonus episodes.)

The episode is now wrapped in (most of) my usual TCW:Refocused trappings, the first of the ‘2.0’ versions. It has a variant ‘Clone Wars’ microseries logo and a slightly alternative approach to the end credits, hopefully straddling the middle ground between being part of TCW:R and respecting that the source content was its own thing.

Finally all done with Dark Force Rising. Phew. That’s rendering now, though I will watch through it once more before uploading it, because I’d like to hand it to you as final!

Sorry that it’s been so long since I’ve output something guys. I’m not managing your expectations well - nor my own - and have found less time lately than I was expecting.

That said, I’ve got a good chunk further through s01e00 Dark Force Rising today. I ended up making far more changes than I anticipated.

I went for my option 3 above, as it’s a lot cleaner. Anakin lands, Ventress sabotages his escape, Anakin’s angry, they fight. No clones on Yavin.

I’ve got two small audio enhancements to make that rearrangement work, then two simple trims elsewhere, to have this finished off.

I’m sure you’ll all enjoy the final result, I’m just sorry it’s taken so long!

Yeah for some reason that’s really additive.

I’d love a link please!

This is an idea I’ve had percolating for a long while and become really passionate about.

Let’s consider the value of making Iron Man 3 follow Age of Ultron:

• Firstly, thinking about the Avengers story. Working chronologically, phase one gives us all of the individual Avengers solo, bringing them together in the first Avengers movie. At this point, they’re a super-team who have handled Earth’s first galactic threat. That’s pretty huge. Why do they not then handle all of Earth’s domestic problems? Well, because fairly quickly, in Captain America 2, it turns out that SHIELD, who are tied to the US military and brought the Avengers together, were really Hydra, the resurgent Nazis. Age of Ultron continues and concludes this thread, implying that the Avengers have been focused on tracking and defeating Hydra in the intervening time. That’s a good, large-scale (offscreen) focus for the Avengers.
  • Age of Ultron also concludes with Rhodey (who was still aligned with SHIELD/Nick Fury/US military) joining the Avengers.
• What follows Age of Ultron? Most importantly, tension between the new Avengers and Tony Stark, where he leaves the Avengers since he created Ultron. Then a few more solo origin stories, but primarily, Captain America 3: Civil War. A few of the new solo players get roped in here and/or expanded on later, but in terms of the Avengers and Iron Man, Civil War comes next, followed by Infinity War/Endgame.
  • But also importantly, in Civil War, Rhodey has actually switched back from the Captain America Avengers to the side of the US military/regulation, apprehending the Avengers after the Lagos incident (where the Avengers caused collateral damage, triggering the Sokovia accords).
• So ulitmately, in Civil War, which establishes that the (new, Captain America-run) Avengers HAVE been focusing on more serious international threats, both Tony and Rhodey end up on the side of “superheroes need to be regulated”.
• So, now let’s consider Tony Stark’s story throughout these films. Iron Man 1 & 2 give us his formative solo missions. The first Avengers movie, via the attack on New York, gives him both his first Avengers gig and his first realisation that the alien threat is huge and real. Then Nazis pop up, so sure, that’s an easy bad guy to decide to fight. But in Age of Ultron, we see that (quite rightly) he’s still obsessed with the alien threat. He wants “a suit of armour around the world”, so he invests in his AI, building his network of drones.
• Then discovering the Mind Stone’s AI mind, he egotistically tries to merge it with his Jarvis AI to create Ultron, his intended super-AI to defend the world, which becomes genocidal, and takes over his AI drone network, becoming a global threat of his own creation. He gets lucky with the birth of Vision, a combination of Wakandan vibranium, Jarvis’ AI, the Mind Stone, and Ultron’s own design, (and Thor’s, uh, lightning?,) but ultimately Ultron remains a huge fuck-up by Tony.
• Now following this by the Iron Man 3 story, Tony’s huge guilt over Ultron (and rejection by the Avengers after Age of Ultron) has forced him to go solo again. He still fears the alien threat, and now AI/drones also, so instead he’s invested in only himself, creating dozens of custom Iron Man suits. He’s anxious, and without friends, and over-planning for every possible threat, because he knows what’s out there, and he knows the Avengers aren’t focused on it. (He is, of course, proven right by Infinity War, where the alien threat wins, and as Steve Rogers so sanctimoniously told him, “we’ll lose together too”, which they actually do apart.)
• So Iron Man 3 gives us the opportunity to show not just a Tony Stark scared by the events of the original Avengers, but also (from his perspective) scarred by the rejection of his friends in Age of Ultron. Across Iron Man 3 he comes to accept that he is just one man, destroying his multiple suits, removing his arc reactor, and ultimately becoming Iron Man - just one guy.
• Doing it this way explains a few things:
  • Why didn’t the Avengers get involved when the Mandarin was terrorising the USA? Because they’d cut ties with the US military after the reemergence of Hydra, going more independent/international under Captain America’s guidance after Age of Ultron.
  • Why didn’t the Avengers get involved when Tony was in danger? Because they’d just kicked him out of the Avengers for the Ultron incident and weren’t taking his calls.
  • Why did Rhodey join the Avengers in Age of Ultron but then hunt them in Infinity War? Because as soon as they started acting independently/internationally under Captain America he defaulted back to US military (since Hydra/Nazis were defeated), formented by a legitimate threat to the US president, in time to start sympathising with Tony/regulation again.
  • In Iron Man 3, Tony has a positive relationship with a technically and morally competent child. When we see him next, in Civil War, he’s invested heavily in a similar child, Peter Parker AKA Spider-Man.
  • In Age of Ultron, Tony is still with Pepper. But in Iron Man 3, she goes through some real trauma at Tony’s hands. In Civil War, they’ve broken up. In this order, she’s got a far better reason to have split from Tony.
  • In Iron Man 3, Pepper successfully uses the Iron Man armour. They’re split for a time, but when they’re together again in Infinity War/Endgame, he’s built her the Rescue armour.
  • In Age of Ultron, Tony invests in AI/drones, to disastrous effect. In Iron Man 3, Tony invests in multiple suits, which is overcompensation that he realises is unhealthy. What’s the next natural development? A single suit with multiple functions. In Civil War he hasn’t made a major change, but by Infinity War, he’s built the nano-suit - all suits in one, and only he’s in control. To Tony, this is (psychologically) very different to AI/drones or multiple suits.

So, what would it take to achieve this change? Well, a lot, but it’s not unachievable:

• You don’t need to make any changes to Age of Ultron. It does feature Tony’s multi-part armour, which appears first in Iron Man 3, but not in a major enough way to appear as a successor.
• You’d need a voice actor to replace Jarvis with Friday in Iron Man 3. Jarvis is quite generic here, so you could ultimately just re-record all of Jarvis’ lines with a good imitation of Friday’s voice.
• You’d also need a Tony voice actor in Iron Man 3 to replace every time he references ‘Jarvis’ with ‘Friday’. There’s quite a few of these, but thankfully both words have the same mouth movements, at least.
• You’d want to add a little to the references to ‘New York’ as Tony’s trauma to also include ‘Ultron’/‘Killer Robots’/‘AI’
• You’d have to cut the fact that Tony’s narrating to Banner, since Banner by this time has left in the quinjet to star in Thor: Ragnarok. But you could still have the narration as a frame.
• You’d probably want to use the opportunity to change Tony’s opening narration, to establish something like:
  • “A famous man once said ‘We create our own demons’. Well, I tried to create a guardian for the world and sure enough, I created a demon. I called him Ultron. Ugh… I need to start again. Let’s track this from the beginning, back when I really was a villain.”
  • [Killian/Maya opening, where Tony’s a dick to Killian, triggering his personal vendetta]
  • “So anyway, where am I now? I joined the Avengers, fought some aliens, tried to defend the world, made a demon, and for that? Got kicked out. At least Rhodey’s still got the sense to play both sides, but Cap won’t even take my calls. So I turned back to the only people who’ll have me, and the only thing I was ever good at.”
  • [Back in the garage, building the new Iron Man suit]
• The end narration you could tweak too, but it’d be more minor, since it already wraps up everything fairly well.

What do you think? Is there anything there that I’ve missed? Anything there that doesn’t work? Anything that would need fixing?

Right, I’m actually properly editing now! I’ve made some good progress through my episode zero, Dark Force Rising. This takes the Muunilinst/Hypori plots from the Tartakovsky microseries, and the intention is to give background to Anakin/Ventress/Grievous in advance of TCW:R proper.

I’ve been working through my notes, your feedback, and the suggestions for tightening Anakin and Obi-Wan’s relationship so it’s more in line with TCW. So far:

• I’ve brought it all up to my TCW:R 2.0 standard in terms of presentation.
• I’ve tidied up the transitions, and some frames which flashed white (in the original, but it was distracting). This includes fixing the shot I was never too happy with where Obi-Wan lands on the roof and the music cuts a bit too sharply.
• I’m also listening to this all on my TV with soundbar so I can best affirm the audio mix.
• I’ve cut out the young Anakin/Qui-Gon dream sequence, which never had a place anyway, but which might be additive to my Mortis and Yoda Quest episodes.
• We now open on the scene in Palpatine’s chambers, establishing the plot, and I used Delpheas’ ideas and a few tweaks to sell the group’s confidence in Anakin. Now, Palpatine suggests including Anakin (“His exceptional skill will be quite useful”), Obi-Wan agrees (“Indeed”) and then Yoda does too (“True. With his master, a padawan’s place is. AND undeniably strong he has become.”) Palpatine then agrees (“Then it is decided.”)
• I’ve reordered a little more of Muunilinst’s land and space battles, so that Anakin’s success in the air comes before Obi-Wan gets the Muun’s unconditional surrender, giving his skill a bit more weight. The air forces are just on mop-up when Anakin chooses to pursue Ventress. The whole flows a bit better now too, and is a bit more compelling.
• Trimmed a “roger, roger”.
• I’ve tightened up Anakin and Ventress flying over Obi-Wan, to make Anakin more responsible but still bold. Now, Obi-Wan says “Anakin, you’re supposed to be in space commanding our forces!” to which he immediately replies “Master, the battle here is more than won. [responding to settle Obi-Wan’s concerns and show he focused on the priority first] This is no droid pilot, and the force is with him. I can’t let him get away.” Obi-Wan warns him he’s being baited, but doesn’t order him to stay - Ventress is escaping so Anakin simply follows her very quickly.

Now, this is where I’ve stopped, and could do with some advice.

The scene in question is where Anakin and Ventress arrive on Yavin. Currently it plays as follows:

1. Anakin arrives on Yavin
2. Anakin explores the forest
3. Anakin hears an explosion near his ship, and returns to it [[what is this?? there’s a burnt mark on the ground but no obvious target?? did the clones do this?? unclear]]
4. The Clones sent by Obi-Wan land
5. The Clones disembark, and Anakin and the Clones start a search
6. The Clones get picked off one by one
7. Anakin chases the last screaming clone back into the clearing
8. The Clone ship explodes
9. Anakin shouts “R4!” [[without really a reason to believe R4 is in trouble??]]
10. Anakin’s ship (and R4) explode
11. Anakin looks up from R4’s broken dome
12. Ventress emerges

Now, You’ve got three options here:

1. Keep it as is. Obi-Wan sent Clones after Anakin, and Ventress picks them off one by one before blowing up their ship a while later. This means Obi-Wan sent the Clones (less trusting/more protective of Anakin?) and Anakin’s got a good reason to be angry at her.
2. Trim the scene of the Clones getting picked off in the woods. That’s quite a goofy scene, which is charming and Tartakovsky-like, but it does make Ventress more powerful than we see her again in TCW, in terms of picking up and throwing masses of people. Instead, you could have the Clone ship land, and as Anakin watches, it explodes before they even disembark. (There’s one Clone on the ground when it explodes, but I think you could just about work around that if you didn’t mind a few quick cuts here.)
3. Trim the Clones altogether. Anakin lands and goes into the woods. His ship and R4 explode, which makes him run back to the clearing. This one’s very clean, though means that Obi-Wan didn’t send Anakin support (is that OK? It both makes Anakin a bit more reckless AND Obi-Wan a bit more trusting, or perhaps implies that Obi-Wan doesn’t have the means to track Anakin). It also means that Anakin’s mad at Ventress even though he didn’t just see her kill a squad. (Though he has been fighting her in the skies for an hour or so, so it’s pretty understandable that his blood’s boiling.) This would be most elegant, and also fixes those weird questions from the above list, if you guys think the Obi-Wan’s inaction and Anakin’s anger ramifications work.

The latter idea, changing the security hologram, would be quite effective. Having Padmé know that he’s bowed to the Sith Lord and taken the name Darth Vader (having been told it by Obi-Wan on their flight to Mustafar) would align nicely with her saying “I don’t know you any more”.

It’d need some additional VFX work, but if you went this route, you could potentially still use some of those scenes and shots, perhaps as a Marvel-style post-credits scene, where Anakin (now in the Vader armour) marches up to the Jedi temple, lighting his now-red lightsaber, before cutting to black. Implicitly, some time could have passed.

Agreed, I’ve also found myself coming back to the idea since first reading about it.

It doesn’t even need to break wider canon, really. Having him not kill the kids IMMEDIATELY doesn’t mean that he wasn’t involved in later inquisitorial behaviour with a touch of child murder. It just means that we drop the element of “I have doubts about the Jedi” “OK how about becoming a child murderer?” “Yep.”

Thanks very much! I’m hoping to get the next episode released this weekend. That should be the first of my polish pass through the series up to the new 2.x standard. The first couple of episodes - Tartakovsky, Christophsis, Malevolence, and then Ryloth - will take a little longer as I’ll be rethinking their plots a bit more, but the remainder of the existing ~30 episodes will be much more of a tightening than a re-edit, and then I’m back on with proper new stuff.

Glad you enjoyed the Tartakovsky episode. I won’t be making many changes to that, mainly just some dialogue trims to strengthen Obi-Wan’s opinion of Anakin.

That said, regarding Christophsis, I don’t want to make it any longer, and indeed I want to make it a little tighter. One of the pillars of my approach to this series edit is “Quality over length”, and I don’t want to artificially enlarge an episode to make it feel more cinematic. Cat & Mouse is fairly decent but focuses on the stealth ship, which I think raises too many questions this early in the show since it’s not seen again. It also delays our show’s focal protagonist (Ahsoka) and one of our season’s focal villains (Ventress). And Hidden Enemy had decent Ventress scenes, which I did include, but its other plot was the traitor clone. While decent, I didn’t want to have a traitor clone in focus so early in the show before we’ve got to know more of clone culture - though I did include that content in my season two clone individuality anthology episode.

The changes I think I’ll be making there though are some tightening of the start around the blockade and space battle situation, which is a bit muddy right now, and the partial or full removal of Bail, as much as I like his character. We’ll get through this episode fairly quickly - Ventress is there to distract/delay so that the Seppies can drop ground forces, then Ahsoka will join and help the Republic counterattack. It’s not a strong episode either way, so I think it’s best to get through it quickly rather than try to add to it.

I had considered merging Cat and Mouse and Hidden Enemy into a later ‘return to Christophsis’ episode too, where in context the traitor clone had leaked the stealth ship specs (to help explain why it doesn’t return), but ultimately still the stealth ship raises more questions than the value it gives us, and the Hidden Enemy stuff grouped with other clone focused stuff allowed me to produce a very strong little anthology which helps the viewer get used to clone variety and Rex, which was a useful focus going forward.

I did originally think I’d do something like Smudger and maybe mix my Christophsis episode with another (like the Domino Squad arc), but I think my recent reordering of the first season (not yet released) with a focus on how the season flows as a whole will go a long way towards making the beginning of the show more compelling and cohesive, much in the way a movie that hits many good connected beats would.

Regarding aspect ratio, it’s not something I’m really considering changing, mainly since the whole show is like that and if I’m changing the ratio I’m needing to think about framing in every scene. Plus, I think it’s something the viewer can accommodate quickly. I did consider using NumeralJoker’s sources initially - indeed they were the spark for this entire project since they presented each arc as a whole episode - but ultimately I found that I didn’t need the higher resolution because outputting any higher gave such little benefit relative to file size (looks great on my huge TV as it is, plus editing would have been slowed massively by using such large source files) and I didn’t think I needed the new colour timing, since to me it was relatively minor plus I could apply changes myself if needed.

Oh and Imhotep, I wanted to thank you once again for yet another wonderfully detailed post. This stuff is so so valuable to me in working on this project. I’d just had my second jab so I was full of the free trial of covid at the time, hence no reply, but it was a great read, and naturally I’ll be giving it lots of thought!

That’s grand, but don’t push yourself to satisfy your audience just for our own sake! You’ve put a lot of work into this and your thoughts deserve to be heard, so if that’s important to you then don’t compromise on our account! You’re the artist here buddy.

I think because “I am a Jedi” feels like it’s more appropriate as a conclusion to Rey’s story across the trilogy. She’s got her abandonment as a child and lonely life, her lessons with Luke, and the Kylo Ren and darkside temptations, and declaring herself a Jedi brings all of those together into her taking bold ownership of her position in the galaxy.

That’s why the change is accompanied by other changes to Palpatine’s preceding dialogue, where his lines are reshaped into effectively taunting her that she’s nothing.

As a lesser consideration, another factor is that “All the Sith”/“All the Jedi” feels a bit like it’s a cool thing to say but doesn’t quite hold up to scrutiny, and like she’s ONLY (or mainly) strong in the moment because she’s channeling all of the Jedi. It’s kind a comparison between a cool statement in the moment versus something that better ties together her arc across the trilogy.