EddieDean

Hmm. I’m just coming to polish up my s02e05b Assassin. Much like Lightsaber Lost, this isn’t one of my Quality Cut episodes (my ‘recommended TCW:R canon’) but it is one that I’ll include for people who want as much SW as they can get, whetever the quality. I used a scene from Assassin in my Corruption on Mandalore episode, so I’ve trimmed that out of this version so the two episodes don’t clash, and that’s basically all I planned to do here.

But I’m faced now with a dilemma. Ziro the Hutt doesn’t appear in any version of TCW:R now, with all of his episodes either relegated to being completely ignored, or in a couple of places chopped up for spare parts and used elsewhere, like my Cad Bane arc. But Assassin ends with the reveal that Ziro was behind it all.

I have two options here:

1. Just end on Ahsoka’s return to Coruscant and the beat of “we don’t know who did this”, with some context in the opening text to vaguely imply Padmé’s many enemies (which’ll be developed later in my s03e01 The Politics of War episode) EDIT: I’m going with this one
2. Maintain the Ziro ending, but have him not appear before or after this episode, so he’s implicitly just some minor criminal with a grudge. I could use the intro text to give a bit of that, though getting explicit would give away the ‘reveal’ and it wouldn’t be very impactful.

I don’t mind too much either way, since this isn’t an important episode to my edit, it’s just one I’m including as a bonus for people who already know they like this one.

What do you guys think?

RELEASED - S03E02 - REVIVAL

Details as above, link in the tracker spreadsheet, PM for access!

S03E02 - Revival - is uploading now.
This was an easy one, with just two trims. I cut Palpatine’ sneer at the very end, since in TCW:R I don’t want it to be explicit that Palpatine is malevolent for the sake of a chronological watch.

The other trim was removing the references to Hondo’s base being damaged by Grievous. You may recall that due to my restructuring to make Maul more of a constant presence in this show, this particular episode (Revival) was the one which had the most impact on the plot when it was moved. Adi Gallia dies in it, which is fine since her other appearances are trimmable, and also Hondo’s base isn’t destroyed till the Younglings arc, which originally aired before this one. This was quite easy to fix - I just reference in the crawl that rival pirates have raided the base (explaining its destruction here), and then when we next see Hondo’s base in TCW:R I’ll explain that he’s rebuilt it with the funds stolen in this episode from Maul’s crashed ship, which we even see them recover.

This is the most radical change to the canon that my edit makes, and I think it’s very minor for such a high reward (that of Maul’s constant wildcard presence). I’d hope you’ll all agree!

I’d like to have given this episode a different name, because nothing in this episode relates to the concept of revival in any way, but I don’t feel like I have the right to rename episodes when they’re basically as-is.

Next up I’m going to quickly release a version of Assassin which removes the scene I’ve used elsewhere (even though Assassin isn’t one of the recommended episodes in my Quality Cut), then a little polish to the end of season two before I’m on to s03e04 - A Friend in Need.

I have literally nothing to add but I can’t restrain myself from outpouring huge support and admiration to all of the collaborators in this discussion and especially those producing this wonderful new collateral. This is absolutely inspirational stuff and I goddamn love this community.

RELEASED - s03e03 - DISSENT ON UMBARA

Details as above, link in the tracker, PM for access!

I hope so! A lot of what I’ve cut is the nice shiny graphical stuff, because that was mainly the neon-on-black fauna and the neon-on-black Umbaran military hardware. And I can see people objecting to their removal even though they don’t carry any story. But there’s still loads of eye shiny to look at in this episode - the jungle, the tank fight, the aerial combat, the space combat, and then back to the jungle.

It’s taking a little longer to finalise for you guys because the audio is playing up. I think I’ve got some kind of memory or soundcard issue because while I was editing it the sound would turn off, and I’d have to play sound from another source to ‘reset’ it??? Either way, that carried across to the render, which is concerning, but I’m trying a fix now.

Dissent on Umbara (s03e03), aggregating the whole Umbara arc, clocking in at 52:07, is nearly finished.

While I cut a lot, I feel like I haven’t really changed the plot at all, as this one contained a lot of redundancy or filler. I don’t think you’d miss the excised half hour at all.

Key edits:

• Throughout, I trimmed most of Krell’s hatred of Clones, making it seem (at least early on) more like he’s just a hardliner with extreme tactics.
• I massively trimmed the combat-heavy opening where Anakin’s leading the clones. Instead we get one scene of Anakin, Rex and Dogma, before Krell arrives to take over. Now the majority of the plot happens around the airbase.
• To streamline the early plot, I removed almost all fauna combat and almost all combat against Umbaran military hardware from the first couple of episodes. Also to streamline things, I only had Krell send the clones on one suicide mission (versus the walker tanks) rather than also in a straight line against the capital. You get all the key story beats this way, just in about a quarter of the time.
• I trimmed a little of the infiltration of the airbase as well as some of the surrounding combat and discussion.
• After the clones take the airbase, I trimmed some of the discussion there, most notably removing the scene where they test and crash the aircraft, because it doesn’t change the status quo.
• In the final episode, I preserved the majority of it, mainly just cutting down the hunt for Krell in the forest to remove his evil villain speech and to speed up his capture, while preserving a lot of his physical threat. I also slightly trimmed his jail dialogue to imply he’s already a Separatist rather than just doing this all on the hope he’ll get recognised.

TestingOutTheTest said:

DominicCobb said:

TestingOutTheTest said:

I’ve mentioned this before, but I don’t really like the idea. I feel it’d take away the original point of the scene: to establish the stakes for the movie, hence Rey looking at the children - the future of the galaxy. Terrio even confirmed this in The Skywalker Legacy documentary. Now, it’d just be another reinforcement of Luke’s return on Crait and how it inspired hope.

Honestly man why are you even here. RL just spends all the time making this thing and you chime in with your usual bullshit. Just get the fuck out, don’t troll edit threads if all you’re gonna do every time is say that something is a bad idea.

So… refuting criticisms of a movie you guys don’t like is trolling or bullshitting?

No, but it means that THIS PARTICULAR EDIT clearly isn’t going to satisfy you, and therefore THIS PARTICULAR THREAD clearly isn’t worth your time. PLEASE do yourself and everyone in this thread a favour and take it somewhere else.

Please, make your own thread, outline your objections and support for TROS, and start generating ideas which align with YOUR goals.

Because this edit clearly doesn’t.

Be well, and kindly move on.

Regarding the puppet show - it’s magnificent. As a few have suggested I think it needs to play out for longer, but also I think the puppets need to be larger and to take up more of the frame.

I’ll probably end up using this scene- likely heavily VFX filtered though- in the Scipio episode of my TCW series, as a kind of dream/flashback. I’ve always wanted to pair these scenes with the Scipio episodes because the Scipio story shows a lot of Anakin’s possessiveness towards Padmé, and with this scene in the viewer’s mind I think that it could be recontextualised as the only real on-screen raw reaction of Anakin’s loss of Ahsoka.

How odd. I’d recommend downloading them, since I always struggle with streaming over GDrive.

Which three Hal?

GOD DAMN that’s so good. I haven’t seen this movie since the cinema and I just can’t wait to see the community version(s).

OK! That makes the scene I’m working on a bit easier then, since I was looking to aggregate that. I might show you guys the clip of where I’d got it to just for fun.

I figured that the viewer can fill in the gaps at least, and they have a few viable options:

• Heading home from work
• On the street to visit more ‘undecided’ voters
• Distracted by the recent death and assault, and needing some air/not thinking straight.

Right, I’m going to call it there, but I’ve done about 75% of the Umbara edit. I’ve basically got all my scenes in order ready to check the overall narrative, then it’s an easy set of transitions and only two or three scenes which need actual detail work. Not long now for this one!

Thanks Solemn, that’s great to hear. I’ll add in a little more about those bomb droids then, for sure.

For Padmé, getting her on the street without a lot more content needing to be included was tricky, since originally she was with Onaconda talking to another senator at the senator’s house. The problem with reinserting that is that she leaves Ono in very good spirits, which means I wouldn’t be able to use the reflections on all the bad stuff around her while she’s wandering. I tried to hint at it in the scene just before she sees that Ono’s been injured, by adding a line “I’ll check around the other senators” or similar, but it seems like that’s not quite filled the gap for you.

I’m not sure what other options I have here, so I’m open to ideas…

I’ve just reviewed Umbara and that’s going to be a nice easy episode to edit. I’m not going to make any fundamental changes to the story, just trim out quite a few scenes which don’t directly serve the plot.

I think Krell is a bit too overtly villainous, so I’d like to chop some of his dialogue so he’s less of a clone hater and merely someone who uses absolute obedience to ensure he can spend troops at a high rate to achieve his victories. After the reveal where he pits clone against clone, we can have more actual disdain. I’ll not show his lightsabers ignited in their first appearance either, so the threat kicks in when they try to arrest him. I also won’t have him laughing in the jungle as that’s very goofy, and I might change his motivation at the end so he’s already connected to Dooku rather than just hoping it’ll win him some favour, which retroactively makes his plan a bit weird (and kind of cheapens the fact that he managed to rise to the rank of master because surely an evil-ish master would have a better plan for serving the Empire).

I’ll also play down the blockade at the very start, so the moment when the stolen ships break the cloud cover into an overwhelming firefight can also be a nice reveal moment.

I’ll play up Fives’ character, adding in a few more instances of him being referred to by name, just to help cement him in the viewers’ minds, and I’ll also add a couple more references to Kamino to remind the viewer of how he joined the 501st. I’ll also do the same with Tup’s name if possible.

I’ll cut the opening battle to allow us to start with Krell taking over, cut almost all of the wildlife, droid banter, and the centipede-bot, because they just don’t carry any plot and this whole thing could do with some pacing tightening. I’ll also cut the scene where the clones test out the new ships, because it doesn’t change the status quo.

I’ll trim a fair few other scenes, including the infiltration of the airbase, and depending on whether this runs long or short I might trim the very first “just walk in a straight line” assault because it gives away Krell’s hatred a bit too early (and this way, the first instance of clones fighting overwhelming odds comes in a semi-justifiable way because it follows from Kenobi’s need). I might remove Dogma’s relevance to the plot though, as his arc isn’t as important or interesting as the other clones in this episode.

The only thing that’s major that I’m unsure about is whether or not to have the actual scene where the clones nearly kill their brothers by firing squad. It’s nice and tense and it’s nice to show the clones reject their orders but we get a lot of clones rejecting orders here and they do ultimately all turn on Krell, so I think we can go from the INTENTION to execute them to the interruption of the ‘Umbaran’ attack, which turns out to be an attempt at execution anyway.

I won’t promise I’ll have this out today, but it can’t take too long…

Shit, sorry Kalee, I just realised I never replied to you.

Firstly, thanks so much for that extra bit of homework! I really appreciate you doing that, it was really valuable to have a bit of extra diligence on this one to confirm that my version was cherrypicking the right parts from the originals. I’m especially glad that you think that us getting into Padmé’s thoughts worked.

You’re another voice in favour of keeping Ahsoka’s “I’m not so bad” line - perhaps there’s a middle ground where I keep the line and him checking her out but I still cut out the camera ogling and perhaps her tutting about boys, making it ultimately a bit more sincere.

Noted on your spotted errors and suggested tweaks! I thought stretching out the bar music might be interesting but it looks like that hasn’t quite landed. I’ll think about slightly beefing up the infiltration plot too.

A few bits of info (and a request) for y’all!

• Firstly, I’ve updated the OP with some additional clips and more detailed episode synopses. It’s probably redundant for most of you who’ve been following along though.
• Secondly, a month and a half ago I launched a thread over on Fanedit.org for the edit, which has only just moved from ‘in the works’ to ‘pending approval’. It hasn’t gained much momentum over there, but I’d really like to get as many eyes on this as possible since the community approach over here has been so healthy for the project. Therefore, insofar as you guys are comfortable doing so, I’d really appreciate it if anyone was willing to leave a comment in the thread over there which might help generate a bit of buzz and increase momentum. Please don’t feel obliged to say anything you wouldn’t have chosen to say of your own free will though! The second reason this might be useful is because it might help encourage the admins to review the series (I’ve sent the first season to the academy) which has been pending for a long time. I know the admins are humans with busy lives but a bit more buzz might help the show’s selection there, which would result in it being moved from ‘pending approval’ to ‘released’ quicker, which again means more helpful eyes on the project.
• Thirdly, I appreciate my return has had a slower output than expected! Nothing to worry about there though folks. s03e01 needed much more work than planned, but it’s now released, and I’m now onto the next ones. I was intending to jump onto s03e02 (based on Revival), but since I don’t have the means to rip my DVDs I’m dependent on getting the sources online, and Revival was an episode released as 501 on TV but then 507 on DVD so that’s confused its availability somewhat. (Speaking of which, if anyone could send me that episode in 1080p 23.9FPS that’d be really appreciated, I’m happy to send you a photo of me holding the DVD if that helps convince you it’s all above board!) So that’s slowed me a little. But anyway, I’m on it. While that’s resolving, I figured I’d release Assassin for completeness, then probably just get stuck in with Umbara, which I don’t EXPECT to be a complex cut (it won’t need any reordering or anything too fancy there), since I want another proper episode released to you guys before I do any more polish on existing ones.
• Fourthly, I hope it won’t matter, but there’s a risk I’ll need to change my structuring because Lux’s model seems a bit more mature in the Onderon arc, which I’ve now got in the same season as his earlier appearances…

Ah, the scene’s complete! My issue now is the opposite one - almost downscaling it into a dream/memory sequence so I can use the scene in my Clone Wars edit…

Delpheas said:

I talked about what you’re doing with this edit with my wife, and she is a little mad at me for making her watch the regular TCW, because it is so incredibly unfocused and the quality really dips at times. She said that she would have loved for this to be her intro to the series.

On the note of the micro-series stuff and it not feeling like it fits, I wanted to bring this to your attention if it isn’t already: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OXQwBtvenos

Essentially, there are folks editing the old show in terms of colors/voices/pacing to match canon. Once it is released you could use it as the base for your episodes.

Aww, sorry your wife was annoyed! There’s always her next watch through! 😉

That video is a really interesting idea. I wonder how radical a reimagining it’ll end up being? I’ll definitely keep an eye on that.

That’s a HUGE relief that you thought this all flowed! That second half took a lot of work from a lot of options and this was my preferred (and shortest) version so if you think this worked as a whole I’m very happy.

Good point on the reasoning for Ahsoka to be trained though, I’ll change that line in the crawl.

I did trim Ahsoka’s “check me out”, mainly because there’s the full-body scan shot and I don’t like the camera gawking at a teenager and the whole “boys will be boys” thing (probably for the same reason that we both have an issue with Ahsoka assuming that the senator friend was male). But the hint at flirting isn’t vital here, so I think it’s an OK trim. Did the actual cutting feel natural there?

You mention liking the episode but forgetting that it spelt out that the corporate seats were corruption, but I’d like to correct you here and let you know that that wasn’t something from the original episode 😉 That’s a scene from the far less enjoyable Senate Murders episode rather than the greater Heroes on Both Sides/Pursuit of Peace duology. That said, while you’re quite right about corporate seats being bought, I do like that they have a senate which includes more than just member nation states. It’s cool that there are some powerful corporate elements, as well as that neutral systems collectively have a seat even though they’re external. It’s a little distopian and a little utopian too.

I think the speech basically was the vote though, my assumption is that the vote happened immediately after and offscreen, and the opponents (grudgingly) applauded because they could tell her speech was a slam dunk that had won public opinion.

And yeah, American “Table a motion” versus UK “Table a motion” is an unfortunate complete opposite of meaning. I also thought about removing ‘Caucus’ because it’s very specific to US politics but I didn’t want to break the flow of that scene to achieve that trim.

My largest recontextualising was when Padmé’s walking alone before she gets jumped. Having watched my episode, why do you think Padmé was walking alone there in that scene? I’d like to see if my intentions carried across! Do you think that scene worked?

And of course the ever-important question: Would you prefer to watch this over the original three episodes?

Totally. Just updating the models and lighting effects would be great, though there’d be a lot of effort involved even then to check each shot in case of errors. And tightening up the animation in the earlier seasons would be super. It’ll probably never happen. But hey, at least we have the lovely stuff like season seven and Bad Batch now.

Agreed with Faraday that I feel like there needs to be some element of Finn ‘receiving’ the lightning after it’s ‘sent’ by Rey. Looks fantastic in the ‘send’ though!