EddieDean

Yeah, I’m generally going for simple.

Since the original version of TCW was such an anthology show, and of such inconsistent quality, you never knew what a given episode was going to be about (from a HUGE range), nor whether or not the elements in those episodes were going to be incredible or awful. So as much as I can, I want my show to be a show you can trust. Because when you expect to be frustrated, you’ll be anxious and hesitant and it’ll shape your perception of what you’re consuming.

That’s why getting all of the presentation elements right was important to me - because I want this show to be bold and confident and aware of its strengths, because that will help shape the users’ mindset and make their enjoyment higher because they’ll be wired to expect enjoyment. And an element of that is using the titles and the opening text to really direct the audience to where the quality is, or to enhance the point of a given episode: “THIS is the element to be focusing on today”, and highlighting the key theme or most valuable element from that episode. Even though it’s a small thing, it’s still something that could be useful, and I’ll take those few percent.

For example: Senate Spy is not a strong episode. It certainly doesn’t deliver on the “spy” angle. A valid objection to it is that it’s got prequel B-tier villains and it’s basically the story of Padmé being pimped out by the Jedi council to a smug, rich creep, to which Anakin acts petty and controlling. Not good. But if we call it ‘…Geonosis’ in a Geonosis trilogy, then people will (1) expect that it’s act one/setup and not expect huge things, (2) anticipate the return of a familiar element which is clearly about to be explored further, (3) get curious about the Geonosis angle, pay more attention to Poggle when he appears, get more value out of the secret meeting, care more about the poisoning, treat Clovis as a bit more important than a one-off foil, etc etc.

It’s subtle, but it’s not got a zero value. And doing little things like this can make the show feel more consistent in tone, consistent in quality, and ultimately a little more trustworthy.

In fact I might have just convinced myself to rename the couple of ones I left as they were.

And that’s me done with the body (not the finalisation yet) of the third and final part of my Tales of the Lost Clones anthology, the Cut Lawquane stuff from the Deserter, running at 13:50 without credits etc.

I made no changes to this whatsoever, other than chopping it out of its original episode and putting it together with smooth transitions. It now makes no reference to Obi-Wan or Grievous at all. In fact, all three episodes in this anthology are deliberately like that - no context, no establishing shots. We start within the stories already, because they are slices of a bigger picture, and larger context is not only irrelevant, it’s actively against our intent.

This does now mean that I have two episodes back to back which both have a holochess scene, which might be a bit on the nose for people, but they’re both good scenes so worth riding out any such REMEMBER THAT TIME IN THAT MOVIE WITH THAT THING discomfort I reckon.

The full Tales of the Lost Clones episode will run to just about 45 minutes all told. Three episodes for the price of two.

I’m going to render this now as a workprint just because it’s technically complex, and I want to get a sense from you guys for how it feels before I finalise it. Feedback encouraged as ever, but particularly so in the case of this one.

Very pleased to have got this far this weekend. This means I can get some priority real life stuff done tomorrow and have plenty of time to finalise and release Geonosis and Tales of the Lost Clones ASAP - hopefully all tomorrow, but not long after if not.

Ed Slushie said:

Hi, can I get a link?

PM sent.

I’ve just finished the Gregor part of my Tales of the Lost Clones anthology, coming in at 15:30 of actual content.

I strongly disliked the whole Droids in the Void arc, so wasn’t going to include it in any form until a community member (I forget whom, sorry) recommended plucking out this part of it, which then got rolled into my idea of a lost clones anthology (which itself came about because there’re three half-episodes focusing on clones, which needed a home).

This part is now obviously refocused into being Gregor’s story, not Colonel Gascon’s, so I’ve trimmed everything that doesn’t serve the story of Gregor. I’ve made Colonel Gascon far less abrasive and arrogant (he’s now, possibly, a legitimately competent Colonel who’s simply crashed and exhausted), I’ve made his pit droid more straightforward and helpful and less antagonistic, I’ve minimised the other droids, and I’ve trimmed the usual bants and goofiness, especially during the closing combat scene. It was fun to trim that action scene while keeping the action flow - let me know if you can spot any of the seams!

I think this part is now good enough that it’ll work when sandwitched between two better episodes, and probably a first-time viewer would be OK with it, but for people who hated the original arc I think this’ll just give unwelcome flashbacks.

Either way, it’s alright like this, and it helps with the secondary message of the TOTLC anthology which is “focus on Rex, he’s the main clone in The Clone Wars TV show”. Plus, there’s that extra Gregor payoff once we hit season two of Rebels.

In case it’s not clear to anyone, I don’t intend to include any of the rest of the Droids in the Void anthology in any capacity.

Knight of Kalee said:

Hi there! I haven’t been able to give so much feedback as I used to because university has been a dick to me this semester, but I wanted to comment on at least some parts of this latest array of updates.

Always lovely to have you with us, Kalee. Focus on your studies and I’ll keep churning out episodes for you! Good luck with university.

• So great to see we have almost 2 complete seasons! This is going to be an interesting viewing experience.

I know! It’s kind of crazy to be 42% complete after only four months since this project’s inception. These will ultimately become my own archival versions, but I’m hoping that one day someone’ll say that about my edit as we do about others’.

• If I had any time I would have suggested you to have the plotlines of the last 2 Geonosis episodes happen concurrently, so great to hear you’ve done exactly that! 😄

Full credit to Smudger for the concept of course! I’m very pleased with how that episode worked out. Let me know if you enjoy it.

Is the scene of Anakin forcing Poggle to cooperate included right?

Oh yeah. Punches that bug right in the face.

• The three-parter Geonosis titles you suggestes sound pretty great, they wouldn’t feel out of place if this were the original episodes.

Glad you think so! In a way they kind of evoke the Malevolence trilogy, which for my series I condensed down into one episode just called “Malevolence”, so it was nice to kind of do the same thing in reverse with Geonosis. That’s why I used ‘Shadow of’, though I could equally have used ‘Rise of’. But naturally Geonosis doesn’t get destroyed, so I couldn’t end up with ‘Destroy Geonosis’, as nice an homage as that would have been.

And now the Hidden Enemy parts of Tales of the Lost Clones are finished. One down, two to go. This one’s a cool little story, at just 12 minutes, with only a few trims and transitions and audio changes, but I think it works a lot better when it isn’t put up front in the series like it was in the original chronology. We shouldn’t have a traitor clone right after meeting them. Anyway, cool little tale, which hits a bit stronger when you’re not constantly cutting away. And it’s the right story to start our clone anthology off with, I think, because this one is simply a clone objecting to not being a free man - a fair objection that the audience should think about. Originally this was the B-plot for the story about Ventress infiltrating Christophsis, but now that it’s devoid of that context, I’ve cut the references to being paid off (by “her”) so that it’s purely resistance to Jedi rule. It’ll start Rex off on his own journey exploring orders and his position as a clone.

Click here for detail on part 2 of the anthology episode

(As a random thought, I know it might be a bit odd that I give you this commentary before releasing the episode, but this way I’m able to braindump it when it’s fresh, so the commentary is more complete. I like to give you guys as much commentary as possible in case it triggers any valuable thoughts for you guys which might turn into fruitful discussion. Doing it in advance increases the chances that you’ll pick up on something I should attend to before I’ve released the episode.)

A thought on naming. For the third Geonosis episode, as much as I love RogueLeader’s suggestion of TERROR OF THE BRAIN INVADERS!, I think I want to keep from giving away the reveal, instead leaning into the terror aspect. And while my now-trilogy of episodes can be watched standalone (as opposed to being part one, two, three of the same story), I think I’d like to name them in some way that links them. Naturally, that link is Geonosis, so perhaps my three should be:

• Shadow of Geonosis
• Return to Geonosis
• Terror of Geonosis

That tells the viewer that they’re linked but without requiring viewing as one three-part arc. It also makes Senate Spy more interesting - tying it into Geonosis early rather than letting that reveal come late in the episode, which could be more compelling for a viewer not sold on the episode premise (as I originally wasn’t). For Terror, it puts you in the right mindset without giving the game away, and following Return that’d tell you that you were getting something tonally different.

As always, interested in thoughts.

Aaand that’s the main cut of my Worms of Geonosis episode put together. It’ll be about 36:30 plus credits. Like the previous couple, I still need to finalise it with credits etc before upload, but I want to spend my edit-brain on the meat of the episodes this long weekend, and polish after.

For this episode, I heavily borrowed from Smudger’s excellent interleaving of Legacy of Terror and Brain Invaders, and I used his ideas for audio changes in a couple of places. I still cut it myself from the original sources though, because it forces me to think each element through afresh rather than being lazy. I have some light differences from Smudger’s first half - we don’t need to see Poggle flee, I reckon, and it’s OK if we see the worm-clone carrying eggs early (because we don’t know yet that they contain worms) - but I’ve restructured the second half further.

With mine, we now continue to intercut between the episodes for longer, breaking up the long scene of Anakin and Obi-Wan in the Queen’s throne room with a couple more shots of Ahsoka and Luminara struggling against the zombie clones. This way, we keep them in mind more as we learn of the terror of the parasites, and we put them into more jeopardy sooner. I also did a little more to make the Legacy of Terror finale more ominous, using music and a transition to change “let’s hope the secret [of the worms] is buried with them” from being a hopeful episode ending to an ironic emphasis that Ahsoka is in serious danger - which is followed up immediately by the reveal that Barriss has been zombiefied, and attacks her.

I also removed the “coming in too fast” subplot, because it’s not interesting. We don’t care about the clone medical station so there’s no jeopardy there, and what’re they going to do? Bump into it? It’s not very exciting. It’s cool that Ahsoka wants to prevent the spread of the worms, but that intention enough is valuable for her character - we’re not invested in the outcome beyond Ahsoka caring about it. Instead, we keep the focus on the drama inside the medical ship as Ahsoka defends against Barriss, cutting away only to the odd shot of Kit Fisto responding to their arrival in the system. Once Ahsoka has saved Barriss, the plot is ready to conclude.

Interestingly, once I’ve completed this (and thus my second season), my edits will have covered all of the main arcs covered by Smudger’s five TCW TV-to-movie edits. I’ve always really admired Smudger’s work and for a long time had eagerly anticipated his future plans for TCW, so it’s cool to feel like I’ll have reached parity with his original work and be able to take The Clone Wars forward from that point onwards - albeit in a different format to the one that he chose.

By chance, all of my episodes up to the end of my season two add up in time to almost exactly the same length as Smudger’s five movies - about eleven hours total - which feels like a neat match.

Right, they’re not finalised yet, but I’ve made good progress with Senate Spy and the the Second Battle of Geonosis.

Senate Spy just featured the trims I mentioned beforehand, nothing too radical. I also removed the scene where Padmé gets gawked at by Rush - he’s still really into her, he’s just less slimy. In that same scene I also cut Poggle poisoning Padmé directly, because it’s weird that she’s poisoned by a drink, then eats a whole meal, and only then feels bad. This way, we get the discussion about poisoning, they enjoy a meal, and then Padmé feels ill - implicitly, something was in her food rather than her drink, and the subterfuge was more subtle than HEY DRINK THIS DRINK PLEASE.

Geonosis I trimmed more than expected. I do prefer the flow of the first half if we don’t spend time on Anakin’s and Ki-Adi-Mundi’s prongs of the attack. Now the focus is more on the fact that the plan went wrong and that Kenobi’s wounded. We get a good sense of the threat to Kenobi’s position, only lightly touching on Anakin rushing forward and lucking into Ki-Adi-Mundi. Ki-Adi-Mundi even says ‘sorry, we got diverted and out of comms range’ as we see him emerge from a flaming hole of Geonosians, so I think that’s sufficient explanation. I’ve also trimmed some dialogue to make Yularen more aware of this and more immediately supportive - thinking quickly, he prepares a bombing fleet ready to support Obi-Wan on Anakin’s signal. Naturally I trimmed a lot of droid bants.

I’ve removed a little more of the sense of the first part having a normal episode’s ending, so the transition is more smooth. I’ve also made Ahsoka and Barris’ deaths more ambiguous - Luminara doesn’t say “I know they’re alive”, so now Anakin’s hunt is more of an act of hope. I also reordered some scenes to leave the mystery of their survival lingering for longer. I trimmed their dialogue a bit to make Barris appear more fatalistic. This way, plus the following episode, gives her a sense of being not quite right - pushed too hard by the Jedi - which will pay off a while later in Ahsoka’s Fall.

As I say, I’ve not finalised these yet, but I want to get through the cuts as much as possible for the last four of this season this weekend, so any remaining polish remains an easy task.

CaptainFaraday said:

Okay, I’ve got another one:

There once was a Jedi named Rey
Who needed help finding 'er way
Give yourself to the Sith
And the whispers we give
Will say where it is right away

For real, though, I’m provisionally of the opinion that it would work fine as long as the visuals support it - tracking in on Rey during “darkened heart,” for example, that kind of filmic language. But the proof (or disproof) of that would be in the end result. I’ll record something and let people play around with it if they want to, and we’ll know pretty quickly if it’s going to be tenable or not.

At the same time, we could try and collectively come up with something that retains a poetic/ancient tone to it but conveys the information in a literal way - the writing style of The Epic of Gilgamesh could work as inspiration, for example, as it includes a lot of verses like that.

someBODY once told me
that you just gotta hold me
but I am not a knife made for cutting

at the second deathstar’s grave
where the land meets crashing waves
I will point to a further macguffin

Valid, but I’m already very tight on space…

Ah yeah that’s a tricky one.

I’m trying to convey the following concepts:

• The political academy (which teaches kids politics) is for youths - it is a youth political academy
• The youth political academy has some particularly high-achieving students - the youth political academy’s “brightest”
• These are the people Ahsoka is secretly teaching - the “brightest” students at the political academy for youths.

So perhaps I should present it as:

“…for Ahsoka to secretly teach the top students at the political academy for youths.”

Hmmmm. Now that I’m working on it, I might trim the Anakin/Ahsoka and Ki-Adi-Mundi prongs of the attack on Point Rain. It’s a long battle, we know there’s no jeopardy, and you can overdo battle scenes. I want to preserve the initial assault, the failed landings, and the race to get to Obi-Wan’s position, but I might tighten this whole situation up.

Thoughts?

Ooft, I’ve just realised that with my current structure, all of my season finales relate to the loss of Ahsoka and the topic of letting people go.

1. Cad Bane arc - Anakin says “I can’t lose you, Ahsoka.”
2. Geonosis arc - Anakin and Ahsoka clash with Luminara and Barriss about being ready to lose someone.
3. Onderon arc - Ahsoka learns to let go of Lux (another good reason to focus on him in a single season).
4. Ahsoka’s Fall - well, you know.
5. Siege of Mandalore - well, you know.

It rhymes.

All I can remember of Laura Dern’s ouvre is her appearance in the third season of Twin Peaks. That said, it’d be great if you could have Admiral Holdo say “Fuck you, Albert.”

Edit: God, what a horrible post to start a new page on.

I enjoy, and think it’s been very productive, to have Hal in this role:

Anyway, my edit-brain having run out, I just skipped ahead now to watch the five-part Geonosis arc, which will form my season two finale.

I’d always thought I’d split it as follows:

• Senate Spy - a mostly standalone Anakin/Padmé adventure which provides the macguffin to kick off the battle
• Landing at Point Rain / Weapons Factory - the second battle itself
• Legacy of Terror / Brain Invaders - the follow-up episodes with the worms, intercut similarly to Smudger’s approach, to preserve the suprises and tension a little longer

I think I probably will keep to that plan and present it as those three episodes, unless LAPR/WF ends up short in which case I’d put Senate Spy on the start. I might still play around with that idea. I don’t think I’d want to merge LAPR/WF with LOT/BI though, because those two each have their arcs go up and down, and they’re tonally different. Just because they’re back to back doesn’t mean they have a natural viewing flow, and I think the break should be preserved.

So, analysis and cuts:

Senate Spy has really good Anakin/Padmé romance and tension. I might trim the slightly slapstick pettiness of Anakin on the flight out, and Padmé being Clovis’ password (because I don’t like the trope). There are just a couple of goofy moments which I’ll trim, but this will have a quick turnaround. As it’ll be a very light touch edit I’ll preserve the episode’s original name.

The Battle of Geonosis duology is fairly jeopardy and emotion light and action heavy, BUT it’s good action with good character work and the battle is one of Star Wars’ best land battles - especially impressive since it’s all prequel elements which were unpopular on first release.

I could trim the bit where the three forces split up and meet again, but they’re kind of fun. Ki-Adi-Mundi in the spooky caves is novel, and Anakin’s prong of the attack shows why having the Jedi lead the military worked so well, and gives some fun Ahsoka stuff. So I think I’ll keep all of that. I might trim Anakin’s ludicrous jump off the wall though.

I will, naturally, trim droid banter throughout. I think I’ll end this episode where the current episode ends, rather than making a cliffhanger out of Ahsoka’s survival or letting it run a little longer into the wrap-up from the next two episodes. But I’ll see how that feels when I come to it.

I think I’ll call this episode simply ‘The Second Battle of Geonosis’, since that’s the selling point and there’s not a punctual character arc to follow here. But I’m open to suggestions.

The Geonosis worms duology is even more fun, and there’s proper jeopardy since we lean into Barriss and Ahsoka getting traumatised (Barriss begs Ahsoka to kill her…) and have both zombie bugs and zombie clones, also hinting forward to Order 66. I think I’ll preserve the line where a zombie-clone ominously says “we’re very good at killing Jedi”, because it’s almost like they’re subconsciously aware of Order 66 and only the worm’s weirdness gives temporary access to that knowledge.

I need to trim droid banter and the reference to the traitor clone (in my anthology episode) being tied to Ventress (since these are now two separate events), and then interleave them neatly, but there’re no real other trims to make.

I’m not sure on what to call this. Emphasising the terror/trauma/worms seems sensible, though I do kind of like keeping the focus on the Geonosians - perhaps ‘The Archduke and the Queen’.

I think this makes a fine finale, again tying together a lot of what came before, hinting forward at a few things, giving everyone their moment in the spotlight, and traumatising Ahsoka enough for her to want to mature her character model.

Assuming nothing unexpected happens, I should be able to get these and the workprint of my anthology episode done by the end of Monday, finishing off season two.

So I got started with my TALES OF THE LOST CLONES anthology episode and made some progress on that before running out of edit-brain for today. Couple of thoughts to share:

TOTLC is going to contain three mini-stories:

• LOST IN SPIRIT - The traitor clone stuff from Hidden Enemy in the Christophsis arc - which works really nicely as a single thing cut out of the original episodes.
• LOST IN MIND - The Gregor plot from Missing in Action in the Droids in the Void arc - with its context heavily simplified into a crash on a droid mining planet.
• LOST IN BODY - The deserter plot from The Deserter.

I’ve put them in that order so that the two plots which actively feature Rex are at either end.

I’ve currently got the opening text as follows, to try to sell that it’s an anthology and not all immediately consecutive, without losing my usual tone of voice:

• The Clone Wars spread instability and chaos across the galaxy.
• The clones are genetically identical, born from a single source and raised toward a single purpose. Obedience is in their blood.
• And yet, in different places and at different times throughout the war, a few clones have found themselves on different paths.
• As CHRISTOPHSIS enjoys its freedom from the Separatists, the Republic bastion there has been ambushed at the cost of many lives.
• Lost on the Separatist mining planet ABAFAR, the tiny Republic Colonel Gascon and his droid infiltration squad need a way home.
• And on the remote planet SALEUCAMI, Clone Commander Rex of the 501st and a small clone squadron have had a crash landing of their own.

For my opening title(s), I then have ‘Tales of the Lost Clones’ in smaller font, lowercase and yellow, followed by the individual story’s title in the usual all-caps teal. I repeat this three times.

Just interested in thoughts on that so far.

RELEASED - s02e04 - THE CORRUPTION OF MANDALORE

Comprising Corruption, the Academy, and a scene from Assassin.
Technically releasing this as a review version because the audio may be a bit dodgy, though on a check it seemed OK.

Notes above, PM for access to the tracker if you don’t already have it.

Feels nice to have completed another episode end-to-end after a long time working on polish.

I’m uploading my Corruption on Mandalore episode now. I’m really pleased with how that came out. I can’t quite tell with my current setup, but the audio might be fucked, so I’m just calling it a review cut for now. All of the actual technical edits are in place though, so it’s final other than that. In review it does sound OK, but let me know if you guys feel it doesn’t work. If I need to fix the audio I can do so, but I’ll save that for next week - I’d rather use this long weekend to spend my focus on working out the tricky bits of (ideally) the next couple of episodes.

Onwards to my clone individuality anthology, TALES OF THE LOST CLONES.

Man, if it wasn’t a waste of good time, I’m really tempted to put together an anti-trailer for TCW:R to show all of the things I’m intending to cut or minimise.

Epic music over droid banter, JarJar antics, Ziro’s flamboyance, many quick shots of Grievous being defeated yet again and going “Grr”, and then as the music swells to indicate real action, have Satine dramatically say “The school has received adequate government funding!”

RogueLeader said:

Damn, this sounds good Eddie. You’ve really put some thought into this. I’ve loved all your episodes so far, but these are the kind of episodes I really love to see come out of your project!

It’s definitely satisfying when it comes together like this. Since I know that the idea was spawned in a writers’ room and THEN made to fit into some multiple of 22-minute episodes (at which point all of the ideas may have been both fleshed out and watered down), I feel like sometimes I’m trying to uncover/imagine what those original ideas were initially, then recompiling them from the component parts in front of me. For this one it was realising that ‘the black market is government corruption’ was the ‘plot’ (or, I suppose, the setting, almost) of this duology, and the ‘character arc’ (really the plot) was Ahsoka demonstrating the patience we’ve recently seen her learn successfully.

I find that often you find the answer when looking at where a plot ends up, and thinking back to front instead of front to back, because it’s in the execution that you find the writer’s intention, not the initial setup. That’s also why I think that making the whole show set up and reinforce the Mauldalore finale is sensible.

Man, this Corruption on Mandalore duology in its original form really failed to convey its plot. It’s clear that the original intention was that the existence of the black market wasn’t the mystery, but instead that the big reveal was supposed to be that the black market was actually entirely unnecessary, artificially forced into existence by Almec so that he could secretly control the flow of cash. But the way it unfolds originally, the first episode focused too much on ‘black market bad’ with the poisoned kids, and then the second episode focused too much on the cadets instead of on what they were investigating.

It also felt awkward to have Satine discover corruption and then decide the best solution was to have a Jedi become a school teacher.

I’ve now intercut these episodes so the plot is as follows:

• Satine knows that Mandalore has a reliance on the black market, and some corruption.
• To invest in the issue of corruption long term, she embeds a Jedi in the academy to help ensure a lasting resistance against corruption on a generational basis. (Implicitly, she does this secretly, because the Mandalorian population at large don’t trust Jedi due to their mutual history.)
• On the same trip, she invites Padmé, who’s popular on Mandalore because of her support for their neutrality, and who may be able to help her politically.
• Ahsoka is uncertain of this responsibility - using the best scene of Ahsoka and Padmé on Padmé’s ship from the Assassin episode (which she also arrives on Mandalore in) - now giving Ahsoka more of an arc throughout, building on their relationship, and tying them together a bit better even though they don’t share other scenes together this episode.
• Ahsoka unintentionally inspires the kids to investigate the black market, which they do offscreen.
• The kids report that the black market may actually be linked to government officials to Satine (Korkie’s aunt, so a sensible move). THIS is the trigger for the plot - that the black market may be linked to government corruption, not that either exists in isolation.
• Satine tells the kids not to investigate (because they’re kids, so a sensible move), but frustrated they decide to call Almec.
• Before they can do that, Satine decides to take action - and she and Padmé go to talk to Almec (another senior official, so a sensible move).
• Almec shows little interest, saying it’s probably Death Watch, which Satine finds a bit nonsensical. (This makes the scene in this context a little funny and Almec more flippant, which I think is fun.) Suspicious, and not knowing who else to trust (sensible, because she now suspects it may go as high as Almec) she decides to take some action herself.
• The kids call Almec, who’s already suspicious that Satine may be closing in because of their previous conversation. He tells the kids to meet him that night, knowing he has to act fast. This justifies his fairly radical actions now - he’s more panicked now than in the original episodes.
• The kids attend the academy, where they tell Ahsoka about what’s going on. This brings her into the story, and now that she’s learned a lot more caution than her season one self, she’s wary, and decides to keep an eye on them.
• Late in the evening, Satine and Padmé (who’s always up for capers like this) go and check out the docks, where they see an easily bribed guy. I’ve changed the dialogue “A customs official” to “A government official” to make it explicit that they’ve just had their suspicions confirmed.
• Again, they go to Almec (still sensible because they don’t completely suspect him, and they have more evidence now, and they’d always prefer to go through official channels). He rebuffs them once more, and they retreat for the night.
• Almec now knows for certain he’s made, so while he moves to arrest the kids that night (as he always intended to since the moment they told him they had evidence), off camera he arranges the arrest of Satine. Padmé is unaware of this and doesn’t follow the rest of the plot (she enjoys a good night’s rest in the ambassador’s suite, presumably).
• Ahsoka, now savvy and patient, saves the kids from arrest by Almec’s corrupt guards. They realise that Almec was corrupt and rush to Satine (as a senior official who can help them, still sensible), only to find her taken.
• Ahsoka puts a plan into motion immediately, giving Almec what he wants (the arrested kids) and impicates Satine (who she knows Almec opposes) in order to gain his trust. This doesn’t work, but only because he’s not very trusting, but it was a perfectly sensible idea. It also gets her close to the prison.
• She moves to plan B, and tries to free Satine herself. She falls into a trap, where Almec freely reveals his own corruption, but she turns the tables and imprisons him, freeing Satine, and implicitly rooting out Almec’s corrupt network.
• As a note: Plan B also includes using the kids as part of the plan. I thought about trimming this, but I think it ties more into the Ahsoka-as-teacher plotline, and contrasts well against her cautioning patience earlier. She trusts these kids to act even in the face of danger, but she just knows that there was an unsuitable time for it (breaking into a government warehouse) and a suitable time for it (to free someone from illegal imprisonment and root out a usurper). It shows she’s a bit more discerning, even when she’s being bold. This also kind of shows that she expected to be drawn into a trap (and use that to get Almec to confess), if you want to interpret it that way.
• Ahsoka - now no longer required because she’s both taught the kids about corruption AND triggered a series of events which has likely made the population of Mandalore more savvy about corruption - is picked up by Anakin.
• But Padmé, in my version, remains, for a while. She has dinner with Satine, where they discuss their happiness at the outcome while still bemoaning the cost of corruption across the galaxy. But true to her earlier word, Satine now invites her to come and see a new hospital (the one where in the original they saw the poisoned kids, but here free of context it’s just A Good Thing) and enjoy peaceful mandalore to raise their spirits. They toast, and we end the episode. Mandalore’s now left in a better place than in the original version, and having Padmé stay there for a while is a nice way to keep it feeling relevant even if we don’t revisit them again soon.

I think this all ties together and flows well now, allowing the plots to interweave whilst keeping all of the character motivations completely sensible, and minimising the awful poisoned drinks plot and the kids we aren’t emotionally invested in. They’re now well-meaning but essentially still a foil for Ahsoka, which emphasises her growth.

I’m really glad I got this to work, because (strategically for the whole show) I needed us to spend more time with Satine, Padmé, Ahsoka and Mandalore.

This episode should be out later today, I still need to finalise it and then upload it.

New Bad Batch trailer has released. I spotted Tarkin, Zygerria, and Saw Gererra, which works just fine, since all of those are still in TCW:R (even after not including the Citadel arc, since Tarkin is in Ahsoka’s Fall). Interestingly, this didn’t show any environments or characters that we haven’t already seen in other trailers, so I think we can safely say that we know what’s going to be covered within the plot of the first (/only?) season.

Hmm. Working on the Corruption on Mandalore arc now, and it’s not very good. There’s no heart to it, just a few moving pieces. It’s important to have more Mandalore about now in the overall plot because it helps anchor the audience on the idea of Mandalore as one of our throughlines, and to show some internal politics is fine - it’s just not a very fun episode.

I realised that I could get the best Ahsoka/Padmé scene from Assassin into this episode if I have them both travel to Mandalore together. And if I could find the right line (Padmé saying something to indicate she happens to have a Jedi available) then I could get a bit more value out of Assassin’s scenes too. But without that, I think the strongest thing is to have the plot be that Ahsoka is going there to SECRETLY help train the academy kids in corruption, and Padmé’s tagged along as an OFFICIAL opportunity to increase diplomatic ties with Mandalore.

So Padmé will wave at the crowd then have a nice friendly chat with Satine, while Ahsoka inspires some kids to investigate the black market. They discover something shady (offscreen, I think) and report it to Satine, who out of wanting them to be safe discourages them. The kids, discouraged but concerned, decide to call Prime Minister Almec (but don’t call him yet). That night, Satine takes Padmé together to investigate, where they discover black market stuff. They report it to Almec, saying “It wasn’t Death Watch, but we have a huge black market”, to which he says “good, it’s not Death Watch, that shuts things down”, to which Satine replies “a black market is still a problem”, bringing them into conflict. The kids later call Almec, saying they’ve learned of the market, and spotting the risk to himself he decides to act, drawing the kids into a trap whilst also leveraging it as evidence with which to convict Satine. We then play out the rest of that plotline, with Ahsoka and the kids rescuing Satine and sending Almec to prison. Anakin comes to pick up Ahsoka in his ship, and Padmé says goodbye to Satine in her own ship.

Doing it this way you’d have to kind of accept that Padmé was essentially unaware of all of the later drama with Ahsoka and the kids and Satine being imprisoned, but it did all happen in the one night so it’s kind of OK.

I think this is probably the strongest feasible version.

Updated - s02e06 - The Return of Maul to v1.1, shifting the scene of Obi-Wan and Yoda detecting Maul in the force to directly after he gets better then goes outside to scream.

And that’s everything polished up! Productive day. Hopefully get my next proper episode (s02e04 - Corruption on Mandalore) out on either Wednesday or Friday,