…That’ll build interest through their appearances, and allow people to have a central pillar to keep track of and feel developing…
(I can feel my central pillar developing, if you know what I mean)
@Mike:
-On Domino Squad:
I’ve thought about this and not quite landed on a decision yet. I agree that since time passes, the story implicitly wants to be paced. So that’s an argument in favour of spreading it out a bit - probably exactly as you say, with Clone Cadets mixed with Rookies, then ARC Troopers standing alone.
The problem with this is that Clone Cadets/Rookies this early in the show (1) isn’t as strong as ARC Troopers, (2) isn’t well concluded, and (3) doesn’t feature any of this show’s focal characters - and it’s a bit too early for a deviation away from our core. The full trilogy works nicely early because of the great conclusion to ARC troopers which brings it all together and gives you this good emotional clone story. So I think the value of an early Domino Squad arc is in its ending, not its beginning.
One option, perhaps best of both worlds, would be to split it as mentioned (CC/R then AT) but place both later. That way it is paced better but its weaker half doesn’t interrupt what we need to be a strong start to the show.
Alternatively, we mitigate the time delay through trimming dialogue that makes it obvious, plus add (vague) cards to indicate at least time passing, and have the thing early as one whole, which allows the viewer to realise “Oh cool, there’re good deep dives into the clones in this show too.”
I still have the option, though, of getting the whole thing on the cutting board and seeing what comes out, then working out where it fits on the timeline best.
-On the Maul opening:
You may have missed some of the earlier discussion, but probably the largest change I’m making to the show as a whole is reordering the entirety, mainly by dragging the Maul plot far earlier so that he’s a presence throughout, and also by kicking off the Mandalore plots early. I think this is justifiable because (1) it gives the show a bit of a central thread which takes us to the Mauldalore conclusion which is absolutely fantastic with a lot of payoff, and (2) Maul in this show is absolutely great and he makes a really ominous background presence, especially since he’s a third party we don’t know the fate of, and (3) The Maul episodes, especially the later ones, actually have a good amount of explicit time skips between them, so they can be paced out.
So, unlike in the original, we are getting straight to Maul - with the end of my (production) season one (essentially the first eighth of the show) putting Savage on the path to Maul, and with the end of my season two (the first quarter of the show) getting Maul in play.
A cold open I believe serves two purposes.
Firstly, it’s there as a promise. “We will get to here.” In this case, it serves to tell the audience “You get Maul, you get Mandalorians, you get Darksaber, you get Mandalorians discovering Maul.” All of that is interesting, and new, and challenges the idea that this show is just the predictable known path from Episode 2 (the start of a war and Anakin’s a bit dark) to Episode 3 (Sidious orchestrated the war and Anakin becomes Vader). It’s a far more interesting hook than just the rest of Christophsis, which is a paint-by-numbers adventure in a bad setting with a character who looks like she’ll probably be quite annoying, to be frank.
Secondly, a cold open is an attention focuser. “Notice these elements as they move through the story.” In this case, it serves to tell the audience “while you may see a lot of themes in this show, keep your eye on Maul and Mandalorians.” That’ll build interest through their appearances, and allow people to have a central pillar to keep track of and feel developing even while other episodes can lean towards feeling more of a part of an anthology.
Bonus, in this case, (1) people already know Maul is in this show, so it doesn’t need to be a suprise. And (2), for people hesitant about Maul, it rips the plaster (band aid) off, saying “Maul’s coming back (from the ‘dead’). Get used to it.”
Game of Thrones (forget its ending) used a cold open very well. The show, for the first season, had almost no fantasy elements, being almost entirely noble houses having beef with each other. But the cold open was “snow zombies”. So we had a full season of good meaty mundane drama, but a full ten episodes of awareness that, hang on, I saw snow zombies. When Dany’s dragon eggs turned out to be legit and hatched, we were onboard. And, of course, snow zombies went on to be the main villain of the show (forget its ending).
Or, in short, I’m not trying to make this show:
I’m trying to make this show:
Well, either/or. Let’s discuss this offline so we don’t leave all the to and fro in this thread! But this all sounds great.
Well hey, I’d be absolutely overjoyed by custom concept art and custom music, and it would allow me to focus a lot more on producing episode content if my part in the pipeline ended at the point where the story did. I’d not ask for more than people were willing to offer, though!
Just to pull an idea RogueLeader had in the TROS ideas thread for everyone’s consideration…
Kind of building on the idea of the crackly Skywalker saber, I think it could be interesting if during Kylo and Rey’s duel on the Death Star, that Rey’s saber was almost becoming “overloaded” from the constant saber-clashing, and starts shorting out by the end of the duel. For example, in the shot where Rey sort of shakes her hand, you could have the saber fluttering in and out. Then finally, when Kylo keeps hammering away at Rey while she is on the ground, we could see the saber give out while Kylo is raising his to deliver the final blow. This would give a reason for why Rey grabs Kylo’s saber and stabs him with it, rather than just using her own.
I think it would add an interesting aspect to the duel that we haven’t really seen before, where our characters are dealing with a malfunctioning weapon. It also gives Rey a practical reason for why she inevitably builds her own.
This is something I really think would be great to fully realise. 😃
Hopefully it can find a place in this edit.If this is something feasible that someone here is able to do, it would be one of the best changes possible. I’m still frustrated that JJ completely ignored Luke’s saber getting broken in half.
Are you kidding? The fact that it was fixed and even has a thing attaching the two broken pieces of the lightsaber serves as a visual reminder for Rey’s failure in TLJ, sort of like Kylo Ren’s scar which symbolizes how his actions of killing Han will always be there.
Please try to avoid using mock suprise when disagreeing with someone’s opinion. I don’t know if I’m alone in this but to me it comes off as an attempt to belittle them.
The minor repair is so visually slight that it’s extremely missable, though. The fact that no attention is drawn to it makes me infer that the production team would rather have viewers not notice it. And with that interpretation, I’d assume that the bit of metal which reconnects the two halves is essentially there to put the question to bed if it comes up, rather than as a cool theme or idea that the production team would like to draw attention to.
Sorry for the double post, but an issue I had with mostly the Death Watch episode was that you started getting a little desperate and used individual model art of things and people that still had text on them. 😉 I would recommend only sticking to full depictions of stills from the episodes similarly to what The Mandalorian does. Keep in mind that not every line of text will need its own piece of art, you could probably fade 2-3 names in and out on each and it would save you a lot.
Yep, that episode now represents the older way of doing it. Now, I’d rather always use scenes from the episode, and only five shots with multiple credits fading over each. In the case of Death Watch, It’ll be the three scenes plus the two vehicles, unless I can find alternate sources. I don’t mind slowing my pipeline a little to go on concept art hunts, if people think there’s good value there.
I have several other ideas on how to polish up those credits a lot more.
Please absolutely do! This is fantastic.
Yeah, I’ve just checked over Mando’s credits and they all vary in subtlety. Sometimes it’s just a bit of false 3D via parralax, sometimes it’s just a floating object, sometimes it’s a waterdrop effect over water, sometimes it’s more radical like this. But always different, so there’d be a lot of artistic license! If you get the bug and want to commit to this, please let me know, because there’s great value in them.
(Or if anyone else has similar skills and fancies chunking up the work, be my guest. There’s certainly a lot that could help if people wanted to get their teeth stuck into this.)
Holy shit, that’s amazing. I would absolutely love to include five of these per episode. Proper professional standard of beauty. I mean, if you fancy doing that 250-300 times, please be my guest 😉
Without having seen Cloak of Darkness, it sound like it would be good to at least inform the audience as to why Ahsoka wasn’t with Anakin and Obi-Wan in the previous episode.
On this point, for master/padawan, they do spend a suprising amount of time apart. Apparently it’s a thing that during the Clone Wars (at least), often Ahsoka wouldn’t go with Anakin on missions, or she’d be sent off on her own. And it’s never really explained in the show.
So I thought I might mention it right at the start, I guess to mitigate people asking “Isn’t this the Ahsoka show?” right at the start. But ultimately there’s going to be a fair amount of this, so I wasn’t planning to explain it every time.
It looks, in this case, like having Anakin palm her off on Luminara does more harm than good, and that up front it’s only really worth explaining that Ahsoka’s not going to be in the early Death Watch episode.
All really, really useful notes, folks. It’s great having this much detail - even (and especially) when a few of you are saying the same thing. I’ll go back and polish all four episodes before I move onto Domino Squad. Due to the way my life is currently structured, I’ll probably always alternate ‘development weeks’ and ‘polish weeks’, because every other week I have a lot more time in the evenings and weekends. (Note that the audio transitions in and out of episodes are all janky because I haven’t put too much time into them yet, knowing they’re going to be replaced.)
Various thoughts from recent comments:
Chase, I was a fan of Cat and Mouse, especially the Anakin vs Trench plot. Trench is fairly good value. (He’s not constantly threatening though - he ‘dies’ in Cat and Mouse and doesn’t come back till the Order 66 arc!) But I do like him. The main reason I trimmed this was (1) to get us to Ahsoka’s introduction sooner, and get us off Christophsis sooner, and (2) because I’m not a fan of the stealth ship this early in the show. I have considered a ‘Return to Christophsis’ episode where a traitor (a clone this time, from Hidden Enemy) has enabled the return of the blockade somehow, and Anakin can use a stealth ship to break it while Rex investigates the traitor.
(Though I’m also toying about either doing a ‘Lost Clones’ episode with Rex meeting the Deserter and Gregor in the Void. But that one might become a ‘Commander Rex’ episode, including the traitor on Christophsis as the third mini story.)
Just watched Cloak of Darkness.
Thanks Mike. Glad this works to recontextualise Ventress’ informant. But yeah, looks like Anakin pawning off Ahsoka hasn’t quite landed right, so I think I’ll do exactly as you say and make it just a normal and not uncommon reassignment for Ahsoka. I’ll allude to my Death Watch episode if I keep it there in the ordering, though I think I’m leaning toward Christo > Death Watch > Malevolence > Cloak right now.
Noted on the sound effect, and also, while I have trimmed some cringe lines, people are still getting frustrated with them, so I’ll see if I can take that further. There’s a scene with Argyus and Ahsoka that I think I remember thinking ‘I could remove this in full at a push’, so I’ll do another comb through.
Good shout on the score credit, thanks. I hadn’t realised that was the situation, but I’ll change that throughout.
I appreciate your eye!
May I have the link to this project so far?
PM Sent
Knight of Kalee said:
Thoughts on Domino
Thanks Knight. I have to confess, I didn’t rewatch Rookies yet, so I might be skipping it too swiftly. It does have some good bits - mainly the infiltration of the commandos and the assault. Less so the worms, if I remember right.
I absolutely want to preserve the clones being referred to as “bad batchers” and “a bad batch” from Clone Cadets.
I think to solve the rushed feeling, I do intend to have title cards to split the episodes. “At the beginning of the Clone War”, “One month later”, and “Present day”, I think.
Maybe I should take a look at the whole arc in the editing deck, and pick out the key bits that way, then let that define the structure. I don’t think it’s going to be a tricky technical edit, just the removal of some scenes. There’s nothing complex to be done with this episode, it’s more about planning it right than executing the plan.
Just finished watching the first (or second?) episode.
Thqnks for checking it out, Hal. Its original source has 18% on Rotten Tomatoes so this episode was never going to be amazing, so I’ll settle for “good”!
Glad you (and others) feel like the Maul cold open works. As you say, I think it’s sensible to just tell the audience “this is happening, get used to it” early.
And yeah, it’s odd to have Ventress imply she knows Obi-Wan, but that’s in the original episode. The show does a fair amount of this, for example when Ahsoka and Padmé first meet they’re already close friends.
Friends, I’m about to suggest sacrilege, and you might need to pull me back from the edge.
I’ve been thinking about my approach to the Domino Squad arc. Domino Squad is one of the most popular arcs of the show. It has three episodes:
Smudger’s approach has long been the master here, for very good reason. He trims I think just the second training session (of three) from Clone Cadets, and about half of Rookies, leaving ARC Troopers almost entirely intact. And he’s totally right to do that - those are the strongest parts of each episode and his movie (plus some Christophsis, and some extra scenes from another episode to show Grievous drawing the Jedi away from Kamino) works really well. It’s one of the most popular Clone Wars edits, if not the most popular.
Like, where is the heart of this arc? I just watched ARC Troopers first (because often it helps to contextualise the whole based on the conclusion, if the conclusion lands well), and I agree with Smudger that almost 100% of ARC Troopers has to stay. There’s some good Grievous versus Obi-Wan, some good Anakin versus Ventress, Echo gets a nice highlight, Fives gets a nice highlight, Kamino is a dramatic location, and of course Ninety-Nine is the real emotional punch in the gut that makes this whole arc memorable.
But what sets that up best? Arguably, a little of Clone Cadets. Showing Echo and Fives before the assault, for sure. And definitely highlighting Ninety-Nine before they’re sent away. But Hevy (who has the closest relationship with Ninety-Nine) dies in Rookies (in nice heroic form, certainly), but doesn’t serve the show much beyond that. He exists to highlight the heroism of Ninety-Nine, really.
Let’s also account for the fact that Echo is important in the Bad Batch, and Fives is important in the Order 66 arc, so we should know them by name.
And while Echo, Fives, and the rest of Domino Squad are good characters, they’re not exactly deep characters. They’re not emotionally rich. They’ve got a small number of traits which make them distinct from most clones, but their personalities only differ from ‘the template’ by a small amount. I think it’s right that we should highlight them enough to remember their names, buuuuut
Do we really need to see much of them? Like, what if we started with a cold open, ‘at the beginning of the clone war’, and saw Domino Squad simply win their final challenge in Clone Cadets - without facing/overcoming adversity first - and then have Hevy thank Ninety-Nine for his support. And then ‘present day’-it straight into ARC Troopers.
What I’m saying is - if we maintain the whole Ninety-Nine emotional core, and the main character emotional core of the finale, and if we at least highlight Echo and Fives, do we need to show the challenges and growth of Domino Squad?
Part of the reason I think this might be more additive than subtractive is because, to be frank, some of the elements in Clone Cadets are a bit weird. Brick the bounty hunter dislikes Domino Squad enough that he assaults a clone and tries to force a reaction. At least three of the five in Domino Squad actively try to leave the squad. And we see them begin in an extremely sloppy way, but improve over only a couple of days into what Shaak Ti calls “possibly the best clone squad I’ve ever seen”, just because they learned team work and creativity? Are their various eccentricities really some perfect venn diagram that results in a really optimal team? And isn’t that mooted by the fact that we never see Domino Squad act as a squad again after ARC Troopers?
I don’t know, am I going mad here? I know nobody thought Rookies was too amazing, but is it heretical to think that the best bits of Clone Cadets are about three minutes near the end to set up ARC Troopers?
Just wondering if it’s worth reordering these initial episodes in what I consider my season one, since a few have mentioned it.
(Bear in mind it’s only my season one from a production perspective, I don’t know if I’d end up presenting it that way.)
Remember, whether creating this for a familiar audience or the theoretical new one (likely coming from Mandalorian), the goal is to get viewers hooked with the promise of a good time to come. Early episodes should show the breadth of the show (its range of themes and how many suprises it has even if you know the plot of the prequels), the depth of the show (the emotional beats it can hit, and the nuance it can offer to familiar elements), and should convince us of quality. Our main character is Ahsoka, then Anakin and Obi-Wan, and our main villain is Ventress (only hinting at Maul). We need to demonstrate a good amount of value for fans of the Mandalorian too.
The six episodes in this (production) season, in their current order, are:
So I think our options are:
Also, it’s worth bearing in mind the enjoyability of the edits I’ve produced. There are already better and worse ones. I wouldn’t want to put the less popular ones up front!
Really interested in people’s thoughts on this.
Malevolence nitpicks:
Right, time to properly eat into these.
Again, Padawan gets a capital letter, for some reason.
You know what, I think I’m going to opt to ignore this convention. I can accept ‘Jedi’ as effectively a title, but I think I’d rather treat ‘padawan’ as just a regular noun, like ‘apprentice’. (No offence meant to you of course, Sade.)
Interestingly, this time around you’ve done the opposite with the intro transition, having the episode audio come in before the picture does. I think it could be slightly more gradual, but I understand that the music is tough and the usable footage is limited because of originally having the newsreel audio.
This is probably more just chance of the scenes I was given than anything else. Once I have the final music from McFibb, I’ll review the intros and outros of all of the episodes produced to date, and make them smoother. With Christophsis, someone mentioned that it was cool to have the motorbike sound before the shot opened, so I kept it (even though I only did it by chance). In Malevolence, the music before the image was quite immediate, so I went for a quick music fade to image fade, mainly to distract a little (passed off as urgency). But as I say, I’ll clean these all up.
[Many technical points]
Thanks very much! I do watch and rewatch episodes as I create them, but this one had around a hundred scene and shot changes that I’d shifted around so I was bound to miss a few.
I hadn’t even realised you’d replaced Plo’s dialogue until Ahsoka abruptly cuts him off mid-sentence for a hug. I quite like intercutting Plo’s dialogue with the clones getting ioned, but Ahsoka just butting in out of nowhere doesn’t really work for me. The footage reversal for the wipe is also not subtle.
Yeah, I think I will just drop this scene. I actually had to have Ahsoka interrupt him because his full sentence has beeps, and I wondered if I could get away with it. Looks like not! But that’s fine, there’re other ways to work this scene. And yeah, there was a chance the reversal would be obvious. Annoyingly, a reversal with a wipe is too much for my PC to process for a preview in real time, so it’s arduous to check the quality on layered changes like this.
I think I’ll change this whole sequence, so that basically they bring Plo on board, he mainly talks about the clones surviving (as in the original), but then have him just mention “it was an ion cannon”. No actual scene of the Malevolence destroying the medical transport. We don’t need a description of an ion cannon because it’s irrelevant to the plot. If you didn’t know what one was, you’d know that whatever was happening, it was absolutely knackering ships, so it’d make sense to target them later. Plo can either mention it being an ion cannon as he’s rescued or later, as Yularen says “he’s heading to the Rendellia medical station”.
At 18:28 when Yularen says “Skywalker”, the audio editing seems a little odd, like the music suddenly lowers (presumably to mute whatever Ahsoka is mouthing) and then it comes back in.
I thought this’d get pointed out. It’s a weird glitch in the original, and by coincidence it’s the first issue I noticed that the series itself has, because I happened to pick Malevolence and randomly that scene back when I did my first pipeline tests. “Skywalker” is actually on the front channel rather than center, so I guess they were trying to do a ‘far away voice’ thing. But it sounds odd to my ears too. I might just do without it, and cut straight into Yularen getting down to business.
I hear voice echoes at 29:11.
I think that’s on me. The medical station voice hits all channels, I guess to simulate reverb in that room. So editing that scene is a pain.
I’m enjoying this excuse to rewatch TCW and engage with it a little more than I did the first time. I don’t really remember the original episodes, but this edit makes a pretty fun short movie. You’ve merged the episodes well. The start is really engaging, as it quickly makes Grievous seem brutal and coherently sets up the threat. The medical station scenes work cleanly where you’ve put them. All the Plo Koon rescuing stuff is enjoyable enough - Anakin and Ahsoka’s interactions are exactly the sort of set-up I did feel was needed for the nitpicks I mentioned in my last post; and even though we haven’t seen lots of Anakin/Ahsoka missions, this episode does a good job implying there’s been a few offscreen.
It’s good, isn’t it! I’m enjoying it a lot more on rewatch and detailed dissemination too. When it first came out I barely paid attention to the episodes because season one was so agressively bad. And I didn’t give most episodes after that a good chance too. Especially since the show kept throwing Shadow Warriors and Droids in the Voids at us even in the good seasons. I really hope I preserve everything good about this show; I really don’t want to be a butcher.
The Shadow Squadron space battle section is watchable but not my favourite aspect of Star Wars. Whatever editing you did in this bit worked for me, though I can’t say I recall how it was originally. I was freaking out wondering how you’d managed to drag another thirty minutes of episode out after the Malevolence blew up but thankfully it’s just an accidentally left in black screen, haha.
Agree. This cut absolutely whips through it, and puts it in what I think is a far more compelling order. It also now gets straight to the point. But the space battle itself isn’t great, and there’re way more exciting ones later. This does suffer a bit from originally being episode two then three of the original arc, since the story loses a bit of momentum after Anakin destroys the Malevolence’s main weapon, giving us about three minutes of it slowly limping away while Obi-Wan’s fleet just batters it until it dies. But again, I just cut through the main points of that as quickly as I could to get us to swift victory, because by then all the emotional beats had been hit.
Amazing, Chase! I’m very glad to have you with us! I’ll share the link to the tracker so you can get stuck in with the existing episodes.
Please feel free to nitpick, criticise, tear them apart as necessary. I’d rather have something heavily criticised then fix it, than have my ego kept intact. Looking over my own history in this thread, I do tend to hold on to my own thoughts longer than I should in the face of alternate opinions, so you (and everyone else in this thread) should feel encouraged to disagree with me loudly and firmly!
It feels like this thread has settled into a pattern where I produce review cuts first, for dissemination, and a few dedicated champions give feedback on the episodes in their slightly unfinished state, which helps me with the finishing touches. I know it’s not an ideal way to consume them, but it’s very motivating for me so it helps keep the momentum up. Nobody’s under any obligation to help in that way though, of course!
Please also feel free to suggest any ideas, changes, alternate takes, radical restructures, whatever comes up. And bear in mind this is both about editing each episode but also presenting and restructuring the whole. Already the community in this thread have made material improvements over what I could have produced if I did this in isolation. And since you’ve just read over the whole thread (kudos!), also do feel free to challenge any assumption or decision- however early it was made. I’d rather rethink and refocus now than later!
I don’t know if anyone’s thought about this yet, but it’d be extra useful to me if anyone who’d just watched one of my new episodes might then go and watch the source material, just in case that generates fresh thoughts. It’s something I don’t do myself because by the time I’ve finished editing an episode I’ve already watched it through about ten times so I’m fairly burnt out on the story!
(Responding to Artan)
Yeah. I think they work as a sensible pairing because they’re both a little unlike the Jedi default at the time- both quite emotional, intuitive, and bold. And they do moderate each other to a degree, so the council are kind of proven right for a time. But ultimately they both go beyond the council’s expectations, with Anakin not learning to let go and ultimately becoming Sith because of it, and Ahsoka learning not to let go, but to channel her caring nature into the kinds of action that the Jedi council forgot about by the time of the prequels, ultimately becoming one of the best kinds of Jedi even though that wasn’t the archetype at the time.
I think there were some good tests of both - fully grey Exegol, with green smoke around Palp’s life support device. But fair enough if it’s not a change you’re looking to include!
Cloak of Darkness nitpicks:
Thanks for the detail as always Sade.
Ahsoka going apeshit on Gunray in the interrogation feels like a very Anakin thing for her to do, but you don’t get the impression she’s spent very much time with him yet, so you can’t really read it as his influence.
No, but that’s OK. I think that’s part of her initial rashness. One of the character traits she has early on, that she learns to manage, is her boldness. She’s quick to act, taking the direct path, often without thinking. It’s only after noticing this that I got more of an appreciation for Lightsaber Lost, whose entire lesson is ‘slow down’. Remember, in Christophsis, Anakin says “You’re bold, little one. You might not have made it as Obi-Wan’s padawan, but you might just make it as mine.” He’s acknowledging that she already has that character trait, and it’s part of what bonds them early. It’s also good as the characters grow, to see Ahsoka’s boldness be more moderated, whereas Anakin continues down the path of more directness.
“Skywalker’s not here to save you now!” isn’t a reference to anything, right, because this is their first meeting? Again, seems a little premature, unless you can justify it as her referring to the events of Christophsis.
It’s their first meeting, so it was like this in the original too. I think you just assume that Anakin’s told Ahsoka about Ventress, and Ventress has become aware of Anakin’s padawan (via her informant maybe? It doesn’t really matter.)
Ditto for “Master Skywalker should be proud”.
While your idea to have Anakin immediately palm Ahsoka off is an amusing one, I think there’s just too many little references in this episode to Ahsoka being Anakin’s Padawan for it to work perfectly.
Is this problematic? I intended it to come off as that he’s accepted her as padawan, he’s just booked himself a bit of ‘time off’, since he’s still getting used to it and not entirely comfortable training her. He’s not rejected her, he’s just seen an opportunity to get her trained/looked after by someone else for a bit.
If anything, perhaps this episode would be better placed a bit later so we can interpret it as Anakin’s unorthodox style rubbing off on her a little.
Definitely an essential episode for establishing Ventress, so it’s unfortunate that very little else interesting occurs besides Argyus’ betrayal (and death lol). Luminara Unduli is a really wooden character here, effortlessly slotting right into that humourless, overly-arrogant Jedi master archetype, to the point where Ahsoka doesn’t even learn anything this episode.
I don’t think Ahsoka learns any lessons in this episode, but I think in this episode we see that her boldness isn’t always entirely without sense. She’s brash and a little childish, but I think this episode shows that she’s got a good intuition and is competent - she’s just not well refined. (As an aside, I think this works well for showing why she was allowed to become a Jedi padawan. She’s totally competent and has the right attitude and skillset - it just needs the refinement of tutelage under a master.)
I agree that it’s a slow episode, though, and a necessary one that’s sadly not fantastic. That’s also one of the reasons I’d put it after my Death Watch episode, which is far more interesting.
Thinking about the ordering then. It’s mainly here because yes, it’s fun to have Anakin dump her at first. I could drop that idea and put the episode later. Though I feel like Malevolence is when he really accepts her emotionally/personally (after only really accepting her formally in Christophsis), and I feel like putting Cloak after Malevolence means there’s even less point in Cloak. Which means that Cloak, which remains necessary, is even less interesting.
Yeah. Anyway, here’s everything on my radar for V2:
- Green smoke around Palpatine’s throne?
Pleeeeease ❤️
why.
Assuming you’re genuinely curious, here’s the genesis of the idea. It was discussed for about a week after that point.
What it achieved was having Plo convey the information to the fleet that the Malevolence has an ion cannon, which they depend on as they plan their attack. Though there are simpler ways to do that. It also showed a bit more of Grievous’ singlemindedness and a bit more brutality.
CMMAP, what did you think of the ending? I wasn’t certain about going from the medical station back to the hangar so quickly, but I think the hangar scene is the right emotional conclusion for the episode, of the options available. Did everything else work for you? This was massively restructured. I’m also interested to know if it’s considered an improvement on the original three episodes, of course!
maybe it won’t destroy the flow of the episode if you show the malevolence destruction as a whole sequence with the audio overlay of plo koon explaining it?
i liked the ending. to end the episode with walking to the council meeting is great. cutting to fast from the medical station to the hangar didn’t concern me, personally. the whole sequences at the medical station are disposable, i think.
There’s not quite enough footage to show the destruction completely. One thing I wanted to do in my edit was not show the weapon firing, because its effect just looks very unnatural to me. And breaking it around another scene was the only option. I think I’d rather just cut the destruction of the medical transport entirely, and just have Plo mention the ion weapon as he’s recovered from the escape pod. I’m not precious about this scene if it breaks the episode.
Yeah. Anyway, here’s everything on my radar for V2:
Pleeeeease ❤️
The Malevolence Destruction Tour (lovely description!) is the main element that I’m uncertain about. I’d certainly be happy to drop it entirely - it mainly came together as a way to use a few nice shots and lines that I had put aside to use if I could find a place for them, rather than out of need.
What it achieved was having Plo convey the information to the fleet that the Malevolence has an ion cannon, which they depend on as they plan their attack. Though there are simpler ways to do that. It also showed a bit more of Grievous’ singlemindedness and a bit more brutality.
CMMAP, what did you think of the ending? I wasn’t certain about going from the medical station back to the hangar so quickly, but I think the hangar scene is the right emotional conclusion for the episode, of the options available. Did everything else work for you? This was massively restructured. I’m also interested to know if it’s considered an improvement on the original three episodes, of course!
This episode helped cement in my mind the concept of a ‘Review cut’. As I plan and edit, I’m naturally going to tend towards making the most radical changes that I think might improve the quality, because they really need to be seen to be tested, and you can always dial back from them. Going as hard towards the potential value add as possible, but then dialling back as necessary, lets us ‘settle’ on a point that’s closest to the goal of maximising quality. But that requires community feedback, which necessitates a review cut as opposed to a release cut.