EddieDean

Maybe I’ll play with two pages of text, and center aligned.

Wonderful and detailed feedback folks, thanks very much!

My main takeaways:

1. Leave Lucasfilm and franchise logo as-is, but watch the transition into the following music.
2. Experiment with other intro text music.
3. Possibly rearrange text/TCW logo/episode title if necessary to suit music.
4. Use a little capitalisation in intro text (I’ll use it to highlight where I want the viewer’s focus to be then, I reckon)
5. Add a little life to TCW logo.
6. Use a different/bolder font for closing credits (though I did pick the most teal episode for my demo)

I feel like convention “permits” us to create the intro text the way I have because each TV show (and some movies) seem to do their own thing. This isn’t a Skywalker saga movie so I don’t think scrolling yellow is suitable, but the teal in that font at least keeps the text “in the family”. I might split the same amount of text over two screens, depending on what the musical cues dictate.

I like the idea of cold opens but I doubt they’d be available for all episodes because the show simply isn’t made that way. I will keep an eye out as I go, though. I wonder if a cold open would clash with intro text though? We’re drawn in with the action, but then drawn back out by text talking about the state of the galaxy?

Sade:

• I’ll also check antialiasing
• The concept art is indeed placeholder, I’ll make sure future ones fill the screen. I will need some stills from the episode though, as I need eleven pieces of art per episode, and some of the shorter episodes don’t have that many. I picked a bad example though, since there’s no concept art for the movie.
• Glad you spotted ‘new’ and ‘newly’- I felt that too and was wondering if it was just me. I’ll avoid language like that in future.

ELEMENT TEST AVAILABLE

I’ve had a very productive day - I’d call this me now being thoroughly over the hump, and almost ready to get cracking.

https://vimeo.com/494261348

(Note: Actual video is only 3:30, there’s a dead 2 min at the end)

This is a test of all of the ‘elements’ that compose an episode of TCW: Refocused.

The actual ‘meat’ of the episode is only about 20 secs long, just as an example of lossless video and audio from the original source, and surrounding that is all of the opening titles, text, and closing credits.

I’m interested in feedback on two things:

1. How does it feel? Obviously the actual episode itself doesn’t amount to much, but does the surrounding content tell you “this series is worthy of your time”, and position the episode within the wider tragedy of the clone wars? Are the production values high enough that it feels like it could have aired on TV? Does the opening draw you in and build anticipation? Does the closing let you mull over and digest the episode, and let you reflect on the creative process?
2. How does it work technically? Any visual glitches? Any colours off? Any stuttering? Any bad transitions or fades? Is everything timed well, did you have enough time to take everything in without it dragging?

Feel free to absolutely savage this - it’s best it’s torn apart now rather than later!

Once I get this into a state where it’s worth taking forward, I’ll convert as much of this into universal assets and templates to make future episodes as repeatable as possible, then get to producing the first episodes!

sade1212 said:

You could use ffmpeg for those things if you’re alright with a bit of command line. Getting audio would be “ffmpeg -i input.mkv -vn -c:a aac -ac 6 -b:a 640k output.m4a” and getting video would be “ffmpeg -i input.mkv -an -c:v copy output.mp4”, I think. I don’t know how Vegas would take those files, but they work well for me in Premiere.

Are you intending to only render it out in stereo rather than 5.1?

Sade, just resurrecting this to say thanks very much for this. I’ve now got to grips with ffmpeg, and am demuxing audio and video now with a single combined command, which is super easy now. I’ll also be editing and outputting in 5.1 surround. This was a really helpful direction, thank you.

Not at all buddy, it’s a team effort! I just hope I can do right by everyone.

Onward to editing! I’ve got a good chunk of time now to get my teeth in, and about seven evenings in a row free followed by a few full days free, so it’s time to get going. I’ve set up my project workspace and am now going to spend some time working on the end-to-end pipeline and creating the universal elements like text and credits. Expect to see something within the next couple of days.

I have to say folks, thanks very much for giving me a better appreciation of The Clone Wars. Through doing my watchthrough and then sharing those thoughts with you and gathering feedback, I’ve found there’s far more quality in it than I originally thought. It’s a large show, and it starts so very poorly, that I never really took the time to focus on its good bits and appreciate its quality. Reading back over some of my earlier comments, I feel like I was much harsher than I needed to be in a lot of areas - and ignorant of the quality. I feel now that I’m far more focused on where the good is in this show, especially as it related to character development, and I’ll do my best to dig it out and highlight it for you all. So please don’t worry if you disagreed with a lot of my earlier harshness - it’s probably been replaced now with a respect and appreciation for the bits which are genuinely good.

Knight of Kalee said:

EddieDean said:

A reference is made to Grievous ransacking Hondo’s base in the one episode, but seen in the other. I think it can be worked around.

Yep.

And honestly I don’t think the Younglings arc depicts Grievous that badly. You’d only need to trim the bit where he goes all out villainous gloating after Ahsoka flees, when’s fired upon by Slave I, and maybe the space battle with Obi-Wan’s forces (this one mostly for pacing). The lightsaber duel with Ahsoka is decidedly balanced in Grievous’s favor.

I’ll check it again then. Maybe I’ll just skip the first episode, which, whilst cute, is about characters other than those we care about, and isn’t super necessary. I’ve also just realised all these kids probably got slaughtered not long after this episode.

A reference is made to Grievous ransacking Hondo’s base in the one episode, but seen in the other. I think it can be worked around.

That’s perfect buddy, unspoilt newbies will definitely be really valuable. Once I start releasing I intend to do one weekly- it’d be great to have your feedback as it airs “live”.

Good shout on the eminence ordering!

sonofabinadi said:

I think the ordering you presented is brilliant, especially with the balancing of character development and the thought you’ve given to Ahsoka’s arcs and how each one shows different aspects of her character. I do think the idea that certain Domino Squad arcs could be used as flashbacks could work well, provided the pacing still works. Really excited about all the ordering and where things lie currently!

Sorry, I missed this earlier. Yeah, I’m still trying to work out what to do with Domino Squad. It could go later in the series and use ‘Near the beginning of the Clone Wars’ for Rookies, up to ‘Present Day’ in time for ARC Troopers. You’d lose that early suprise that the clones actually can have really interesting stories though, but you’d gain the benefit of having clone development be a bit more focused towards the end. And you could group it either as:

• All three arcs together, though time is implied to pass in these episodes so it doesn’t quite work.
• Rookies, then Clone Cadets/ARC Troopers
• Rookies / Clone Cadets, then ARC Troopers
• Rookies / Clone Cadets, then Grievous Intrigue / ARC Troopers (like Smudger did, making the kidnap of Eeth Koth be part of Grievous’ plan to pull Jedi from Kamino)

Right now I think having people realise ‘oh nice, that hit me harder than I expected a clone story to’ is more valuable than maintaining a familiar memory of the characters (since they don’t have huge or powerful character arcs so much as that they reoccur) and it’s more valuable to get that good set up and payoff of Rookies/ARC troopers as close together as possible. So I might go for that later pairing - Rookies/Clone Cadets then GI/ARC Troopers as a two part episode at the end of my ‘season one’.

(*Note: I’m not going to release it labelled as ‘season one’, the seasons I’m using in planning are definitely just for my internal pacing.)

Speaking of Grievous, my current ordering/selection has a side benefit of minimising uses of Dooku and Grievous where they come off as weak or cheap, which is cool, so we only really see them when they’re either coordinating things or giving themselves new levels of threat (sometimes above what we see in the movies, which adds value). I still like the idea of switching the owner of the Malevolence from Grievous into Trench, and the main threat of it being that he’s an escape pod killer rather than the goofy looking EMP weapon.

That just leaves the Jedi Younglings arc, which I’m not quite sure about. I think it’s cute and fun, but I don’t know if it works tonally in a show that’s trying to be a bit more focused on the tragedy of the Clone Wars. It’s another easy Grievous beat, and quite a cartoony one, plus it focuses heavily on a bunch of kids. The kids are pretty good for kids (they’re not really cringey), but still, it’s much more of a caper than an adventure or a moody escalation. We also cover Ahsoka’s ability to train and inspire in the Trandoshan arc and the Onderon arc. That said, it’d be nice to frame it as a recognition of her successes in the Trandoshan arc. I’ll watch this one again.

CMMAP said:

EddieDean said:

And in my mind I’m feeling that episodes should run in the 20-50 minute range, otherwise I should think about restructuring.

If you feel this way is the best for your project, do it.

I won’t make myself a slave to it obviously, but it’s where my mental alerts will kick in to rethink.

And in my mind I’m feeling that episodes should run in the 20-50 minute range, otherwise I should think about restructuring.

Yeah. I figured that’d be the consensus and I agree, I just wanted to run it through a few more brains.

Yeah, I think you’ve hit the nail on the head. It’d need to land right every single episode, which must be close to impossible. Let’s call it “a second pass at the absolute earliest, if at all”.

That reminds me though, something I could do with more feedback on from anyone please: I’ve said ‘episodes should be whatever length they need to be’, but swinging from 22 minutes to 90 minutes might feel a bit much. I can solve this mainly by releasing four-parters as new two-parters, which is basically harmless for the binger but helps the person who wants them to be more digestible - plus every episode break is an opportunity to use the new opening text to recontextuailse anything I need to. And I’ve also said that simply laying one episode on top of another in other edits doesn’t quite work for me - HOWEVER, is it worth doing in order to balance our characters across the show? As if we’re always following Ahsoka, Anakin and Obi-Wan even if they’re apart from each other? I think this might help it feel like more of a show with a single unified cast than an anthology show, but on the other hand it might introduce the same issues I’ve found with other movie edits in the past.

Here’s an EXAMPLE that I haven’t put much thought into - so don’t interrogate the logic too much, just the feeling here:

• Ahsoka’s Christophsis episode / The Mandalore Plot - Anakin meets Ahsoka while Obi-Wan investigates Death Watch on Mandalore
• Voyage of Temptation / Cloak of Darkness - Anakin and Obi-Wan escort Satine while Ahsoka helps Luminara
• Rising Malevolence / Domino Squad (2 parter) - Domino Squad as the ‘spine’, while Ahsoka’s with Plo and Anakin first, then Anakin and Obi-Wan are pulled off to Kamino
• Nightsisters (I wouldn’t intercut the Maul ones probably)
• Storm Over Ryloth / Duchess of Mandalore - Ahsoka and Anakin fight over Ryloth while Death Watch targets Padme
• Holocron Crisis (in full, since it features all the mains)
• etc etc
  Does that make it feel more like a fluid ‘series’ than a set of anthology episodes? If so, is it worth doing? Or does it feel more like merging unrelated content?

Oh boy, ask and ye shall receive. There’s nothing quite like waking up to great helpful feedback like this! ❤️

@Hal: on timings: Obviously any indication of release is going to produce a rod for my own back - there are still a few unknowns and a weekly release is a lot more pressure than a one-off. I really want to get it out as soon as possible though - and ideally before any new show starts airing though I think the first season of Bad Batch will hit sooner (though that’ll probably help focus this if needed). There are ~45 episodes, so potentially this ‘TV show’ runs for a whole year. Since you guys seem up for that, I do think it’ll be really useful, as I’ll be able to refine by episode as we go rather than getting much more limited ad-hoc feedback on the whole. Either way - I do have a good amount of free time right now and I’m super motivated, so I’d hope to get the demo episode out by mid Jan, and the first episode of the weekly series out by the end of Q1. I’d rather release without rushing, but also I think the ‘live’ show will be treated as an opportunity to refine, (so bear in mind it may contain the odd issue.)

@Sade: I think ‘months earlier’ for the cold open works best. Originally Eminence was near the middle of the three year clone wars, but I’ve brought it earlier. I don’t want to get as specific as quantifying the months because that’ll just remind people in the know that I’m breaking things. “Months” could be 2, 3, 13, 18, so I think it takes the pressure off the audience to think about it too much.

I think I will keep Domino together then. I think I won’t merge it with Ahsoka’s intro though - I think that 22 minute chunk will just stand alone to get Ahsoka in play soonest and simplest, then give us more fun episodes after to explore her properly. I’ll probably put Domino Squad at the end of my ‘season one’ chunk since it’s a bit less focused on our main characters.

@Sade: REALLY like your idea to merge Deserter/Gregor. It’d split up the visual dullness of Gregor nicely, and bring out the best of both. I had thought Deserter/Hidden Enemy, but they both actively have Rex in so can’t be intercut. This ‘episode’ is one where I think the merge is sensible, since they’re thematically linked and the Deserter bits of Deserter are only 10 mins.

Agreed that Onderon needs a trim, the Utapau conversation has to appear, and that it’s a shame Bad Batch has to come so late, because it really suits earlier in the show. (When that show comes out maybe we’ll see if we’d all prefer to call these episodes just Bad Batch S01E00?)

@Sade, KnightOfKalee, CMMAP: Message received on Bounty. I’ll try to include it, albeit later (so she’ll already technically be a Bounty hunter by the time she joins the Boba crew). We can always find on the watch-through that you all agree with me or vice versa 😉

And regarding Ahsoka’s appearance ‘out of order’, yeah, I’ll totally be cutting around that - it’s an easy cut and I always thought that diner scene was a little out of place anyway. In terms of Anakin and Obi-Wan’s appearances, as far as I’m concerned they become guys who simply have two outfits they alternate. Speaking as a person who changes their clothes daily as opposed to annually, and wears the same outfit more than once, I think this is acceptable. It’s just Ahsoka you can’t have grow and shrink.

Yep, I’ve just been doing some final planning but I’m about ready to produce my universal elements and tests. I don’t know how much backlog I’ll want to produce before I kick off the weekly watches but I’ll see how fast I can churn out the easier ones and get a sense for how long the more tricky ones feel. Definitely interested in feedback on any of the outstanding thoughts in that post though!

jarbear said:

Also Rik, I don’t know what the “Official” answer is via comics, books, etc … but I am sure Kennedy’s response of “The Force is Female” is probably the answer. ;P

What?

Right, I think the ordering is just about nailed. This is for the Quality cut - we’ll forget the others for now, so for the purposes of this post please consider this the project for all intents and purposes.

Why spend so long on just the ordering?

I know I’ve been doing this for ages now. Recall that ultimately, the main challenge that I’m trying to solve with this full series edit is getting us from the variable quality anthology show that it started out as to the powerful and tightly focused show it ended up as. I’ve framed this a few times as “making TCW relevant to the Mandalorian audience”, but ultimately saying that is a shortcut to explaining that Star Wars has always been developed as one coherent whole, and that at its best it’s presenting powerful and emotionally resonant moments against the interesting and ever-changing backdrop of large scale good vs evil conflict, and that with a little refocusing TCW can absolutely deliver what we now recognise as the quality standard for Star Wars.

And one important part of that focusing is allowing the heart of the show to clearly be Ahsoka, the tension of the show to be our third parties and wildcards (Mauldalore++), and the backdrop to be the inevitable galactic tragedy of a manufactured proxy war.

To achieve this, I believe we need to get the Mauldalore plots started sooner and treat them as a slow burn rather than a big bang (because the finale is the biggest bang and totally pays it off), and to trim our episodes around the powerful and emotionally resonant beats. Having the ordering in mind for editing will help identify necessary trims where I have to break the odd bit of referenced chronology (I’ll be gentle, I promise) and also help me write my episode intro text (which will replace the newscaster narrator guy).

The reason that the ordering has taken so long is because I’ve wanted to take input from all of you here, consume other resources like online articles and videos around character arcs, and rewatch certain episodes. Where I disagreed with the majority I’ve gone with the majority voice, since this belongs to you all, not me. I’ll still be largely editing by my own taste (e.g. making Mortis less on the nose), but I’ll continue to keep this as transparent and community led as possible.

Now, just for ease of breakdown, I’m considering this as eight ‘seasons’. I might not release it that way, but it’s helped for the sake of cutting it into chunks and visualising the flow of the show. I’m presenting it all here in this way in case you want to have a think about the pacing, to try to visualise it all as clearly as possible.

There may be further minor shuffling, but without further ado, here’s where I am now:

‘Season’ One - roughly the length of 11 original episodes

(Optional Tartakovsky prologue), COLD OPEN of Mandalorians finding Maul then ‘MONTHS EARLIER’ text, Ahsoka’s intro on Christophsis, Death Watch on Mandalore arc, Cloak of Darkness, Rising Malevolence, Domino Squad arc, Nightsisters arc.

In this season Ahsoka is introduced, and Anakin reluctantly accepts her as padawan. Dropping into Cloak of Darkness we explain that he’s kind of pawned her off on Luminara straight away, and we see her being both competent and flawed - but far less annoying than in the original show. We then hit Malevolence to understand her strong heart, with more good tension with Anakin as they start to grow together.

We get Mandalorians on the scene ASAP for a new layer to Obi-Wan, the Domino Squad arc for new layers to the clones, and finally the lovely darkside conflict of Nightsisters ending with the hint of Maul.

My outstanding question here is what to do with the Domino arc. I could pepper it throughout, cluster it, or merge it with Ahsoka’s intro (like Smudger did). I think I am tempted towards peppering it, since it does feature time skips, and this way most of the episodes this ‘season’ are one or two parters until the Nightsisters finale, which I think makes it a bit more accessible.

‘Season’ Two - roughly the length of 10 original episodes

Storm Over Ryloth, Duchess of Mandalore, Holocron Crisis, Massacre, Bounty Hunters, Lightsaber Lost, Brothers

Ahsoka’s arc in this season is about her beginning to learn and grow. Again we lose the most frustrating episodes and moments, but we still see her mistakes (especially in Storm), and her actively paying attention to her lessons. By the end of this season, we’ve hit the point where the audience started to grow to really like her, with less of the abrasion and cringe of her earlier appearances, but hitting all of her most significant beats. She learns command, more compassion, how to teach, and patience.

We also get more Mandalorians, Sidious’ plan for force sensitive kids, more Sith infighting, the introduction of both Cad Bane and Hondo, and finally, the kickass return of Maul. Hopefully by this point the skeptic is now confident they’re in for a fun and worthy ride.

This season is the shortest, almost all one-parters, but again that gives you a good balanced and accessible bite of the show, and it gets us Maul’s return as quickly as you can without rushing, I think.

‘Season’ Three - roughly the length of 11 original episodes

Boba Fett arc, Corruption on Mandalore, Battle of Geonosis, Revival

Here we see Ahsoka’s relationship with Anakin solidify, and she starts to demonstrate solo competence. We see Boba Fett, essentially ticking off the final subject of interest if we’re fans of the Mando TV show, we get a huge cool land battle, and finally we see the Maul Bros discovered by Mandalorians, bringing us up to speed with that cold open and setting up the Mauldalore threat which will hover over the rest of the show.

‘Season’ Four - roughly the length of 10 original episodes

Heroes on Both Sides, Assassin, The Citadel arc, Trandoshan arc, The Deserter, Friend in Need, Eminence

Ahsoka and the audience get further shades of grey as we encounter Lux Bonteri, and she demonstrates boldness (as opposed to her earlier disobedience) and extreme solo competence and leadership. We get the introduction of Bo Katan and end on Maul really shaking up the underworld and building a power base.

It would be really nice to not show Obi-Wan in any of these episodes, since that way you could imply he’s been tracking Maul down exclusively since Revival, though I’m not sure if that’s doable or if you’d need to shift some episodes into and out of this season.

Here we get our first episode focusing on Rex’s relationship with orders. I’ll be cutting the traitor clone from the initial Christophsis arc because I think it’s not a good idea to have clones turn traitor (for cash, no less) right off the bat. I may return to that episode if I can later on, but it’s also got Ventress as Dooku’s pawn so I think you’d have to cut all that, leaving only ten minutes of meat. Anyway, this is a bit of a late placement for The Deserter, but that’s deliberate. Rex is a presence throughout this show, but his development comes in only three main episodes, so I opted to place them all later in the show so Rex only really ‘emerges’ as a character later, in the run up to Siege of Mandalore. The Deserter also has a B plot it doesn’t need - Obi-Wan versus Grievous AGAIN - so I’d like to cut it down too, but again, that only gives us ten minutes. These both may be candidates to intercut with other episodes; I know I’ve said ‘whatever the length’ is sensible but I feel like there’s a lower limit of diminishing returns.

‘Season’ Five - roughly the length of 11 original episodes

Kadavo arc, Rako Hardeen arc, Umbara arc, Shades of Reason

This is a fairly Ahsoka light season, but we’ve had a lot of her by now. Instead we get a focus on Anakin versus slavery, more layers to Obi-Wan, and Rex’s big challenge on Umbara. We end on Maul taking Mandalore.

Chunks start to get a little longer here, as we have more four-parters, though I’ll likely still cut them down fairly heavily so the pacing will likely remain similar to the prior seasons.

‘Season’ Six - roughly the length of 10 original episodes

Onderon arc, Jedi Younglings arc, Missing in Action, Overlords of Mortis, The Lawless

So. Two strong Ahsoka episodes - she’s first leading a rebellion, then training the next generation of Jedi. Then we have the Gregor episode of the Void arc, Mortis, and finally Sidious coming to Mandalore to put his house in order.

There’s a lot of editing to do here. Onderon I know I want to trim, Younglings will need some real attention (yet more Grievous and its tone is a bit wobbly), I’ve got to carve the Gregor plot out of the yucky Void arc, and I’d like Mortis to be more mystical and less overt. I might switch some of this with season five to better balance both - interested in opinions here. But the tone of this season definitely feels all over the place.

‘Season’ Seven - roughly the length of 14 original episodes

Ahsoka’s Fall, Scipio, Order 66, The Lost One, Son of Dathomir audiocomic

A little longer than the others, but I’ll be trimming Scipio and O66. But also, we’re in the endgame now. Maul and Ahsoka may be temporarily off the board here, but everything else is escalating very quickly, and we’re leaning into the upcoming tragegy before the rereturn of Maul.

Why Scipio this late? So, firstly, you may be aware that Scipio not only comes a little earlier in the official chronology, but it’s also often put even more early in fan chronologies. The reason for this being that it was originally planned that way, and has an earlier voice actor for Sidious plus implicitly puts some pressure on the war in a particular direction. However, I want to put it here, for what I think is a good reason: As it stands, we don’t see Anakin deal with the loss of Ahsoka. She left the order then the show got cancelled, and when it came back, we picked up closer to the end of the war. I feel like we need to pay off the growth of their relationship and see Anakin reacting to her loss. And there’s no explicit way to do that, but there is an implicit way. We use the Scipio episodes - where Anakin mistreats Padmé, beats up a rival for her affection, and ultimately lets his rival die. But, bonus, I’ll take the audio from the unfinished Utapau arc where Obi-Wan and Anakin discuss her, and play it over black at the start of each episode, as if these reflections on Ahsoka are in his mind as he violently lashes out during this issue with Padmé. I think that’s worth the cost of having it earlier.

‘Season’ Eight - roughly the length of 15 original episodes

The remainder of Yoda’s Quest, The Bad Batch, Martez Sisters, Siege of Mandalore.

The first three arcs will be trimmed to focus on the meat, and in Yoda’s case to keep his journey a bit more of a vision quest than so on the nose.

Again we feel Ahsoka’s absence, before her solo adventure and return. Anakin’s had time to patch things up with Padme, though acts cold bloodedly to a villain in Bad Batch. Then it’s a clean ride to the brilliant ending.

Anything Broken?

While this reorders things, I don’t think it breaks any established continuity (though I will of course check and welcome your input), except for thing I have to actively break: Ventress’ Bounty Hunter escapade. In this ordering, it can’t work where it originally fit. In terms of continuity, two things happen in that episode.

Firstly, Ventress, under Talzin’s guidance, has gone to find her own path, and ended up in a bar where she’s met some bounty hunters. She’s gone on this mission, and on it decided to ‘do the right thing’. In the original placement, she’s then - still as a bounty hunter - gone on to hunt Maul and Savage. However, I don’t think we need to see her choose to become a bounty hunter in order that when we see her and she’s a bounty hunter it makes sense. I think we can accept she’s fallen into bounty hunting without needing to explicitly see it.

Secondly, Boba is featured in this episode. Originally, the first time we see him he’s after Mace Windu (a good first thing to see him doing), then he’s broken out of prison accidentally by Rako Hardeen, then he’s a bounty hunter again in this episode. But in my new ordering, this appearance would be before the other two, which firstly doesn’t work from a story perspective, but also, it’s a different older character model. So it’s just not happening here.

Best solution for inclusion here would be to accept that Ventress became a bounty hunter offscreen in time for her to hunt Maul and Savage, then place this episode later in the chronology but modified to not have it be her first bounty hunt. But I think it should be cut altogether. In all of Boba’s other appearances he’s SUCH A BADASS, but in this episode he’s super soft. I know he’s just finding his feet, but in this he’s scaredy and uncertain, whereas in the other two episodes he’s firstly vengeful and calculating and then unafraid of instigating a prison brawl, both of which are far better ways of portraying him as a badass-to-be.

Other episodes not included

Right, just for reference:
Excluded because they’re actively painful to watch
Huttlet crisis arc, Supply Lines/Ambush, Downfall/Duel of the Droids, Bombad Jedi, Blue Shadow Virus, Sphere of Influence, the Ziro arc, the rest of Droids in the Void, the Disappeared
Excluded because they’re not important and they soften our focus (to be included in Complete Cut)
Cat and Mouse, Dooku Captured, crash on Maridun arc, Trespass, Zillo Beast, Grievous Intrigue, Mon Calamari arc (to be included in Continuity Cut also), Shadow Warrior, Mercy Mission, Bounty, Tartakovsky Nelvaan episode, Utapau arc, Tartakovsky Palpatine Kidnapping episode

+1

Very good to have you with us, danieldubb!

No, I thought the Leia exchange felt really natural where it was. I think it was mainly the Finn and Poe sequence where it started to feel choppy, perhaps because it came on the back of (good value) intercutting of other scenes, so by then you’re mentally juggling a lot of information. That scene was high on chaotic action but low on context so it might not be totally necessary? Perhaps a wipe might imply time passing to bring us to the falcon’s arrival at ajan kloss?

But yeah, nice opening and intercutting, and the opening crawl was miles better than the original too.

I’m not sure if you’re looking for feedback on this here, but I just started watching this. I really liked the way it opened- on Rey, intercut with Kylo, straight to the wayfinder in the book- all really good stuff and a far better opening. But I thought each individual shot in that sequence, and the following sequence of Finn and Poe shooting through Kijimi, felt very short.

I can’t remember the original version of all of this, since the last time I saw the movie was on launch, so I don’t know quite what you’ve got to work with, but I’d throw my vote behind spending a little longer on each shot and switching shots a little less.

I don’t want that to sound too critical, because it really did hit a LOT better than the original did.

I’d love a link to batch 3 please if you’re actively distributing them!