EddieDean

Bit of progress on the actual editing: I’ve been able to solve the couple of issues I had with the full production pipeline, so I can now use lossless video and have access to the full audio tracks for more flexible editing.

For those in the know, who might be able to suggest something more elegant:

1. I run the raw .mkv file through handbrake video converter, with lossy video (to make it convert quicker) but quality audio (AAC codec, 640 bitrate, 5.1 mixdown), which gives me an .m4v file with low quality video at variable framerate (unwanted) but the right audio channels. I can’t use handbrake for video because it won’t output at constant framerate.
2. I load this into my Vegas 17.0 project, starting with 5.1 surround settings (so it imports correctly) but then changing it down to stereo bus mode (so it exports correctly).
3. I run the raw .mkv file through tsMuxeR, now exporting only the lossless video file .264 with the original constant framerate.
4. I load this into the project, delete the original lossy video track and couple of empty audio tracks, and change the project to the correct 23.976fps format.

That gives me lossless video at the original framerate and 5.1 channel audio to play with, and rendering it keeps everything in sync.

If there’s a better way though, please let me know.

Loving all these music suggestions, folks.

Octorox, thanks for your link - that’s very useful. It’s also great to see your justifications, that’ll be extra helpful. I haven’t read through the whole thing yet (work day for me) but I saw that you put “Can’t stand to see Ziro for even one second” so I can tell we have similar tastes. Looking forward to getting my teeth into it. (Interestingly enough, back a few years ago I made my friends a “so you want to watch the Clone Wars” document.)

CMMAP, just to clarify - I’m not suggesting I do a solo Ahsoka adventure for her introduction, more that I pair her introduction with one which then features her and Anakin, rather than mixing it with Rookies, which puts her to one side. I was then suggesting that Rookies itself (which might become episode two) could mix with a solo Ahsoka adventure, to keep her in the picture while we get through the battle of Kamino without her.

It’s a cute idea but it’s a little cartoony I think. I’ll go with the season seven one, where it finally reads “STAR WARS CLONE WARS” instead of “STAR CLONE WARS WARS”.

Yeah, I will be using the metallic Star Wars TV opening, but not the movie opening crawl music because firstly I won’t need that long a piece of music, and secondly because it’s not quite the right tone. Each TV show so far has stood alone and had its own musical identity and I’d like this to do the same- just not a bombastic one.

Just been rewatching Ahsoka’s introduction with my daughter and since there’s only really about 10-15 minutes of meat in that episode I’m wondering if I might make that just the opening of a more Ahsoka focused episode, rather than intercutting with the Rookies arc.

Rookies ends up with Anakin vs all the villains, so might mix more cleanly with a solo Ahsoka episode like Cloak. I’ll have a think.

Tartakovsky final arc (kidnapping of Palpatine) - Excludable

Realised I had skipped this one.

It’s good fun, like all Tartakovsky is, but to be honest I feel like by this point the tone would interrupt the darker tone the series has settled into, so I think it’s best kept to one side.

It also would need to interrupt the Siege of Mandalore directly, which I’m sure most would agree is a bad idea.

thebluefrog said:

OutboundFlight said:

So we have a Death Star 3. Let’s do something interesting with that.

What if instead of just destroying the Hosnian system, Starkiller destroys dozens of planets in one launch? This would explain how the Republic collapsed – they had ships at bases across the galaxy, but Starkiller was able to destroy all of them in a single mass launch.

Starkiller should’ve…literally killed a star. Wiping out all planets in the system.

Kind of strange no one at Disney saw that.

Agree! That’s the natural step up. Drink up a star’s power, and launch it at another star to make it go supernova and wipe out its whole system.

Oh wow Delpheas, this sounds perfect! May I get a copy please? I’m working on a Clone Wars edit and was hoping for something like exactly this in order to cap it off with. I noticed that NFBisms’ cut was left unfinished - is there anything you’d add to it / change about it if you could?

Track suggestions absolutely welcome! Glad you agree- I think “packaging” is important. It sets the mood, it focuses you on the emotional beats.

I especially like the first one you shared for the opening, it’d work over the CLONE WARS logo followed by a couple of short introductory sentences.

Final thoughts before I put this down for a little while:

My plan is to modify opening and closing screens.

For the opening, I think I need a track with less bombast than the current one, which matches the bombastic nature of the newscaster narrator. In my edit, I’m not going to preserve him, since I get far more flexibility if I use text I can control - this gives me more flexibility in what I cut from edits so I think it’s worth doing. It also makes us take a breath and contextualise what we’re about to see. In terms of music I intend to go for a little military, a little weary, a little sadder, and let the opening text have a more somber tone. It may be that the current closing credits track is a bit more suitable, or I might go darker still.

For the closing, I’m going to redo the credits over imagery from each episode’s episode gallery / BTS gallery on StarWars.com. This’ll be much more like Mandalorian, which has those lovely bits of art.

This will be over particularly dark, ponderous music - I want us to take a beat after each episode and really digest it. I think the best track for this might be the prelude to Order 66 music which slowly builds throughout the third episode of the final arc. This would serve us nicely because it’s dark and ominous - welcome since we know the inevitable conclusion of the Clone Wars and mentally it draws us toward that end - and also because, when we later hear it in the episode itself, fuck me is it going to be tense. (And luckily, of course, the episode actually pays off that tension.) A similar one would be this: https://youtu.be/cNO3aNksUzg?t=1498

Oh aye, sure. But bear in mind I’m not taking anyone’s Clone Wars away from them, it’s all still there if they want it. I’m just producing a companion recommended order and some optional alternative edits. When the Bad Batch TV show drops, I’ll probably take my Clone Wars Bad Batch arc and just call it S01E00 of that series.

My goal with the recommended ordering is to present the theoretical ignorant new audience with the absolute best of. The key, for them, will be that if they didn’t know a given episode existed, would they miss it? Obviously that’s going to be subjective, but we’ve got plenty of time to wrestle here over which episodes are most worthy. And those who know best even after I lock it down will be easily able to modify my ordering.

And the Citadel arc is definitely one I’ll try to review with fresh eyes, since a couple of people have said they hold it in fairly high regard.

Lifeincontext said:

If it were me, I’d put it in continuity or complete for the reasons you listed above. Only reason to think about continuity is Anakin/clone character development. But it’s not necessary for the quality arc.

Yep, it’s definitely Continuity Cut, because it’s relevant to other shows. I’m just wondering if it’s important/desirable enough for Quality, which I think it isn’t.

OK, that’s the full series run through and considered whilst holding this project’s goals in mind. My key takeways:

• Good God, when the Clone Wars is good, it’s excellent
• Good God, when the Clone Wars is bad, it’s horrendous
• However there is, definitely, a best path through it which highlights all the best and massively minimises the bad, whilst missing nothing important. Which means, of course, that there’s huge value in a quality focused cut.
• Less is more. Many of the episodes are overly padded, especially when the show settled into four-episode arcs, and they’re paced around 22 minutes times four, not 88 minutes. Most should end up punchier in the 45-60 minute range.
• Ahsoka is absolutely the heart, with incredible character development, and a range of good relationships.
• Rex also has great development - though most of his episodes are in clone heavy arcs, not all of which are consistently great.
• Quality is all over, though - let the other characters shine too, when they get a really good episode.
• Almost all separatist villains lose their malice through serial failiure, and almost all separatist designs are visually uninteresting.

So here’s the next steps:

• Take a little break. I’ve not done anything else with my free time since I made the original post.
• Read over this thread and my other notes all myself again, to refresh. (Now is a great time for anyone who’s interested to feel free to think through the notes too, and/or offer up any thoughts to help frame the next stages.)
• Review the now-polished list of episodes. Create an initial test chronology - pacing Maul equally, then Mandalore and Ahsoka’s development throughout, then best quality episodes.
• Probably do a few focused watches to challenge that. I don’t really need to question the Mauldalore stuff because that’s all staying and it has its order, but I’d like to focus on Ahsoka’s development and make sure I have a solid growth for her that focuses on all her best episodes in the right order. I’d also like to consider Rex/Clones a bit more closely. I need to work out quite how much Rex is a core character, and if so, which arcs and relationships best support his development. Finally, plug in the other bests, and do a little checking of other episodes to make sure they’re worthy or not.
• I’ll also use this time to pull together and sort some of the additional assets I’ll need for credits.
• Then, get to cutting. I might break from the second rewatch to get at least a pilot episode out to you guys first, so we can discuss that and I can take your refinement notes as I watch. So it’ll be pilot episode first (Cloak/Lair), then onto the priority ones in chronological order. I’ll try to set myself up an editing pipeline where I can churn out the simple aggregate+polish episodes while I’m working on the more technical edits of those that need closer attention.
• Once I’m confident I can maintain the momentum, I’ll advertise the weekly watch and start releasing episodes.

S07E01-04 - Bad Batch Arc - Unsure

Tricky one to make a call on. I like this arc, though it does need trimming. The heart of it is of course the introduction of the Bad Batch, and Rex’s relationship with Echo. Echo looking nice and emaciated is cool - again we’re humanising clones. The natives are pretty same-old.

Aesthetically it’s not much - lovely lighting, but it’s on dull planets with the goofy Techno Union aesthetic and some weird new flimsy battle droids.

I’m really not sure on this one.
In favour of quality cut: A nice callback to our opening episode via CF99; new clones are interesting; development of Echo; nice Anakin/Padme scene; has everyone but the big three so I guess you’re putting them all to bed here.
Against inclusion in quality cut: Echo was last seen in the Citadel which isn’t very strong; very much a backdoor pilot; might not want to focus on brand new clones this near to the end; Anakin and Rex aren’t very interesting in this; it doesn’t escalate the war mysteries or other plots; it kind of becomes a Mace Windu episode at the end.

I’m actually tending towards not including it in the Quality Cut, since it’s neither core to Ahsoka/Maul/Mandalore, nor is it one of the more interesting episodes that comes this late in the show’s chronology.

I reckon you’d cut out all the native stuff. Start with the intro of the Bad Batch, have them learn Echo’s location, go straight to Skako Minor beginning at the elevator, fairly snippy Echo rescue, show them jumping onto the keeradaks (why? can’t explain well but they’ll have to just go for it), then wipe back to Anaxes for the return and second fight there. You’d lose a little character dev for the Bad Batch but they’re not really the focus unless they’re getting their own show, in which case they’ll repilot anyway.

Crystal Crisis on Utapau [Unfinished Episode] - Excludable - Complete Cut

This one’s unfinished, so while it has voice, SFX, and music, the video is made up of entirely placeholder graphics and almost no animation. So while it’s not great to look at, on the other hand it’s an interesting look at the process. I don’t think you could ask anyone but the most committed and tolerant fan, so into the Complete Cut it must go.

In terms of the story, it’s unfortunately yet another four-episode arc with a lot of padding which feels like more of the same, with yet another Grievous fight with no jeopardy. The interesting elements are that Anakin and Kenobi discuss Ahsoka - though there’s little meat to this discussion - and that the macguffin is a massive Kyber crystal. For the first time chronologically we learn that kyber crystals are both lightsaber crystals and used in superweapons, with this heavily hinting that they’d use this for a Death Star (or similar). But we get that information elsewhere, or it’s not particularly important.

I think that’s an accurate take, sade.

Interestingly, if you look at production codes, it looks like the whole series was created in seven blocks of 26 episodes, which would have been released as eight or nine seasons. And for the final arc we go from episodes in the mid sixth block right to 7.21-7.24 for the Siege of Mandalore. But what I find interesting about that is that it might imply that there were originally two episodes to follow it. Perhaps an extended form of the final scene? We’ll probably never know.

Let’s keep TLJ chat out of this thread- it’s contentious, and has little bearing on the Clone Wars.

But I agree that the Martez sisters, while they do have some endearing traits and two lovely character models and animation, do repeat their more annoying traits a little too much, and both make some frustrating bad calls.

Oh, and regarding missing arcs: I’m still hoping that the bad batch TV show adapts the arc about Boba Fett Vs Cad Bane.

Goddamn, that finale. What an amazing piece of work. Easily up there with the very best SW movies abd the best moments from the Mandalorian.

This whole project has to turn the show into the best path which takes us to that end.

Yeah, I’ll be hitting over a couple of the more frustrating points quite quickly. There’ll only be one prison break, for one thing.

I haven’t reviewed Bad Batch or Crystal Crisis yet- I only had time to watch two arcs tonight so I thought I’d watch both Ahsoka ones back to back.

S07E05-08 - Martez Sisters arc - Important - Mandalorian Cut

Introduction of the lovely Anakin model, so we can’t see him from a prior episode after this one.

An important episode, this- lots of nice heavy doubt from the ‘small people’ about the Jedi, a nice personal lesson for Ahsoka, and we put the big three final pieces of this edit in place for the finale.

Its good moments are good, though it does need a fairly heavy trim for pacing - almost all of the first episode can go, most of the second, and almost all of the third. And even the fourth can be tightened quite a bit.

The Martez sisters are fun, with some trimmable frustrations, but they really only serve Ahsoka, so she should be the focus here.

The big question is, is it worth getting rid of all of this so we can save the Ahsoka reveal until the finale? I think probably not, since most people know Ahsoka’s alive later anyway, and it’s a bit of a breather before the finale.

S05E09-12 - Siege of Mandalore - Vital - Mandalorian Cut

Obviously vital for all cuts as it’s the finale, and the momentum behind the restructure.

The “It’s been a while” moment will likely hit best if we have quite a few episodes without Ahsoka, so I might pad it with a few more episodes where she doesn’t appear. That said, I don’t want her out of the show for too long, since she’s the heart.

Pm sent

sade1212 said:

I’d leave Moraband as is. I also have nostalgia for KOTOR, but if it comes up again in the new canon it’ll still be Moraband, and that’s no point confusing someone who doesn’t know about the change.

I’m not sure - I think Korriban has more cultural weight even though Moraband has appeared in live action, so if I had to guess, I’d guess it’d reappear as Korriban, not Moraband. That said, it’s easy enough to revert if the canon/culture changes. There have been times before when editors have made a change to best suit interpretation but that they’ve later softened over time - much like with Hal’s more recent prequels which are more forgiving to the original material.

Knight of Kalee said:

I always got the idea that Phase II armor was worn only by ARC Troopers during the earlier half of the war and later spread to all the ranks in the clone army as the war progressed. For example, in the Citadel arc Fives and Echo, after they become ARC, are the only ones who have Phase II armor while all the non-ARC ones wear Phase I. So having the Domino Squad at the beginning of the series wouldn’t create any continuity issues.

I think that’s the right interpretation, it feels like what they were implying by showing it in the Rookies arc.

Right, I’ve just run a one minute long clip through the full editing pipeline, from source, to conversion, to editing, to rendering. Just to see if I’d hit any snags. It’s all good news - conversion and rendering are lossless so we’re losing no quality or colour information. My editor is reading my 23.976fps converted file as 25fps and I’ll need to remind myself how to fix that issue (it’s common), and right now I’m not outputting the center channel in my render so we’re losing some audio, but that’s likely just a matter of settings - I don’t understand surround sound audio settings yet so I’ll upskill soon.

But the very good news is that, as Smudger9 informed me recently, there’s no music in the center channel. Editors of other sources will recognise this as a rare treat! When you’re editing, you have the video track, and one or more audio tracks - but usually voice and sound effects have music on their track, so if you’re trying to fix some simple dialogue for example, it can break the music in the background, and sound obvious. So it’s great to confirm that for the Clone Wars DVDs, the voice/soundFX is split from music/ambient. (Weirdly, it wasn’t perfect, in the clip I viewed there was one voice line in the music channel, but it looks rare.) This gives me way more flexibility for trimming and reordering dialogue, but also for changing dialogue (e.g. Moraband > Korriban).

I’ll muck about with those couple of issues, but this is looking good.

Plan now is to finish my watch through - probably tonight - then get to work on Cloak of Darkness / Lair of Grievous, because that episode is going to require all of the skills at my disposal, so it lets me refine them while sharing the content with you to get ideas together and collect feedback. Then I’ll probably take a breather, maybe watch over the series again in a preferred order, before starting the edits properly.

Awesome, cheers Hal. Yeah, this is primarily inspired by how you’ve managed your sequel threads, especially TROS, which has been probably the most collaborative yet.