Hah, you said that just as I was editing my own post to add that thought. Once I’ve watched the first Mandalore arc I’ll be diving into Smudger’s Geonosis/Mandalore film to see how he’s handled things- and it’s no surprise that he’s opted to interlace those two since it does make sense.

(Whether or not I think moviefying the episodes is the right approach, a huge priority will always be episode polish so I’m still very interested in how he and other editors are doing things.)

And I’m glad you’re enjoying these updates! It’s an important brain dump, but I was worried that people would think I was being obnoxious by updating so frequently. It’s good to know that people are getting a kick out of it, and who knows how many lurkers are themselves getting inspired by an intimate look at the process.

Please, anyone who’s reading this, add your voices to this discussion, even to respond to my older posts. Agree or disagree, it’ll all help focus the project.

S02E04-08 - The Second Battle of Geonosis Arc - Important

This one’s the lower end of Important since it doesn’t add value to wider media beyond some good Ahsoka development (including Barriss) and setting up Clovis, but it is very good. (And yes, it returns us to a movie location and sets up Rebels’ reveal of the Geonosian genocide, but this doesn’t add value to that.)

The first episode, Senate Spy, starts with some lovely believable Anakin/Padme romance followed by some good tension in their relationship. We could maybe get through this episode quicker in a couple of places but for a low action episode there’s a lot that’s compelling.

The next two are some good battle episodes, but in contrast to the comparable Ryloth and Malevolence arcs, there are a lot of meaningful character moments within the larger scale combat.

The final two are a great zombie romp with more character development for Ahsoka. They do belong together, but a bit of interleaving might improve the pacing. I’d probably split these two off from the prior episodes, ending the prior two with Ahsoka’s believed death, for a bit of a cliffhanger.

I think this episode works best a little later in the series. If we take the point where the character models get updated as a natural breakpoint, then we can treat up to then as the establishment of the war and the core relationships, of which th maturation of Ahsoka is our emotional focus. Putting this episode right up against the character model update gives us an episode where Ahsoka seems her most competent and matured, and a little healthy trauma can justify her upcoming choice of costume change.

We also see Anakin being aggressive in order to protect Ashoka. A nice dark moment (that belongs a little later in the series) which also means we get this concept in a better way than when he angrily tries to save R2 in that arc.

And, a major battle seems a good high stakes era ending. I think in my crawl for this I’d tie the creation of the new droid factory as a direct response to the failiure of the Separatists to destroy the Kamino facility, now necessitating more forces to survive the ongoing conflict. As much as possible, I’ll try to emphasise the ebb and flow of the war in the text. My Star Wars geography is one of my weaker points so I might see about mapping it all out once I’ve got the episodes in a good order.

Speaking of which, after the character model update, we have to dive straight into the Nightsisters arc, to get the Maul plot kicked off as quickly as possible.

Having watched its components, I’ve now watched Smudger’s second movie. As again it’s extremely technically competent, this time merging the capture of Gunray, most of the Boba Fett arc, the Malevolence arc, and a scene from the Zillo Beast. He’s created new dialogues and new interpretations.

I hope it’s clear that I have the utmost respect for Smudger - I’ve always been a big advocate of his work and uploaded them all recently so they could be more widely enjoyed.

But I need to be analytical here, with the intention of releasing (in my subjective opinion) the best experience. This second movie, while unquestionably brilliant, illustrates those two main issues you face when one adheres to the cinematic approach.

Firstly, whilst it interlaces (in a very polished way) a lot of storylines, they weren’t designed to run together so there isn’t a central momentum to the movie and to me it felt like a sequence of unconnected events, which got a little mentally tiring over the full two hours.

Secondly, while it uses mainly decent arcs and is full of good moments, the third act is malevolence, whose final act is quite goofy, which really takes the wind out of the episode’s sails. As far as I’m concerned, an arc is only as good as its worst (unavoidable) content.

I must emphasise, that if you do have the goal of turning TCW into movies, that I believe that Smudger’s are the best that could possibly be produced. I’m simply believing that there’s a justifiable case for an alternative approach.

I think I’m probably hammering this point home a bit too much - I know I’ve said it plenty before - but this is a braindump as I review the series and other approaches in order to load it into my head as completely as possible. I’ll be returning to these thoughts as I work through the edits, and I’d also like them here for people to consider and react to.

S02E20-22 - Boba Fett Trilogy - Desirable

This one’s nearly important, because it’s a good Boba episode, and recent media may be developing Boba a little further. But ultimately it doesn’t serve our core. It’s interesting and fun, with plenty of good moments. I’d maybe cut the creatures which R2 fights, since they’re just padding and R2 gets some fun combat that’s more important to the plot elsewhere.

The third episode gives us our first major taste of Coruscant’s underworld, which will be explored further later in the series. It also gives us some good Hondo, hitting a lot of the character beats as in his introduction in the problematic Dooku Captured episodes, which is helpful.

We also get some good Ahsoka/Plo Koon relationship (taking pressure off the problematic Malevolence arc), which also references her growth since joining Anakin.

As an aside, I’ve noticed that this is one of a few episodes early on where Ahsoka isn’t taken on Anakin’s more dangerous missions. I think that’s quite a nice touch, and I’ll try to preserve some of it in the overall story.

S02E18-19 Zillo Beast Duology - Excludable

This is nearly objectionable, because Palpatine (not Sidious) is so villainous in it. I also don’t like how it’s ostensibly about how the Zillo Beast could mean better (lightsaber proof!) armour for clones, but then nothing comes of this. That said, it is pretty great fun. It’s skippable but I’d like to turn this into a fun little romp episode.

Knight of Kalee said:

Luke’s wig is one of those small details that you can’t unsee and it always reminds me of how rushed was the film. Besides having already seen a snippet of how jonh’s version would look like, I’m really hyped for it whenever it’s finished.

For those interested in (I’m talking to you RogueLeader 😄 ), here’s a very early, unrefined version of how the arrival at Jedha (ex-Pasaana) would look and sound: https://youtu.be/LrnAIDbjwkQ

Yessss

So here’s the (refocused) plan:

Having now gone through a bunch of episodes plus a few major edits, more of the approach this will need is taking shape. I think, in a way, this is going to be part edit, part guide, and part full polish pass. I’m glad I used the VIDEO system - it’s one I use for requirements capture at work (fuck MoSCoW system, VIDEO crew 4 lyf) - because I think that’ll inform my approach.

Essentially, in order to get the most quality out as quickly as possible, I’ll approach the edit in VIDEO order. So I’ll complete this full review pass, which will give me the master list of my edit’s episodes (some from grouped arcs, some not), and I’ll remove anything objectionable - that is, any episodes which are simply unsalveageable and not worth any watch for any reason. Then, at least, people have a decent guide.

I’ll then start editing, vital first. I’ll start with my modified version of Smudger’s first movie, and make that available. Then I’ll move on to our important episodes, then our desirable ones. All three of these categories will be allowed to use and consume content from the others if it helps improve their quality. Finally, I’ll do the slow pass through the remainder, making them as good as possible - but keeping them marked as excludable.

What I’ll also do, as I start with that skeleton before adding more meat, will be to look at the pacing as a whole (without overtly breaking chronology). So first, just the pacing of the vital episodes. By this logic, the Nightsisters arc should really end up as early as we can possibly justify it, to get us into the meat of the Maul arc as soon as possible. After the vitals, I’ll fit the importants around those vitals. Desirable episodes can then be used to surround perhaps those vital or important episodes which aren’t quite as much fun as we’d hope.

So essentially, we’ll get our best core up quickest, then fill in the gaps.

This way I’ll also be able to get the most feedback on the most important episodes, which I’ll tweak and improve as we go.

I’d urge anyone with an interest to think along with the reviews I’m doing, and with the goal of pure quality in mind (as opposed to moviefication for its own sake) would ask you to think about ways that any elements of any story can best be used to add value to any other. A good example of this is Smudger’s first movie, where the otherwise fairly bland story of Anakin and Obi-Wan rescuing Eeth Koth is used in context as part of Grievous’ plan to pull Jedi away from his true target of Kamino.

Definitely something like that would be nice.

S01E11-12 - The Capture of Count Dooku - Excludable

I want to like this episode because it introduces Hondo, and the idea of Anakin and Obi-Wan being bound to Dooku is fun. But the execution is poor, it looks crap, it’s got a lot of Jar Jar, and it’s dependent on some clumsy action. This is as good as Excludable if I were to cut around Jar Jar, but it’s Objectionable otherwise.

S01E08-10 - The Capture of Viceroy Nute Gunray - Excludable

The first of these, Bombad Jedi, is absolutely horrible, and unnecessary for the rest of the story.

The second, Cloak of Darkness, is OK. I’m not sure about it. It’s got a bit of corruption, which is good, and some quality Luminara. While I don’t think Ahsoka should be fighting Asajj this early, it’s fairly well done and sassy and there is some good growth for them all. I’d maybe like to find out if I can build something decent out of this plus something else. It’s not a really strong episode but it’s not awful.

The third, Lair of Grievous, is pretty interesting. It’s cool to see Grievous’ origins and repairs, and to see him behaving quite monstrously when damaged. The way Grievous kills Nadar is quite grim and adds a good amount of threat, though there are other elements to this episode which could certainly be trimmed.

Weirdly, these are linked in a way that doesn’t quite work. Episode one captures Gunray, episode two has him escape, but then episode three implies they’ve fallen into a trap, which is fine, but they forget that they were chasing Gunray.

I’m also not a fan of the idea that Dooku is testing Grievous. Dooku is dependent on his droid general, now doesn’t feel like a sensible time to risk his death. And their tension isn’t returned to.

S01E02-04 - Malevolence Arc - Excludable

As an early arc, this one suffers from wooden animation and some quite bland imagery. And it’s yet another Grievous episode where he comes off as quite neutered. Superweapons are generally not very interesting, and the idea that Padme would fall so easily into a trap like this cheapens her (and where’s the advance guard, etc?). Her and C-3PO’s scenes on the ship are also pretty goofy nonsense.

We do get a bit more Ahsoka development here, in particular her relationships with Plo Koon and Anakin, which is good, but we do get more of this in better episodes. And the idea of droids which kill survivors is quite viciously decent. It’s also cool to see the Kaminoan-run medical stations peppered throughout the galaxy. Ultimately though, as is my main metric, it doesn’t add any real value. I think this episode is best trimmed to keep it tight and to the point.

I’ve just rewatched Smudger’s third movie, which links the Ryloth arc and the Holocron Crisis arc. As always with Smudger, it’s extremely technically competent. He uses the scene from the start of the Holocron Crisis where originally Ahsoka gets disciplined for her behaviour in a ground assault to instead refer to her behaviour at the start of the Ryloth arc space battle. It is brilliantly done, and I do have huge respect for Smudger’s work - I just don’t think that releasing as movies is strictly necessary. As I thought when I was watching the episodes in isolation, I think that it works best as three separate stories:

1. Ahsoka leads a crew to break the blockade of Ryloth - I’d basically use Smudger’s cut plus a little more showing Bail on the delivery side of those supplies.
2. The remainder of the battle - Good, but not great nor important to the overall show.
3. The Holocron Crisis arc, in full, as a great and important episode.

OutboundFlight said:

Artan42 said:

EddieDean said:

Back to finishing off the Ryloth arc:

S01E20 Innocents of Ryloth - Excludable

The problem with this episode is that it adds nothing at all. Obi-wan goes and rescues some innocents from droids, whilst two clones we never see again meet a twi’lek child.

Waxer and Boil show up again in the Umbara arc for a minor but dramatic scene. The child is Numa (I think) and one of the two gets a graphic of her on his helmet. Numa shows up again in Rebels as part of Chem’s unit wearing parts of clone armour in the same colours as Waxer and Boil’s unit (212th? I think they’re part of Cody’s mob).

Not massive issues if you were to cut the episode but due to the same creative team, there’s basically only one episode that doesn’t connect to any other and receives no call backs in Rebels or The Mandalorian, and that’s ‘Lightsabre Lost’. Everything else is called back in some way, small or large, in the future.

And even that’s connected. The old Jedi who teaches Ahsoka in that episode returns in the middle of the Anakin / Bariss duel in the Wrong Jedi (admittedly, it’s an unimportant cameo)

It’s inevitable to cut certain story arcs. That said, imo Innocents of Ryloth is the best of the Ryloth trilogy for its emotional core. It’s the first episode that actually shows the damage of war beyond clones and droids. Storm and Liberation are solid battle episodes, but Innocents focuses on the lesser known combatants in war, and for that reason I suggest it should remain.

Yeah - bear in mind I’m not arguing about whether or not to include it, just whether or not to consider it ‘core’. It’s not Vital, and I don’t think its connections to other media make it Important, but it’s not Objectionable, so it certainly should still remain available. And I will still be trying to edit its content to present it in the best possible way.

S03E08 - Evil Plans - Objectionable

This is just way too mundane to be interesting. Padme’s planning a party, the droids go off to get some fruit, R2 goes to the spa, and finally C-3PO gets captured by Cad Bane (who, sure, is always fun, but that doesn’t make this episode any better). You could maybe do something smart here and take the examination of R2-D2 by Grievous in Downfall/Duel of the Droids as what happens when R2 gets captured here, to make these elements something separate which would serve elsewhere.

S01E22, S03E09 - The Liberation of Ziro (Hostage Crisis, Hunt for Ziro) - Objectionable

As for the following plot which begins when Cad Bane gives the liberated plans for the Jedi temple to the Hutts, you could just start that as its own thing by explaining it with the crawl. Bane is competent, we don’t need to see how he acquired the plans, and this is where the story starts.

I like the idea of the council of the Council of the Five Hutts, but I do think their designs are goofy, and I feel like the use of Hutts in the Clone Wars takes away some of their menace. I especially think Ziro’s flamboyance cheapens the Hutts quite a lot, and I can’t believe we have to watch this horribly weird romance between Ziro and Sy Snootles. The idea of Palpatine being directly blackmailed and the senate appearing to have inadequate security make both feel lesser.

There are a couple of decent ideas in here and the first episode is relatively good (if a bit more of the same), such as padme showing some quick thinking and competence, but I don’t think you can separate the good from the bad, and it’s certainly not an important arc.

There’s maybe a brief story here about Obi-Wan teaming up with Quinlan Vos to (fail to) capture Cad Bane, with no Hutt plot whatsoever (Ziro’s body in the background would simply be Cad’s latest victim at the point when Obi-Wan and Vos catch up with him), but I don’t know if it could work.

Yeah, I perhaps shouldn’t have said never see again, rather that their identities aren’t important to the overall plot. I’m aware there are references like this throughout, and I used to really enjoy them, but I just don’t think they constitute genuine quality, so I think this edit has to be fairly brutal. I do agree that things like Numa’s references add nice texture, but I don’t think they justify retaining an episode which is otherwise an hour and a half that isn’t fun.

That said, I think I’m coming round to the idea that there’s a core here which represents the real great episodes with emotional resonance, and then some way to present the good moments from across the wider clone wars, of which you could argue that that is one.

Which reminds me, I realised earlier that this period of time is a single war! The Clone War! It isn’t Clone Wars at all! The Star Wars are a collection of wars, of which the Clone War is one such war, which contains multiple battles and crises. Like Yoda says at the end of Attack of the Clones, “Begun, the Clone War has.”

S02E01-03 - The Holocron Crisis (Holocron Heist, Cargo of Doom, Children of the Force) - Important

Cad Bane is always good fun. These are visually interesting episodes with a good chaotic threat. These are mostly just decent fun, but I’m calling them important due to the fact that modern SW media seems to be leaning on the force sensitive children angle. We also get some good early relationship between Ahsoka and Anakin, where she’s confident and competent but still a little foolhardy and unrefined, but Anakin is also clearly starting to care for her.

The pacing is a little wonky since the last third has some very quick time jumps, but if it can’t be fixed this’d still be fine. I’d maybe have Anakin and Ahsoka arrive on Naboo before the Rodia plot, to explain why they’re well set up by the time Bane reaches Naboo. And I might trim Sidious’ dialogue to make his reasoning for wanting the force kids more ambiguous, but otherwise this barely needs touching.

Looking at the overall pacing, this would make a great second episode.

Back to finishing off the Ryloth arc:

S01E20 - Innocents of Ryloth - Excludable

The problem with this episode is that it adds nothing at all. Obi-wan goes and rescues some innocents from droids, whilst two clones we never see again in a major way meet a twi’lek child. Innocent people are saved, but it just doesn’t do much that’s too interesting.

S01E21 - Liberty on Ryloth - Excludable

Adds very little. The idea of a freedom fighter being wary of the Republic as well as the Separatists is a bit interesting, but even when you later learn (in Rebels) that this is Hera’s dad this doesn’t really add value.

—

I think these episodes are a good example of why a different approach is needed for the clone wars. These are often edited as a movie, but they’re just not that good! Yes they present a sequence of events (establishment of a supply base, then a military base, then the breaking of a blockade, then the rescue of innocents, and finally the defeat of the occupier), but I think we need to be honest with ourselves and recognise that that’s just not that interesting as there’s no emotional core.

The highlight of the whole Ryloth arc is definitely Ahsoka’s initial failiure in command, which you could maybe stretch as far as to call Important, so I might present what was The Battle of Ryloth (Excludable) arc instead as The Insurrection on Ryloth (Important) arc featuring Ahsoka’s command intercut with Bail’s attempts to establish supply lines and Cham’s initial resistance, then separately Liberation of Ryloth (Excludable) featuring Mace teaming up with Cham to liberate the planet.

As an aside, I’m coming to realise how dull and uninteresting so many of the CIS hardware and character designs are. I think I’m going to try to avoid using them as much as possible unless they carry relevant context.

(And to be fair to Knight of Kalee, there was a decent B1 Droid joke in one of those episodes)

Interested in peoples’ thoughts on my arc titles. (Not that I’m going to include them all.) But I feel like there’s value in emphasising that this is a long-term war on many fronts, so as you watch these episodes the feeling of this being a rolling conflict is maintained. Therefore, where possible, I’ve tried to focus on the specific incident as history might record it, so they’re mainly in the format of:

• The (Second/…) Battle of / Assault on / Siege of / Massacre of / Insurgency on [Location X]
• The (Second/…) Peace Conference
• The [X] Crisis
• The (Attempted) Capture / Kidnapping / Assassination of [Title, Person X]
• The Return / Liberation / Fall of [Person X]
• The Mystery of [X]
• Stranded on [Location X]
• The [X] Trial (if it’s a more personal episode - ‘Incident’ might be better?)

Yes, that’s one of the issues with trying to produce movies. You have to have plots which can at least be interlaced, but then they’re not particularly cohesive as a whole. And if you’re going to have plot A then plot B as a movie, why not have them separate and not demand two hours in one sitting? One thing you might notice is that in my list of episodes up front, I’ve split it into more arcs than you might have assumed.

For example the popular Yoda arc can really be seen as two arcs - the first episode about Sifo-Dyas, then the second about the Qui-Gon’s life after death. Since they’re not directly a follow-on, you might choose to split them and thus achieve a different pacing.

Similarly, the Return of Maul arc is really three things: The massacre on Dathomir, a less important episode of Ventress trying to find herself, and the actual Return of Maul. We can split that out and have a slower burn, a more developing world, where through focusing on these episodes we’re reminded of their importance, and the whole feels more cohesive and directed.

Right, McFibb, that’s the front page updated with a full list.

@EVERYONE, feel free to review and challenge that listing on the front page.

Artan42, thanks for this. There were some useful points there, and it encouraged me to take a look at the earlier production orders. I’d already kept a note of the changed character models in case of reshuffling, but ultimately I think I’ll adhere to roughly chronological order but with a real focus on pacing the whole.

I’m not sure how long this will take me. Yes, it’s a large task - 59 arcs to review, 59 episodes to either cut out or edit. But perhaps I produce any edits in priority order (Vs first, then Is, then Ds, then Es, and no Os). And a lot won’t need much at all - just a bit of trimming together and some clean transitions. It’s hard to say.

If you wanted to start now you absolutely could - I’ll put together a progress tracker on the front page which lists out the arcs in their chronology, and marks their importance. But it’ll be a little based on memory since I’m only now going through and doing a proper review of each. I’ll keep it up to date though.

The difference between watching just the best ones in chronological order and watching my eventual output will just be levels of polish, really. It depends how much you want to rely on those. If it were me, I’d wait, because there are plenty of moments in the best arcs which still drag. But see how much progress I make and decide for yourself. I’ll go set up the tracker on the front page now.

You’re just one step ahead of me! The elements that comprise the Ryloth arc, plus those that comprise the Children/Ziro arc, followed by Smudger’s third movie (which incorporates both), will be tomorrow’s job.

I think I’m likely to find that the Children/Ziro arc still isn’t great, though I might like to preserve specifically the force sensitive children angle in some fashion, since it also featured in Rebels, and possibly other more recent media.

I shall of course report back!

(I’m just the right amount of ill to not work right now, but just the right amount of well enough to be able to watch and document some Star Wars, so I’m getting through this at a good crack.)

Having now reviewed all of the individual elements that comprise Smudger’s first movie, which merges Christophsis, Grievous Intrigue, and Domino Squad (plus one scene from Assassin which you wouldn’t miss). It really is brilliant, if you’re willing to merge arcs - and gets away with it because it merges them so elegantly that it appears to all deliberately tie together as it goes. All of the moments I’ve enjoyed whilst doing my original reviews have been included, and Grievous’ plot is enhanced to make him appear very tactically capable. Both of these arcs deserve to be placed right up front, too.

I think, with all much deserved respect to Smudger, that it could do with a little tightening of a couple of elements which we don’t need to linger on where it does slow down a little (a bit less stealth ship, none of the traitor clone this early), plus the inclusion of two very short scenes (one where the council ask Ahsoka to stay out of the next battle, and one from Rookies where it’s made a bit clearer that we’re dealing with familiar characters, since they become more important later).

That all is, if it does remain sensible to present it in this way as opposed to split. I’ll leave this to mull over whilst I get a feel for what the rest of the show needs.

S01E19 - Storm Over Ryloth - Excludable

I skipped ahead a little to check out the time jump between Supply Lines / Ambush and this. A skippable rating may seem low for this, since it is fairly decent, and it does contain a bit of development for Ahsoka (an early failiure in a leadershop role). But ultimately it doesn’t add too much value beyond this. Excludable is still fine though! I’ll review options for the best inclusion of the entire Ryloth arc, but I don’t think you’d consider it core if you just wanted the meat of the show. I’d also minimise as much of the Neimoidian stuff as possible.

On the issue of time jumps I mentioned two posts ago, I suppose I do have the classic wipe option.