The final episode is almost complete!
Kind of a bummer this episode ends up being the shortest, but the arc was only 2 episodes so what can you do.
This part needed the least amount of work. I only did some minor restructuring of scenes and removed any continuity errors with the previous episode edits.
Deepfake Genevive O’Reily into Mon Mothma’s brief scene in ROTJ given that she’s now the face of Mon Mothma for most people.
This is something I’d love to see! Especially after Andor.
I’m back ya’ll!
After spending the last two weeks trying to get Episode 2 finished, I’m finally satisfied with this current version. I still feel more could easily go, and when I tackle some v2’s I just might cut even more. But for now I’m just a bit fried on the episode and need to step away from it and finish Episode 4 for the time being.
One major change I did to Episode 2 was removing the return to Ferrix. I’ve watched through my Episode 2 cut so many times, and every single time I felt it started to drag on post-heist. I’m sure some won’t be happy with its removal, but I do believe it will be narratively stronger and improve the overall pacing without it.
So with that, the new Episode 2 is now available on the drive and Episode 3 should be up by tomorrow! I’m also waiting for Vol.3 of the soundtrack to be released before I can finish Episode 4.
Having seen the finale, I’d say it’s safe to cut out all the flashbacks now.
I’m going to keep the flashback in it’s heavily trimmed form that’s presented in my Episode 1 cut. While the sister plotline went nowhere, I think the scene of Maarva finding Cassian needs to be kept.
By now I’ve also watched Episodes 2 and 3. I found them equally smooth experiences. Top quality!
Personally, I didn’t encounter anything I’d cut from E2 (which is not to say that one couldn’t).The Episode benefits from all the little character moments before the heist, those really made me care, especially when things got tough later on. Even scenes like the Commandant at home with his family seem crucial to me: The latter is in line with the show portraying those who commit evil as leading ordinary lives. It humanizes the Commandant a bit and shows what’s at stake for him. Furthermore it also serves to underline how the rebels commit evil themselves, threatening the life of the ordinary, innocent boy we witnessed earlier. That kid is traumatized for life.
Thank you! Let me know if the new cuts work better than the old ones! All the things you mentioned, are left intact. I agree those are all moments that should stay!
I’ve just enjoyed your Episode 1 cut, combining the first four Andor’s into one movie length feature.
First and foremost, it’s a professional cut that never once jars or has any technical ‘tells’ that betray it as a fan edit. Watching it for the first time you’d never know this wasn’t a studio product, well done!
Did I like it? No, I loved it! Watching the combined episodes without the interruption of titles and credits felt seamless and your instincts of what could be carefully trimmed and tightened seemed to gel with my own. The cuts are not overdone, and the pacing is still measured and relatively slow to what we are accustomed to from Star Wars. Repetition of setting is a staple of television as the budget constraints dictate but you made this television show seem truly cinematic by prioritizing scenes that had visual interest and majesty, and by reducing the number of recycled settings. It really allows the set design, props and costume work to shine - and Andor is incredibly good in this regard.
I’m holding back on watching the second Episode as it sounds like you’re still working on a revision, but I’m looking forward to it already!
Thank you Matt! I’m glad Episode 1 worked so well for you! I’m pretty satisfied with how that episode turned out. It’s pretty much done in my book.
I’m really enjoying your work!
Any idea when you’ll finish your final episode?
Hey, thanks!
Sorry I haven’t finished Episode 4 yet. The last two weeks have been spent getting Episodes 2 and 3 to a satisfying point. Unfortunately the final soundtrack hasn’t been released yet. So I will have to wait before I can finish Episode 4.
Thanks for the review Solemn.Philosopher!
Move all the Coruscant scenes to the end so that they all follow the “Coruscant: Capital of the Galaxy” shot. I am not sure how well that would play out as an ending though.
If I move ISB/Dedra’s introduction scene and Cyril’s Coruscant scene to the end, there wouldn’t be any other scenes to use as a buffer between Cassian and Luthren leaving Ferrix and them arriving on Aldhani. I’d have to move the Aldhani arrival to the beginning of episode 2 so there’s some level of buffer between both events. I’m not opposed to this idea, but my episode 2 edit is already so bloated as-is in runtime. I’m making some major changes to my episode 2 cut, so it’s possible I may do this.
I would definitely hold off on watching my episode 2 cut that’s currently up. I’m gonna be putting out a far better one here in the coming days.
That being said, I still feel like much of the Coruscant and Mon Mothma stuff is mostly disconnected from the Andor storyline. Assuming it comes to together in the final two episodes, I wonder if a lot of the Coruscant scenes can be moved to the beginning of the fourth film (or maybe even its own film, which I mentioned earlier in the discussion).
I’d run into the same issue removing the Mon Mothma and ISB scenes throughout, especially during the preparation for the heist, since we’d have no other scenes to jump to other than Cassian’s. It would be really hard to cut all three days of the heist’s preparation into a single linear scene. I don’t even think a montage would quite work for that.
then the first scene with her husband which establishes their relationship and references a “dinner”. I’ve then used the “dinner” scene from episode 7 where she recruited her old friend.
I’m curious to see how you arrange this. I’m attempting to do this same thing with my own edit. Moving the recruitment of Tay Kolma up to the first dinner that we never saw in the show, than having Mon Mothma and Luthren’s second meeting, where he asks her “Let me know how the meeting goes.” instead be referring to the Davo Sculdun meeting instead of the one with Tay.
It’s honestly the way it should have been in the show. It’s very weird how they offscreen the first dinner, only to show a completely different one later.
Just finished Episode 1: The Pursuit (3 gig).
Excellent job! Everything flows really well. Not once was I taken out of the viewing experience and it never felt like anything was missing. Video quality was also top notch, considering the smaller file-size.
Thanks Blueffalump!
I’m glad you enjoyed it! Those first 3 episodes of Andor needed the most trimming and rearranging, and I’m glad it worked out well!
Looking forward to Ep2. 😃
I can’t wait to hear your thoughts on the version I currently have up!
Episode 2 is the one I’m still making changes to. There’s definitely a lot more of it that could be trimmed. I’m just trying to come up with a satisfying way to rearrange the scenes.
I’d love a link!
Breaking it up is probably good if it’s a flashback since it detracts a lot from the main story at this point.
I’ve done this with the new version of Episode 1. Let me know if it’s better!
Glad to see that you’re still on this. Keep up the good work.
Thanks! The show has been a lot of fun to work on. I hope everyone enjoys the cuts!
Alright big update!
I’ve decided once again to do some changes to the first 2 episodes. While I was giving a re-watch as I was working on the flashback, I felt by the end I just wasn’t satisfied with the ending. My original Episode 1 ended with Cassian already settled down with the Heist Team, but it just felt weird having a third of the heist content in my episode 1 edit.
So I’ve decided to move all the heist content to episode 2 only. I originally didn’t want episodes to fluctuate in length too much, but as Eddie stated early in the post, the show really does flow better with concluding each arc per episode. and starting a new arc at the beginning of each.
These are now the new episode releases:
Episode 1: The Pursuit
Includes - Andor Episodes 1, 2, 3, 4
Length: 1 hour & 40 minutes
Episode 2: The Heist
Includes - Andor Episodes 4, 5, 6, 7
Length: 2 hours & 15 minutes
Episode 3: The Prison
Includes - Andor Episodes 7, 8, 9, 10
Length: 2 hours & 6 minutes
I have 15gb+ lossless cuts and some more size-friendly 3gb cuts for those that like the option.
I do agree that it feels dropped, though we don’t really know what Cassian was up to on Niamos before getting taken to the prison. It could have tied into something related to his search for his sister, we just don’t know yet. I’ll wait for the final 2 episodes to make a call on that.
What if I cut the flashback in two? Have the first half from Cassian’s perspective than have the other half later in the episode from Marva’s perspective?
Both scenes could play out as such:
Reinstate the scene of B2EMO showing up to Cassian’s ship when he’s a sleep and he begins to dream about the flashback -> flashback scene plays out up to when Cassian is looking to enter the crashed ship
Reinstate the scene of Marva looking at Cassian’s bedroom and she begins to think about the past when she’s holding Cassian’s spear -> play out the rest of the flashback when Marva enters the crashed ship and takes Cassian
If I did it this way, I could start the show the way it did originally with Cassian on Morlana One. It also breaks up the flashback so it doesn’t overstay it’s welcome.
3gb or less please 😄
This is do-able, though I can’t speak to the quality. Let me mess around with it and see just how low I can get it.
Having seen your first episode, I think if you add an opening like Rogue One has would be great, especially since I think you can cut out the flashbacks entirely and just put it in text. It is just much better that the opening scene takes place in the rain as it does originally. But if you choose to keep it as is, add a planet card at the start or a pan down to keep it consistent, especially as the following scene says 4BY.
I’m not opposed to removing the flashback entirely, but I’d like to see how the sister plotline concludes first. When we finally see his sister (if we do), there may be even more flashbacks of his time as a kid. If this is the case, I may be able to just move the flashbacks to that point. Do we have an exact date for when the flashback takes place? I’d like to add a ??BBY to it.
When I was first working on the flashback, I tried creating a new opening pan shot of Kenari but just couldn’t find any great footage for it. If only we had a planet shot of it. Maybe we will if Cassian decides to visit the planet at any point in the show.
What a way to finish out the Prison arc! Shows been absolutely fantastic.
Now that it’s concluded, I’ve released my episode 3 edit on the Drive link:
The Prison: Episodes 7-10 - 2h06m (21 minutes trimmed overall)
I’ve noticed less and less needing to be cut as this show goes on. It really was those first 4 episodes that needed the most work. Most of what was done with these episodes is just rearranging them to flow better as a movie length episode. My goal was never to radically edit this show (as I think it’s great as is), but to present it by arcs with minor cuts to improve pacing and rearrange it to a more movie-based format.
Also as a side note… I’ve now got smaller file size releases for each episode! Only clocking in at about 8gb for each of them, instead of the 15gb+ first releases. Some slight sharpness may be loss in the smaller file sizes, so I’m also going to keep the 15gb+ releases up as well for those that want the highest quality and don’t mind the huge file size.
I, too, decided to watch through Book 5 first, since the Boba content was the worst and needed the most work.
Figured I’d share a few things I wrote down while watching:
At 13:45 there’s a weird fade out. It seems like the scene fading out, cuts off instead of fully fading into the next scene.
Garsa Fwip’s “Apologies” line at 18:14 seems kind of awkwardly placed.
I personally would love to see Boba’s missile fire at 19:28 removed, it always seemed stupid that he’d fire a shot at such close range. The only one who would probably get hurt from that is Fennec with no armor or shield. This isn’t a huge deal that’s worth changing, just something I’ve always thought.
The scene from 20:25-20:33 could use some more work. The way the Gamorrean Guard puts the sword to the assassin’s throat, just to immediately take it away doesn’t seem natural. Also since you are implying the Rancor is already in the pit, I’d add some signs of life, i.e some Rancor growls or breathing when the gate begins to open. You could probably repurpose some of the Rancor’s breathing sounds from this scene: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9qd4YGjNSTs
The transition at 1:01:56 feels abrupt. I’d fade it out slower if possible.
The transition at 1:45:12 felt a little awkward. Jumping to Boba flying through the air in the middle of the fight just seems too sudden after the prior scene. I don’t know how you would be able to fix this considering we never see them come out though. It’d probably work better with a buffer between those scenes, but that would require rearranging other scenes to that part.
Since I was watching this with more of a hawk-eyed view, I found an error that the creators left in during the Rancor fight with the second Scorpenek Droid. The scene at 1:56:51 shows the Rancor tore off one of it’s blaster arms, than at 1:57:00 the Rancor destroys the Scorpenek Droid’s eye. But the following scene at 1:57:15 shows that the Droid has both it’s blasters and it’s eye undamaged. Only for it to revert back to it’s damaged self in the following scene at 1:57:18. Not something that needs to be fixed, just found it funny I never noticed it lol!
All around great job with this! I found this far more enjoyable than the original content. I’ll wait to see you’re newly improved Book 1 and 2 before watching those episodes, but I’m excited to dive into the others!
Awesome trailer Acbagel! I can’t wait to sit down and check this out. I’d love a link!
I’d love a link!
I’ve just updated both of the edits…
The Escape: Episodes 1-4 - 2h (42 minutes trimmed overall)
The Heist: Episodes 5-7 - 1h55m (27 minutes trimmed overall)
I was originally going to do this show by arcs, but after watching through these, I feel this flows much better than my original 2 cuts.
But just like every change I’ve made to the episodes so far, these may drastically change by the end. I’m honestly really enjoying the constant challenge each week!
Would love to hear some feedback on these!
We know now that the groupings for this season will be 3/3/1/3/2, as opposed to the 3/3/3/3 we expected and are getting for season two.
I’m gonna shoot for doing it as 4/3/?/? for now. I probably won’t edit it to each particular arc. If the show was more episodic like say The Clone Wars, editing it into particular arcs like you’ve done with Refocused, would also suit this well. But considering this is flowing together a lot more than I thought it was going to pre-“the first 3 episodes”, I’m gonna try to shoot for around the 2 hour mark for each mini movie. 4 is the goal, but we will see how the final episodes play out. I think I’ve found a good balance with the 2 mini-movies I’ve put up.
And Cassian on the beach can probably open the arc which features him in prison.
This is currently how I’m gonna use it. That scene will open my “Episode 3” mini-movie.
Question: Since this show will have a coda (Maul and Obi-Wan from Rebels), and potentially another coda (Ahsoka from Tales of the Jedi), should I consider cutting out the very final scene from Victory and Death (you know the one) and making that a third coda, rather than keeping it within its own episode? It is very much a coda scene, though it follows most naturally from its preceding episode. It might merge well with the Ahsoka coda, leaving us with a Maul and Obi-Wan one, and an Anakin and Ahsoka one.
I know you’ve talked about it a long time ago, but since you’re doing the coda with the Rebels scene, are you not considering a Rebels: Refocused in the future?
After this massive project I’m sure you’re ready to move onto something completely unrelated though lol.
I’m going to try this…
The Escape: Episodes 1, 2, 3, 4
The Heist: Episodes 5, 6, 7
This way I can start my Episode 3 edit with the very end of Episode 7’s time-jump.
I’m only gonna test this idea… I may very well jump right back to 3-episode edits. Just want to see if this may flow better.
Both episodes will clock in closer to 2 hours instead of the 1h30min mark.
Alright I’m a little conflicted on how to handle episode 7… since there appears to be a time-jump(?) in the last 5 minutes of the episode.
As of right now I will continue to do an edit for every 3 episodes, but I feel like the time-jump should start an episode instead of being right in the middle of an episode. I don’t know…
I think most of Episode 7 would be better joined with the “Heist” episodes 4-6 edit. Only problem is the runtime. There really wasn’t much I’d cut out of Episode 7, so I’d be adding another 40 or so minutes to the 1h45m run time of my Episode 2 edit.
Is anyone opposed to drastic runtime differences like that between episodes? I could cut more from episodes 4-6 to get the runtime down even more, but I’m still waiting to hear feedback on those episodes, before I cut anything else.
I could also make the “The Escape” episodes 1-3 edit longer… Maybe shaving 20 or so minutes off of the “Heist” episode’s beginning and adding it to the first episode.
Any thoughts?
Alright so I’ve decided to keep it as four mini movies.
Here is the first two!
The Escape: Episodes 1-3 - 1h28m (27 minutes trimmed overall)
The Heist: Episodes 4-6 - 1h45m (35 minutes trimmed overall)
They are both uploaded to the drive, let me know what you guys think of these!
I do wonder if it might be better has a miniseries of about 1h30m each. While I do think some of the Coruscant scenes can be cut, trimmed, or saved for later, some of them are related to having not enough money for the rebellion and does connect to the money heist. Whatever the case, probably best to wait and see the next story arc.
I’m probably going to end up doing it this way, if I can’t trim anything more off of this. Two 1h30m movies is better than a 3h one in my book.
I’ve just updated the Drive link to the new 1-6 episode movie edit!
It’s currently 3 hours, but I’d love to hear others thoughts on what else could be cut here. I really want to get this down to 2h30m, but am having a hard time figure what else could be cut.
PM me if you are interested in checking this out!
Episode 6 was the perfect end for this first movie edit! I’ve removed all of Mon Mothma’s scenes, since they were unimportant to the heist, and will be including some of them in the beginning of the second movie edit. Right now the edit is currently 3 hours. But I’m gonna continue to keep trimming in hopes to shave this down to as close to 2h30m that I can.