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smudger9

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17-Dec-2014
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8-Jul-2025
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Post
#1538819
Topic
Mando EP2: Search for the Jedi [V2 RELEASED]
Time

Darth Raditz said:

Since Mando Ep 2 is going to be moderately restructured due to Mando Season 3, I figure I’d give my piece here as it’s most relevant on this thread.

I do agree that while giving Grogu away is an ending rather than a beginning, it still feels like the right move to bump that to Mando Ep 4. As someone who didn’t either Luke coming to save the day in Mando Season 2 (which honestly made me stop Mando Ep 2 at Grogu’s capture because I knew what came next) or the reversal of giving up Grogu, moving both of those moment into one packaged narrative lets me pretend that separating Din & Grogu only for their coming back together to help save the day in Mando Ep 3TBoBF.

As for ending Mando Ep 2 with Grogu’s capture, it’s still a tad TESB-esque, even if it doesn’t have the same weight to it. Empire works because Luke thinks he’s going to get trained & have everything he needs to fight Vader, only to be curb-stomped & have Vader drop that bombshell on him. The closest thing to that moment would be Boba revealing to Din that he & his father Jango were indeed Mandolorians, so there’s a type of brotherhood between Boba & Din that promises they’ll indeed rescue Grogu. That scene & ending with Gideon with the Darksaber is a decent enough ending for Ep 2, and then rescuing Grogu in Ep 3 is your raid on Jabba’s palace

Thanks Darth.

It then also allows Episode 3 to be all about Grogu and Din’s relationship, with Boba very much a supporting character.
I’m just going to embrace the fact that, no matter what backtracking Favreau and Filoni make, Grogu was clearly with Luke for a pretty short time. And he returns to Din without any evidence that he’s more able to use the force.

I know a lot of editors are trying to arrange things to extend the period that Grogu is with Luke, but I’m not sure that really fits with the story now that we’ve seen how it plays out.

Post
#1538758
Topic
Mando EP4: Return to Mandalore 4K [RELEASED]
Time

WitchDR said:

I’m only 45 mins in, and it’s wonderful so far Smudger. I did see one error though. You can see the line from the space background that the crawl transitions to, during the crawl itself. This is in the 1080p version.

https://imgur.com/a/2g20e0j

Gah! Thanks for pointing it out. I’ve had this issue before. I edit on an IMac and view on an IPad and their LED screens don’t seem to pick up these subtle changes in black shades. Looking at your image on my iPad I can’t see the line even at max brightness 😞.
I try to compensate by dropping the shadow contrast on the crawl backgrounds, clearly I need to drop it a little bit more 😞.

That aside I hope you enjoy the remainder of the edit.

Post
#1538614
Topic
Mando EP4: Return to Mandalore 4K [RELEASED]
Time

Darth Raditz said:

smudger9 said:

STF78 said:

smudger9 said:

szopman said:

In the end, you’re going to move the Luke Skywalker stuff to this film ? Or you re gonna leave it as a part of Ep III?

Leaving it in episode 3. I’m currently mulling over a radial change to EPs 2 and 3 to take out more Boba stuff and shuffle things around.

Are you able to give us any more info on the potential changes to episodes two and three?

Episode 2 is a bit of an issue because it now has some important story elements missing.

  1. Carson Teva’s interactions with Mando/Nevarro.
  2. The cloning facility on Nevarro.
  3. Elspeth Morgan and the Beskar spear.

These elements were cut to stick to a reasonable runtime and allow Luke’s appearance to be the finale. However, these elements have become very important.

My current thinking is to put these elements back into episode 2 and have the movie end on a cliffhanger with Gideon’s capture of Grogu. (Like ESB).

The rescue can then be the opening of Episode 3 and the sudden decision to capture Pershing can be explained in the opening crawl. I will then cut Boba’s story down to a bare minimum and have episode three to focus on Mando and Grogu.
Grogu’s training scenes will be intercut with Mando’s journey. Mando will not travel to meet Grogu, Grogu will make his decision and then head off to find Mando.

The main negative is that Luke’s first appearance begs to be the finale of a movie, not the end of the opening act, but this would allow all the important story beats to be included.

This sounds very exciting & likely the best course of action to take. It lets you end Mando Episode 2 on more of a TESB feel & give more focus to Mando Episode 3 being about Dinn & Grogu finding themselves only to realize they still need each other (plus seeds the Boba stuff for Episode 3 better). If I understand correctly, that means Grogu will be joining in the final fight? As long as you keep in them actually reuniting in the midst of battle, that’s all I care about.

It does feel like its the way forward, and as you say we do get an ESB-type ending. Across a 4-movie series its refreshing to have one movie finish with the villains having the upper hand.
The only thing going against the plan is that it means the season 2 finale isn’t the finale of Episode 2. Its the greatest moment in the Disney era (IMO) and feels like it should be closing out a movie. But all that aside I think its the right thing to do, and it allows me to add in the story beats that are currently missing (Carson Teva and the Nevarro Cloning facility). I may still leave the Ahsoka-Elspeth Morgan confrontation out for now because there is now a really easy work around. I can use dialogue from the opening scene of Season 3 to explain where the spear came from (from the surface of Mandalore).

Post
#1538374
Topic
Mando EP4: Return to Mandalore 4K [RELEASED]
Time

And here is the final changelog

Headlines:
2h 46min runtime
Classical Opening Logos, Opening Crawl and Iris-out to End Credits.
Dr Pershing, Plazir-15 and Foundling Rescue plots have all been removed.
Removal of many of the creature attacks.
The 2-part finale has been heavily edited and restructured to improve pacing, including removal of R5.
All audio transitions have been carefully edited including re-scoring and audio rebuilding as needed.

Detailed Changes:

Chapter 17

Custom credits using Disney Era flashing characters over Fox Fanfare followed by ALTAIAGFFA
Custom Crawl and right screen pan to N1 exiting hyperspace
Opening scene is Mando travelling to Bo Katan’s Castle which establishes his motivations.
Edited to trim his long walk to and away from Bo’s throne.
Hard Cut to the armourer at the forge. Initiation ceremony takes place but the creature attack is removed. Scene ends with “this is the way” with a re-used shot of the armourer used as the exit shot.
Cut to Din arriving on Navarro.
Removed transition wipe as Mando enters the town.
Trimmed Mando and Grogu walking through the town.
Remove transition wipe to Grogu spinning in the chair.
Cut Garga’s lines about the belters and money to be made on Navarro.
Trimmed the encounter with the pirates. Cut Vane “that explains why she wouldn’t let me inside”. Cut references to the pirate king. Cut Vane “now bring me a drink”. Cut Vane “you hear that boys, his school” and “you paid us for murder and mayhem inside these doors”.
Trim the standoff between Karga and Vane.
Cut scene where Mando tries to rebuild IG-11, instead he takes him straight to the Anzellans. Remove transition wipe.
Cut Mando “this one is my friend”. Cut Anzellan “Not friend anymore”.
Cut Karga “he says you should get a new one”.
Remove Encounter with pirate ships.
Edit cuts from Mando leaving Nevarro to Teva discovering the wrecked Republic shuttle from chapter 21.
Cut Teva “I knew it, he never made it to trial”.
Cut to Mando travelling through hyperspace with Purgill.

Chapter 18

Cut to Pelli on Tatooine.
Cut the Jawa/Pelli parts scam scene.
Cut Pelli “you know how Mos Eisley gets during Boonta week”.
Cut Mando leaving Tatooine. End scene with Pelli Offering R5 to Mando. Reuse head shot of Mando to extend scene and line up scene transition with music.
Cut to Imperial Shadow Council Scene from Chapter 23.
Cut the multiple “yes” responses.
Cut mention of an assassination attempt.
Cut “Yes I see”.
Cut to Mando exiting hyperspace above Mandalore.
Cut Mando “from the surface we won’t be able to communicate with anyone, so we have to be careful”.
Cut R5 stopping and Mando telling him to stop being a baby.
Cut whole scene of R5 dissapearing and Mando heading into the cave to rescue him. The edit has R5 heading into the rocks and then transmitting information that the atmosphere is breathable. Then a wipe transition to Mando and Grogu walking towards the cave.
Shortened Mando and Grogu’s journey to the mines.
Cut creature attacking Grogu as he leaves the cave to fetch help.
Small edit to remove continuity error of Grogu jumping from his hoverchair and into the cockpit. R5 bleeps used to replace sounds.
Remove Transition wipe to Bo’s Castle scene
Remove Gauntlet taking off from Bo’s Castle, replaced by hard cut to captured Mando having his blood extracted.
Cut to Gauntlet arriving on Mandalore.
Trim Gauntlet travelling through atmosphere
Cut Bo “It didn’t always look like this.”
Cut Bo asking Grogu to guide her.
Massively Trim Bo’s journey to Din including removal of R5 scream and the creature attack.
Cut back to repeated shot of Mando losing his blood and then to Bo arriving to rescue him.
Cut Bo “Din I cant hear you, are you trying to say something”.
Cut Bo “he’s quite the navigator”.
Trim Bo talking to Din about her father.

Chapter 19 (intercut with scenes from Chapter 21)

Cut to Nevarro Pirate invasion scene from Chapter 21.
Cut to Din and Bo at the edge of the waters.
WIpe transition from Gauntlet taking off from Mandalore surface to external shot of Adelphi Base.
Alelphi base scene from Chapter 21.
Cut to shot of Gauntlet returning to Kalevala.
Cut R5’s screeching and Bo “Don’t worry I grew up flying these cliffs” and “of course its been a while”.
Cut Din and Bo talking about ship damage at the end of the initial dogfight.
Cut to Chapter 21 scene of Karga and the citizens at their makeshift camp. The scene starts with Karga looking at the town through binoculars - the “walking" is cut because it makes it obvious that there aren’t enough extras in the scene and the group also make a strange turn due to the limitations of the volume set.
Wipe transition to Teva exiting hyperspace above Coruscant from Chapter 21.
Wipe transition to Mando and Bo exiting hyperspace en route to Mando’s old covert.
Cut Din “its a secret location and you are my guest”
Trim posturing and walking as Bo and Din land and walk into the Clan’s cave.
After Armourer welcomes Bo to the Clan I added armourer dialogue from Chapter 1 to add “a pauldron would be in order”, “I shall craft it”.
The whole Coruscant plot line has been removed.

Chapter 20

Wipe transition to wide shot of the Covert Planet
Cut to Armourer making Bo a new Pauldron.
Everything else form this Chapter has been cut - the training sequence, the creature stealing the foundling and the Grogu-Armourer scene including Grogu’s flashback. These scenes have no relevance to the main plot of the season and provide no payoff at the end. The only continuity issue was Bo losing her Pauldron in the rescue, but this has been explained by the Armourer offering her a new pauldron after welcoming her to the clan.

Chapter 21

The first half of this episode has been used to intercut with Chapter 19 scenes.
Cut to Teva arriving at the Clan’s location.
Cut Din “this man cut me a break once and now I’m returning the favour” - at the moment this line doesn’t fit with my preceding edits…. This may well change when I got back to episodes 2 and 3.
Cut Lines from Paz about Din saving his son (this has been cut).
Cut the entire pointer sequence where Bo explains (in length!) the plan to defeat the pirates.
Cut to the Pirates on Nevarro and the battle then play out.
Cut Pirate king “Its the Mandalorian” - he would not know because their earlier encounter has been cut.
Battle scene trimmed and unnecessary “Marvel” dialogue has been removed.
Cut droid correcting Karga about his title.
Trim Bo and Armourer talking about the forge.

Chapter 22

The Gideon/Kane scene from Chapter 21 has been placed here to provide a spacer scene. I have cut Gideon “and make it quick because I’m short on time”. The scene ends as he walks past the clones because the shadow council scene has been moved to the start of the movie.
Opening scene of Axe’s Mandalorians and the Quarren as been cut.
We cut to Din and Bo arriving on Plazir-15. Losing control of the ship has been cut, so they now land on the planet of their own free will.
Cut Din “I knew they looked familiar"
Wipe transition from the Gauntlet landing to Bo and Din walking to the Mandalorian camp.
Trimmed some of the standing and staring.
Cut Bo “certainly as much as any of us”.
Cut Bo “no matter how well intended”.
Cut Din repeating “would it not belong to her”.
All other scenes have been cut including the entirety of the Droid plt.

Chapter 23

Cut Karga explaining to his droid about the cruiser being Mandalorian.
Cut Karga calling the droid IG-12.
Cut Karga asking Mando if he likes the droid.
Cut discussion about whether the droid is safe - the scene this references has been cut.
Cut Karga “I think he’s saying he’s old enough to operate it”.
Cut IG/Grogu messing around at the food stall.
Cut Bo talking about the poisoned surface of Mandalore and dormant creatures - most of these encounters have been cut.
Cut Din “Grogu as well”.
Cut 3 “I will go”.
Cut Bo “We will lose Comms shortly”.
Trim walking across Mandalore sequence.
Cut Bo “you were right, I was selfish and this is what it brought”.
Cut board game sequence.
Cut giant creature attacking the land ship. We cut from the Gauntlet returning to the cruiser to the Mandalorians entering the caves to the forge.
Cut Bo “no its too far”.
Cut Axe “I can make it, its our only chance of taking the planet back”. Now Axe’s move is more decisive.
Trim down battle sequence.
Cut Din telling Grogu to keep up.
Cut Bo “I’ll make sure of it”.
Cut Gideon “now surrender the darksaber and tell these people this planet is mine”.
Trim Paz v Mando Trooper fight to make the troopers look less like battle droids!

Chapter 24

Move the TIE squadron leaving the base to the opening scene so that it immediately precedes Bo telling Axe about the TIEs. This creates more tension a jeopardy for Axe’s subplot.
Cut Axe “I’m entering the upper atmosphere but I have my orders.
Remove wipe transition between Bo’s forces and Din.
Edit Din’s escape so that the Mando trooper no longer blasts him twice (Din gets hit by balsters far too many times over the seasons!)
Cut Din “thankyou for your help”
Cut scene of Gideon tracking Mando - it makes no sense.
Cut R5 completely - his presence really slows the pacing - this involved cropping scenes, cutting scenes, re-scoring and audio editing.
Move Axe arriving at the cruiser forward. Cut Axe “Bo Katan needs our help”
Move Bo Katan and her group arriving at the cave escape point backwards slightly. I’ve made a significant change at this point. As she tells Din that she’s under attack and getting the troops to safety the Armourer contacts her to tell her that her reinforcements have arrived. Added Bo “lets take back out planet” from a later scene (which I’ve cut). We then cut from the Mandos blasting out of the cave to them joining with the Mandalorians above from a later scene. I’ve used a few flipped and reversed shots to accommodate the additional dialogue. This allowed me to completely cut the “garden scene” which slowed down the plot and removed any sense of danger. Having the “lets take back out planet” at this point has more emotional weight.
Cut from Bo leading the Mandalorians into the Base back to Mando searching for Gideon. Here I’ve combined the two separate scenes into one, having moved the Fleet scene forwards. This took a lot of audio rebuilding and score manipulation with original score tracks and revurb to remove R5 and combine the scenes into a smooth single scene. It now plays out with much more urgency and threat. End the scene before Mando goes into the Clone room and cut to Bo and her forces. If the full scene of Din plays out it feels too long in this edited form.
After the Bo Forces scene cut to Mando in the Clone room.
Cut to Bo’s forces and then back to Mando facing off Gideon.
Gut Gideon “smother them before they could take their first breath” Giancarlo’s acting was a bit off here so I cut away from him and his sentence is cut off as Din appears and fires at him.
Cut straight from Moff Taking Din down to Grogu v Praetorian Guards as I’ve used the original spacer scene of Bo’s forces earlier in the edit.
Cut to Axe plunging towards Mandalore in the Cruiser - this scene has been moved forwards to create jeopardy and because there was too large a gap between Axe’s scenes in the original series.
Axe’s line about crashing into the base is transitioned to shot a shot of Bo.
Added Bo saying “Din” as we cut to a distant shot of Din v Gideon. The Gideon duel then plays out.
Trim Gideon firing at Din so that Bo intervenes much faster.
Added new exit soundtrack to classical iris out and Star Wars music.

Post
#1537089
Topic
Mando EP4: Return to Mandalore 4K [RELEASED]
Time

Last preview clip… this is the finale section with R5 completely removed. It was a major pain TBH because of the chopping and changing of the background score and the presence of dialogue echo in the front channels. I just need to make a couple of fine adjustments to the centre channel with the wrist comm sound effect.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1w9LyF_VHSCKPxlu-9g6uaVlixGUvhQFz

Post
#1536995
Topic
Mando EP4: Return to Mandalore 4K [RELEASED]
Time

420moviesnob said:

Dude this stuff looks great. So hyped to watch your edit, will the end be the same as the show? With grogru and mando at their new home?

Also what’s the ETA on this edit?

Thanks.

ETA is always difficult for me to predict. I don’t have as much time to devote to editing as others here, so a week can often slip by without any progress. I’m also annoyingly anal about music transitions and one tricky one can sometimes take several hours if I need to rebuild audio.

That being said, I’m confident it will be done by next month.

That will give me a couple of months to tidy up Episodes 2 and 3 before Ahsoka!

Post
#1536994
Topic
Mando EP4: Return to Mandalore 4K [RELEASED]
Time

STF78 said:

smudger9 said:

Here is a clip of something I’ve been working on to do with Paz’s death.

I always felt that Paz should have been killed by the Mando troopers, firstly to make them seem like a threat and secondly to leave the Praetorian Guards for Mando. Instead Paz swaps the Mando troopers away like battle droids.

I could have been a really easy edit, but unfortunately the way the series was cut, there were no decent shots of the Mando troopers to edit into the sequence. I had to resort to doing a cut away to Bo. Anyway, let me know what you think. The audio will be refined, its more a proof of concept clip. I’m not convinced it’s quite good enough.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/15RnLf-njysYvrLasTe0nRQi4nw624iEj

I think it works, certainly to the point that someone who hadn’t watched the original episode wouldn’t notice there had been any change made (once the audio is refined as you say)

That’s the point I’m at with it. It works, but I’m not convinced it’s quite good enough. A real frustration. All I needed was a decent shot of the Mando troopers firing.
I’ll give it a complete watch through before release and decide then. It works much better in terms of how the finale plays out, but the scene itself isn’t quite right.

Post
#1536877
Topic
Mando EP4: Return to Mandalore 4K [RELEASED]
Time

A couple of little clips to share.
This one is how I deal with removing almost all of the Foundling episode (grogu training and child rescue sequences)
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1meg8uQo7-mwigNMhShEsiouQPs9J0Ee0

And this is how I removed the Mandalore garden sanctuary scene which destroys the pacing and sense of danger in the finale.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1-ZJRL6WyqdBJ7E-Cs5O-yQ3qYxrZzVH7

Post
#1536547
Topic
Mando EP4: Return to Mandalore 4K [RELEASED]
Time

Here is a clip of something I’ve been working on to do with Paz’s death.

I always felt that Paz should have been killed by the Mando troopers, firstly to make them seem like a threat and secondly to leave the Praetorian Guards for Mando. Instead Paz swaps the Mando troopers away like battle droids.

I could have been a really easy edit, but unfortunately the way the series was cut, there were no decent shots of the Mando troopers to edit into the sequence. I had to resort to doing a cut away to Bo. Anyway, let me know what you think. The audio will be refined, its more a proof of concept clip. I’m not convinced it’s quite good enough.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/15RnLf-njysYvrLasTe0nRQi4nw624iEj

Post
#1534779
Topic
Mando EP4: Return to Mandalore 4K [RELEASED]
Time

Phase3 said:

I enjoyed your previous Mando episodes, and am looking forward to your next instalment! This season was really disappointing…The horrendous over-acting by the “guest stars” on the planet Plazir-15, along with the “droid bar” was awful, plus an entire episode just for Pershing, which ended up going nowhere was just silly haha! I’m so glad that you will remove all of that footage!

Will you be removing the awful generic “pirates-starting-a-fight” scene from episode 1? The first introduction to the pirates can come from episode 5, which would cut down on the poorly-written characters being on-screen for very long. Oh and can I suggest removing some of the pathetic over-acting from the pirates when they’re chasing Din in their starfighters? There is too much “tough guy” talk, straight out of a thousand generic action films.

The in-battle chat has been mostly edited out. I tried to re-work the Nevarro scene from Episode 1 to remove the pirates completely, but I couldn’t find a solution I was satisfied with, particularly as I wanted to keep the references to Cara Dune and Moff Gideon.

As a compromise I have edited it so make it slight less cringe-inducing, and it actually acts as a nice pointer to the subsequent pirate invasion, which otherwise happens out of the blue.