smudger9

O00ll00O said:

Latest Update: (March 4th 2025)

"I usually refrain from posting bad news, but it’s really a terrible time for me right now.

I was in the middle of recording a tutorial for a new-ish type of VFX I’m doing for TOTM when the rack that holds my hard drives fell to the floor, along with the drives, of course.

Out of 8 HDDs, 2 of the most important ones no longer work—the one with all my personal data (including all of the family photos and early works), and the one with half of the TOTM reshoots, sounds, and source footage.

Luckily, the disk with the Premiere and Nuke project files survived, so in theory, I can re-link everything if I manage to recover any data from the failed drives.

Overall, the last few weeks haven’t been great, to be honest, and this seems to be the culmination…

I’ll see what kind of work I can still do so I don’t waste my time waiting for a solution, but good old Murphy sure is trying to make it difficult for me…"

-PixelJoker95

Oh no. What an absolute disaster. As someone who has lost significant amounts of editing data in 2 separate hardware failures, I can fully sympathise with him.

I really hope he can rescue the files. It would be a crime if this edit didn’t get completed.

DarthWolvo said:

Any update on ETA for this pls?

I’m still working on it. Free time has been scarce over the last few weeks but I’m confident that I’ll have it ready by the 1st March. Its virtually completed, just some minor audio tidying and sorting out the Lanupa exit.

Dazman said:

Very cool to hear about the thought process behind your editing, very educational for the amateur editor like myself. Looking forward to future scene breakdowns!

Totally agree. The end result is great to see, but the journey is the best bit!

Cool. Looking forward to it.

When can we expect episode 3?

Watched the first two episodes. They are excellent. Very professional.

sgscobie said:

Jar Jar Bricks said:

That sounds good.

I’d need to watch the scene back, but when the kids are down below arguing, is there a place you might be able to end the scene both before they split up and also before the camera shows the ship up above? Ideally we need to create the impression that the resort dumps their ship down below to be scrapped.

Both derekwkim’s & Zuberas’ edits have handled this well in different ways. Maybe check them out

I don’t watch other edits whilst I’m doing my own because I like to create my own vision. Looking at Zuberas’ change list he kept virtually all of episode 6, so presumably the kids separating has been retained. Looks like he compensated by heavily editing the first 2 episodes and cutting virtually all of the parents’ scenes.

I’ve uploaded my At-Accrin sequence if anyone is interested in viewing and providing feedback. 11 mins in total including the lead in, exit and spacer scenes.

So I’ve come up with a solution to the At Acrin episode and have got the whole episode down to seven minutes.

The team land on At-Accrin. It’s edited so that the kids “run off” to explore and Jod and SM-33 follow.
The kids enter the house, look around and discuss that it’s not At-Attin. I have added in an AI Fern line “I know where to go to get answers” and there is a wipe cut to the team entering the supervisor tower. Neel immediately explains where they are.
I’ve also cut Fern and Wim’s heart-to-heart in the supervisor tower.

The only other alteration was to move Jod finding Wim’s credits so that this occurs whilst the kids are asleep during the hyperspace journey to meet Kh’ymm.

Sorry for the lack of update. Work and home life has been pretty busy the last 2 weeks, but I finally got a couple of free hours today. I have gone back and finalised the cuts for acts 1 and 3 with some significant changes.

Act 1:
This is essentially episodes 1 and 2, so it takes us to the point where the kids meet Jod.
I have replaced “The New Republic” logo with the standard Star Wars logo, removed the episode number and put the test in classic yellow.
I have reinstated the opening pirate scene. We don’t need this scene from a story perspective, but it makes for a much better opening sequence than Wim in his bedroom and it does a good job of showing us the state of the galaxy beyond At Attin. It also has an opening pan, which saves a massive amount of work!
The act runs at 53 mins including logos.

Act 3
Episodes 7 and 8 picking up from the point where the kids leave Lanupa.
The only significant cut is a large segment of the pirate Kangaroo court. Otherwise things play out as we saw them, but I have made at least one trim to virtually every scene to help with the pacing and save runtime.
This act is 46mins, which is a perfect length.

Act 2
This is where the remaining work lies. Acts 1 and 2
are 1h39 in total so act 2 needs to come in at 51 to 66mins to give us a runtime of 2h 30 to 2h45, but this is a challenge given that it incorporates 4 episodes of the series.
Episode 3 is straightforward and has been completed, with a runtime of 22mins, leaving 29 to 44 mins for the other 3 episodes. Episodes 4 to 6 are where there is a lot of filler material so this is easy to achieve. The two main challenges are

1. How to get the kids to the tower on AT-Achrin without getting involved in the war.
2. How to get the kids to their ship on Lanupa without separating.
   Ill work on it this weekend and hopefully have a completed cut.

Overall it is shaping up as a pretty great movie once those 2 things have been ironed out.

I watched it last night at 2am so haven’t been able to fully process it. I’ll watch it again today.

My 3 thoughts were:

1. A slightly weak ending.
2. The big gun can (thankfully) be cut.
3. There is no tie in to the Mandoverse, so the title won’t contain “The New Republic”.

The new title is Star Wars: The Lost Planet

sgscobie said:

smudger9 said:

Jar Jar Bricks said:

One random thing that came to me: you might need to reinstate the whole “claimsies” scene, or else Fern taking back SM-33 will make even less sense than it already does. Wild how that scene has more relevance to the plot than any of the parent stuff lmao.

Yes. Claimsies has been added back in. I’ve been going back through the first two and a half episodes and episode 7 to tighten things up as much as possible. I’ll get onto episode 8 on Wednesday and hopefully have the first and last acts finished by the end of the week. Then I’ll work on the mess that is the middle episodes!

One radical option I’ve been considering is having the crew travel straight from the pirate port to skull mountain.

Then the big gun on the roof of the school wouldn’t be explained, as I feel this is going to be a reveal in E8.

The big gun is a worry. I’m sure it’ll appear but I’m hoping it’s like the At-Attin auto landing sequence. That was just a line from Neel that was easily cut.

Jar Jar Bricks said:

One random thing that came to me: you might need to reinstate the whole “claimsies” scene, or else Fern taking back SM-33 will make even less sense than it already does. Wild how that scene has more relevance to the plot than any of the parent stuff lmao.

Yes. Claimsies has been added back in. I’ve been going back through the first two and a half episodes and episode 7 to tighten things up as much as possible. I’ll get onto episode 8 on Wednesday and hopefully have the first and last acts finished by the end of the week. Then I’ll work on the mess that is the middle episodes!

One radical option I’ve been considering is having the crew travel straight from the pirate port to skull mountain.

revel911 said:

1. Have you finished all of your edits with the New Republic tagging?
2. Are you integrating any other footage that connects this movie to the others? If not, why give in that moniker?

1. I’m still waiting to update EP2.

2. This series was described as being part of the post ROTJ TV shows. When I started this thread, before the series aired, I believed it would fit in as part of my “The New Republic” series. Given the lack of tie-ins so far, it’s highly likely to be labelled as simply “Star Wars”, as I did with Acolyte.

I’m working on it at the moment.

https://originaltrilogy.com/topic/The-New-Republic-EP6-Skeleton-Crew-Edit-WIP/id/124827

sgscobie said:

The show is particularly dark visually. Do you plan on lighting it at all?

No plans for that. Coloring and lighting changes are something I have absolutely zero experience with and would probably end up looking worse in my hands.

Jar Jar Bricks said:

I still stand by what I said last week - despite most of the internet seemingly liking last week’s character episode, I think you could genuinely cut most of it out.

As for this week’s episode, I think the back-and-forth about throwing Jod out the airlock could be significantly trimmed, namely just by having the kids show up in their ship sooner.

I do wonder, at this point, if the parent scenes were very necessary, seeing as how their message is deployed only within At-Attin’s vicinity, and isn’t at all necessary for them to get back home. Removing those scenes might make transitions within the main story harder, but you’d also be able to include more scenes that were previously removed, such as the one between Jod and Wim in hyperspace, or keep the runtime closer to 2 hours 30 minutes since I think it will be closer to 3 hours at this rate.

I agree about last week’s episode and it would have been very easy to cut virtually all of it………. if it wasn’t for the Onyx Cinder’s metamorphosis and elevation to a major plot point. The escape from the trash machine needs to be included and there isn’t enough footage between the kids reuniting and discovering their ship to cut everything else without it feeling jarring. I hate it when they mess around with the main starship, it really limits editing options - I had the same issue with Mando Season 2.

I wasn’t keen on this week’s episode either and it basically relegated the B plot of the parents on At Attin as irrelevant. But as you say, without those scenes scattered throughout the edit there will be too many jumps in the main plot. As always with these edits it’s a tough balance between runtime and pacing. I generally go for a better paced edit at the expense of a longer runtime.

At lest the last 2 episodes have been short!

I finally had time to sit down and go through last week’s episode. Essentially 3 significant things happen.

1. The Crew find the Pirate Lair.
2. Brutus finds out where they are.
3. Jod Betrays the kids.

So what I’ve done is:

• Split the AT-Attin scene in two. The first part is the spacer between episodes 4 and 5 and the second occurs whilst the crew are in hyperspace en route to Lana.
• By splitting that scene I’ve been able to cut the in-hyperspace scenes aboard the Onyx… they don’t add anything to the story.
• Trimmed the approach to Lanupa and the crew walking through the spa to reception.
• Pokitt is kept since she alerts Brutus.
• The scene in the spa hotel room is cut… the crew go from the reception to the Spa with the Pokitt-Brutus scene acting as the spacer. The only issue with this is losing SM-33’s reveal of the Rennod’s symbol, but I think it works to assume it was discussed off screen - once I have my Final Cut I will try to add some SM-33 dialogue to help solve the issue.
• Removed the security guard chase and Cthallops - the edit plays out as follows… Fern/Wim/SM-33 at the mud baths following the pipe, then Jod/KB/Neel looking for the symbol, then cut to Fern/Wim/SM-33 finding the symbol, then cut to the pirates arriving and then cut to the crew at the entrance to Rennod’s lair.
• The rest of the episode then plays out with just minor trimming.

Overall I used just 14 out of the 37 mins of footage. Time is getting tight though… I’m at 1h 51 mins after 5 episodes. I really need this week’s episode to be a lot of filler!

Jar Jar Bricks said:

Sounds good to me! Although if I recall correctly Yod was questioning where exactly they were as they enter the Fallen Sanctum, so perhaps SM-33 should only refer to it as such.

He asks who lives there. Neel tells him it’s the supervisor’s tower on At-Attin.

I worked on episode 4 last night. The clans portion was much shorter than I thought, which has left 12 minutes. I like this as it gives a slower pace to the second act. Runtime is 1h 27 for the first 4 episodes. I’m going to be relying on a bit of filler in the next 2 episodes!

The cut I’ve done is as follows.

Arrive on At-Achrann - I have cut the autopilot landing.
The Crew exit the ship and Jod is ordered to stay behind with SM-33.
I have then re-arranged the scenes as follows:
The crew encounter the statue - the 2 hiding clan kids have been cut. The scene runs to the last frame before the missile appears.
Then the “thief” scene with Jod and SM-33.
Then the Crew enter the house. At the end of the scene I’ll use Neel AI dialog to say “We should go back and get SM-33” or something to that effect.
Then cut to Jod coaxing SM-33 down the ramp. I’ll use some AI dialogue here to focus the discussion on the tower not the warriors.
[One of the upcoming scenes of the parents on At-Attin will be inserted here as a spacer]
Then cut to the team entering the tower. The scene plays out pretty much in full. References to the clan and the battle have been cut.

Jar Jar Bricks said:

I do have a pretty good idea of what to do, though. We can’t see Neel’s mouth because of his trunk. Replace Neel’s final line in the destroyed house:

“Maybe you shouldn’t be touching that” -> “Let’s go get Yod from the ship”

Then we do the scene with Yod and SM-33. Then go back to the parents (perhaps a scene from a later episode). And then we transition to them entering the Fallen Sanctum. The dialogue here is perfect so the audience isn’t confused:

Yod: “So, who exactly lives here now?”

Neel: “On our planet, this is the Supervisor’s Tower.”

The only problem is that Yod now has their credits and hasn’t given them away. Unless he completely murdered those warriors earlier and didn’t actually give it up.

I’m working on a similar train of thought. My plan is for them to meet the 2 children and the girl directs them to the tower, there is a shot of Neel looking at KB and Fern inside the wrecked school “bus” where a Neill line could be added.

I feel like someone needs to direct them to the tower.

That would trim the episode down to 13mins, bringing the total to 1h 27 after 4 episodes.

https://youtu.be/f19gfOMZTtg?si=emKYFhVDtNXE2dkR

This trailer at 1:27… 2 scenes intercut. And at 1:49 the kids receive a hologram from Fern’s mum.

I’m sure there will be more.

Jar Jar Bricks said:

Which trailers are you referring to? Just curious. The reason why I was insistent on deleting all parent scenes previously is because I wasn’t aware of the potential for this being an actual plot thread later on. Maybe there will be an entire episode entirely focusing on their perspective?

This is where is gets difficult to edit as we go. What I generally do is edit the setup first and then the finale. I then go back to the middle episodes and pick up the necessary threads.

I doubt it, but it is a possibility that this entire episode could be cut. We’ll have to wait and see. I agree with you guys, the clan needs to be removed. We just need to keep the scenes of the crew looking around the houses and then going to the tower. There are 2 challenges here…. Jod and SM-33 being left on the ship and the trigger for them heading to the tower.
I’ll have to play around with it this evening, but there may be an option to edit it without Jod and SM-33 being left on the ship, but it may seem obvious that they aren’t present when the kids are looking around the house. If that isn’t possible then it may be a challenge to reunite them without the clans being included.
The tower trigger could be solved with AI dialogue for one of the kids or from Jod.
I was also surprised by the lack of any parent scenes on At-Attin. We know there are more to come from the trailers. It would really help the editing of this episode to have a scene or two on At-Attin to fill in the editing gaps.

I’ve completed my edit of the first three episodes in SD 5.1 audio. It’s clocking in at 1h 16 including crawl and logos. If anyone wants to check it out DM me. Here is a detailed list of changes.

Logos
Opening crawl with New Republic logo. [2 mins]

Episode 1: [41mins cut to 29mins]
Cut opening pirate scene.
Cut Wim going back into his room for his coat.
Cut Neel getting something in his eye as he roleplays with Wim.
Trim schoolbus journey.
Cut Runa talking about being an accountant.
Cut Neel talking to Wim about Runa.
Trim pause before Neel says “like what”
Cut Fern’s speeder breaking down.
Cut Wim and Neel walking home.
Cut KB trying to repair the bike.
Cut the scene where Fern and her mum interact.
The sequence in the edit is Neel saying “like what” with a hard cut to Fern and KB on their speeder to the point where Fern says “wasn’t that great?” and a hard cut to Wim studying in his bedroom.
Cut Wim looking at the shapes dangling from his ceiling whilst he is in bed.
Trim sequence of WIm taking the short cut on his bike.
Edit Wim’s bike journey and discovery of the hatch into one sequence. He finds the hatch before we cut to Neel in the exam hall.
Cut Neel’s interaction with the droid in the exam hall.
Cut Wim “how much longer” and the safety droid “the proctor will see you shortly”.
Slight trimming of the Wim-Fern scene outside the proctors office to remove overly long pauses.
Cut Wim asking Neel’s siblings where he is and the Neel bath scene. We transition from Wim walking away from Fern to Wim and Neel opening the garage door.
Cut Neel “what should my callsign be” - it is edited as though the Jedi 1-Jedi 2 callsigns are well established between Neel and Wim.
Cut the “claimsies” interaction.
Trim the Wim-Neel digging scene to remove reference to “claimsies”.
Cut Ferm “I bet there is an old power converter in there” - the speeder breakdown has been cut, so this line is no longer relevant.
Cut Wim “what’s she duping” [talking about KB] and Fern “quiet”.
Cut Wim “this is so great”…… it’s exciting…. we’re exploring”
Cut Wim shouting “my own jedi Temple” and the jump scare when sees his reflection.
Cut Wim pressing the green button. We know he does it and it works better not seeing him do it.
Cut Wim slipping when the crew are pulling him up to the hatch.

Episode 2: [24mins cut to 19mins]
Cut KB “if that was hyperspace we could be really far away”
Cut Ferm “but its true” and “right” to SM-33
Shorten long pause between SM-33 saying “stowaways” and “captain”
Cut SM-33 searching through his databanks for At-Attin.
Cut Neel “Wim… we’re in hyperspace”.
Trim ship\s approach to the pirate port.
Cut the crew paying the ferry pilot and Wim hiding his credits.
Cut KB and Fern exploring the port and their interaction with the hooker.
Cut one shot of the Wim and Neel running defence.
Trim SM-33’s approach to defend the crew.
Cut Ferm “I’m not leaving without KB…… and the boys”.
Cut the SM-33 - Fern back-and-forth about whether they are pirates.
Cut KB talking about the legend of At-Attin’s treasure.
Trim Yod’s approach.

Episode 3: [31mins cut to 25mins]
Opening scene with the parents is moved to when the Crew are un hyperspace on their way to the moon.
Cut Yod “it’s easier to hide in a crowd than an empty corridor” and the crew walking through the port.
It’s edited so that Fern chooses to go the quiet way and we cut to the crew on the ferry ship - implying that they went the quiet way.
Cut Fern “I though the jedi never left a man behind” and Yod “Thats not a thing… the jedi say”.
Cut Yod switching on the CZ droid.
Cut Yod encountering his old shipmate.
Cut Fern “like really good string”
Massively trim the crew’s walk across the moon including the chat about back stabbing.
Cut final scene where the X-wing pilots interact with the owl.

Jar Jar Bricks said:

Those are all good changes. 👍

Let’s say the next 3 episodes trimmed down add up to about 1 hour and 15 minutes as well for a total of 2 hours and 30 minutes, won’t that be an issue with 2 whole episodes left? Idk, maybe there will be some filler episodes like there was for The Acolyte, but that was mostly due to them showing the same events from different perspectives. I kind doubt that will be the case here.

Runtime might be an issue at the current rate, but the first episode had a longer runtime.

What tends to happen is the first two or three episodes and the last two episodes contain the core plot and the middle episodes are more filler. Let’s see what happens.

Jar Jar Bricks said:

Yeah, after seeing Episode 3 I think it’s best to remove it. I wasn’t sure if they were going to immediately reveal his true identity or not, but since they’re dragging it on for so long it’s probably best to at least make him somewhat mysterious.

From this episode specifically, you could easily remove the following:

• The intro scene since it serves no purpose
• The kids and Jude Law going BACK through the pirates to reach the shuttle. Just cut shortly after he mentions the unguarded tunnel or something. This feels like Obi-Wan hiding Leia under his cloak all over again, because there shouldn’t be ANY children in the pirate base, and they should all kinda know that the only kids there are supposed to be in prison. Makes his character seem like an idiot.
• All of Jude Law’s scenes when he goes back to retrieve the droid - this way we don’t learn his true pirate nature from the goon that catches him. Plus, all of his action scenes here were cut (or never filmed), anyways.
• The scene where the owl lady calls in the X-Wings. This way we discover what she did at the same time as Jude Law’s character.

That’s just what came to me immediately after seeing the episode. I’m sure there would be more.

I spent this afternoon editing episode 3, and here’s what I’ve done:

1. I kept the opening scene but moved it to where the crew is traveling to the moon. The events on At Attin will form the B-plot of the series and will likely be crucial in the crew finding their way back. I plan to intersperse scenes focused on the parents as they uncover the planet’s secrets throughout the A-plot.

2. I agree that the crew’s escape is similar to the Fortress Inquisitorius sequence in Kenobi. I’ve incorporated Yod offering the characters two options - the “quiet way” or the “busy way.” Fern chooses the quiet way, and KB warns them of an approaching guard. Fern then jokes that KB must be a Jedi, and Yod says the Force resides in everyone, leading to a cut to the characters on the ferrycraft, implying they took the quiet route.

3. I’ve kept the scene of Yod finding SM33 but only until Yod says, “I’ll take that as a yes then.” I used a reverse shot of Yod activating SM33 to make the cut work better, and I’ve removed the Ishi Tib pirate.

4. I’ve cut the SM-33 - Yod scene back on the ship, as it didn’t add much.

5. I’ve removed the Owl contacting the New Republic.

6. I’ve made a few other minor adjustments to tighten the pacing, most notably the escape from the fuel line.

The first three episodes now clock in at 1 hour and 15 minutes.