smudger9

GLogus said:

smudger9 said:

GLogus said:

Smudger, I watched this edit again and just can’t believe how much of an improvement it is over the original. I simply can’t give enough praise. However, have you ever thought about ending Episode 3 with Mando leaving the armor with Ahsoka to pass on to Grogu, and saving the Luke/Grogu stuff for the beginning of Episode 4?

Thanks so much!

I have considered restructuring episodes 2, 3 and 4 and it’s something I’ll go back to after Ahsoka is finished. I think everyone can agree that the Grogu-Luke reunion was done extremely poorly in the series and it’s trying to decide at what point this occurs in the edits. Much to ponder!

Hi, smudger. Do you think you still might revisit this at some point. I know you’re hard at work on other projects, but I just thought I’d ask.

I’m hoping to. Unfortunately I’ve had a partial hard drive failure which has corrupted my Mando edit libraries. I’m about to send them off to see if they can be retrieved.

westo4 said:

smudger9 said:

TOTE Devoted: Bariss and the other inquisitors are introduced to Vader.
Final Clone Wars scene of Vader and Imperial troops exploring the wrecked Venator.

Might be a stupid idea, but have you considered switching the final two scenes?
In my mind it would work as following: After Padmé’s funeral Anakin hears about what happened to Ahsoka, he goes to look for her. She’s dead, all ties to his old life are over. Cue Bariss and the other Inquisitors awaiting their new leader Vader, the true beginning of a new era.
I do understand how great of a closing shot the CW ending is though, so I understand keeping it as well. Either way I’m so stoked to see what you’ve come up with!

The issue really is that there is a bit of a time skip to that Final scene because there are full-on OT-era troopers. Also being without dialogue it works so well as a final scene.

Just found this original thread, so thought I’d transfer my Siege of Mandalore discussion to here.

I’ve made some great progress with this and it is basically completed, other than the opening pan shot. It will be finished this week and then I’ll do a couple of watch throughs next week from my Greek holiday sunbed and release it just before the Acolyte airs.
Here is the change list.

For now I’ve decided to retain the Bariss content, but in a trimmed version which cuts out the other Jedi recruits. It essentially acts as an epilogue along with Padme’s funeral and the Vader snow scene. The other thing I’ve added to the final scenes is Obi-Wans holo message from Rebels, which plays as Ahsoka looks over the clone helmets. The aim for the final few scenes is provide a definitive end to the prequel era.

Runtime 2h 35mins

Act 1 (54mins)

Star Wars Logos (2 mins)
Opening Crawl
Pan down to shot of a shuttle exiting hyperspace above coruscant (shot from Rise of Clovis)

TOTJ Practice Makes Perfect (4 mins)
Cut to external shot of Jedi Temple from Tales of the Jedi Practice Makes Perfect.
Jedi Temple scene from Arctic Makes Perfect.
Wipe to Ahsoka arriving at the military hanger. Training plays out up to Ahsoka being stunned.

Gone With A Trace (9 mins)
Cut to Ahsoka on her speeder on Corusctant
Remove Ahsoka talking about fixing her own bike - Trace fixes it in this edit.
Remove Trace “don’t take too long”
Remove scene of Ahoska fixing her bike.
Trim fight between Trace and Bintu’s thugs.
Remove Droids storyline. We now cut from Rafa greeting the Alien in the laundromat to Ahsoka and Trace working on Trace’s ship.

Deal no Deal (19mins)
Cut chat about the Silver Angel name.
Remove Anakin and his cruiser - he’s su[posed to be in the user rim. Ahsoca, Trace and Rafa now lift off from the hangar and leave coruscant without incident.
Cut the meeting with King Yaruba - they arrive at Kessel and head straight to the spice mine.
Cut Ahsoka “That was more of an ethical debate”.
Cut trace and Krim talking abut trust.
Cut Rafa “I think we transmitted that to you already…. Let’s get out of here”.
As the crew get captured in their crusier I reversed the wide shot of their ship so that the shot pans out and inserted the clip of Bo Katan and her night owls discussing the identity of the Jedi they can see.

Between the crew dumping the spice and arriving on Oba-Diah I have inserted the Anakin Padme scene from A Distant Echo. I used the establishing shot of Annxes from “The Bad Batch” and rebuilt the audio with re-score using “Anakin and Padme”.
I used an AI Anakin voice to change his concern about Rex from the Echo issue to reference Fives.

Dangerous Debt (4mins)
Only the scene of Ahsoka, Rafa and Trace in the cell has been used.
The rest of the episode has been cut.

Together Again (16mins)
Initial scene of Ahsoka, Trace and Rafa in the cell has been cut - this has essentially been replaced by the scene from Dangerous debt.
Second scene of Rafa and Trace acquiring a nice shipment has been removed.

Act 2 (47mins)

Old Friends Not Forgotten (25mins)
Cut Anakin and Kenobi talking about Ahsoka and Maul as Bo’s ship arrives.
Trim Ahsoka and Anakin walking down the corridor.
As Ahsoka meets the 501st I have used the next sequence from Practice Makes Perfect to create a flashback of her training.
Trim Ahsoka twirling her new lightsabers.
Cut Ahsoka wishing Anakin good luck.
Cut most of Ahsoka’s free-fall to the surface of Mandalore.

The Phantom Apprentice (22mins)
Cut Maul “your way of thinking is behind the times.
Cut Rex and 501st running through the tunnels.
Cut Ahsoka “Tell Anakin……” And Obi Wan “I will”.
Cut Maul talking to Jesse about the grand plan.
Cut Maul “information is a valuable commodity”
Trim Maul/Ahsoka battle including Ahsoka losing and regaining a lightsaber and Ahsoka telling Maul Anakin would have beaten him easily.

Act 3 (41mins)

Shattered (22 mins plus 2mins additional)
Cut Yoda asking Ahsoka if she has a message for Skywalker.
Trim Bo and Ahsoka farewell.
Cut first clip of Maul and Ahsoka sensing something in the force.
As Ahsoka stands on the bridge I have added the next flashback sequence from Practice Makes Perfect.
As Rex and the 501st head doff to hunt down Ahsoka I’ve inserted the first scene from TOTE Devoted of Bariss in her cell as order 66 is carried out.
Cut Ahsoka having difficulty finding Rex’s chip.

Victory and Death (19mins plus 1min additional)
Add final flashback scene from Practice Makes Perfect using the scene of Rex and Ahsoka walking into the Hangar.
Minor trimming to the hangar battle to remove static shots.
Trim sequence with Ahsoka falling through the air.
Inserted Barriss recruitment scene from TOTE Devoted before we see Rex and Ahsoka looking at the crashed Ventor and clone helmets.
Obi-Wan hologram warning from Rebels added to scene of Ahsoka looking at the clone helmets.

Epilogue (10mins)

TOTE Doveted: Barriss arrives at the fortress inquisitorius and we immediately cut to her being tested by the Grand Inquisitor. The other Jedi there for testing have been cut.
TOTJ Resolve: Padme funeral scene plays out in full.
TOTE Devoted: Bariss and the other inquisitors are introduced to Vader.
Final Clone Wars scene of Vader and Imperial troops exploring the wrecked Venator.

The chips have become such an important part of animated canon. We have the arc in Clone Wars season 6 and it continues into Bad Batch.

Shane said:

smudger9 said:
I agree. It was set up for an amazing finale, but they just didn’t deliver.
We should have had a major clone rebellion, Rex and his crew should have been involved and at least one of the batch should have died. And Ventress should have tied into Omega’s future.

And I can’t believe alpha didn’t make an appearance!

While I don’t think there is anything your edit can do about this, I definitely got the feeling that the writers didn’t know this was going to be the final season until they were already well into producing the season.

I get the vibe that they had to pivot and the finale we got wasn’t the finale that was planned, but who knows.

I’m pretty sure they always knew this would be the final season. But I agree it was very odd to leave so many threads hanging which could have easily been tied together.

Martinkaworu said:

Your Bad Batch fanedits are the best TV-to-movie Star Wars fanedits I’ve seen, and I’ve only ever seen the TV shows as movies, so that’s saying something. Your Episode II particularly was a stroke of genius in that I couldn’t imagine what you could have possibly cut as it all worked so well as a movie - and a good one at that.

I’m very excited for a season 3 movie.

Thanks so much Martin. I’ll be back onto episode 3 at the end of the month. I’m just finishing off a Clone Wars project that I’ve been itching to complete for a while.

WtarSars said:

Some of the outside scenes in the clone hideout episode match the hanger lighting when the Zillo breaks out. Trying to see if theres a way that Clone force 99 calls in reinforcements and they show up to help. It just kills me that when echo joined them for the mission they didn’t think to bring Rex or the other clones. It’s not like his whole reason for fighting is to save clone lives. If theres any way at all to insert some of those scenes into the finale it would be worth it.

It’s just not an option for me. It would take some serious special effects to pull that off. I’m just an amateur editor, I have to work with what Lucasfilm gives me 😞.

I agree with you both that it could be jarring to suddenly have Barriss appear and take on a major story role right at the end. I have thought about combining it with Ahsoka’s final episode in Tales of the Jedi. It would make a great episode in a TV show format but not as a feature. I think I’ve managed to produce something that works as an epilogue to the movie.

I have put the first Barriss scene during the order 66 sequence, so she doesn’t appear from nowhere and I will mention her in the opening crawl. In terms of the rest of the Barriss content.
The Siege of Mandalore arc already has an epilogue of sorts with Vader finding Ahsoka’s lightsaber. What I’ve done is use that scene, a condensed version of Barriss’ recruitment to the Inquisitorius and the Padme funeral scene to create the epilogue. It plays out in chronological order with small time skips and shows us what directions these characters are going in as we head into the Dark Times and also hammers home that dark times are ahead.

Here is the sequence. Let me know what you think.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1OaSO65TfzCiXSPZDmHsTI78g8X90877o

Hi all,

This has been an awful long time coming, but I’ve decided to dip back into the Clone Wars.

I’ve always wanted to do something with the last 3 seasons because they had some fantastic stories and the animation really improved, particularly with the final season.

I still have my live action and Bad Batch projects to continue, so the Clone Wars project will have to fit in around them and I’m not going to do things chronologically. I’m going to start with the final season, largely because the thing that actually triggered me to dive back in was the Tales of… series, which have arcs that fit in and around the final season. So here we are:

Episode IX [The Siege of Mangalore]
Includes:
Clone Wars: S7E2 and S7E5 to S7E12
Tales of the Jedi: E5 & E6
Tales of the Empire: E4

I have completed my second cut and the audio editing is about 80% complete so I should have this released by the end of the month.

Brief Outline: (Runtime 2h34)

Act 1 (53 mins)
The movie opens on Coruscant with the first 2 scenes of Tales of the Jedi: Practice Makes Perfect as a flashback prologue. This shows Ahsoka’s test at the Jedi Temple and the first part of her training with Anakin and the 501st. This serves 2 purposes, firstly as a way of having Anakin and the 501st present in the first act and secondly to open on a scene that is relevant to the finale.

We then cut to Ahsoka on her speeder and she meets the Martez sisters.
The Martez arc is included and essentially becomes the first act. It’s not my favourite arc by any means, but its essential as it shows us how Ahsoka is surviving following her expulsion from the Jedi order and it provides the inciting incident for the movie - Ahsoka discovering the location of Maul and Bo Katan asking for her help.
The plot for the arc has been heavily condensed so that it totals just 45mins.
This act also includes the Anakin/Padme holo chat from the Bad Batch arc. This acts as a spacer scene to replace cut elements from the Martez arc, it maintains Anakin and Rex’s presence in act 1 and its just a great scene with relevance to ROTS.

Act 2 (52 mins)
The Siege of Mandalore and Maul’s capture play out as the second act with minor trimming and the addition of the next training segment of Practice Makes Perfect as a brief flashback for Ahsoka as she is reunited with the 501st.

Act 3 (49 mins)
Order 66 and Ashoka’s escape with Rex play out with minor trimming as the base of act 3.
There are 2 further flashback scenes using footage from Practice Makes Perfect. One just before order 66 and one as Ahsoka and Rex are walking to the hangar bay.
During the order 66 sequence I have inserted the first scene from Tales of the Empire: Devoted where Bariss is looking at the Jedi Temple from her cell.
After Rex and Ahsoka escape in the Y-wing the rest of Bariss’ recruitment to the Inqusitorius from Resolve is intercut with the final 2 scenes of the Mandalore arc and the Naboo scenes from Tales of the Jedi: Devoted.

If anyone is keen to see what I’ve done so far here is a completed 20minute segment. This is the Order 66 segment which includes one of the flashbacks and the first Bariss scene. I’d be grateful for any feedback.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Fj9nDM14p-L4YtVsL0aH8I8_Fnlnzsck

JasPet said:

Both were 10/10! Cut right to the good stuff, and the edits are invisible. It has pretty much all the info you need to know for season 3 and yet is still paced very well. I had a great time. Thank you, and happy Star Wars Day!

Thanks Jas. glad you enjoyed them.

Annoyingly there isn’t any way to change the basics of the plot, Omega is crucial in too many scenes away from Tantis. And to be honest my goal with these edits is to avoid sweeping story changes.

I’ve gone through the first 2 acts and managed to bring them in at 2 hours exactly. With some further scene trimming I should be able to shave a few more minutes off. I’ve cut out most of the Juggernaut episode by moving the focus to Rampart at the labour camp and simply have the Batch appear on the Juggernaut to rescue him. Very much like the Rebels breaking Jynn out of the Wobani camp in Rogue One. Intercut with Omega on Tantiss is works really well.

Now I need to condense Flash Strike, The Finale and half of Into the Breach down to an hour or less!

yoshif8tures said:

Well the show showed promise but they teased too much and ultimately played it far too safe and predictable for my tastes.

I agree. It was set up for an amazing finale, but they just didn’t deliver.
We should have had a major clone rebellion, Rex and his crew should have been involved and at least one of the batch should have died. And Ventress should have tied into Omega’s future.

And I can’t believe alpha didn’t make an appearance!

EddieDean said:

arabian said:

I also found the finale really strong, and a great ending to the show. I still maintain that beginning an edit before a show/season is done is not always the way to go because a general framing starts building up of how it will play out. If the season/show goes in a different direction, there is inevitable disappointment. I don’t think that’s fair to the show. (Shrugs) that’s just my opinion, though. I know it’s become more the norm to do it this way. Anyway, I do think you’re a brilliant editor.

I always edit back to front for this reason. The finale is where you get your payoff of plot and character storylines, and so I work backwards, making sure that I’m including anything that sets up those later payoffs.

Absolutely.

arabian said:

smudger9 said:

Well, after an excellent opening this season really did limp along with the finale being a bit of a disappointment. I really don’t think there is enough plot to warrant 2 films.

Spoilers Ahead

Omega’s M-count sub plot and faux Jedi training with Ventress went absolutely nowhere and Rex and his clones didn’t appear either, so most of the mid season is meaningless. Fennec, Bane, Ventress and the Teth arc aren’t needed at all.

It may be a challenge to bring this in under 3 hours, but the structure will be:

Act 1:
Omega and Crosshair escape and are reunited with Wrecker and Hunter.

Act 2: Crosshair and the batch settle their differences. The Empire ambushed the Batch on Pabu and Omega sacrifices herself. The Batch free Rampart from the Imperial camp.

Act 3:
The Batch find a way to Tantiss and then the finale.

I had already structured act 1 and it clocks in at just over 50mins. Act 2 is the narrative challenge but I’m almost there with that. Act 3 will be the challenge from a time point of view. The middle act has a lot of ground to cover, so will have to be faster paced than I would like. Annoyingly the return to the Outpost could be cut from a plot perspective, but it is crucial to the Batch mending their relationship with crosshair

I’ll get cracking tonight.

I disagree that the Ventress/faux-Jedi training was meaningless. It accomplished two important things. One plot wise, and one character wise.

1. With this long gestating possibility that Omega might be super Force sensitive because of her high M count, we needed an answer. The Jedi training gave us the first huge piece of the puzzle that no, a clone may have the high m count, but it doesn’t make them Force sensitive. So, that answered a pretty significant question. (And used the incredibly awesome Ventress to do so, which brings us to… )

2. You mention the batch mending their relationship with Crosshair, the use of Ventress was part of THIS arc. Ventress did awful, terrible things, yet she came there, she stayed behind to help Omega. She could have easily killed those three without breaking a sweat but she didn’t. Because she had changed. Just like… Crosshair. IOW, people can change, people can reform. And the three working together to protect Omega from someone bad, and then realizing together that she was a changed person was a huge step in the mending of their overall relationship.

I also found the finale really strong, and a great ending to the show. I still maintain that beginning an edit before a show/season is done is not always the way to go because a general framing starts building up of how it will play out. If the season/show goes in a different direction, there is inevitable disappointment. I don’t think that’s fair to the show. (Shrugs) that’s just my opinion, though. I know it’s become more the norm to do it this way. Anyway, I do think you’re a brilliant editor.

My frustration with the M-count/Ventress episode is that it didn’t have any resolution. Many of us speculated that clone force 99 would all die and Omega would end up with Ventress. That would have been a nice resolution. As it stands it’s a dead end, and one that I’m not sure needs exploring in this edit.

My aim with these edits is to create movies that comprise the key plot elements, allowing people to do a re-watch without having to rewatch the whole season.

Clearly this is going to result in some elements of the plot being lost, and the difficulty is often deciding what elements to keep and what to cut.

Including the Ventress material will push this season to 2 movies. So is the material important enough to warrant a whole other movie? My opinion is that it doesn’t, given that as it stands, that plot line doesn’t go anywhere. And for now I’d rather Ventress stays dead.

TheDimitrios said:

smudger9 said:

TheDimitrios said:

smudger9 said:

TheDimitrios said:

There is an instance in the first Cad Bane scene where Omegas Bow just disappears from her back.
I think adding the few missing seconds there is worth it to not have the Continuity issue. 😃

What is it about that bow? 🤣

Just got round to looking at this. You’re correct. I’d cut Todo knocking the bow out of Omega’s hand. D’oh. Its back in and will be updated when I release episode 2.

Did you get around to this change and the blurry image sequence from ep2 yet? If yes, I would like a link to the new versions. 😃

Also: With one episode left and the Zillo beast playing a big role in the Finale presumably… What does the game plan fpr movie 3/4 look like currently?

Yes it’s fixed. The file is in the original folder link.

At this point my 1 or 2 movie plan depends on the length of the final episode. If it’s a standard length I think a 1-movie edit it doable.

Downlaoded again, the fix in episode 1 does not seem to be there.

Got further into episode 2 and at around 50:00 the music comes only from the left

Ahh sorry. I thought you were taking about the EP2 blurring that you mentioned. That is fixed and uploaded. I’ll replace EP1 with the fixed bow version.

Well, after an excellent opening this season really did limp along with the finale being a bit of a disappointment. I really don’t think there is enough plot to warrant 2 films.

Spoilers Ahead

Omega’s M-count sub plot and faux Jedi training with Ventress went absolutely nowhere and Rex and his clones didn’t appear either, so most of the mid season is meaningless. Fennec, Bane, Ventress and the Teth arc aren’t needed at all.

It may be a challenge to bring this in under 3 hours, but the structure will be:

Act 1:
Omega and Crosshair escape and are reunited with Wrecker and Hunter.

Act 2: Crosshair and the batch settle their differences. The Empire ambushed the Batch on Pabu and Omega sacrifices herself. The Batch free Rampart from the Imperial camp.

Act 3:
The Batch find a way to Tantiss and then the finale.

I had already structured act 1 and it clocks in at just over 50mins. Act 2 is the narrative challenge but I’m almost there with that. Act 3 will be the challenge from a time point of view. The middle act has a lot of ground to cover, so will have to be faster paced than I would like. Annoyingly the return to the Outpost could be cut from a plot perspective, but it is crucial to the Batch mending their relationship with crosshair

I’ll get cracking tonight.

TheDimitrios said:

smudger9 said:

TheDimitrios said:

There is an instance in the first Cad Bane scene where Omegas Bow just disappears from her back.
I think adding the few missing seconds there is worth it to not have the Continuity issue. 😃

What is it about that bow? 🤣

Just got round to looking at this. You’re correct. I’d cut Todo knocking the bow out of Omega’s hand. D’oh. Its back in and will be updated when I release episode 2.

Did you get around to this change and the blurry image sequence from ep2 yet? If yes, I would like a link to the new versions. 😃

Also: With one episode left and the Zillo beast playing a big role in the Finale presumably… What does the game plan fpr movie 3/4 look like currently?

Yes it’s fixed. The file is in the original folder link.

At this point my 1 or 2 movie plan depends on the length of the final episode. If it’s a standard length I think a 1-movie edit it doable.

Ryedarn said:

Love all your Edits, could I have a link to this plz??

Of course. Link sent.

DMs sent

Shane said:

I’m about halfway through Episode II, I’m watching it with my father who got to see the original theatrical release of Star Wars in '77. We’re currently only halfway because my Dad likes it so much that he didn’t want to fall asleep in the middle of it and miss anything. (That may not sound like a compliment, but believe me it is)

He has never really liked anything animated, but I convinced him to watch “The Clone Wars” and “Rebels” last year for backstory on “The Mandalorian” and “Ahsoka.” While I did provide him with an Arc Based Episode guide, he ended up trudging through all of it because it was more trouble to have to look at the spreadsheet after each episode and jump around.

He commented that he really struggled to make it through the animated series and didn’t particularly like most of Clone Wars. He’s been a real champ about it though and took it upon himself to watch the first season of the Bad Batch without me prompting him.

I’ve been visiting him over the weekend and he told me that he had watched the first episode of Season 2 last weekend but hadn’t gotten any further yet. I told him about fan edits and logged into my Plex Server and we started up your edit for Episode II and so far he’s loving it and wishes he’d been able to watch all of the animated stuff like this before. (My bad for not introducing fN edits sooner)

I myself am also enjoying the film as its been great as a refresher. I had actually forgotten some events from season 2 while watching Season 3.

I love how you’ve been able to weave the stories of multiple episodes together basically seamlessly creating A and B plots by spreading things around. I actually fully expected to notice when one episode ends and another starts since there was sort of that feeling on the Clone Wars films when I watched them many years ago. That is not the case bere. For the most part your Season 2 edit just flows like it was always meant to be a single movie.

There have been two scenes that I wonder why they’ve been left in, though I could be premature in questioning them since I haven’t finished the full film yet. The scene when Cid tells the squad about Dooku’s palace being cleaned out by the Emprie and when the scene where Omega shows Wanda Sykes the compass. I have a feeling the scene about the compass was left in so that when the squad is waiting for Phee and they receive the message from Rex that there is some sort of establishment that they were planning to go on a treasure hunt with her so that those lines aren’t out of place, and maybe that the scene where Cid tells them about Dooku’s Palace is because it was the introduction of Phee? I was expecting too see at least a portion of those missions due to the scenes being left in.

My dad didn’t seem to notice since he hadn’t watched the season, but as I haven’t finished the film yet, it’s possible it’s just been moved somewhere else in the movie. But anyway, so far those two moments are the only oddities I’ve encountered while watching it so far.

I do want to say that your editing skills have come a long way since your original Clone Wars series of film edits. I have to congratulate you on some excellent editing and just downright great craftsmanship in your edit of The Bad Batch.
It’s really fantastic.

Your edit of The Bad Batch, it just feels like a movie, and a really good movie at that.

I can’t wait to finish watching the edit and I’m sure I’ll be back to give more praise when we’re done watching it.

Hi there. Thanks for the feedback. The two scenes you mention are only there to introduce Phee. She is an important part of act 2. I hope you enjoy the rest of it.

TheDimitrios said:

Just an idea: Maybe 4 movies total might give some leeway?

That was my original plan, but I’m not sure there is enough quality material to justify that. The last 3 episodes will dictate the outcome. I may have to go to 4 movies if there are essential tie ins to the mid season content.

Season 3 edit!

As the final season draws to a close I thought I’d share a few ideas about my edit. When the season started off I was expecting to make 2 movies out of season 3 because it got off to a cracking start and seemed that every episode was crucial. However, the last few episodes have gone back to the paint-by-numbers mission of the week with very little plot progression. As I’ve started putting things together it’s yet another case of having enough material for about one and a half movies! The idea of a movie trilogy is very appealing so I’ve started putting together a potential single movie edit and I suspect this is the way I’m going to go. The structure so far is:

Act 1: (58mins)
Opening Crawl & Pan (2mins)

EP1: Confined (20mins)
Largely intact as the opening, but with the material slightly condensed from 3 daytime cycles to two.

EP2: Paths Unknown (completely cut)
Dead end plot that doesn’t help the Batch find Omega. The young clones don’t seem to be important.

EP3: Shadows of Tantiss (22mins)
Minor edits

EP4: A different Approach (10mins)
I have used the start and end of this episode. The opening scenes are intact upto the point where Crosshair and Omega reach the spaceport. When crosshair says about taking out half the guards before they realise, I cut to a Tantiss scene from another episode. We then cut back to Omega and Crosshair in the middle of the gunfight at the port and they escape. The cut is a touch comedic, but I think its much better than including the gambling scenes and the accent-switching Imperial Office. Plus it allows me to cut 10mins and gets us to the Batch reunion as quickly as possible. The other thing that I have cut is Dr Hemlock’s presence on the planet, searching for Omega. It’s inconsequential and contrary to Tantiss being presented as a fortress that nobody leaves unless essential. The hunt for Omega is conducted solely by the Stealth Clone.

EP10: Identity crisis (4mins)
A potentially controversial take on this episode. I thought as a stand-alone it was fantastic and dark. However, in terms of a larger movie edit I’ve decided to cut most of it. Bane the child snatcher is something we’ve seen before and is more fan service than essential plot. I’m also cutting the scenes with the kids. One theme running through this edit will be the mystery of the vault, so it will become a recurring theme that we see characters going into the vault but not the vault itself. We won’t see the inside of the vault until Omega does. We get a clue from the images on Emerie’s data pad, but nothing else.
The only scenes that will be retained are the Emerie taking on Nala Se’s role, Emerie talking to Nala Se about the vault and the Tarkin/Hemlock/Stealth Clone scene. These scenes are intercut with the Ep4 Scenes.

Act 2: (49mins)

EP5: The Return (23mins)
Only minor edits. A slightly frustrating episode in that it’s essential because it resolves the issues the Batch have with Crosshair, however, it doesn’t really move the plot along. That being said, this may be where I use a bit of AI dialogue to get the Batch to Tantiss - it all depends on how the last 3 episodes play out.

EP6 & EP7:
Completely cut. This is crucial to the single-movie edit. As things currently stand it’s not essential to the plot. The batch do find out that the Empire is still hunting Omega, but that is already implied, and some M-count exposition, but that has so far been a bit of a dead end.

EP8 & EP9:
Completely cut. EP9 may have to be re-instated if Ventress appears in the finale - it would be a strange decision to bring her back from the dead just for a stand alone episode.

EP10: Point of No Return (19mins)
Just minor edits here.

EP11: Juggernaught (7mins)
Just the Tantiss scenes. Hopefully the Rampart prison scenes can be cut but I guess we’ll see over the next few weeks.

Act3:
The finale - space for about an hour of material - I’m not worried about achieving a 1-hour finale cut, the issue will be whether the finale will require parts of the cut episodes to be included in act 2.

Sirius said:

I watched your edit of season 2, and first I want to thank you for sharing your edit. When I watched the edit I thought it was excellent, despite there being some parts where the narrative is very slow. Something told me that Crosshair’s arc had been more significant when I watched the second season, but I couldn’t say exactly what. It was then that I remembered The Solitary Clone, and man, I think this episode makes a significant difference to the story of Season 2.

I would like to ask honestly, did you remove it because you considered it filler, because it wasn’t to your personal taste, or for another reason? Because, personally, I think there is a possibility of cutting some scenes from the political arc at the beginning, as well as some scenes from Pabu, without affecting the overall pace of the edit, and including at least the core scenes from The Solitary Clone. Of course this is your edit and you know what makes the most sense to you in the story, but in my personal experience, when I watched your edit, I felt that the dramatic weight surrounding the Crosshair uprising in Barton IV was much lighter than when I watched the entire season, and that’s due to the absence of this episode.

During this arc, we see Crosshair’s blind loyalty to the Empire in a clearer way than in the first season, as well as his level of dedication to completing a mission, even if it doesn’t make sense, due to his mantra of “good soldiers follow orders”. And then, when Crosshair finally realizes that the empire sees the clones as disposable, we remember all the loyalty, all the dedication he gave, and just like Crosshair, we realize that it was for nothing. And The Solitary Clone shows all this dedication of the character, helping the audience to understand the anguish that Crosshair feels at this turning point. Furthermore, the fact that Crosshair learned that Cody, a clone he respected and who was also loyal to the empire, rebelled, adds an additional layer to his decision to rebel later. And the fact that Rampart, an official of the empire, mentions that Cody is another one of the clones who defected, also helps us realize that this is not just a movement organized by the Bad Batch or Rex, but that this is probably happening with several clones throughout the galaxy, as they are seeing that the empire is no good and that even the inhibitor chips are not stopping the clones from rebelling, as Cody shows.

In short, I consider this episode important mostly because for me it is a build up to Crosshair’s change of side, and this is one of the most important moments in the Bad Batch show. Without it, his decision loses some impact. But again, I thought your edit was really great. You made me feel like Pabu’s scenes are important to the story lol, something I failed to realize while watching the original season. Also, I was going through a pretty stressful week when I watched your edit, and it helped me distract myself and disconnect from my problems, so thanks again 😄

Thanks for the input. When I was putting together this edit my initial cuts had some scenes from Solitary Clone to bolster Crosshair’s story. They ran alongside the clone conspiracy plot in act 1. It basically involved the Rampart and Cody interactions with a short, heavily edited infiltration of the Seperatist world.

However, when I started to watch the edit, the first act was far too slow and long and I ultimately decided that the Solitary Clone needed to be cut to speed up act 1. The political arc is the core story so I didn’t want to take any more of those scenes out, and the Pabu scenes were needed to provide a slower-paced second act and set up Pabu as their new “home”, which would become relevant in season 3.

I felt that it worked well to not see Crosshair until act 2 and Rampart’s opening lines tell the audience that he’d been left stranded on Kamino. Whilst it was nice having Cody included, ultimately he appears and defects and we don’t need to see that. In terms of Crosshair’s journey, we knew from season 1 that he is happy to blindly follow orders and his decision to remain with the Empire despite seeing the destruction of Kamino and being left abandoned there reinforced that. I felt The Outpost alone was enough to justify Crosshair’s decision to reject the Empire.

That being said, we still have 3 episodes of season 3 to go and that may warrant changes to episodes 1 and 2.

Acbagel said:

I just watched the first film of Smudger’s series here and I have to say, for what you set out to do (Season to movie adaptation), this edit was seriously done perfectly. I don’t think there is any way to break down this whole season into a better movie than how you did it. From the editing tricks to making the storyline make perfect sense from start to finish, to the added worldbuilding through Echo’s flashback, indistinguishable small uses of AI lines, and more, I was never left confused about the overall structure of the plot.

Technically, the edit is in a near-perfect state as well. No distractions from soundtrack changes, the quality was great, and I didn’t see any visual bugs. The only tiny thing was I thought some of the added wipe transitions were a little fast, the one that stood out the most was when they’re traveling back from the snow world in the opening scenes, I believe the original was a slow fade to black but here it was changed to a quick wipe. I think I noticed a couple of times where the transitions were altered and the wipes flew by too quickly, but this was quite minor overall.

If you are looking to consume a season of the Bad Batch in one sitting, this is absolutely 100% the best way possible to do it. You don’t need an episode guide flow chart, or timestamps to skip to the ends of certain episodes when the main plot moves, just watch Smudger’s edits! You will get the series’ core storyline in the best presentation possible.

While I do think that this is a 10/10 for accomplishing a quality Season-to-movie goal, I do have to point out that there are some inescapable narrative challenges with such a format. Particularly in the development of relationships between characters, there is just no possible way to show their bond grow over time when considering the need to tell this story in ~3 hours max. Omega’s relationship with the Batch did not initially feel like a natural growth, as obviously, Smudger has to cut a large number of side adventures in order to preserve this single movie format. I could definitely tell as a viewer that I was missing something because Omega bonded with certain members of the Batch way too quickly and it felt like I had missed the reason why. For example, since we primarily jump from Episode 1 almost immediately to Episode 8, we’ve missed about 2 hours of stories where Omega connects with certain members of the Batch through these side adventures (and yes, many of these filler episodes are indeed boring and do not impact the events of the main storyline whatsoever, but they do serve to pace out the bond formed between characters as each episode does usually contain a moment or two of growth). So when we jump through half a season, Omega suddenly out of nowhere shows extreme care and concern for Wrecker when he is getting his chip removed and calls him “My friend”, even though they have not shared any character moments together and appear like strangers to a new viewer. This is again noticeable when Omega says to Wrecker, “Can you show me how to arm this kind?” as she points to an explosive, referring to a previous episode where Wrecker and Omega go through a trial in disarming a bomb together, but since it’s a filler episode that was cut and we don’t see it in this movie, this character moment is lost but as a viewer I can still tell she was referencing something I never saw. Again, this isn’t Smudger’s fault, it’s an impossible challenge to solve in a Season-to-movie format, but for people watching TBB the first time through this edit, you should be aware that characters do have quite a bit of bonding that occurs outside the main storyline that you won’t be able to see. I noticed similar trends with the pacing of which Crosshair searches for TBB as well, but these missing character moments were the only storyline distraction as the actual events of the main plot work perfectly in the way you’ve structured it.

With that said, I do again want to stress this is seriously a 10/10 edit for the goal it tries to accomplish. You cannot edit a season into a better movie than how Smudger has done it, so for anyone looking for a single sit-down TBB experience, or wanting a refresher before watching Season 3, this is 100% the perfect edit for you. Thanks, Smudger, for all the hard work! It was perfect for what I needed as a recap as I tried to catch up on this show.

Thanks so much for the detailed review. It’s great getting quality feedback on these projects.

Thanks for the wipe feedback. I tend to vary the type of wipe rather than the duration, for some reason it never occurred to me to vary the timing. I’ll look at doing that going forwards.

I agree about the loss of character moments, and as you say, it’s a necessary evil with this format as a lot of those moments occurred in “filler” episodes. My main goal with these is streamlining plot, and as a result the character moments often have to go. The season 2 edit manages that side of things a little better.

The updated file has been uploaded to my Bad Batch folder which corrects the ghosting effect from the first Slip scene.