smudger9

Just thought I’d update this thread having finished my Andor series.

I’ve spent the weekend doing a full pass and tightening up the audio edits. The first 2 acts are completed, so just the final act to tidy up. I’m hoping for a release by next weekend. I wasn’t too enthused by season 3, but having come back to this edit after a break, it actually makes a really good movie. Runtime is 2h51.

cm said:

smudger9 said:

cm said:

smudger9 said:

cm said:

Is the 4k version the same as HD as HD is done in Full range. In potplayer i had to tick ‘limited 16-235 colour range’ box to make it watchable.

Both done using the same settings from the same original file.

Why is it in full range since the original is limited? The black levels are crushed.

No idea. I’ll take a look later but to my eye I can’t see colour difference between the HD and 4K versions.

No no. HD vs normal streaming version. You converted to full range for some reason.

1080 has been redone and uploaded.

cm said:

smudger9 said:

cm said:

Is the 4k version the same as HD as HD is done in Full range. In potplayer i had to tick ‘limited 16-235 colour range’ box to make it watchable.

Both done using the same settings from the same original file.

Why is it in full range since the original is limited? The black levels are crushed.

No idea. I’ll take a look later but to my eye I can’t see colour difference between the HD and 4K versions.

cm said:

Is the 4k version the same as HD as HD is done in Full range. In potplayer i had to tick ‘limited 16-235 colour range’ box to make it watchable.

Both done using the same settings from the same original file.

vranir said:

Do you have any plans to make a final edit based on Rogue One?

Possibly.

sgscobie said:

Will you also be releasing a 1080p mp4 version?

Yup. Its in the folder.

Episode 4 is completed and ready for download. DM for links.

Update Time

The edit is Completed. The only outstanding task is the 4K conversion. This is almost done… I’m just trying to locate a non-DV 4K source for episode 7. DM me if you have one!

Here is the change log. Feel free to share any comments. I can still make changes at this stage.

Runtime 179mins

Opening logos & crawl [2mins]

EPISODE IV: THE ALLIANCE

The Imperial operation on Ghorman nears its conclusion.

Unable to find an alternative energy source, mining ships have been despatched as the final phase of the plan is set in motion.

With the EMPIRE distracted, Rebel groups have grown bolder, igniting sparks of resistance across the galaxy.

Seizing the moment, disparate factions have united and established a hidden base on a remote moon in the outer rim…

EP7 [35mins to 26mins]

• Trim Cassian moving his shoulder.
• Cut Whil “It’s the Empire with the torches, they’ve gone insane”
• Trimmed the Dedra-Partagaz conversation to remove unnecessary pauses.
• Editing to the Dedra-Cyril Scene: Cut Dedra “they’re running it down”; Cut Cyril “Who?” And who is this tactical guy in your control room?”; Cut Cyril “Are you serious?”; Cut the kiss; Cut Dedra “Be careful”; remove long pause after Dedra walks off.
• Moved Mon Mothma scene to the end of the EP7 footage to delay her introduction which leads to better spacing of her scenes, provide a better spacer scene between EP7 and EP8 and to foreshadow the Ghorman Massacre.
• Cut Gorman Front scene - it doesn’t provide any essential exposition and it slows progress of the story.
• Trim Force-healer scene: Cut Bix & Cassian talking about it being a scam - this gives more legitimacy to the force healer and injects a small element of comedy by cutting away from Cassian immediately after he says “one was enough”; cut dialogue as force healer approaches Cassian - he now attempts to leave as soon as she introduces herself; cut force healer “so easy to lose faith, they come no matter what, sometimes it doesn’t even work”; cut force healer “maybe you’re the place he needs to be” - this doesn’t fit with Bix’s story arc. This conversation with the force healer should be the start of her decision to leave Cassian.
• Moved the Cyril-Enza scene backwards to run the force-healer scenes together and get Cassian to Ghorman faster.
• Cut the Imperial squad arriving in the square.
• Cut Cassian and Whilmon flying into Ghorman.
• Trim Vel-Bix scene: Cut Vel talking about needing a break; Cut Vel “we’ve all given so much”.
• Cut Whilmon talking about the specifics of Debra’s movements.
• Cut Bellboy saying he’s never heard of mid rim news and Cassian “we’re trying to change that”.
• Cut Cassian talking about being a deep sleeper.
• Cut Cassian turning off the light in his room.
• Cut Cassian taking his weapons out and scoping out his target.
• Moved the Cyril-Enza scene here.
• Mon Mothma scene rounds off the EP7 scenes.

EP8 [40mins to 29mins]

• Trim Barrier erection.
• Trim Dedra-Partagaz conversation to remove repetition.
• Cut Cyril’s mother in her apartment.
• Trim Crowds walking to the square.
• Cut Cassian dismantling his rifle.
• Cut Rylanz to Cyril “what kind of a being are you?”.
• Heavily trimmed the gathering of the crowd to speed up the pacing.
• Cut Sergeant saying his soldiers are green and useless.
• Trim build up to the start of the massacre, working around the Ghor Anthem.
• Trim Massacre sequence to remove shots and events that dont impact our main characters
• Cut first Cyril slo-mo shot.
• Trim Cyril and Cassian wrestling on the floor.
• Cut Cassian and Sam saying they know each other.
• Cut Cassian asking Whil and Sam for one last favour - this detracts from their emotional farewell.
• Trim Palmo One Distress call.
• Cut Dedra panic attack. She shows no signs of regret in the rest of the season until she’s arrested.
• Cut Cyril’s mother.

EP9 & EP10 [88mins to 65mins]

• Cut Mon asking if Bail is telling her to be silent and talking about hiding all these years.
• Added dialogue between Mon and Bail detailing how Bail’s people will escort her from the senate. This is placed here to allow me to cut their scene immediately before Mon’s speech.
• Cut Kleya/Cassian scene - this implies that it’s Cassian who is responsible for his multiple identities, rather than being fed everything by Kleya and Luthen. I did the same in episode 3.
• Cut the “it just went dead” scene in the Imperial surveillance facility. The first tech takes his suspicions straight to Lagret.
• Cut Erskin mentioning 2 years - unnecessary an it works better to leave the audience to decide how long its been since the wedding.
• Cut Luthen. “You appeared when i needed you……”
• Cut Kloris getting a call from Legret.
• Cut Legret “Well I’m stuck here now”
• Cut the Bail-Mon scene - having them meet so publicly before her speech is a crazy idea. The essential dialogue has been moved to their earlier, more discreet, conversation.
• Removed unnecessary senatorial speeches and characters walking to their positions - the build up to the speech is very protracted.
• Cut ISB plant asking for instructions - makes the ISB look incompetent.
• Cut Legret repeating “shut it down”.
• Trim Mon’s pod approaching the centre of the senate.
• Cut Mon “friends, colleagues, allies, adversaries”.
• Trim standoff with the ISB agent including cutting Cassian “we need 3 minutes”.
• Trim the senate escape sequence including Klovis checking in with surveillance and security checking Mon’s senate pod.
• Cut Kleya “they want to re-write the story”.
• The Episode 9 scenes after the safehouse are woven into a sequence with the scenes from Episode 10 to mask the time jump between the two story arcs.
• After the safehouse we cut to Lonnie walking out of the ISB building and then to the buzzing radio in Luthen’s shop. I swapped the two scenes around because it makes more sense that Lonnie walks out of the ISB building and then makes the call. The sequence is scored using a segment of “A Weapon” from the Andor S2 soundtrack.
• Transition to Andor arriving on Yavin [EP9 scene]
• Transition to Kleya and Luthen on the Haulcraft.
• Transition to Bix and Cassian on Yavin. [EP9 scene]
• Transition to Luthen approaching Lonnie on Coruscant.
• Cut Dedra “a little damaged perhaps, but its held its value”.
• Cut Imperial Investigators going over Luthen’s ship and shop.
• Removed the music bleeding into the scene where Kleya is standing in the safehouse.
• Removed most of the Luthen/Kleya flashbacks due to pacing and their general irrelevance to the story. Only the first two remain which show us that Luthen was in the Imperial army and that he found and saved Kleya.
• Transition to Cassian waking up on Yavin [EP9 scene]
• Cut long pause at end of Bix’s message.
• Cut shot of Kleya exiting Safe House building.
• Transition to Kleya approaching the medical facility.
• Trim sequence where she acquires the Nurse uniform.
• Combined a couple of Kleya infiltration scenes and split the Dedra arrest scene in two to compensate for the deleted flashback scenes.
• Trimmed a couple of long pauses in the Kleya-Luthen scene.
• Transition to the K-2SO wake-up scene [EP9 scene].

EP11 [34mins to 27mins]

• Cut Heert’s investigations - it’s edited so that Dedra identifies Kleya as a suspect to Krennic. Krennic and Partagaz then assign Heert the task of finding her.
• Kleya assembling the radio is edited into a single sequence with some trimming.
• Cut small section of the Yavin card game to suggest that they haven’t played this game many times before - hides the time skip.
• Cut Heert “I’ve just pushed out a massive search party”.
• Trim U-Wing Coruscant approach.
• Trim Imperial Unit approach to the Hot Zone.
• Trim technician explaining the surveillance to Partagaz.
• Trim Cassian & Melchi walking down the corridor to the safe house.
• Cut Cassian saying “Luthen its me…its Cassian” - Kleya opens the door after the signalled door knock.

EP12 [36mins to 28mins]

• Cut first safe house scene - nothing essential is said that isn’t repeated in subsequent scenes.
• Cut “still no comms” & “we’re wasting time”
• Cut Draven “Well speak up”.
• Trim U-wing Yavin approach.
• Cut Cassian “she needs a doctor, please”.
• Cut Raddus “Who’s Kleya” and Mothma’s response.
• Cut Cassian’s reference to making a choice 2 years ago and speaking to Luthen a year ago.
• Cut Bail’s speech about Luthen being played.
• Trim Cassian-Vel scene.
• Cut Kleya taking off her monitoring and walking outside.
• Cut Partagaz suicide scene - the shot of him sitting in the ISB office and pulling out the gun as inserted into the end of episode montage in pace of the Perrin shot.
• Cut Vel leaving Cassian’s lodge.
• Cut Vel-Kleya lodge scene.
• Cut Bix and the baby - a really touching scene but it feels like a post-credit scene. Cassian and K2 leaving Yavin is a much better ending and makes you want to out Rogue One on immediately.

Josanael said:

I’m surprised that there aren’t any reviews of Episode 3 yet, because … it’s absolutely brilliant again! The pacing in the first half in particular feels much better than in the original episodes. 😃 We, as viewers, are now staying tuned on all the storylines, and the connection between the wedding and the events on Mina-Rau in particular creates a very nice contrast. Personally, I didn’t miss the scenes on Yavin at all. And I also found the time jumps to be hardly noticeable. The kind of mentioning of the time jumps felt unneccessary in the original to me when viewing it at first. But your edit really shows that viewers hardly question the different passing of time when the scenes are edited together appropriately. It just feels like a very well-rounded movie — very well done! 😃

A few things caught my attention, but these are really just minor details:

• 09:19: Krennic’s voice is a tad too quiet in the first sentence (‘Gorman is of great interest to the empire’).
• 24:40: The music piece that starts when Mon walks off feels a bit cut off. The transition to the next song (24:50) is great in itself, but the piece before that feels somehow incomplete.
• 25:52: Here the music from the wedding party feels cut off again, for my taste it’s a bit too abrupt.
• 27:00: Is there any chance to stretch Cassian’s scene in the TIE? It feels to me like it would benefit from more breathing room to really grasp as an audience what happens here, since we haven’t seen him for a while.
• 47:30: The here mentioned ‘freighter’ is news to the audience, if I hadn’t miss anything. I’m not sure what a solution for this could be, but it somehow caught me off guard, since Cassian was only flying the TIE up to this point.
• 1:07:17: Not something specific, but the chapter ‘Noble Sacrifice’ had too much back and forth from the wedding to the imperial investigation on Mina-Rau. Especially the last bit with Cassian and Bix could have gone longer for my taste. In addition to that I felt like the imperials were a little less intimating without Bix’s encounters with them before.
• 1:34:12 Bix’s mentioning of the boy Cassian killed, because he had seen her face, feels a bit off, since we never saw the nightmare of her before. This was a bit jarring in the original episode as well, but here the audience lacks even more information about that incident.
• 2:48:13 Is it possible to stay a little longer at the rebels on Ghorman? For the kind of loss we just saw, my feeling was, that the scene needs more breathing room.

Thanks so much for the feedback.

1. I’ve upped the volume on Krennik’s vocal.

2. The music that starts as Mon walks off isn’t an edit, it’s as it was in the series. It may be slightly jarring because I’ve then cut in a different scene. I’ve altered it so that the music playing during Mon and Kolma’s conversation continues as she walks off.

3. I’ve modified the slightly abrupt music cut by trimming a few frames which brings the music from the TIE scene forward slightly, thus smoothing out the transition.

4. Cassian in the TIE is the full scene, so no option to extend it.

5. I took it as the “freighter” being code for the TIE itself.

6. I’ll try to swap two of the noble sacrifice scenes around to get rid of 2 location transitions.

7. Yes the Imperials are a little less intimidating, but that is the style is was going for having removed the Bix scenes. They are now presented as more of an encroaching off-screen threat.

8. It’s difficult to remove reference to the boy in that scene. I’ll take another look at it.

9. The Ghorman rebels scene has been cut to removed Vel’s lecture, which felt really out of character and not great on the acting front. I’ll see if I can reinstate a tight edit of it.

August sadly. I have a few holidays booked over the next few weeks and it’s gonna take time to go through and finalised the changes and transitions…. There’s lots to do!

I’ve added a 1080.mp4 file to the folder.

Episode 3 is complete and currently being rendered for release. It will be done and uploaded tomorrow.

Here is the artwork. DM if you want a link.

Onto Episode 4…

So, the next episode is complete. I now just need a to render and sort the poster out and it will release… by the end of next week. Here is the info:

Andor EP3: The Conspiracy

The Numbers:
This is an edit of episodes 1 to 6.
Total material is 262 minutes.
Edit Runtime is 167 minutes.
Cut material is 95 minutes.
72 minutes are from arc 1 (episodes 1 to 3)
95 minutes are from arc 2 (episodes 4 to 6)

Headline Changes
I have stuck with my non-classical opening text with the Andor logo and score. I have had requests to change to the classical Star Wars opening, but it doesn’t fit with the tone of Andor, particularly the main Star Wars theme.
The Wedding scenes have been edited down, but provide the chronological reference for the first part of the edit (Niamos remains in all its glory!)
The first story arc acts more like the opening act, with the second arc being acts 2 and 3.
Yavin 4 plot has been removed.
The Saw Garrera Plot has been removed.
The sexual assault scene, along with other more adult elements like profanity, has been removed.
The time skip has been hidden by cutting together the first 4 Gorman scenes into an 8-minute sequence immediately after the wedding.
Significant scene re-ordering to help pacing and plot focus (with meticulous attention to audio and music transitions).

Opening Crawl & Logos: 1 min

Episode 1 [45mins cut to 25mins]
Cut opening shot of Nia checking the TIE fighter.
Opening shot of the movie is the exterior shot of Seinar with the location label, we then cut to Cassian.
Cut a lot of dialogue between Nia and Cassian including Nia seeing Cassian’s face, the reference to flirting and Nia being nervous.
Cut other imperial technician “hello pilot” and “I’ll see you tomorrow”.
Cut Nia “you’ve done this before” and “You must have thought about it”.
Cut Nia “I need a 12 minute head start”. We never find out what for and Cassian doesn’t give her a 12 minute head start.
Trim TIE fighter start up sequence.
Cut Cassian saying “shit”
Cut delay before Cassian fires at the stormtroopers.
Trim time Cassian spends looking at the hole in the door before blowing an escape hole.
Bix’s dream sequence has been moved to later in the movie.
Wipe transition from Cassian fleeing in his TIE to the external shot of the Matheen Divide. Score added using Imperial theme section from “Krennic’s Aspirations” (Rogue one Soundrtack).
J-cut Krennic dialogie “Gorman is of great importance to the Empire”.
I have combined the first 3 Imperial briefing scenes into a single sequence and removed some elements including the “tightest of close circles” section, the Gorman propaganda film and the “you’ve been personally selected” section.
All the Yavin 4 scenes have been removed.
We transition from Krennic to Chandrilla.
Cut the first section of Mon meeting relatives and talking about parking problems.
Cut from Chandrilla to Bix and Brasso on Mina Rau.
Rescore end of Mina-Rau scene using a second Imperial theme cue from Krennic’s Aspriations. The theme begins as Bix sees the Imperial craft and it continues into the next scene, which is the final Imperial briefing.
Wipe transition to Second Chandrilla sequence. Cut Perrin-Sculden conversation. Mothma-Colma conversation brought forward to give space for Luthen to enter the building.

Episode 2 [36min to 16mins]
All Yavin scenes have been cut
I have moved the first EP3 scene of Cassian in the TIE fighter to here. It keeps us in touch with Cassian and lets us know why Kleya hasn’t had contact with him.
Then we transition to the Bix dream sequence from Episode 1. It makes more sense to have the scene after Bix sees the imperial shuttle to provide a trigger for her dream and also so that the audience doesn’t know whether it is a dream or not…. There are now Imperials on the planet.
Cut Mon and Perrin’s chat about Colma - I have removed the Mon-Colma potential romance plot.
Cut Cyril’s scene at the Bureau of Standards.
Cut Whil and his girlfriend in the field.
Cut first scene of the imperials arriving at the shop and the sergeant’s interaction with Bix.
Cut the wedding walk into the mountains.
Slight trimming to the Mon/Colma scene to speed up the pacing and get to the point quicker… Colma’s reference to the Rebels.
Cut Mon’s reference to Perrin during her conversation with Luthen.
Trim Perrin’s speech.

Episode 3 [47 to 31mins]
Transition from Perrin talking about rare moments of joy to the outside banquet on Mina Rau - a nice link across 2 episodes.
Cassian making contact with Kleya has been moved forward to this point to better space out Cassian’s few scenes in the first act.
Cut Mon waiting for Leida and Leida’s walk to meet Mon.
Cut Mon “this room, right here, just like this”, “money, embarrassment” and “it will be seen as an act of bravery, I promise”.
Trimmed the wedding ceremony to a minimum.
The first and second scene of Cyril, Dedra and his mum have been combined into a single sequence.
Cut Cyril and Debra getting ready for his mother’s arrival. There is a hard cut from the hair cutting of the wedding ceremony to Dedra waiting for Cyril’s mother to arrive. Source music has been removed.
Cut Cyril’s mother “do you want to know what I thought you’d look like”.
I have split the last Cyril/Dedra/Mum scene in half and intercut it with the Chandi Merle scene to allow a believable time passage for Cyril to fall asleep.
Removed the awkward pause between Mon and Colma.
Removed the newly weds’ first dance.
Removed the Imperials’ second visit to the shop.
Removed the sexual assault scene.
The Imperials on Mina-Rau are portrayed as a largely unseen enemy slowly encroaching on our heroes.
The Mina-Rau finale has been greatly simplified to transform it into a minor action sequence in the middle of a movie, rather than an arc finale.
Removed Mon turning around and looking (almost) at the camera. Feels too much like a 4th wall break.
The final scene of Mon Mothma dancing has been converted from score to source music with party noise - this allows a better audio transition to the next scene, making the time skip less obvious.

Episode 4 [47mins to 28mins]
Opening scene is the Gorman introduction. Re-scored using Cyril Suite from Andor season 1 soundtrack.
The first 4 Gorman scenes have been cut into a single 8-minute sequence. This helps bridge the time gap between episodes 3 and 4, giving our other characters time to move to their new locations off screen. It also quickly sets up the Gorman plot.
Virtually all the other scenes have been re-ordered to adjust for the Gorman scenes being moved forwards.
Trim Cyril’s conversation with his mother.
Cut the Gorman front discussing recruiting Cyril. We see Cyril’s recruitment through his eyes.
Trim Cyril’s journey to the safe room.
Cut Cyril asking Dedra to brief Partagaz. This retains a little mystery as to who authorised Cyril’s mission.
Transition wipe to Cassian and Bix walking to the Coruscant food store.
Cut Bix saying they’ve been there for a month.
Cut vendor saying “I haven’t seen you for a while”.
Cut Bix/Cassian cooking in the apartment scene.
Trim ISB briefing to remove long silences.
Gorman Front meeting moved forward to better space out the Gorman scenes.
Trimmed the Gorman Front meeting debate.
Cut the joke about Cyril being an Imperial spy.
Trim Cyril’s conversation with Rylanz to focus on the armoury.
Remove Bix “mission after mission” and “I love you and I regret every second we dont spend together”.
Cut the Saw/Whil plot - no relevance to the core story.
Cut Bix/Cassian kissing scene.

Episode 5 [46mins to 31mins]
I have removed first scene of Kleya discovering the artifact forgery. The opening audio of her cycling through the different bug locations is added to the second scene.
Cut Cassian walking through Coruscant listening to his brief. We see him collect his outfit from the pick up point and then he appears on Gorman. This implies that the cover story and character comes from Cassian himself, rather than him being told what to do.
Cut Cyril telling his office staff about the listening device.
Cut Saw/Whil scenes
Trim some of the Dialogue between Cassian and the Bell Boy.
Cut Cyril walking through the building on Coruscant.
Move Mon Mothma’s senate scene from Episode 6 into this section, otherwise she is absent from the plot for too long.
Cut Cyril and Dedra talking about the ISB watching Eadie’s appartment.
Cut Cyril actually turning off the lights.
Cut the Cyril and Eadie in her apartment.
Cut scene of a stoned Bix watching daytime TV.
Cut discussion about weapons between Cassian and the Gorman Front.
Cut Cyril saying it’s the greatest day of his life.
Cut Conversation in the bar between Cassian and Rylanz.

Episode 6 [ 41mins to 36mins]
Cut Luthen and Cassian talking about his disguise.
Cut Segment of Bix/Cassian’s conversation about Luthen, including “pissed off”.
Cut Vel and Cinta talking about Cinta’s hair.
Cut Cinta talking about her accident.
Trim the Gorman front briefing Vel & Cinta on their plan.
Cut Vel-Cinta kissing scene.
Cut Cleya chatting to Skulden’s assistant.
Cut Heert asking Lagret about his buddy.
Cut Krennic “what a festive evening this has become”.
Cut Vel “dont rush, smooth is faster”.
Cut the old lady approaching the ambush site.
Cut one of the shots of Kleya trying to pull the bug out of the artefact - that part of the finale is too slow.
Cut Vel lecturing Samm - she now grieves silently.
Remove black screen from the death of Gorst sequence.

I tend to put scenes into 3 categories…. Not needed, nice to see, need to see. Having only done a very rough cut of episode 4 the Naboo scene is very much a “nice to see”. However, that may change when I see how the Kleya infiltration flows. It may play out better with a brief Naboo clip before Kleya detonates the explosives.

As for episode 3…… it’s now complete. I’m currently upgrading it to 4K, then the only thing left is the opening crawl.

STF78 said:

I think even including the first Kleya/Luthen flashback would be useful as gives the viewer some idea of how long they’ve been together and illustrates Luthen’s breaking point with the Empire- which starts a long chain of events that eventually leads to its downfall

I may well do that. At the moment it’s just a first cut, and a pretty rough one at that…… more of a proof of concept to check that a single movie was possible in terms of time and dealing with the time skip.

With that plan finalised I’m now going back to finish episode 3, which is about 95% done.

arabian said:

Well, this way R1 is the 3rd movie.

5th! 😉

Thanks for all the input in the thread. It seems many are keen for one 2:45 movie and two 2-ish hour movies.

I’ve spent that last week taking a deep dive into the second half of the season to see how the two scenarios play out against my core aims for the edits.

Overall neither option offers a perfect solution, but my feeling is that the two-movie option works best. There really isn’t enough material in those last two arcs to produce two movies, particularly the final arc, which is mostly setup for Rogue One.

I have done a rough cut of the last two arcs and it comes in at 2h46…. Almost identical to my cut of the first two arcs and it works really well. There will be some decisions that people don’t agree with, but in order to give Andor the cinematic climax it deserves, some good material will need to go.

The second movie will have a 4-act structure:

1. Gorman Massacre
2. Mothma Extraction
3. Luthen’s Death
4. Kleya Rescue & Rogue One setup

In order to hit the ground running like a Star Wars Movie should, we open on Yavin to show that the state of the Rebellion, but I’ve very much streamlined the pre-massacre stuff to get to the action as quickly as possible. A lot of episode 7 has been removed.

The massacre plays out with some tightening of the story, so most of episode 8 is retained.

The start of episode 9 is rearranged, to move Cassian’s scenes back slightly…… he needs time to get from Gorman to Coruscant.

The opening scenes of episode 10
are intercut with the last few scenes of episode 9 to hide the time skip. I’ve also removed any direct and indirect references to time including editing K2’s interactions with Mekshi and Cassian.

The Kleya/Luthen flashbacks have been removed. They are great scenes, but ultimately uneccessary and very much kill the pacing.

Episodes 11 and 12 play out in order. I have trimmed and removed quite a lot from the final scenes on Yavin to keep focus on the main characters and the lead in to Rogue One.

vranir said:

Any new updates or thoughts on this? I’m really excited to see what you do with Season 2.

Lots and lots of thoughts on this and I’m playing around with 2 main options.

Plan A is to replicate what I did with season one and make 2 movies of under 3 hours in length.

However, the sheer number of off-screen events that happen between episodes 9 and 10 is creating issues with the 2-movie idea.

The first half of the season edits beautifully into a 2h 45 movie and I’ve virtually completed that including full audio.

I’m currently going through the back half of the season to see if I can structure it adequately to produce a single movie that makes sense given the time skip.

I have also looked into a Plan B, which would be three 2-hour movies. The first would include the first half of the season, the second would be episodes 7 to 9 and the third would be episodes 10 to 12. With this option the front half of the season becomes the challenge. However, I have managed to put together a 2-hour edit of the first half of the season and it works really well…… the wedding and bugged artefact have been completely removed.

At the moment I’m still hoping for plan A, and will have a better idea by the end of the week as to whether that will work.

Wow. I finally caught up on arc number 3. Just…wow. It’s going to be very difficult finding enough in that arc to cut it down to 90mins! But I like a challenge.

But having got through that arc it means I can pretty much lock in the plot for Episode 3.
I have re-instated a few things that had a pay off in arc 3:

1. Luthen meeting (and subsequently recruiting) Mon’s assistant.
2. The scene with Cassian and the Bell-boy.
3. Luthen’s brief chat with the imperial cadet from Steargard.

I have one major quandary that I was looking for an opinion on… Bix’s arc. I really thought that after taking revenge on Dr Gorst, we would see her being an active part of the Rebellion. But it was the exact opposite. That Dr Gorst sequence now seems a bit out of place, and my feeling is that Bix’s decision to leave would be more powerful if she didn’t kill Dr Gorst. I’m very tempted to cut it completely.

I finally got time to sit down and start playing around with the second arc.

I’m happy with how my edit of the first arc fits, I’ve just made one alteration by re-instating Bix’s dream sequence given that it’s now a crucial part of her character arc. I have, however, repositioned it so that it happens after she sees the imperial ship arriving. This does 2 things - it provides a trigger for that dream sequence, and secondly it casts more doubt in the viewer’s mind as to whether the events are real.

So onto the second arc.
The main challenge with editing this season into 2 movies is going to be dealing with the time skip. And we have a major event that is referenced but not shown - the soldier killed by Cassian when he and Bix were on a mission.
I plan to deal with that by cutting together a continuous “Cyril on Gorman” sequence and have that as the first arc 2 footage. Cyril doesn’t appear in the finale of arc 1 and is absent in my edit for the last 15mins.
This gives a reasonable passage of time for him to be briefed by the ISB and sent out to Gorman. The continuous Gorman sequence then provides enough time for Bix and Cassian to get relocated to the Coruscant safe house. I’ll then edit their dialogue to turn the interaction with the soldier into a random event, rather than than a happening on a mission.

So then we have the rest of the arc.
The Gorman plot is the spine and can definitely be streamlined. But there are whole threads that don’t feed into the Gorman story - D’Quar and the bugged artefact.
Q’quar will almost certainly become relevant in subsequent arcs, but could be moved to movie number 2. The bugged artefact could probably be cut completely. The issue there is that it takes Mon Mothma almost completely out of the second half of the movie.

Lots to ponder and a plan won’t become clear until I’ve seen arc 3 and possibly arc 4.

jkimm said:

Really like what you’ve done. I made some edits to the first 10 minutes for the fun of it. Below are two sections with changes. I’m curious what you and others think.

Intro Meeting
• Trim “nervous is good - I’ve had fun here - now everything changes” dialogue (1:26-1:48)
• Trimmed “am I” (1:52)
• Removed coworker leaning in whispering (2:08-2:10)
• Swapped closeups of Andor (2:10-2:14) <-> (2:02-2:05)
• Removed “what was that?” and “she said you were cute” (2:21-2:26)

https://drive.google.com/file/d/19JarUVLRzei4ZbJ8cJSBaPl2bqnfQx4d/view?usp=sharing

Hangar Escape
• Slight trim of Andor messing with controls (5:36)
• Trim fighter hitting ceiling for second time (5:43-5:45)
• Slight trim of fighter bouncing around (5:51-5:52)
• Trimmed and rearranged shots of fighter firing at troopers (6:03-6:10)
• Trim bit of trooper pausing before reloading cannon (6:19)
• Trim targeting system (6:24-6:25)
• Trim trigger not firing (6:29-6:38)
• Trim display charging (7:38)
• Trim fighter banging into cliff and “no, no, no” (7:50-7:55)
• Trim fighter making a sharp right and scraping against the rocks (8:02-8:13)
• Trim fighter hitting rocks, would’ve been destroyed by now (8:23-8:26)
• Trimmed a bit of the cave collapsing (8:51)
• Trim a little before fighter ascends (9:01-9:03)

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1FfefHzAbBsB4oGhtSuphuB9WRt8DvmFZ/view?usp=sharing

I like the intro meeting cut to remove the cute reference. I’ll probably incorporate that when I’m fine tuning.

The TIE escape is very smoothly edited. I tried a couple of additional edits, similar to what you’ve done, but when I added in the other 5 audio channels things got a lot more challenging lining up the music, so I pulled back and let most of the sequence flow.
My edited opening sequence is 8 minutes, which I’m happy with from a structure point of view - it makes for a nice opening sequence for a Star Wars movie.

Matt.F said:

Smudger, it looks like you’re putting your mind to Season 2 of Andor - but I’ve just finished watching your Season 1 edit (as a primer for Season 2) and wondered if you’d like feedback?

Overall it’s brilliant - you’ve really accentuated the positives and kept the core of the plot streamlined and easy to follow (except for one instance which I’ll come to). Without the episode breaks and with your choices of shots and moments to keep or trim it now feels more cinematic - like watching a pair of movies (the reintroduction of the 20th Century Fox fanfare is a cool little touch too!). I own the 4k series set but I cant see myself watching them again, as your pacier edit appeals more to me (I’ve always preferred movies over TV series, and that’s what your edit provides).

The one thing which doesn’t work… the removal of Andor being arrested on Niamos. I can see why you did it, as it removes a good 5-10 minute chunk of runtime but imho it compromised the edit too far.

Movie one ‘Spark of Rebellion’ ends with Cassian as one of the most wanted men in the galaxy after the Aldhani heist, and then movie two ‘The Reckoning’ begins with a crawl which simply says “Andor has been arrested for treason” and the first time we see him is entering Narkina with the other cons. It’s a massive leap for audiences and leaves you head scratching WTF? It also makes all the ISB conversations about ‘where is Andor?’, ‘we need to arrest Andor?’, become baffling as it appears to all intents he has already been arrested?! Furthermore, we even see Andor in Niamos at the end retrieving his stash from the hotel room - this scene no longer makes any sense without the context of the earlier footage.

I’d really suggest reinstating some abridged version of Andor on Niamos at the start of the edit, as without it ‘The Reckoning’ opens in a confusing and unsatisfying way. You could always save a few minutes elsewhere by cutting the scenes with Nurchi betraying Andor on Ferrix as they’re somewhat redundant to the plot (we already get two or three other references of why the ISB believe Andor is going to be at Ferrix for the funeral).

This is very much meant as constructive feedback rather than criticism as I really think you’ve done brilliantly to turn this TV series into something that feels much pacier and more cinematic, and I look forward to seeing what magic you can work with season 2!

Thanks. Any feedback is much appreciated. You aren’t the first person to say this, so it’s clearly something I need to look at before releasing my fully completed Andor Collection.

The main reason I structured the movies this way was because I absolutely hated the Cassian arrest sequence. By far the worst part of the series and so out-of-place. The acting, the shoretroooer dialogue, the Kangaroo court…. None of it worked for me.

I’ll go back over the footage to see the best way of including it.

Thanks Again.

I’ve now completed the edit of these three episodes and managed to get the runtime down to my target of 1h 15. This will give me a lot more freedom with the second arc.

Changes to episode 3:

1. Moved the Kleya/Cassian scene towards the start to better space out Cassian’s scenes.
2. Cut most of Cyril and Dedra preparing for mother’s arrival.
3. Cut Luthen chatting to the guy who has a Gorman mother (easy to add back in if needed later).
4. Cut the Bix assault scene and anything related to it. I don’t have a problem with this scene, but my aim with these edits is to produce movies that feel like they are related to the main saga. It’s the most radical option, but the flow seems to work fine without those scenes. It puts more focus on Brasso’s demise, which is one of the key outcomes from this whole arc.
5. Lots of other trimming, particularly the wedding scenes, to keep the pace up.

I’ll upload the full edit of arc 1 (single channel, low res) to G-drive if anyone wants to view and give feedback.

I’m sure we’ll see more evidence of the fractured rebellion. We saw it in season 1.

And even trimming it heavily will add significant runtime.

arabian said:

I originally thought the Yavin IV stuff needed to go as well but after reading some commentary and THEN the reveal that it’s YAVIN IV, I disagree. Yes, trim the bejezus out of it BIG TIME, but keeping some of it is a necessity. And here is why.

1. We see the origin of Yavin IV as a rebel base. That is HUGE.

2. The back and forth between the squabbling, disorganized rebels in the dangerous, dirty jungle who were infighting, had no food, were fractured and barely had a clue contrasted with the board meeting of the imperials was stark. They were clean, well dressed, well fed with drinks and canapés. They were organized, working together, and casually discussing decimating an entire planet.

Cutting the Yavin IV story is cutting that brilliant juxtaposition of why the Empire is winning right now and the rebels are not. Again, trim the heck out of it, but keep the core of it. It IS important.

For now there isn’t enough there for me to keep it. That may change with the next arc. I don’t feel seeing the origin of the Yavin base is that big a deal, we’ve survived since 1977 without it. I agree on the Juxtaposition with the Empire, but by removing the Yavin scenes you get an alternative Juxtaposition between the comfortable lives of those that comply with the Empire and the tough, dangerous lives led by those that oppose it.