The Clone Wars: Refocused [Complete] + Season one subtitles!

[EddieDean]

HOW DO I GET THIS?​

Please send me a PM for access to the TRACKER SPREADSHEET, which provides the download links.
The tracker spreadsheet also has links to the historical working discussion (over on OT.com) for each episode, to give you extra context for the decisions made.

WHAT’S THE CURRENT STATUS?​

The show is 100% COMPLETE and POLISHED to a high standard!

WHAT IS THIS?​

THE CLONE WARS: REFOCUSED presents the entire Clone Wars as a complete series of five seasons of about ten TV-length episodes each. Now structured and presented with the conventions of a more mature modern TV drama, it tells the complete narrative of the Clone Wars, retaining all the most important and enjoyable elements of the show, whilst trimming a vast amount of the weaker content, saving you over 17 hours total while still telling the same core narratives. Episodes have been refined, refocused, reordered and recontextualised to maximise story quality and viewer enjoyment, both for the show’s own complete end-to-end story, and for those seeking a supplement or introduction to new canon like the Mandalorian, Bad Batch, and wider Filoniverse.

It’s my intention that you should be able to replace the original official release of The Clone Wars with Refocused, losing nothing of importance for your enjoyment of the wider franchise, whilst getting the maximum possible enjoyment out of the story of the clone wars.

WHAT ARE THE PROJECT’S PRIORITIES?​

Importantly, I want quality of experience to be the most important metric. Taking its cue from the current streaming Star Wars TV series, episodes are as long- or as short- as they need to be (ranging from about 20-60 minutes), in order to pace each story in the best possible way to enjoy the most emotionally resonant and exciting moments in a coherent, digestible, engaging narrative with a more consistent tone, without filler or cringe.

Similarly, the show as a whole presents the episodes in a new, more compelling order - which doesn’t break canon - but which gives the best pacing, variety, and character balance, while allowing some of the more important and satisfying elements of the show to begin earlier and remain in focus, building in anticipation and excitement over time. Ahsoka’s growth is a core focus, Maul and Mandalore are ever-present growing threats, and each group of episodes presents itself as a coherent flowing season with a focused theme while developing the overall narrative of the show. Seasons are about ten episodes long, totalling about five to six hours each - about the same length as modern Disney Star Wars or Marvel seasons, to keep them accessible and digestible without making watching this show feel like a daunting task.

WHAT’S IN IT FOR ME?​

• MANDALORIAN (and Filoniverse) fans will enjoy a strong focus on Mandalorian culture throughout, the journey of the Darksaber, Ahsoka Tano’s character growth, some important development for Boba Fett and Cad Bane, and an exploration of Sidious’ interest in force sensitive younglings - I’m making a special ‘Mandalorian cut’ for people who want to focus on just those elements.
• EXISTING FANS of The Clone Wars will enjoy a tighter cut, with bad episodes and bad scenes minimised, the fat trimmed, the structure of the whole made more compelling, the pacing improved, and polish throughout - but all of the important and good stuff preserved.
• PREQUEL and OBI-WAN KENOBI SERIES fans will enjoy a deeper exploration of Order 66 and Anakin’s fall, new layers to Obi-Wan, Sidious’ scheming, and the shades of grey and introduction of third parties which make this predictable two-faction conflict anything but.
• WIDER CANON fans will enjoy the constant threat of Darth Maul, and closer looks at Saw Gerrera, Moff Tarkin, all your favourite bounty hunters, Jedi, and the force itself, and a deep exploration of Clone identity and culture, including Captain Rex, Delta Squad, and the Bad Batch.
• Fans of having all the meat with no filler will be well served by my main cut, as I’ll be cutting a lot of unnecessary episodes. But fans who enjoy more of the ‘fringe’ episodes will be pleased to know I also intend to release these as “bonus episodes”, to an improved standard as part of my ‘Complete Cut’ (see below.)
• Fans of goofy humour, villains losing their menace, childish moments, and the bland CG of the early seasons will regretfully find themselves poorly served by this edit, since there will be some limited removal of episodes and scenes which are both not important and hard to enjoy.

WHAT'S INCLUDED?​

AVAILABLE NOW:
(Expanded detail for all episodes is in the next post.)

• Prelude & Prologue (2 episodes) - one telling a single story from some of the Tartakovsky 2003 microseries, and bringing it closer to TCW characterisation so it can act as setup for this show; and one showing Ahsoka’s birth and discovery by the Jedi.
• SEASON ONE (10 episodes) - covering Christophsis, Malevolence, Death Watch on Mandalore, Cloak of Darkness, Domino Squad, Ryloth, Death Watch on Coruscant, Nightsisters, and the Holocron arc.
• SEASON TWO (10 episodes) - covering Bounty Hunters, Lair of Grievous, Massacre, Corruption on Mandalore, Boba Fett, Return of Maul, Jedi Crash, a ‘Lost Clones’ anthology, and the Geonosis arc.
• Interlude (1 episode) - bridging these two seasons with some content highlighting Ahsoka’s growth and relationship with Padmé.
• SEASON THREE (10 episodes) - covering Heroes on Both Sides trilogy, Rako Hardeen, Revival, A Friend in Need, Zygerria, Trandoshans, Eminence, Umbara, and the Onderon arc.
• SEASON FOUR (10 episodes) - covering Shades of Reason, Mortis, Ahsoka’s Fall, The Lawless, Scipio, the Order 66 arc, Son of Dathomir (audio comic fan version), and Yoda’s Quest.
• SEASON FIVE (5 episodes) - covering Martez Sisters and the Siege of Mandalore, cut to fit around your watch of Revenge of the Sith.
• Epilogue & Coda (2 episodes) - wrapping up the post-TCW story arcs for two of its major characters.
• Bonus Episodes(optional):
  • A movie-length recap of Ahsoka’s story from Star Wars Rebels for those who’ve already watched the show but want to catch up before the Ahsoka show airs
  • The Citadel arc
  • Tales From the Clone Wars, aggregating some of the spare Tartakovsky 2003 microseries content with some Forces of Destiny shorts to tell a few small bonus tales that bridge seasons 2 and 3.
  • Lightsaber Lost
  • Assassin
• English Subtitles for Season One (thanks g00b!)
• Season and Episode posters for the entire show (thanks g00b!) - examples here.

COMING EVENTUALLY:

• English Subtitles for the rest of the episodes.
• More bonus episodes - less good content, and not part of my recommended watching order, but optional extras if you want more of characters you’ll see in wider canon, or just ‘as much as I can that isn’t completely painful to watch’.
• Extended versions of four popular arcs. (Not recommended, but requested by some.)
• (Potentially) SEASON ZERO comprising Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones turned into episodes

WHAT WAS YOUR APPROACH?​

Most importantly, I maintain an active dialogue with the community in this thread and over on OT.com throughout the project, to gain insight, feedback and ideas, and to challenge and validate my own assumptions and decisions.
Your comments are always welcome, and there’ve already been a lot of examples where the community have made the outputs materially better than anything I could have done in isolation.

I first completed a holistic review of all episodes in chronological order, identifying episodes’ importance and quality, and where episodes could be grouped into thematic arcs or where existing arcs could be split. (The early pages of this thread contain those reviews, and I urge you to check them if you’re interested.) I’ve conducted additional full reviews as I’ve been working on the project, and continue to do so. After the first review pass I produced a reordering for the whole, which has seen some revisions as the show broke into a few natural groupings. The first priority in the reordering was to emphasise the show’s core and most rewarding plotlines (Maul, Mandalore, and Ahsoka’s development) and to give the full series more of an ongoing serialised feel than the current anthology feel, and allowing the show to build slow-burn anticipation towards the excellent conclusion. The second priority was to standardise the tone, to avoid the inherent tonal whiplash of the anthology format (beheadings and child hunting one week, and Jar Jar dancing next week). The third priority around that central spine was to pace and vary the rest of the quality content, ensuring no continuity is broken.

I then sorted and presented the reordered whole in an easy-to-understand way for four audiences: Those wanting context for the Mandalorian (and wider Filoniverse), those wanting the most high-quality Clone Wars TV show they can get, those wanting the most content that ties to existing continuity, and finally those simply wanting as much bearable Star Wars as possible. You can see this below, and the top left of my spreadsheet makes it clear which episodes to watch based on your preference.

I then established a set of standards for presenting episodes themselves, with new titles, introductory text, and end credits evocative of polish and high quality, to package each episode in the most attractive way. OT.com Forum member McFibb has produced stunning new musical arrangements, and I’m using concept art over the credits (like the Mandalorian does), in order to help set the new show’s tone.

I then produced the edits in priority order, based on my ‘Quality Cut’ (see below). This means the very best and most important episodes (45 of them) for a complete end-to-end viewing of The Clone Wars: Refocused. Now I’m moving on to the bonus episodes from the less important Cuts (about ~16).

For each individual episode of TCW:R, I conduct a further review of its component TCW episodes, identifying the core emotional backbone of the arc, content to highlight, downplay, or restructure, and in the case of more complex episodes I look for opportunities to recontextualise scenes or themes, or add scenes from other episodes, in order to produce more value. I share these thoughts with the community here and then set to work executing the cut. I generally produce either a RELEASE CUT (complete or very nearly complete) or a REVIEW CUT / WORKPRINT (requires a little polish or extra thought) of each episode, after which I incorporate community feedback to refine each episode further. All of this is easily tracked in the TRACKER SPREADSHEET, which you can send me a PM for.

HOW ARE YOU PRESENTING THE CONTENT FOR EACH AUDIENCE?​

I’m producing four ‘cuts’, really four curated lists, to direct viewers to episodes which give them the experience they’re looking for. The top left of the tracker spreadsheet uses colour coding to help you identify the episodes you might want to watch.

Initially I've produced the Quality cut episodes (which include the Mandalorian cut), but I'll follow that up with the remaining ones for those who want the extra material.

WHAT SOURCES HAVE YOU USED?​

1080p Blu-ray rips of the majority of the Clone Wars CG series, the ‘Crystal Crisis’ unfinished episode (via the ‘Ahsoka’s Decision’ fan video created by Cinematic Captures on Youtube), the Tartakovsky Clone Wars 2D microseries (NumeralJoker’s 4k upscale), some Forces of Destiny shorts, and the Son of Dathomir Audio Comic from Audio Comics / The Lore Master on Youtube (which is necessary to a core plotline, but presented well).

PLEASE GIVE FEEDBACK!​

I would greatly appreciate your feedback! What did/didn’t you like? What worked/didn’t work for you? I’m especially interested in how the Maul/Mandalore content works seeded throughout, and how Ahsoka’s overall journey lands - I’ve given both of these particular focus.

This is very much a living project, and I am very open to making any future tweaks to absolutely anything in order to make this the best it can be.

 

[EddieDean]

DETAILED CHANGELIST

Reveal message

OVERALL STRUCTURE:

• So naturally each episode itself is traditionally edited, but this is a full series edit so a lot of thought has gone into reordering and recontextualising some of the episodes themselves. As I started work, I found that the ongoing story naturally broke into five seasons of about ten episodes each - nice, digestible chunks, each about the length of a season of a Disney live-action show. Within each season, I pay attention to the overall narrative, the balance of characters between episodes, the development of the characters and most importantly the development of Ahsoka.
• The most significant reordering comes from the Maul and Mandalore plotlines, which are very strong and well paid-off in the finale, so I wanted to get them running far sooner, making them almost the ‘spine’ of the show. I therefore took any episode which featured Maul or Mandalore and strung those out throughout the show - generally splitting these arcs into individual episodes rather than presenting them aggregated (as fanedits have tended to do in the past). This way, Maul and Mandalore get to act as ever-present wildcard threats (kind of like Moff Gideon in the Mandalorian). This required minor trims in a few places so as to not break canon.
• I also wanted to allow Rex and his relationship with obedience and loyalty to be a plotline that developed across the show, but without drawing focus from what I want to keep as our main characters and storylines. I achieved this by having a single ‘Rex explores loyalty’ episode each season, which balances nicely. In the second season, that episode is a special anthology episode combining the Rex/Clone parts of the episodes Hidden Enemy, Gregor (from Droids in the Void), and Deserter.
• I am also preserving the secret of Sidious’ identity until Revenge of the Sith, for those who want to watch this in chronological order or with a first-time viewer.
• Since the original show (especially earlier on) was very much an anthology show, episodes often had little bearing on one another, main characters often didn’t appear for a few episodes at a time, and the show had quite arbitrarily allocated premieres or finales. I’ve tried to remedy this a little. I’ve cut the seasons into more thematic chunks, worked on narrative flow and character balance between episodes, and I’ve chosen premieres and finales which more punctuate the theme of the season, or particularly test our main characters. Therefore, our flow is now as follows (clickable links take you to further detail for each episode over on OriginalTrilogy.com)

PRELUDE & PROLOGUE (Optional)

• s01e00 - DARK FORCE RISING (51:05) is a prelude to this series which covers the Anakin and Dooku/Ventress/Grievous plots from the start of the Tartakovsky microseries up to the point where Anakin gets knighted, reordering it into a single narrative. It brings the characterisation far closer to TCW, so the episode can act as a bridge between Attack of the Clones and The Clone Wars.
• s01e00b - LIFE AND DEATH (20:30) is Ahsoka's prologue, a flashback to her birth and discovery by the Jedi, taken from the Tales of the Jedi miniseries.

SEASON ONE:“Conflicts erupt in the early days of the Clone Wars.”(5h37m, cutting ~6h) begins the relationship between Anakin and Ahsoka, shows the initial separatist strikes, establishes our key villains, starts to explore Clone culture and Republic overreach, and has the triggering events behind our rolling plotlines:

• s01e01 - THE NEW PADAWAN (21:02) covers the Christophsis arc from the original Clone Wars movie plus the Ventress plot from Hidden Enemy. It’s now one tight episode that gets us through the key parts quickly, cleanly, and far less painfully, serving as an alternative (and more enjoyable) introduction to The Clone Wars.
• s01e02 - MALEVOLENCE (29:10) heavily interleaves the Plo Koon rescue from Rising Malevolence and the bomber strike from Shadow of Malevolence into one more compelling narrative focusing on Ahsoka’s character and Anakin’s training, and only a couple of scenes from Destroy Malevolence are maintained as a conclusion.
• s01e03 - THE DUCHESS OF MANDALORE (36:42) covers The Mandalore Plot and Voyage of Temptation, removing Obi-Wan on the Bond-villain conveyor belt (clip here), adding a scene to explain Ahsoka’s occasional future absences, and cutting the below-decks mystery on the Coronet and the mini-spiders (whilst maintaining the horror element and an assassin spider droid).
• s01e04 - ASSASSIN (21:59) is Cloak of Darkness with slightly tighter focus and character work.
• s01e05 - THE 501st LEGION (46:06) gives us a little mid-season peak, concluding a few threads with the focus that I’ve now set up in my first five episodes. It aggregates the whole Domino Squad arc together, tightening Rookies, and cutting quite a lot from Clone Cadets to make this full story have a natural three-act structure, having the combat test end in failiure and their punishment being the Rishi outpost, allowing their victory there and on Kamino in the content from ARC Troopers to be what makes them members of the 501st.
• s01e06 - RESISTANCE ON RYLOTH (38:04) cuts Storm Over Ryloth and Liberty on Ryloth into a single narrative where Anakin and Ahsoka (in her first command) try to break the blockade above Ryloth while Mace Windu on the ground tries to enlist Cham Syndulla and deals with Ryloth’s politics.
• s01e07 - THE DEATH WATCH (24:34) is the original Duchess of Mandalore episode with only a couple of light trims and one scene moved, with the addition of a scene originally from the Holocron arc disciplining Ahsoka for her disobedience at Ryloth and effectively explaining her absence until the finale.
• s01e08 - CHILDREN OF NIGHT (52:13) cuts the whole Nightsisters arc into one, removing the invisible Dooku fight (which is good but returns us to the status quo), reduces the recruitment trial to focus just on Savage and Feral, and removes Anakin and Obi-Wan visiting the Nightbrothers (a redundant scene). (A future extended version will reinstate the invisible Dooku fight for those who miss it.)
• s01e09 - A STRIKE AT THE HEART (Part 1) (35:12) borrows Smudger9’s idea to turn Hostage Crisis into a distraction to enable the Holocron Heist.
• s01e10 - THE FUTURE OF THE FORCE (Part 2) (37:10) covers Cargo of Doom and Children of the Force, removing Ropal and the concept of the ‘Kyber Crystal’, and adds a scene from Lightsaber Lost to bring Ahsoka’s season one arc to a solid conclusion and emphasise a major aspect of her character that’s developed in future media.

SEASON TWO: “The Clone Wars spread chaos and instability across the galaxy.”(5h37m, cutting ~4.5h) showcases Ahsoka’s growth and maturity, explores more of the galaxy’s scum and villainy, shows the cost of the war to the ‘little guy’, and continues our ongoing plotlines:

• s02e01 - SEVEN WARRIORS (24:00) is Bounty Hunters pretty much untouched.
• s02e02 - MASSACRE (34:17) recontextualises a tightened Lair of Grievous as being triggered by Ventress leaking its’ location to the Jedi, leading into Massacre which is now more personal for Grievous and more of a source of guilt for Ventress. Old Dahka no longer appears, making Talzin the resurrector.
• s02e03 - CORRUPTION ON MANDALORE (26:30) intercuts Corruption and The Academy into an all new, far tighter single narrative, bringing Ahsoka and Padmé to Mandalore at the same time, cutting out the poisoned drinks subplot, making everyone’s decisions sensible, and minimising the annoying kids.
• s02e04 - LIKE FATHER, LIKE CLONE (47:34) tightens the Boba Fett trilogy of episodes heavily for pacing and focus, removing the skeet scene, lots of R2’s antics, and the traitor Castas subplot.
• s02e05 - TALES OF THE LOST CLONES (45:16) is an anthology episode focusing on clone individuality, and highlighting Captain Rex. It aggregates the traitor clone plot from Hidden Enemy, the Gregor plot (with a lot less cringe) from Missing in Action, and the Cut Lawquane plot from The Deserter.
• s02e06 - ATTACHMENTS (25:35) is Jedi Crash tightened up. (It’s a less important episode but is placed here to balance out the season.)
• s02e07 - MONSTERS (34:36) aggregates Brothers and Revenge, getting us to and through Lotho Minor quicker, with a light trim to Ventress to allow this to be placed here in the chronology.
• s02e08 - SHADOW OF GEONOSIS (Part 1) (23:27) is Senate Spy, reducing Clovis’ creepiness and a little of Anakin’s more overt behaviour.
• s02e09 - ASSAULT ON GEONOSIS (Part 2) (37:31) aggregates Landing on Point Rain and Weapons Factory, trimming the battle for the sake of pacing and letting Ahsoka and Barriss’ fates linger a little longer. (A future extended version will reinstate some of Anakin’s and Ki-Adi-Mundi’s action scenes for those who miss them.)
• s02e10 - TERROR OF GEONOSIS (Part 3) (40:00) interleaves Legacy of Terror and Brain Invaders into a single narrative emphasising the mystery and horror of both stories (borrowing some of Smudger9’s ideas), and makes some trims for focus.

INTERLUDE (Optional)

• s03e00 - DREAMS OF DESTINY (22:42) tells a little story highlighting Ahsoka’s growth and relationships so far, using the episode Practice Makes Perfect from Tales of the Jedi as a framing device to add a few Ahsoka-focused Forces of Destiny shorts.

SEASON THREE:“Shades of grey emerge as the Clone Wars grow more complex.”(6h14m, cutting ~2h) focuses on a more competent Ahsoka now learning more of the complexities of war, shows all our main characters facing more complex situations and being forced into compromises, and has our running plotlines escalate and finally draw together:

• s03e01 - THE POLITICS OF WAR (32:03) is an all-new narrative, aggregating and restructuring the peace discussions with Mina Bonteri and the clone loan from Heroes on Both Sides and Pursuit of Peace, using some scenes from Senate Murders (but not the plot about Onaconda’s murder).
• s03e02 - THE DEATH OF OBI-WAN KENOBI (55:56) streamlines the Rako Hardeen arc, removing the first time (of two) where Obi-Wan is kicked off the ship, the final coda where Anakin defends Palpatine against Dooku, and The Box storyline, keeping the focus on Obi-Wan working with the criminals and Anakin’s emotional reaction to the events. (A future extended version will reinstate the content from The Box for those who miss it.)
• s03e03 - PIRATES OF THE OUTER RIM (24:13) is Revival pretty much untouched.
• s03e04 - TEMPTATIONS (24:53) is A Friend in Need pretty much untouched.
• s03e05 - SLAVES OF ZYGERRIA (44:34) is the second two episodes of the Zygerria slavery arc pretty much untouched (you don’t really need the first).
• s03e06 - THE SHADOW COLLECTIVE (24:48) is Eminence pretty much untouched.
• s03e07 - HUNTED (45:28) is the Trandoshan arc pretty much untouched.
• s03e08 - DISSENT ON UMBARA (52:12) streamlines the Umbara arc, making Krell more of a hardliner and less of a cackling villain (though preserving his core motivations), and trimming a lot from the first episode in the arc to keep the focus on the Clones’ reaction to Krell’s orders. (A future extended version will reinstate some of the earlier combat scenes for those who miss them.)
• s03e09 - REBELS OF ONDERON (Part 1) (32:56) transitions the training in A War on Two Fronts directly into their first insurgent actions in the city in Front Runners, removing a couple of unnecessary combat scenes, focusing on the emotional stories of the rebels.
• s03e10 - KINGS OF ONDERON (Part 2) (36:35) has the rebels flee the city immediately after freeing Dendup in The Soft War, pursued aggressively by Rash, and skipping Hondo’s inclusion in the battle from Tipping Points, keeping the focus on our rebels and keeping the jeopardy high and the action more tense.

SEASON FOUR:“Conspiracies abound as the Clone Wars spin out of control.”(6h48m, cutting ~2h) focuses on unexpected events, like the Mauldalore plotline and the core mysteries of the war, and will be a journey into darkness for many of our main characters:

• s04e01 - THE OLD WAYS OF MANDALORE (24:54) is Shades of Reason pretty much untouched.
• s04e02 - THE LIVING FORCE (31:07) is the Mortis arc heavily restructured and cut, turned into essentially an extended, shared, Dagobah cave dream sequence, where everything is a much less explicit and much more metaphorical Force vision, and Qui-Gon’s presence is enhanced.
• s04e03 - THE ENEMY WITHIN (Part 1) (45:27) is the first two episodes of the Ahsoka’s Fall arc, with one minor trim.
• s04e04 - THE FORSAKEN (Part 2) (44:40) is the final two episodes of the Ahsoka’s Fall arc, with a few minor trims.
• s04e05 - DELIVERANCE (24:34) is The Lawless with only the explicit reference to Sidious’ identity removed.
• s04e06 - THE HAND OF GREED (01:07:17) is the Scipio arc lightly trimmed, using the ‘Ahsoka’s Decision’ fan scene from the unfinished Utapau arc as a way to lightly imply his jealousy here could be linked to the loss of Ahsoka.
• s04e07 - THE RENEGADE (53:41) is the Order 66 arc with diversions removed, and the focus kept on Fives’ perspective so the mystery is preserved for the audience as he investigates.
• s04e08 - THE LEGACY OF SIFO-DYAS (24:15) is The Lost One, pretty much untouched.
• s04e09 - SON OF DATHOMIR (40:57) is the canonical comic story Darth Maul: Son of Dathomir turned into a viewable audio comic (with full voice acting and sound effects) by Audio Comics / The Lore Master on Youtube.
• s04e10 - THE COSMIC FORCE (50:51) is the Yoda’s quest arc, restructured to make most of his journeys part of the Dagobah cave vision.

SEASON FIVE:“Darkness falls on the Galaxy in the final days of the Clone Wars.”(5h22m including RotS, 3h02m without, cutting ~2h) will focus on the very final days of the war, and wrap up all of the remaining dangling threads:

• s05e01 - A NEW DAWN (01:01:52) is the Martez Sisters arc, cutting the droid action scene and the redundant escape and recapture, and slightly tightening the sisters, keeping the focus on the emotional beats and Ahsoka’s growth.
• s05e02 - THE SIEGE OF MANDALORE (34:24) is Old Friends Not Forgotten, opening on the Anakin-Padmé scene from A Distant Echo (from the Bad Batch arc) and ending on the former opening scene from The Phantom Apprentice (which naturally followed from this episode’s content).
• s05e03 - THE MASTER PLAN (24:56) is The Phantom Apprentice, without its original opening scene (now used in my previous episode).
• s05e04 - LOYALTY AND FATE (47:47) is Shattered and Victory and Death, back to back, and removing an odd reference to clones knowing of “Darth Sidious”.

EPILOGUE, BRIDGE, & CODA

• s05e05 - RESOLVE (14:06) is Ahsoka's epilogue, the Tales of the Jedi episode Resolve (also erroneously called Coda in some places), pretty much untouched.
• s05e06 - FUTURE OF THE FORCE (1:44:43) is a SPOILER-FILLED movie-length recap of Ahsoka’s complete story from Star Wars Rebels, intended for people who’ve already seen that show but want a refresher ahead of the Ahsoka show.
• s05e06 - OLD WOUNDS (13:59) is the show's coda, using content taken from the Star Wars Rebels episode Twin Suns, with the Rebels-based content stripped out, to act here as closure for the Maul/Obi-Wan plotline if you’re not planning to watch Rebels.

BONUS EPISODES:(check the tracker spreadsheet to find which cut these belong in - none are vital):

• s03e06b - THE CITADEL RESCUE (01:04:47) is the Citadel arc, pretty much untouched.
• s03e00b - TALES FROM THE CLONE WARS (33:18) aggregates the remaining content from the start of the Tartakovsky microseries into one anthology episode.
• s02e01b - LIGHTSABER LOST (24:28) has some minor polish and excludes a scene I’ve used elsewhere, but is otherwise intact and watchable.
• s02e05b - VISIONS (21:10) is the episode originally called Assassin, excluding a scene I’ve used elsewhere, but otherwise intact and watchable.
• More planned - most of which will be completed after I finish all my main episodes. You can check the tracker spreadsheet for more info on what I will or won’t include.

EXAMPLES and CLIPS

PRESENTATION EXAMPLE:

To give the series more of a sense of confidence and maturity of presentation, and bring it up to a higher standard of polish, as well as to allow myself flexibility to recontextualise the content, I've completely redesigned all of the intros and outros. This means modern franchise logos, intro text, end credits over concept art (like the Mandalorian), and new custom music mixes to better suit the show's tone. You can see the intro here and the outro here.

TRIM EXAMPLE:

Here's a clean trim from my Nightsisters episode. My version of the episode aggregates all three episodes in the Nightsister trilogy, preserving the majority of the content. However, there's one part in the middle which I thought dragged a fair bit, and that's the combat trial where Ventress ultimately recruits Maul. In its original presentation, Ventress thins the initial herd a little, but then we get three consecutive scenes of the Nightbrothers gradually getting whittled down to the final fight where it's just Savage and Feral.

We had no emotional connection whatsoever to any of the Nightbrothers so there was no jeopardy in seeing them fight, and I wanted to regain some time in the middle of my long episode. So instead, I used some trims and audio changes here to make it so that Ventress ONLY chooses Savage and Feral. Implicitly, because she can tell that Savage is the most powerful of the group, but she recognises the Feral angle as an opportunity to break him. We can then cut straight to the final of the three trials (as our now first and only trial).

The clip for that edit is here.

 

[SIUse]

Hello @EddieDean,

CMMAP from OT.com, just wanted to bump your thread here, because it deserves more attention. Perhaps it would help, since you taking a little break before season 3, if you would gather you generel thought notes from ot.com and post them here in 1 or 2 posts and a little preview video of an intro and the credits, so people can see/hear what uniqueness you´ve given (with help of others) this show.

 

[EddieDean]

Yeah, you're right, cheers bud. Especially since I'm already through season 2 over there. I'll produce some clips to whet the appetite here.

 

[Canon Editor]

Looking forward to doing a run through of your edit! Will PM you soon...

 

[EddieDean]

I've updated the OP and second post, and have included example clips here too:

EDIT EXAMPLE:

This is a clip of one of the trickier scene edits I've done, removing the goofy conveyor belt scene from the first Mandalore episode. Click here.

PRESENTATION EXAMPLE:

To give the series more of a sense of confidence and maturity of presentation, and bring it up to a higher standard of polish, as well as to allow myself flexibility to recontextualise the content, I've completely redesigned all of the intros and outros. This means modern franchise logos, intro text, end credits over concept art (like the Mandalorian), and new custom music mixes to better suit the show's tone. You can see all of that, and the cold open (which only appears in my first episode) here.

 

[Last Impressions]

I have watched the first couple of Clone Wars episodes but then i just can't seem to get any further and have left them in a storage box. Time is one factor but i really don't want to have to sort the chaff from the wheat with regards to the connection to the Movies and of course the Mandalorian which i am most interested in. These episodes sound like a perfect format for me to continue watching.

 

[EddieDean]

You're exactly my target audience! Certainly the feedback so far from a lot of people in your situation has been very positive. So far I've finished my 20th episode, and if you watch all 20 you'll have saved yourself 17 hours of cut content. So I can certainly vouch for the time benefits! Plus, five seasons each of only ten episodes just inherently feels more digestible, no?

 

[catferoze]

Having seen TCW for the first time last year, it's exciting to see just the kind of edit of it I was hoping for! really looking forward to this.

suggestion: you could post some short clips here showcasing changes you've made or segments you'd like specific feedback on. or perhaps even put together a trailer for the first season. providing samples of your editing abilities could help improve activity and visibility on your edit.

 

[EddieDean]

Absolutely. I've already completed 20+ episodes - PM me if you'd like a link. And for some videos-

COMPLEX SCENE EDIT EXAMPLE:

This is a clip of one of the trickier scene edits I've done, removing the goofy conveyor belt scene from the first Mandalore episode. Click here.

PRESENTATION EXAMPLE:

To give the series more of a sense of confidence and maturity of presentation, and bring it up to a higher standard of polish, as well as to allow myself flexibility to recontextualise the content, I've completely redesigned all of the intros and outros. This means modern franchise logos, intro text, end credits over concept art (like the Mandalorian), and new custom music mixes to better suit the show's tone. You can see all of that, and the cold open (which only appears in my first episode) here.


I'll have another one up in an hour or so.

 

[EddieDean]

TRIM EXAMPLE:

Here's a clean trim from my Nightsisters episode. My version of the episode aggregates all three episodes in the Nightsister trilogy, preserving the majority of the content. However, there's one part in the middle which I thought dragged a fair bit, and that's the combat trial where Ventress ultimately recruits Maul. In its original presentation, Ventress thins the initial herd a little, but then we get three consecutive scenes of the Nightbrothers gradually getting whittled down to the final fight where it's just Savage and Feral.

We had no emotional connection whatsoever to any of the Nightbrothers so there was no jeopardy in seeing them fight, and I wanted to regain some time in the middle of my long episode. So instead, I used some trims and audio changes here to make it so that Ventress ONLY chooses Savage and Feral. Implicitly, because she can tell that Savage is the most powerful of the group, but she recognises the Feral angle as an opportunity to break him. We can then cut straight to the final of the three trials (as our now first and only trial).

The clip for that edit is here.

 

[EddieDean]

FULL EPISODE REFOCUSING EXAMPLE:

Here's another example, this time how I cut down the middle episode of the Boba Fett trilogy from 22 minutes down to 8. The original story is three episodes: In the first, Boba infiltrates a Jedi cruiser, fails to kill Mace Windu, and crashes the cruiser instead. In the second, Anakin and Mace search the wreckage and find it boobytrapped by Boba, injuring both. And in the third, Ahsoka and Plo Koon track Boba down. I've aggregated these three into a single plot.

However, the second episode had a lot of scenes which didn't serve the underlying story, such as Boba's crew spying on Anakin and Mace's search from afar, some wild animals being fought off by R2 in a very goofy scene, and R2 actually flying to Coruscant to get help (unnecessary since the ship would likely have had a distress beacon). Instead we just focus on the beats which move the plot forward or have some emotional resonance, like Mace's ruminations on Boba.

This clip is 8 mins and also shows the transitions from the first episode and into the third episode. You can find that clip here.

 

[catferoze]

TRIM EXAMPLE:

Here's a clean trim from my Nightsisters episode. My version of the episode aggregates all three episodes in the Nightsister trilogy, preserving the majority of the content. However, there's one part in the middle which I thought dragged a fair bit, and that's the combat trial where Ventress ultimately recruits Maul. In its original presentation, Ventress thins the initial herd a little, but then we get three consecutive scenes of the Nightbrothers gradually getting whittled down to the final fight where it's just Savage and Feral.

We had no emotional connection whatsoever to any of the Nightbrothers so there was no jeopardy in seeing them fight, and I wanted to regain some time in the middle of my long episode. So instead, I used some trims and audio changes here to make it so that Ventress ONLY chooses Savage and Feral. Implicitly, because she can tell that Savage is the most powerful of the group, but she recognises the Feral angle as an opportunity to break him. We can then cut straight to the final of the three trials (as our now first and only trial).

The clip for that edit is here.

This is a great example of trimming and streamlining the series. i never liked the obstacle course competition episodes which they recycled a few times and feel like total filler.

 

[EddieDean]

That is probably the most common of the cuts I make. I don't want to break any of the canon, I just want to present a full story of the best and most important bits but where each episode is itself as polished as can be so there're no wasted moments where they drag.

For example. I'm currently cutting together the popular Umbara arc, which is rightfully very well liked, but its first and second episodes contain a load of repeated content, so they can absolutely be streamlined without depriving the viewer of any of the experience.

 

[EddieDean]

I’ve just reviewed Umbara and that’s going to be a nice easy episode to edit. I’m not going to make any fundamental changes to the story, just trim out quite a few scenes which don’t directly serve the plot.

I think Krell is a bit too overtly villainous, so I’d like to chop some of his dialogue so he’s less of a clone hater and merely someone who uses absolute obedience to ensure he can spend troops at a high rate to achieve his victories. After the reveal where he pits clone against clone, we can have more actual disdain. I’ll not show his lightsabers ignited in their first appearance either, so the threat kicks in when they try to arrest him. I also won’t have him laughing in the jungle as that’s very goofy, and I might change his motivation at the end so he’s already connected to Dooku rather than just hoping it’ll win him some favour, which retroactively makes his plan a bit weird (and kind of cheapens the fact that he managed to rise to the rank of master because surely an evil-ish master would have a better plan for serving the Empire).

I’ll also play down the blockade at the very start, so the moment when the stolen ships break the cloud cover into an overwhelming firefight can also be a nice reveal moment.

I’ll play up Fives’ character, adding in a few more instances of him being referred to by name, just to help cement him in the viewers’ minds, and I’ll also add a couple more references to Kamino to remind the viewer of how he joined the 501st. I’ll also do the same with Tup’s name if possible.

I’ll cut the opening battle to allow us to start with Krell taking over, cut almost all of the wildlife, droid banter, and the centipede-bot, because they just don’t carry any plot and this whole thing could do with some pacing tightening. I’ll also cut the scene where the clones test out the new ships, because it doesn’t change the status quo.

I’ll trim a fair few other scenes, including the infiltration of the airbase, and depending on whether this runs long or short I might trim the very first “just walk in a straight line” assault because it gives away Krell’s hatred a bit too early (and this way, the first instance of clones fighting overwhelming odds comes in a semi-justifiable way because it follows from Kenobi’s need). I might remove Dogma’s relevance to the plot though, as his arc isn’t as important or interesting as the other clones in this episode.

The only thing that’s major that I’m unsure about is whether or not to have the actual scene where the clones nearly kill their brothers by firing squad. It’s nice and tense and it’s nice to show the clones reject their orders but we get a lot of clones rejecting orders here and they do ultimately all turn on Krell, so I think we can go from the INTENTION to execute them to the interruption of the ‘Umbaran’ attack, which turns out to be an attempt at execution anyway.

 

[QuickestEditInTheWest]

This looks like a fantastic project. I've had a hankering to go back through Clone Wars for a while now. Your ideas seem extremely well thought out. Filler is the series biggest weakness, hence all the "cheat sheets" on the internet telling you which episodes to skip.

 

[EddieDean]

Quite so! I'll be sharing my thoughts both here and on OriginalTrilogy.com from now on, but if you're interested in the thought process for prior episodes that's over there too. My tracker spreadsheet (which also has the download links) also links to the places in the forums with the historical discussion, if you're interested in any of the decisions/justification.

The most recently released episode - The Politics of War (aggregating Heroes on Both Sides, Pursuit of Peace, and Senate Spy) took a lot of thinking through, and all of that thought is in the last couple of pages over there if you're interested in what an episode's work usually looks like and what some of my priorities are!

 

[EddieDean]

Dissent on Umbara (s03e03), aggregating the whole Umbara arc, clocking in at 52:07, is nearly finished.

While I cut a lot, I feel like I haven’t really changed the plot at all, as this one contained a lot of redundancy or filler. I don’t think you’d miss the excised half hour at all.

Key edits:

• Throughout, I trimmed most of Krell’s hatred of Clones, making it seem (at least early on) more like he’s just a hardliner with extreme tactics.
• I massively trimmed the combat-heavy opening where Anakin’s leading the clones. Instead we get one scene of Anakin, Rex and Dogma, before Krell arrives to take over. Now the majority of the plot happens around the airbase.
• To streamline the early plot, I removed almost all fauna combat and almost all combat against Umbaran military hardware from the first couple of episodes. Also to streamline things, I only had Krell send the clones on one suicide mission (versus the walker tanks) rather than also in a straight line against the capital. You get all the key story beats this way, just in about a quarter of the time.
• I trimmed a little of the infiltration of the airbase as well as some of the surrounding combat and discussion.
• After the clones take the airbase, I trimmed some of the discussion there, most notably removing the scene where they test and crash the aircraft, because it doesn’t change the status quo.
• In the final episode, I preserved the majority of it, mainly just cutting down the hunt for Krell in the forest to remove his evil villain speech and to speed up his capture, while preserving a lot of his physical threat. I also slightly trimmed his jail dialogue to imply he’s already a Separatist rather than just doing this all on the hope he’ll get recognised.

 

[EddieDean]

RELEASED - s03e03 - DISSENT ON UMBARA
Comprising the full Umbara quadrilogy. Notes as above, link in the tracker spreadsheet, PM for access.

(Note: While the title of this thread says "one season released", that's because it's the first season that's fully complete and pending review by the academy. I also have the second season complete, and now these first few season three episodes, for a total of 24 episodes currently available.)

 

[EddieDean]

S03E02 - Revival - is uploading now. (I produced this one out of order since I had some video issues originally which I wanted to power through to keep momentum up.)

This was an easy one, with just two trims. I cut Palpatine’ sneer at the very end, since in TCW:R I don’t want it to be explicit that Palpatine is malevolent for the sake of a chronological watch.

The other trim was removing the references to Hondo’s base being damaged by Grievous. You may be aware that due to my restructuring to make Maul more of a constant presence in this show, this particular episode (Revival) was the one which had the most impact on the plot when it was moved. Adi Gallia dies in it, which is fine since her other appearances are trimmable, and also Hondo’s base isn’t destroyed till the Younglings arc, which originally aired before this one. This was quite easy to fix - I just reference in the crawl that rival pirates have raided the base (explaining its destruction here), and then when we next see Hondo’s base in TCW:R I’ll explain that he’s rebuilt it with the funds stolen in this episode from Maul’s crashed ship, which we even see them recover.

This is the most radical change to the canon that my edit makes, and I think it’s very minor for such a high reward (that of Maul’s constant wildcard presence). I’d hope you’ll all agree!

Next up I'm going to quickly release a version of Assassin which removes the scene I've used elsewhere (even though Assassin isn't one of the recommended episodes in my Quality Cut - my 'recommended' way to watch TCW:R), then a little polish to the end of season two before I'm on to s03e04 - A Friend in Need.