Firstly, an enormous shoutout to the following people:Maple Films of https://ift.tt/2gxiLXU - The illustrator and after effects source files you released for creating custom crawls are phenomenal and without them the quality of these edits would undoutably of suffered.Redditor Tasmextended for pointing out many of the issues present in my first revision that had completely flown me by, some of which were utterly egregious.More information on my edit can be found under some posts I've made to other editing subreddits.About the editThe Clone Wars Essentials is an edit designed to condense The Clone Wars TV show and Movie into as few, feature-length style movies as possible. The goal of this edit is to introduce new Star Wars fans to the plot lines of The Clone Wars, to provide the necessary backstory for many of the plotlines in upcoming Disney+ live-action and animated shows, and provide a gateway to a future Rebels edit.This edit consists of 9 movies, varying in runtime from 1.5 to 2.5 hours, and is the culmination of many hours and failed projects related to creating a Darth Maul movie, the sacred ROTS 4 hour edit, and my own Clone Wars edits that never went anywhere.The main arcs I've aimed to hit either are core to future TV shows, or necessary for expanding on the character of Ahsoka or Anakin Skywalker, as well as always ensuring continuity between the edited movies. The naming is scheme is based on some of my favourite Star Wars books, comics or just using existing Clone Wars season names.Part 1: Way of The Apprentice (Ahsoka focused)This is a pretty simple edit of S1E16 together with The Clone Wars movie. It is foundational to introducing viewers to the characters exclusive to the show, namely Ventress, Rex, and Ahsoka, as well as helping ease you into the appearances and voices of pre-existing prequel characters. It is standalone.This part provides backstory for the Mandalorian and Ahsoka live action shows.Part 2: Tides of War (Story/Anthology focused)Parts 2 and 3 are the most complex edits of the collection and together form complete stories. Part 2 is a combination of several arcs; The Second Battle of Geonosis using episodes S2E05, S2E06; the first part of the Mandalore Corruption arc using S3E05; the first part of the Domino Squad arc using S3E01; the first part of Death Watch arc using S2E12.This part provides backstory for the Mandalorian and Ahsoka live action shows.Part 3: Battle Lines (Story/Anthology focused)A direct sequel to Part 2, it essentially finishes all of the previously mentioned arcs; the remainder of The Second Battle of Geonosis using episode S2E08; the remainder of the Mandalore Corruption arc using S3E06; the remainder of the Domino Squad arc using S3E03 and S3E02; and the remainder of the Death Watch arc using S2E13 and S2E14. Tides of War and Battle Lines are sort of anthology movies in that they tell similar but not always connected storylines. The Domino Squad sections are vital for future Parts using Echo and Fives, the Geonosis section helps characterise prequel Anakin a lot, provides Ahsoka character development, and introduces Bariss Offee who is an essential character later on.This part provides backstory for the Mandalorian and Ahsoka live action shows.Part 4: Dark Forces Rising (Ventress focused)Part 4 and 5 form complete stories too. They are focused around sith assassin Ventress and her clan of Nightsisters. Parts 4 and 5 are wholly told from the perspective of the "villains". As a stylistic rule, much like the show, I use red instead of yellow for the logo, and in my case the crawl, to denote movies told from the villains perspective, or focused mostly around villains. Part 4 is made up of 2 arcs; the Nightsisters arc using episodes S3E12, S3E13 and S3E14; a section of the Bounty Hunters arc using S4E20; finally it uses the entirety of S4E21 and part of S4E22 from the Return of Darth Maul arc. Almost everything here is essentially to create the basic plot threads for following Ventress' story and that of Darth Maul.Part 5: Son of Dathomir (Darth Maul focused)Following on from Part 4, this movie shows us the return of Darth Maul, and his interaction with Mandalore and Obi-Wan. It uses the remainder of the Return of Darth Maul arc S4E22, and then the Shadow Collective arc using episodes S5E01, S5E14, S5E15, S5E16. Although standalone with Part 4, these two parts are essential to Part 9 of the collection.This part may provide backstory for the Obi-Wan or Andor live-action shows.Part 6: A New Dawn (Ahsoka focused)This is a very basic edit of a complete arc, however, the Jedi Temple Bombing arc is also crucial to the events of future collections, as well providing further characterisation to Ahsoka. It uses episodes S5E17, S5E18, S5E19 and S5E20. New Dawn works as a standalone movie.This part provides backstory for the Ahsoka live action show.Part 7: Cloak of Deception (Clone/Fives focused)Again, just a basic edit of a complete arc. The Inhibitor Chip arc just explains order 66, but is also essential to storyline of Part 9 and potentially Star Wars Rebels. It uses episodes S6E01, S6E02, S6E03 and S6E04. Works as a standalone.This part provides backstory for the Bad Batch animated show.Part 8: The Bad Batch (Bad Batch/Clone focused)As above, this is just the entirety of the Bad Batch arc, which will essential for viewers of the Bad Batch tv show, or of any future Bad Batch edit. It uses S7E01, S7E02, S7E03 and S7E04. Works as a standalone.This part provides backstory for the Bad Batch animated show.Part 9: Shadows of the Empire (Maul/Ahsoka focused)This is the closing arc of The Clone Wars, and honestly is structured pretty much like a movie. It provides closure on the stories of Ahsoka, Maul, Bo-Katan and Mandalore as a whole. It uses S7E09, S7E10, S7E11 and S7E12.This part provides backstory for the Mandalorian, Ahsoka, Obi-Wan and potentially Andor live-action show.Release 1.1 Fixes:Part 1 had a really big typo on the intro. I rerendered the intro and part in question and that seems to have resolved it.Part 3 was missing an entire episodes video, it would just go to red. I have done my best to correct this, but it was bit tricky. I apologise for any still existing issues with Part 3, you may notice mouths go very very slightly out of sync, and I also lost some of my nicer wipe transitions.Part 4 was missing a fade of the main star wars theme which caused audio issues as well as some typos in the intro crawl. There was also odd stuttering on the crawl, I'm blaming this one on Adobe.Part 6 had flickering on the intro despite the source material being the same as all other intros, so I rerendered in after effects, rerendered in Da Vinci resolve and it's now fine.FAQ:What are the technical specs of the video?It is 1920x816 (as the compressor just disposes of the black bars). If your video player of choice is stretching these to 16:9/standard widescreen, please set it to 2.35:1/21:9 for correct aspect ration. It is encoded in H264 at 3mbps and AAC Stereo audio at 320kps. Although I could have encoded in H265 or NVENC H264, I wanted to ensure good compatability with as many devices as possible.I do have higher bitrate versions on my own PC as the source files before compression, but currently they are a pain to upload anywhere given storage limitations and my current upload speed. They are also of wildly different quality, as I switched to DaVinci resolve for some of the later edits, and one edit refused to render using my custom preset so I had to use a stock adobe present. If anyone is interested, I do have higher quality versions for all, generally 10-15MBPS and one is 32MBPS because thanks Adobe.Why is it in stereo audio?Because I found premiere pro a pain to deal with 5.1. Also for whatever reason some of the episodes ripped in stereo and others in 5.1, I think this may just be to do with some being part of the Season 1-5 complete collection, while I have final season 6 seperately, and season 7 is not available on physical media yet.Are some of your edits lazy?In terms of creativity, definitely. Parts 6, 7, 8 and 9 are just pre-existing 4 episode arcs and contain basically zero restructuring outside of maybe one scene here of there so that I can have clean audio transitions or nice tonal transitions, or so that an episode ending doesn't go straight into a heavy action sequence of a new episode. Personally though, I would rather take the time to create crawl intros, and make the arcs into a complete, nicely flowing movie than be like "Okay, so after Part 5 guys, I recommend you go download/watch these episodes/arcs." This creates a whole experience/package with stylistic cohesion.Why did you leave out X episode/arc?I have tried to condense down The Clone Wars to its absolute limits while preserving chronology, character development and providing the necessary exposition or backstory for other stories in the Star Wars universe. Among some of the Episodes I chose to cut for various reasons are:S2E07 Legacy of Terror. This is technically part of the Geonosis arc, but it hampered pacing and tone of Part 2/3, so it was cut.S1E01-04 The Malevolence Arc. While a nice, slow introduction to the show, it provides no lasting story purpose.S1E19-21 The Ryloth Arc. Same as the above, its a good arc but not crucial to anything.S3E15-17 The Mortis Arc. This was definitely a potential candidate for an edit, but with only 3 episodes and nothing to really fit around it like Parts 2 and 3 to create an anthology movie, it doesn't really work and only provides backstory for Anakin/Ahsoka.S3E18-20 The Citadel Arc. This was actually in the running as a potential Part to be done after Part 3, but like Overlords it didn't provide enough material as a 4 episodes arc and stand out as crucial to the rest of the story.S4E7-11 The Umbara Arc. A fantastic arc that is foundational to the wider Clone Wars story, but does nothing to progress any of our main characters except Fives/Rex.S5E02-05 The Onderon Arc. Same as Mortis.Anything related to Hondo. While Hondo is a fantastic character, he is almost always appears as side-character in a single episode as part of an arc or a standalone. There isn't really anywhere to fit him in besides where he naturally shows up in other crucial arcs.Is this legal?If you own the Blu-Ray editions of The Clone Wars season 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, then yes, this should be legal for the most part, except for Part 8 and 9 which use Season 7 footage and Disney haven't bothered to release physical media for them outside of Disney+. I have a Disney+ sub and myself feel no guilt whatsoever about downloading pirated rips of the Episode for editing purposes. The crawls are generated by me using Adobe After Effects from the publicly released source files by MapleFilms, and one piece of royalty-free audio lifted from youtube created by the community.I want to watch only the parts I need for X show, what should I watch?Of the upcoming shows, I would recommend watching the following parts of the collection for each if you only want the absolute essentials and don't mind being a bit confused about certain characters.The Mandalorian - Parts 2, 3, 4, 5 and 9.Ahsoka - Parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 9.Andor (On the presumption Maul will be in it) - Parts 4, 5 and 9.Obi-Wan Kenobi - Parts 2, 3, 4 and 5.The Bad Batch - Parts 7 and 8.Personally, I do not think Parts 7 and 8 are all that integral to the overall experience, even if they do slightly impact Part 9, but they are there for completion sake and were easy to edit.I hope you enjoy the edit as much as I enjoyed making it. via /r/StarWars https://ift.tt/2WO7Lgf
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