Clone Wars: Refocused, The

I haven't watched the Clone Wars in years so I'm coming at this with more or less fresh eyes. I've only watched season 1 so far, but it's fabulous! Removing the cheesy scenes and episodes, and then restructuring it makes it so enjoyable! And moving some of the major storylines earlier and then having the themes run through the whole series is really really good. I can't imagine how much organizing it took to restructure it to this level (I'm picturing a wall full of red thread and sticky notes, like a crime board!). Thank you for all your hard work, and I'm looking forward to watching the rest!

EDITED TO ADD: I just finished all the seasons and this is phenomenal! The editor took away all the silly cheesy, annoying things (but not all the humour) and turned this into an absolute epic. The build up to the inevitable end was just heart-breaking, but in a stunningly good way.

Yes, there were some scenes and dialogue (especially in the earlier) episodes that were still kind of painful, but they were shorter and were the fault of the original material, not the editing. I also loved the new introductory and closing music and the artwork at the end. Overall, this was much more adult storytelling and...just better in every way.

This will be my go-to version forever more! Thank you for all your hard work!

Now, this is far from your typical fanedit. We have here an incredibly intricate, multifaceted, living project which allows the viewer total latitude as to what is going to be seen, how, and when.

I myself have to say this very latitude is worth an incredible amount, as I myself am forever attached to smudger9’s five magnificent film edits, and so then, without missing a beat, pick up on season 3.

Clone Wars is a flawed masterpiece of storytelling (the best kind?), making sure we are swept along its arc dutifully. Eddie has here captured the essence of it: no “news on the March” narration, but instead a very compelling opening, musical accompaniment setting the stage. This is the Way.

Clone Wars had an assumed tendency to silliness, jettisoned here. We have instead a lean, hard vision, and while we have those battle droids still to contend with (“uh…sir…”) and some dialogue that’s a real scream (“I sense Dooku’s dirty hand in this!” - Padme), it’s all part of the journey.

From seasons 3 to 5 here, I’m not the biggest on the banking clan and “politics of war” eps, but the beauty is being able to create your own. Eddie has fashioned it so no matter your path, you’ll still end up with your breath stolen away at that finale. It’s as good as ever (*Eddie, any way you could cut to a reverent black for 10 seconds or so after that final shot before the credits?)

One of the newest pleasures of fan editing I have encountered. Bravo and thanks, indeed, Eddie, for sharing the journey. My daughter and I just finished the finale and she was absolutely blown away. Star Wars is inevitably part of her life, and your presentation of this story is one that should be introduced to everyone this new generation.

This review was a long time coming. I think I finished watching this edit a bit over a year ago. Visual and audio quality appear nearly flawless. Others pointed out some issues, but I personally was unable to notice anything personally. Heck, to edit this volume of material and have it mostly accurate is an incomprehensible achievement in of itself.

This Clone Wars project took a monumental effort over the course of several years with ongoing continuous improvement editing an entire TV series - this requires much more blood, sweat, and tears compared to an edit of a single movie. Besides the Clone Wars, the edit includes the Ahsoka material from Tales of the Jedi and a portion of the Tartakovsky Clone Wars where Anakin is knighted.

Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed nearly all of the material (I had a few issues, but there is no such thing as 100% agreement - expanded upon in the next paragraph). The editor accomplished removing nearly all of the excessively childish material that dragged down the show.

I liked the spreadsheet the editor utilizes to organize all the content of the edit. Every single episode will have a corresponding link to a detailed description of the edit to the individual episode. The editor provides recommendations in the spreadsheet for which episodes to watch depending on what you are looking for. That makes it easy to skip episodes you have no interest in. In that regard, you can make the Clone Wars narrative effectively perfect for your own viewing pleasure. Unfortunately, some of the weaker episodes still need to be viewed as they intertwine with the rest of the material, but the editor does a fine job of minimizing the weakness of those episodes.

I want to thank the editor for sharing this with me. It provided great pleasure and I strongly recommend this to other [animated] Star Wars fans as well. An absolute must-watch over the original without question.

Job well done here.