I’ve been a bit lax in reviewing Star Wars: The Clone Wars this last month. A big part of that had to do with getting comfortable with my new blog (all posting has been down on my part) and part of it had been that until earlier this week, I was a few episodes behind.
Now, I intend to get caught up. The season finale just aired and so I’ve got four episodes that I haven’t discussed. I’m going to talk about them, then give my overall impressions of the series. Here we go!
Storm Over Ryloth
Ahsoka disobeys Anakin’s orders and loses most of her squadron — prompting Anakin to help give his Padawan a lesson in a respect for authority and the opportunity for redemption.
Really, this episode was “take it or leave it” for me. The story is about Anakin and Ahsoka having to break a blockade over the planet of Ryloth so that Obi-Wan Kenobi can bring troops in and begin a liberation of the enslaved Twi’lek people. Right off the bat, Ahsoka looses almost an entire squadron of starfighters, which shakes her confidence and Anakin has to restore it if his padawan is going to help him lead the attack on the blockade.
It sounds good on paper, but the execution was just off and the emotions that the episode is trying to convey never really reverberate to the audience. That idea just barely falls flat and for the life of me, I couldn’t figure out why until just a few minutes ago when it dawned on me: no one “important” is lost. In previous episodes when clones have died and the show has wanted the viewer to feel the loss, they’ve at least built up the characters a bit before disposing of them. Not here. A bunch of near-nameless, completely personality-less clones are killed, Ahsoka feels bad, and we’re asked to do the same but it’s hard when nothing differentiated this batch of clones from the others that get wasted on a weekly basis other than they are Ahsoka’s. Had it been Rex and his lot getting blown away, yeah, we’d feel bad as there’s emotional attachment: but in this case, these clones are just helmets with names.
That’s not to say that there aren’t good moments. The new Neimoidian commmander Mar Tuuk was intriguing and I’m glad Lucasfilm changed their original plan of killing him off and reanimated the ending so that he escapes. Also, Anakin and Ahsoka’s final attack plan at last showed some creativity in the big capital ship fights that I’ve kind of felt has been lacking from the Star Wars series as a whole and I hope this cartoon begins expanding on big ship battle strategies.
But like I said, despite a few good elements, there’s not much else. It’s not bad per se, it just isn’t much of anything.
Innocents of Ryloth
To sabotage a powerful Separatist weapon, Obi-Wan and a small clone force enter an occupied town, and discover that its residents are being used as a living shield.
Luckily, I liked this episode much better. Of course, in the previous episode, Anakin and Ahsoka were eventually successful and Obi-Wan is able to land his troops on the planet. His mission: take out the large cannons so that Mace Windu can land more troops and free the capital city.
While the previous episode lacked an emotional core, this one has one in spades. Two of Obi-Wan’s scouts find a presumably orphaned Twi’lek girl in an abandoned village and the three of them bond as the clones protect her. It was actually pretty effective and I really liked the two clones who shared the spotlight with Obi-Wan in this one. I’m hoping we see more of them down the line.
Also, Obi-Wan had what has become my single-most favorite Jedi moment of the series thus far when he uses the Force against some ravenous beasts. It really made me stop and go “Holy crap!” (even if I didn’t say it out loud) and makes me feel that the Jedi need to be having more of these kind of moments in the series.
And finally, a battle droid cleaning a cage had a bit of humor that I genuinely felt worked, was funny, and made me gut-laugh.
Overall, though, the episode was good - not great, but pretty decent and pretty typical of what I’ve come to expect out of the series. This one is basically par for the course for how the show’s been going and a good one to show people if they want a general feel for how the series is.
Liberty on Ryloth
With his forces stretched thin, Mace Windu must convince Twi’lek freedom fighter Cham Syndulla to help him save the capital city from the droids destruction.
With Obi-Wan completing his mission in the previous episode, Mace is free to attempt to retake the Twi’lek capital city in this, the last part of the “Ryloth Trilogy.”
Although Mace does have to sway the freedom fighter and his forces to bolster Mace’s troops so that they have a large enough army to free the capital, don’t let that little bit of story fool you - this episode is about action; nothing more, nothing less. And if there is one thing that the Clone Wars cartoon does well, it’s action.
Mace had more than one “Holy crap!” moment in this one and it’s good seeing Jedi getting to be more than just ultimate soldiers. Mainly in the series, they’ve been using Force pushes while leaping about and swinging lightsabers. That’s all fine and good, but without using the Force in other instances, the Jedi as presented thus far have been kind of underplayed. Between Obi-Wan in the last episode and Mace in this one, you get to see Jedi do what Jedi should do and it’s a refreshing change of pace.
Other than that, there really isn’t anything in this episode. It’s an out and out action piece, as it should be as the third act of a trilogy. The Ryloth Trilogy itself was pretty well handled and it was interesting to see various aspects of one military conflict, from Anakin and Ahsoka’s space front, to Obi-Wan’s espionage and sabotage mission, to Mace’s final push for the capital. I liked the depth of the liberation in that aspect and hope that the series continues to show that the Clone Wars are more than just ships shooting at each other and Jedi hacking up droids.
Hostage Crisis
To free crime lord Ziro the Hutt, bounty hunters seize control of the Senate Building and take hostages — completely unaware that Jedi Knight Anakin Skywalker is still inside.
The season finale frustrated me. As a final episode of the season, I didn’t feel like it had enough “oomph” in comparison to several of the earlier episodes, especially the episodes Cloak of Darkness and Duel of the Droids. Yet, I know that they saved this episode for last to serve as a teaser for the next season (the preview for Season 2 at the end of the episode shows as much). But that’s just it - it felt like the appetizer before the meal. Good on its own right but not quite enough to sustain me. I wanted more and not in the “Holy crap, that was awesome!” way that I think the show’s creative team intended but in the “That was good but where’s the rest of it?” kind of a way that left me wanting.
Apart from that, the episode had one other issue that became even a bigger nuisance for me after the last two parts of the Ryloth Trilogy. In those episodes, the Jedi were Jedi-esque. Here, Anakin is without lightsaber and doing his best John McClane impersonation but is still kind of weak. He barely uses the Force against the bounty hunters and pretty much gets owned by them. And that’s a weakness that I think the series has overall: when the writers need the Jedi in peril, they forget that they can use the Force. However, when the writers need them to do something amazing, suddenly the Force is back on. There seems to be no logic in the way the Jedi do or do not use their powers and it appears based on whatever is convenient to the plot. This episode and The Gungan General seem to exemplify that shortcoming best.
That said, that seems like an awful lot of negetive for an episode that I didn’t feel was a bad episode. It actually was pretty good as a tease for things to come, which is the rise of the bounty hunters in the Clone Wars. The lead bounty hunter, Cad Bane, didn’t really do much apart from planning the whole attack, but his few moments of ruthlessness were enough to make me go “There’s more to this guy than what they’re showing us,” and I’m looking forward to seeing his character expand and grow in the coming season. Also, his sniper, Aurra Sing (who appeared briefly in Star Wars: The Phantom Menace as a pod race spectator) has been mentioned as having an expanded role in Season 2 as well, and I find that very intriguing. And Ziro the Hutt returned and that makes me happy as I’m not one of the Ziro-haters and thoroughly enjoyed his character in the movie The Clone Wars. I’m hoping we get to see more of him as the series progresses.
But yeah, like I said, while a good episode in its own right and an exciting taste of things to come, it was just lacking as cap to the season.
Season One Thoughts
In the beginning, I was a bit skeptical of the show. The movie actually genuinely entertained me, but the first few episodes I found a bit lacking. However, as the show’s progressed it’s gotten stronger in all departments - writing, animation, action, and character development. It changed from something I started watching because of my frightening loyalty to Star Wars to actual “Must See TV.” I know that a lot of people in my age range refused to watch it as they were put off by the animation style, as well as having a bad taste left in their mouth by the prequels. I think these are weak excuses that people are letting get in the way of enjoying a truly good cartoon. The animation actually isn’t bad at all and has only improved as the series has moved on (Dave Filoni has said in interviews that the animation in the first several episodes was severely limited by budgetary constraints). And also, this isn’t the prequels - it’s much better and as it turns out, this is the Star Wars that I wish the prequels had been. When I think of the characters from the prequel era - Anakin Skywalker, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Padme Amidala - I find that I think of their Clone Wars interpretation, not their movie counterparts.
While it’s true that the series has had a few The Phantom Menace moments, that’s not typically what it is. At times, it has the best elements of A New Hope. Other episodes share the darkness and depth of The Empire Strikes Back. This cartoon is fun. This show is worth watching.
This series is Star Wars.
Top Five Favorite Episodes of Season One
1). Cloak of Darkness
2). Duel of the Droids
3). Trespass
4). Mystery of a Thousand Moons
5). Jedi Crash
I’ve been playing a lot of Worms on my Playstation 3. Believe it or not, I only became aware of this series last year. I downloaded it from the Playstation Store and now I’m addicted. My buddy Andy and I have spent several late nights holy hand grenading the crap out of each other. I highly recommend it to those who aren’t familiar with it. You can read IGN’s review on the game here.
