Star Wars: The Clone Wars – 6x10-6x13
Aug. 16th, 2021 10:58 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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tori_reviewsIn which I make a lot of references to Babylon 5, even more than usual. You know, I may have watched Star Wars from an even earlier age (as I literally do not remember the first time I saw it), but when it comes to philosophy, you're going to get B5 references from me.
Star Wars: The Clone Wars – 6x10-6x13 (arc 4)
This one is confusing. I kind of want to give it the same ranking as the previous arc, that the fact I didn’t hate it means it’s better than it probably should be. But I also feel a lot more…like my time was wasted. Part of the problem is that the episodes basically kept getting worse and more boring so the ‘decent’ stamp I might have given it for the first couple episodes didn’t hold for the last couple.
Along the same lines, I kind of didn’t hate Yoda in this one…and yet I still kind of do. Again, in the first couple episodes, when he wanted something (answers) he seemed more like a person than usual, even a little like troll Yoda in his bits with Anakin; but then we get to the second half and the writing refuses to actually challenge him. And the fact that it thinks it is challenging him kind of makes it worse; because he doesn’t really grow from any of it.
The arrogance that suddenly shows up during his test isn’t his usual arrogance, in fact it’s kind of out of character. And then the end hasn’t done anything about his actual arrogance of thinking he knows better than everyone else.
And the last challenge…I wish it wasn’t Anakin that he was trying to save in his vision. Because I’m sitting here thinking of Delenn (maybe I should just rewatch B5, even though it’s kind of sad with so many of the actors dead now) and her ‘life is my cause’ proclamation. That it is always the saving people that is important. But because it’s Anakin, I feel like it’s because *Anakin* is supposed to be more important because he’s the Chosen One. Would Yoda sacrifice so much for Plo? Maybe, because he’s a Jedi. What about Rex? Is life your cause Yoda? Because I don’t buy it from this episode…or most any other.
It was kind of a problem even in RotJ but definitely by the time you get to RotS that the philosophy behind the blue glowies never quite worked. How did Anakin manage to ascend if that’s not just what happens to Force users? And the question becomes more glaring if you say that it’s something you have to study and prepare for. Sure, maybe it’s a Chosen One thing, but I still find it badly established.
To go back to the first episode of the arc; the one that was vaguely interesting and probably gave me more to actually think about than the later parts, but I also have to continue to question the Jedi’s attitude toward the Clones. Though not in the slavery way I usually do. Why has it taken them this long to look into the origin of the Clones? Obi-wan was given leads in AotC, but no one bothered to try and retrace what happened?
Also, you guys kind of deserved to get wiped out (the Council more so than the Jedi as a whole); both for taking so long to do any investigation and for not doing more to figure out what a renegade Jedi might have thought was a good idea for the Clones. I’m also not sure if this should have happened, narratively, before or after Fives’ last arc. Either way, they’re kind of idiots for not at least considering that they should look into the chips further when the army was commissioned by Dooku and co.
And then there’s the ever present contradiction in the Jedi’s behavior, that I’m not always sure is supposed to be there, but pretty much always is. Because they didn’t come to rescue the non-Jedi guy, they came because they were looking into what happened to a Jedi. They left a regular guy to rot in prison and barely managed to find out he was there even when they did look into it. Again, it ties back to the Delenn bit. They don’t care about all life, they care about lives they deem important enough.
Also, Yoda has taken (what was for a long time) the whole series and this mythical quest to learn that the war is bad and they could lose. He’s a super smart little guy isn’t he?
~~~~~
I’m not going to spend a lot of time on the philosophizing in this story, but I was mostly bored by it. I didn’t really follow it, but not in a way that I want to keep pondering it. As sometimes happens though, when it gets into this kind of stuff I just retreat behind asking what my long running rp character would think of it. And she would definitely not pass the tests, but also kind of be okay with that. What matters is what we love and what we create during the time we have (or put another way: what is built endures, and what is loved endures; though I suppose Babylon 5 doesn’t endure in this universe). The rest of it, the Cosmic Force, the Living Force, the Light Side, the Dark Side…none of that is as important as who we are, what we do, and the bonds we make with others.
As I think I’ve said before, this character would not have gotten along with Yoda. They both would have thought the other was super dangerous.
Star Wars: The Clone Wars – 6x10-6x13 (arc 4)
This one is confusing. I kind of want to give it the same ranking as the previous arc, that the fact I didn’t hate it means it’s better than it probably should be. But I also feel a lot more…like my time was wasted. Part of the problem is that the episodes basically kept getting worse and more boring so the ‘decent’ stamp I might have given it for the first couple episodes didn’t hold for the last couple.
Along the same lines, I kind of didn’t hate Yoda in this one…and yet I still kind of do. Again, in the first couple episodes, when he wanted something (answers) he seemed more like a person than usual, even a little like troll Yoda in his bits with Anakin; but then we get to the second half and the writing refuses to actually challenge him. And the fact that it thinks it is challenging him kind of makes it worse; because he doesn’t really grow from any of it.
The arrogance that suddenly shows up during his test isn’t his usual arrogance, in fact it’s kind of out of character. And then the end hasn’t done anything about his actual arrogance of thinking he knows better than everyone else.
And the last challenge…I wish it wasn’t Anakin that he was trying to save in his vision. Because I’m sitting here thinking of Delenn (maybe I should just rewatch B5, even though it’s kind of sad with so many of the actors dead now) and her ‘life is my cause’ proclamation. That it is always the saving people that is important. But because it’s Anakin, I feel like it’s because *Anakin* is supposed to be more important because he’s the Chosen One. Would Yoda sacrifice so much for Plo? Maybe, because he’s a Jedi. What about Rex? Is life your cause Yoda? Because I don’t buy it from this episode…or most any other.
It was kind of a problem even in RotJ but definitely by the time you get to RotS that the philosophy behind the blue glowies never quite worked. How did Anakin manage to ascend if that’s not just what happens to Force users? And the question becomes more glaring if you say that it’s something you have to study and prepare for. Sure, maybe it’s a Chosen One thing, but I still find it badly established.
To go back to the first episode of the arc; the one that was vaguely interesting and probably gave me more to actually think about than the later parts, but I also have to continue to question the Jedi’s attitude toward the Clones. Though not in the slavery way I usually do. Why has it taken them this long to look into the origin of the Clones? Obi-wan was given leads in AotC, but no one bothered to try and retrace what happened?
Also, you guys kind of deserved to get wiped out (the Council more so than the Jedi as a whole); both for taking so long to do any investigation and for not doing more to figure out what a renegade Jedi might have thought was a good idea for the Clones. I’m also not sure if this should have happened, narratively, before or after Fives’ last arc. Either way, they’re kind of idiots for not at least considering that they should look into the chips further when the army was commissioned by Dooku and co.
And then there’s the ever present contradiction in the Jedi’s behavior, that I’m not always sure is supposed to be there, but pretty much always is. Because they didn’t come to rescue the non-Jedi guy, they came because they were looking into what happened to a Jedi. They left a regular guy to rot in prison and barely managed to find out he was there even when they did look into it. Again, it ties back to the Delenn bit. They don’t care about all life, they care about lives they deem important enough.
Also, Yoda has taken (what was for a long time) the whole series and this mythical quest to learn that the war is bad and they could lose. He’s a super smart little guy isn’t he?
~~~~~
I’m not going to spend a lot of time on the philosophizing in this story, but I was mostly bored by it. I didn’t really follow it, but not in a way that I want to keep pondering it. As sometimes happens though, when it gets into this kind of stuff I just retreat behind asking what my long running rp character would think of it. And she would definitely not pass the tests, but also kind of be okay with that. What matters is what we love and what we create during the time we have (or put another way: what is built endures, and what is loved endures; though I suppose Babylon 5 doesn’t endure in this universe). The rest of it, the Cosmic Force, the Living Force, the Light Side, the Dark Side…none of that is as important as who we are, what we do, and the bonds we make with others.
As I think I’ve said before, this character would not have gotten along with Yoda. They both would have thought the other was super dangerous.
