Star Wars: The Clone Wars 1x05-x07
Jan. 15th, 2021 04:15 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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tori_reviewsStar Wars: The Clone Wars – 1x05: "Rookies"
Well, back to not being sure how I feel about an episode. In a way I feel myself a bit more sold on the series, except I'm not sure I'm sold on it as a series.
By that I mean that it's kind of like the first episode, this feels like a short story to give us the flavor of the Clone Wars (the event not the show, this is why I probably should use better grammar) without a lot of expectation of past or future development. And thinking about that I wonder if, at least s1 of this show, wasn't more conceived in that way than as on ongoing story. I've heard the show improves a lot in s2, so my theory is that it figures out how to be a story at that point instead of a series of vignettes.
As this is our first real clone focused episode I have some thoughts. For starters, as expected, this plays havoc with my level of face blindness. I mean, they all have the same basic face and I'm not the most aware of subtle differences that can distinguish them. So much of my ability to tell people apart has to do with hair style, so Rex stands out, but the clones (especially the shinies) don't have a lot of hair choice either. But, in so far as I could tell the characters here apart, the show did a nice job of giving them different characters and establishing that they are unique people even if they are genetically the same.
I'm not sure what to make of the portrayal of our regular heroes in this. Is it supposed to be funny that we keep cutting back to them being clueless, or is it to build tension? It does a little of both, but doing both kind of cancel each other out. I wouldn't want to say for sure yet that this is what the writers were going for (I don't have a keen enough sense of how thoughtful they are yet), but I'd almost call it another sign of them not being very good Jedi. They clearly have an instinct that there's something up, but they're not listening to it, instead going by the obvious data they have instead of the implied flaws in it.
I think I'll have to tamp down on my need to figure out the timeframes involved in these stories. I can already tell that that way lies madness and confusion. I can't promise it won't happen, because it's a thing I do really often, but I can already tell I need to rein it in.
Star Wars: The Clone Wars – 1x06: "Downfall of a Droid"
I'm not sure how much longer I'll want to stick with doing reviews of this show, I think I might like it a little more if I was just watching it instead of trying to review it. I'm not stopping yet, but maybe if I keep feeling this way I should look into reviewing sets of episodes instead of individual ones. There just doesn't seem to be that much material in each episode to talk about, the pacing is a problem being split up this much, and while I'm liking the show well enough I'm not being sucked into it so far.
It seems I come out of each episode with a couple critiques but not a lot of material to really sink my teeth into. So I feel like I come off a lot more complainy than I want to. I think it's a matter of engagement; and most of the shows I've done reviews for have been shows I already had some level of engagement with before starting the reviews (the exception might be She-Ra, and you'll note those reviews were by and large pretty short and I never went back to that). Here I'm trying to develop engagement with the show around doing the reviews, and I'm not sure I'm liking doing it that way.
Still, I think my complainy note of the ep probably would have occurred to me anyway; why doesn't the Republic have actual commanders who aren't Jedi? How is Ahsoka in charge? Why is 20 year old, not military trained, Anakin in charge? I think it would make more sense that the army had actual commanders, and the Jedi were there to advise and defend. They are very useful, but that doesn't mean they should be in charge.
As I say that...should I put that down as part of Palpatine's plan? To make the Jedi seem power hungry when the trap springs? Also to stretch them thin and probably get several killed?
Also, and this has been brewing in my mind for a few episodes, plus I'm not sure if this is real world commentary or just weird in-verse, but neither side seems to have many regular people fighting. The clones were born and bred for this (and don't seem to have a presence in society at large), and the Separatists use droids. How many people, especially in the Republic, even know they're at war? I assume the military-industrial complex of the Republic has been ramped up to keep up with demands for the war effort, and maybe taxes are higher, but people likely aren't being asked to sacrifice much for it. Unless your planet happens to end up the crosshairs, it probably isn't really a factor in your life.
I'm sure it says something that I have almost nothing to say about the actual plot of the episode; maybe that's why I think I'd be more interested if I just kept going, maybe the next part of the story will have a point.
Star Wars: The Clone Wars – 1x07: "Duel of the Droids"
Well, that was a better half of this pair (I assume that's the end of the arc). And I do feel a little more qualified to talk about it as a whole story. If I feel the same with a couple more arcs, I will have to consider reviewing it that way (editing note, I haven't switched it up yet, but the possibility remains).
I thought it was pretty clear last ep that there was something very wrong with R3, so I wasn't exactly surprised he turned out to be a traitor. Last ep I was more complaining that they didn't have to make the new droid so incompetent that obviously they had to get R2 back, and for us and the characters to want him back; maybe Asoka could have a droid too. But the specific way he screwed up Anakin's stuff last ep had me a little suspicious R3 wasn't just incompetent.
Also, I'm sort of torn on this next point. On one hand, it's clearly important to the series that they establish R2 as a character and his importance to Anakin and others. On the other hand, I feel like I have to point out that R2 had been Padme's droid most of his existence rather than Anakin's, so I'm not sure when they forged this deep bond. The former point means they definitely needed to do an episode like this early on, but the latter says it would have been better if it came later. And that confusion also changes how I see Anakin's actions here. If they've been together for a couple years now (somehow) then I absolutely buy this devotion and while it does hint at him being overly attached to a droid it's not without reason; but if it's only been a handful of months then Anakin just seems reckless and his attachment issues are definitely strong enough to warrant a check-up.
This also echoes my feelings from a couple episodes ago about the time frame here (I's largely sticking to the resolution not to pay *too* much attention to it though); if the Clone Wars seem to stretch on for many years as opposed to the 2-3 that was implied in the movies, then Anakin's fall to the dark side takes on a very different flavor. The movies still paint him largely as a reckless young man if not still kind of a kid come ep3; but if he's a battle scarred veteran of 10 years of combat (where he was expected to lead while he was barely old enough to be in the army) then his difficulties with the Jedi make more sense but the reasons for turning shouldn't then be about Padme.
I hope they can pull this transition off; because if the story had been planned out there's a lot of ways to show that Anakin's traits of protectiveness and responsibility can be turned against itself to be a dangerous thing. Especially if they take the time to show it and accustom the audience to seeing it as a good thing before the wheel starts to turn. I'm not sure yet that they're doing that was well as they could so far, and I'll admit it would be hard when the audience already knows how the story goes. But here Anakin shows a lot of protectiveness for R2 but that contributes to getting clones killed (and I'm not sure how the couple who survive weren't killed by Grevious) and that trade doesn't sit right with me. Plus a lot of Anakin's actions seem framed as dangerous already, but that could be foreknowledge talking.
When Grevious showed up before and we didn't see him use the lightsabers, I thought we might get an ongoing story beat through the series of how he got the multi-wield setup he had in ep3 (I'm pretty sure those were supposed to be taken from dead Jedi, but I might be confusing things). Here he's already got a couple of sabers, so that story jumped forward instead of being a slow build.
Also, at what point are they just taunting OT fans with how much R2 can do? He was always a good droid, but there's a reason why the rocket thrusters went over like a lead balloon in ep2, and now the writers seem to keep adding on.
Well, back to not being sure how I feel about an episode. In a way I feel myself a bit more sold on the series, except I'm not sure I'm sold on it as a series.
By that I mean that it's kind of like the first episode, this feels like a short story to give us the flavor of the Clone Wars (the event not the show, this is why I probably should use better grammar) without a lot of expectation of past or future development. And thinking about that I wonder if, at least s1 of this show, wasn't more conceived in that way than as on ongoing story. I've heard the show improves a lot in s2, so my theory is that it figures out how to be a story at that point instead of a series of vignettes.
As this is our first real clone focused episode I have some thoughts. For starters, as expected, this plays havoc with my level of face blindness. I mean, they all have the same basic face and I'm not the most aware of subtle differences that can distinguish them. So much of my ability to tell people apart has to do with hair style, so Rex stands out, but the clones (especially the shinies) don't have a lot of hair choice either. But, in so far as I could tell the characters here apart, the show did a nice job of giving them different characters and establishing that they are unique people even if they are genetically the same.
I'm not sure what to make of the portrayal of our regular heroes in this. Is it supposed to be funny that we keep cutting back to them being clueless, or is it to build tension? It does a little of both, but doing both kind of cancel each other out. I wouldn't want to say for sure yet that this is what the writers were going for (I don't have a keen enough sense of how thoughtful they are yet), but I'd almost call it another sign of them not being very good Jedi. They clearly have an instinct that there's something up, but they're not listening to it, instead going by the obvious data they have instead of the implied flaws in it.
I think I'll have to tamp down on my need to figure out the timeframes involved in these stories. I can already tell that that way lies madness and confusion. I can't promise it won't happen, because it's a thing I do really often, but I can already tell I need to rein it in.
Star Wars: The Clone Wars – 1x06: "Downfall of a Droid"
I'm not sure how much longer I'll want to stick with doing reviews of this show, I think I might like it a little more if I was just watching it instead of trying to review it. I'm not stopping yet, but maybe if I keep feeling this way I should look into reviewing sets of episodes instead of individual ones. There just doesn't seem to be that much material in each episode to talk about, the pacing is a problem being split up this much, and while I'm liking the show well enough I'm not being sucked into it so far.
It seems I come out of each episode with a couple critiques but not a lot of material to really sink my teeth into. So I feel like I come off a lot more complainy than I want to. I think it's a matter of engagement; and most of the shows I've done reviews for have been shows I already had some level of engagement with before starting the reviews (the exception might be She-Ra, and you'll note those reviews were by and large pretty short and I never went back to that). Here I'm trying to develop engagement with the show around doing the reviews, and I'm not sure I'm liking doing it that way.
Still, I think my complainy note of the ep probably would have occurred to me anyway; why doesn't the Republic have actual commanders who aren't Jedi? How is Ahsoka in charge? Why is 20 year old, not military trained, Anakin in charge? I think it would make more sense that the army had actual commanders, and the Jedi were there to advise and defend. They are very useful, but that doesn't mean they should be in charge.
As I say that...should I put that down as part of Palpatine's plan? To make the Jedi seem power hungry when the trap springs? Also to stretch them thin and probably get several killed?
Also, and this has been brewing in my mind for a few episodes, plus I'm not sure if this is real world commentary or just weird in-verse, but neither side seems to have many regular people fighting. The clones were born and bred for this (and don't seem to have a presence in society at large), and the Separatists use droids. How many people, especially in the Republic, even know they're at war? I assume the military-industrial complex of the Republic has been ramped up to keep up with demands for the war effort, and maybe taxes are higher, but people likely aren't being asked to sacrifice much for it. Unless your planet happens to end up the crosshairs, it probably isn't really a factor in your life.
I'm sure it says something that I have almost nothing to say about the actual plot of the episode; maybe that's why I think I'd be more interested if I just kept going, maybe the next part of the story will have a point.
Star Wars: The Clone Wars – 1x07: "Duel of the Droids"
Well, that was a better half of this pair (I assume that's the end of the arc). And I do feel a little more qualified to talk about it as a whole story. If I feel the same with a couple more arcs, I will have to consider reviewing it that way (editing note, I haven't switched it up yet, but the possibility remains).
I thought it was pretty clear last ep that there was something very wrong with R3, so I wasn't exactly surprised he turned out to be a traitor. Last ep I was more complaining that they didn't have to make the new droid so incompetent that obviously they had to get R2 back, and for us and the characters to want him back; maybe Asoka could have a droid too. But the specific way he screwed up Anakin's stuff last ep had me a little suspicious R3 wasn't just incompetent.
Also, I'm sort of torn on this next point. On one hand, it's clearly important to the series that they establish R2 as a character and his importance to Anakin and others. On the other hand, I feel like I have to point out that R2 had been Padme's droid most of his existence rather than Anakin's, so I'm not sure when they forged this deep bond. The former point means they definitely needed to do an episode like this early on, but the latter says it would have been better if it came later. And that confusion also changes how I see Anakin's actions here. If they've been together for a couple years now (somehow) then I absolutely buy this devotion and while it does hint at him being overly attached to a droid it's not without reason; but if it's only been a handful of months then Anakin just seems reckless and his attachment issues are definitely strong enough to warrant a check-up.
This also echoes my feelings from a couple episodes ago about the time frame here (I's largely sticking to the resolution not to pay *too* much attention to it though); if the Clone Wars seem to stretch on for many years as opposed to the 2-3 that was implied in the movies, then Anakin's fall to the dark side takes on a very different flavor. The movies still paint him largely as a reckless young man if not still kind of a kid come ep3; but if he's a battle scarred veteran of 10 years of combat (where he was expected to lead while he was barely old enough to be in the army) then his difficulties with the Jedi make more sense but the reasons for turning shouldn't then be about Padme.
I hope they can pull this transition off; because if the story had been planned out there's a lot of ways to show that Anakin's traits of protectiveness and responsibility can be turned against itself to be a dangerous thing. Especially if they take the time to show it and accustom the audience to seeing it as a good thing before the wheel starts to turn. I'm not sure yet that they're doing that was well as they could so far, and I'll admit it would be hard when the audience already knows how the story goes. But here Anakin shows a lot of protectiveness for R2 but that contributes to getting clones killed (and I'm not sure how the couple who survive weren't killed by Grevious) and that trade doesn't sit right with me. Plus a lot of Anakin's actions seem framed as dangerous already, but that could be foreknowledge talking.
When Grevious showed up before and we didn't see him use the lightsabers, I thought we might get an ongoing story beat through the series of how he got the multi-wield setup he had in ep3 (I'm pretty sure those were supposed to be taken from dead Jedi, but I might be confusing things). Here he's already got a couple of sabers, so that story jumped forward instead of being a slow build.
Also, at what point are they just taunting OT fans with how much R2 can do? He was always a good droid, but there's a reason why the rocket thrusters went over like a lead balloon in ep2, and now the writers seem to keep adding on.
