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tori_reviews2021-01-18 05:01 pm
jedi_of_urth) wrote in tori_reviews2021-01-18 05:01 pm
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Star Wars: The Clone Wars 1x08-x09
Star Wars: The Clone Wars – 1x08: "Bombad Jedi"
That was a discouraging episode; it might not have been bad exactly, but I don't think I'd ever want to watch it again. It was basically entirely comprised of things I don't like, falling into two basic categories; too much comic relief and I do not understand the politics of this war.
When it comes to the first, the primary offender is naturally Jar Jar. I get the choice to include him, on a few different levels even; this is a show for a younger audience and the younger audience tend to respond better to Jar Jar; and the downplaying of Jar Jar in the later movies had not necessarily been the original plan so here they could give him back a place among the bigger characters. The problem is I didn't respond well to Jar Jar at 16 and I do even less now. And because of the downplaying in later movies, the writers had the opportunity to reshape the character almost any way they wanted to (he functionally doesn't show up in ep3, so after handing Palpatine power in ep2 he could be whatever) and instead they continued the annoying mold of Jar Jar.
If I ignore a couple of the most overt clown moments, I can almost see this as the Jar Jar Lucas might have been aiming for; a good-hearted young man who's trying his best and gets lucky often enough to survive his goals being bigger than his abilities. It's still annoying, and I'm not sure I can even say the idea had a lot of potential, but I can see the clay that could have been shaped into a better idea. And no, the others characters finding him annoying is not helping.
But Jar Jar is not the only problem on the humor attempts. The droids are a terrible adversary, they aren't the least bit scary when they can be broken by a kick without even any extra oomph behind it. They're not even very scary in numbers, which would be one justification if they can just fill a space with blaster fire and create a kill-zone. But they're not; I didn't mention it last episode but Ahsoka was barely doing anything when the droids attacked them and yet somehow she stood in the middle of the hall and didn't die. They can't hit the broad side of a barn, they're distracted by the most minor of things, they have no ability to think for themselves and yet they don't get the benefits of a hive mind. The comedy may land occasionally for me, but mostly it's just dumb.
And then, to further make them seem like not a threat, Padme just goes around killing a bunch of them and is never actually in any danger. Yes, Padme is a competent fighter when she needs to be, but she's not exactly an elite at it and definitely not a Jedi. Why do you need to threaten the droids with Jedi when a single small human can take on so many of them? And considered from the other side, if the droids actually seemed like a threat for a single moment, I might be able to give Padme some credit for her accomplishment taking on so many of them.
I might be working on letting go of my need for the time frame to make a lot of sense, but I will not let go of the fact I don't know what the war is about. Are the Separatists trying to set up a Confederacy of some kind; having just as much government, but with slightly different rules? Saying that the Republic doesn't speak for some planets or doesn't seem to care about them, so why not join this other group of joined planets and see if they can do more for you? And what are the differences in law and expectation? This remains a huge problem for me because I don't know why I should care about these fights. And I almost feel like this episode knows it, because if Gunray didn't have it out for Padme, how would the Rhodians have been wrong to pick the Separatist side?
So yeah, this was not an episode I liked or got much besides annoyance out of.
Star Wars: The Clone Wars – 1x09: "Cloak of Darkness"
Hmm, I have several half-formed thoughts from this episode, but they're not jelling very well. I think it was a solid episode, certainly an improvement on the last one, but while it gave me things to think about, I didn't find myself very engaged.
And I think part of that is what I was talking about last time, the droids just aren't scary. And on the other hand I have no investment in the clones because, while they are occasionally given character, these were not, so that classifies them as cannon fodder. So when you have long stretches of shooty battles between two faceless largely incompetent sides I don't care.
Another thought from parts of the episode, is that Ahsoka is starting to seem like what Anakin should have been. And that's kind of a weird thing to say since Ahsoka was, as far as I know so far, raised in the Jedi Order and trained in the usual way; and yet sometimes she seems more like the outsider Anakin should have been. It's why Anakin should have been a teenager when we met him in ep1, and also not started out as so almost cartoonishly innocent. Anakin should have always had rough edges, and it would make since with how he lived his formative years; always been kind of rash and willful and sometimes quick to anger. Been the kind of person who would use threats in an interrogation maybe with no intention of going through with it, but also maybe wanting to a little.
And this reason why Anakin and Ahsoka get along so well, because of how headstrong they are about following their instincts instead of expectations, makes me see long term storytelling options for them together. Whether convergent or divergent (and I do know it's divergent), the fact that they're very similar at this stage will inform which direction they go down the road.
I don't think this is a great episode for establishing Luminara; she seems competent enough but mostly kind of bland. However her actions did raise a question for me; what are the limits, be they physical (Force power related), moral, or legal as far as using Jedi powers to interrogate prisoners? I can see it being a limited ability, largely limited to detecting lies, and then there being some who are extra good at it; but this raises the option so I want more detail.
I debated bringing this last point up, it's not that important, and saying it with an episode I didn't really like tremendously seems weird; but here goes. Other shows could learn a thing or two about how to do female character focused episodes from this. I've seen enough over the last few years (I'm thinking especially in the Arrow-verse and kind of other CW shows) where it's clear the writers made a point of moving the female characters into the spotlight for girl power reasons. And I was a little suspicious that was going to happen here when we heard that Lunimara and Ahsoka were on this mission (because why was Ahsoka sent but not Anakin?) and also Ventress was involved. But ultimately it wasn't a girl power episode; the moral didn't revolve around 'woman good' or anything like that, it just told a story. I may have thought the story was lacking, but I don't feel like it's telling me I have to like it if I support women.
Coming out of last episode, I figured at some point Gunray was going to get rescued, after all he's free in ep3; and I'm not exactly surprised it happened this early. If last episode hadn't done such a bad job and made the droid/Separatists seem so lacking I'd say this was a necessity to show that the sides are on even footing. And maybe they are as only a handful of people on either side seem to actually have a few brain cells to rub together.
That was a discouraging episode; it might not have been bad exactly, but I don't think I'd ever want to watch it again. It was basically entirely comprised of things I don't like, falling into two basic categories; too much comic relief and I do not understand the politics of this war.
When it comes to the first, the primary offender is naturally Jar Jar. I get the choice to include him, on a few different levels even; this is a show for a younger audience and the younger audience tend to respond better to Jar Jar; and the downplaying of Jar Jar in the later movies had not necessarily been the original plan so here they could give him back a place among the bigger characters. The problem is I didn't respond well to Jar Jar at 16 and I do even less now. And because of the downplaying in later movies, the writers had the opportunity to reshape the character almost any way they wanted to (he functionally doesn't show up in ep3, so after handing Palpatine power in ep2 he could be whatever) and instead they continued the annoying mold of Jar Jar.
If I ignore a couple of the most overt clown moments, I can almost see this as the Jar Jar Lucas might have been aiming for; a good-hearted young man who's trying his best and gets lucky often enough to survive his goals being bigger than his abilities. It's still annoying, and I'm not sure I can even say the idea had a lot of potential, but I can see the clay that could have been shaped into a better idea. And no, the others characters finding him annoying is not helping.
But Jar Jar is not the only problem on the humor attempts. The droids are a terrible adversary, they aren't the least bit scary when they can be broken by a kick without even any extra oomph behind it. They're not even very scary in numbers, which would be one justification if they can just fill a space with blaster fire and create a kill-zone. But they're not; I didn't mention it last episode but Ahsoka was barely doing anything when the droids attacked them and yet somehow she stood in the middle of the hall and didn't die. They can't hit the broad side of a barn, they're distracted by the most minor of things, they have no ability to think for themselves and yet they don't get the benefits of a hive mind. The comedy may land occasionally for me, but mostly it's just dumb.
And then, to further make them seem like not a threat, Padme just goes around killing a bunch of them and is never actually in any danger. Yes, Padme is a competent fighter when she needs to be, but she's not exactly an elite at it and definitely not a Jedi. Why do you need to threaten the droids with Jedi when a single small human can take on so many of them? And considered from the other side, if the droids actually seemed like a threat for a single moment, I might be able to give Padme some credit for her accomplishment taking on so many of them.
I might be working on letting go of my need for the time frame to make a lot of sense, but I will not let go of the fact I don't know what the war is about. Are the Separatists trying to set up a Confederacy of some kind; having just as much government, but with slightly different rules? Saying that the Republic doesn't speak for some planets or doesn't seem to care about them, so why not join this other group of joined planets and see if they can do more for you? And what are the differences in law and expectation? This remains a huge problem for me because I don't know why I should care about these fights. And I almost feel like this episode knows it, because if Gunray didn't have it out for Padme, how would the Rhodians have been wrong to pick the Separatist side?
So yeah, this was not an episode I liked or got much besides annoyance out of.
Star Wars: The Clone Wars – 1x09: "Cloak of Darkness"
Hmm, I have several half-formed thoughts from this episode, but they're not jelling very well. I think it was a solid episode, certainly an improvement on the last one, but while it gave me things to think about, I didn't find myself very engaged.
And I think part of that is what I was talking about last time, the droids just aren't scary. And on the other hand I have no investment in the clones because, while they are occasionally given character, these were not, so that classifies them as cannon fodder. So when you have long stretches of shooty battles between two faceless largely incompetent sides I don't care.
Another thought from parts of the episode, is that Ahsoka is starting to seem like what Anakin should have been. And that's kind of a weird thing to say since Ahsoka was, as far as I know so far, raised in the Jedi Order and trained in the usual way; and yet sometimes she seems more like the outsider Anakin should have been. It's why Anakin should have been a teenager when we met him in ep1, and also not started out as so almost cartoonishly innocent. Anakin should have always had rough edges, and it would make since with how he lived his formative years; always been kind of rash and willful and sometimes quick to anger. Been the kind of person who would use threats in an interrogation maybe with no intention of going through with it, but also maybe wanting to a little.
And this reason why Anakin and Ahsoka get along so well, because of how headstrong they are about following their instincts instead of expectations, makes me see long term storytelling options for them together. Whether convergent or divergent (and I do know it's divergent), the fact that they're very similar at this stage will inform which direction they go down the road.
I don't think this is a great episode for establishing Luminara; she seems competent enough but mostly kind of bland. However her actions did raise a question for me; what are the limits, be they physical (Force power related), moral, or legal as far as using Jedi powers to interrogate prisoners? I can see it being a limited ability, largely limited to detecting lies, and then there being some who are extra good at it; but this raises the option so I want more detail.
I debated bringing this last point up, it's not that important, and saying it with an episode I didn't really like tremendously seems weird; but here goes. Other shows could learn a thing or two about how to do female character focused episodes from this. I've seen enough over the last few years (I'm thinking especially in the Arrow-verse and kind of other CW shows) where it's clear the writers made a point of moving the female characters into the spotlight for girl power reasons. And I was a little suspicious that was going to happen here when we heard that Lunimara and Ahsoka were on this mission (because why was Ahsoka sent but not Anakin?) and also Ventress was involved. But ultimately it wasn't a girl power episode; the moral didn't revolve around 'woman good' or anything like that, it just told a story. I may have thought the story was lacking, but I don't feel like it's telling me I have to like it if I support women.
Coming out of last episode, I figured at some point Gunray was going to get rescued, after all he's free in ep3; and I'm not exactly surprised it happened this early. If last episode hadn't done such a bad job and made the droid/Separatists seem so lacking I'd say this was a necessity to show that the sides are on even footing. And maybe they are as only a handful of people on either side seem to actually have a few brain cells to rub together.