Star Wars: The Clone Wars – 2x03 - 04
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tori_reviewsStar Wars: The Clone Wars – 2x03: “Children of the Force”
I don't know if this speaks to a flaw in the episode, or if I was just easily distracted, but I thought this episode was just fine. The end result being that this episode sparks three unrelated thoughts.
I never really think to talk about it but I have a hard time seeing fictional cities as cities and not just a couple tall buildings and some CGI in the distance. I remember it took me seasons of SGA to go 'Damn, Atlantis is like an actual city,' And more recently I found myself doing it with Wakanda in Black Panther; the flyover was completely unconvincing. I think part of it is how focused the action tends to be instead of spending time going out and wandering in the city; plus that it never seems to take people time to get any place. When shows/movies are filming in real places TPTB can get out into the world easier and are aware of how life in those places works (even if they still usually bypass travel time). Corescant is kind of middling on that scale; I don't know where anything is and I don't really have a concept of what a whole city planet would be like, but books and movies have shown some knowledge that those CG buildings out the window aren't just literal window dressing but places in their own rights and there are people in them. What actually set me thinking about this episode was Rhodia, the scale of that being a 'city' is completely not evidenced and ends up looking more like a neighborhood; which was kind of what I thought on the previous episode that went the Rhodia.
Slightly connected, but also veering the other direction; there were a few times this episode when I felt like the animation was improved from last season. In this case it mostly hit me with the scene of Anakin and Palpatine looking out the window, where the lighting felt like it was done with more care than I've been noticing in this show. But at the same time I was having a different story thought, that I'm not sure how take the pointed exclusion of Ahsoka. Is that supposed to be a sign of Palpatine's manipulations, or carefulness, that he wants to continue grooming Anakin but hasn't vetted Ahsoka? Probably something like that.
And lastly, I clearly wasn't deeply invested in the climax on Mustafar because instead of paying close attention, I composed the following poem:
You're not thinking clearly,
Your thoughts are unsound,
I love you, Anakin,
But I have the high ground.
Although I note that Anakin had the high ground in this fight, and he won; so I guess it is a valid position.
Star Wars: The Clone Wars – 2x04: “Senate Spy”
My first thought is that this probably should have been a two part story instead of just one. Though it really only needed to be about an episode and a half; maybe a special event with an actual half hour of story instead of about 20 minutes worth. It's trying to have both a solid plot and a character piece and it doesn't have quite enough room to do both, so both feel underdone.
Secondly, this episode gives me a confused mess of thoughts about Padme. Within that, you have to understand, I hate the character's animation model in this show. I don't think there's much effort put into making her look like the live action version, and her hair is even stupider. In action mode as opposed to fancy mode she's at least a bit more tolerable but fancy mode looks like an ugly doll. So that visual component puts me at odds with all my thoughts of thinking we should see a lot more Padme. Because mostly I think that this episode should have been told much more from her perspective rather than Anakin's, which is part of why the character story never gels. And my thoughts that it wouldn't exactly hurt to use her to see more of what the political side of the war looks like. That part is especially in conflict with the visual as it would mean even more of the stupid Senate looks.
I am not going to be going back and check on this, but weren't the Banking Guild the patsies in the early ep where as far as I recall Palpatine arranged for Padme to end up a hostage with the Separatists? And I believe I asked then if that was going to be looked in to; that either the Banking Guild should be suspect or lead them down a rabbit hole to find out who actually sent her out there. I'm not sure how this element fits in with the shadowy behind the scenes machinations; but I guess it fits to make Padme think it actually was the Banking Guild that set her up. I do wish these events had been closer together; I've only got a few weeks since I saw that ep and I barely remember it if we're supposed to connect the events.
I don't know whether to blame the distracting character model or if it's a flaw of animation making big reactions even more necessary than in live action, or if it's tied in with the issue of the story's focus being wrong that I brought up, but I have a hard time getting into Padme in this ep, even though it might be her best episode. But I say that and then think about how she's still reduced to the damsel in distress for her men to save. So maybe, maybe not.
Clovis is probably worth some analysis, and I'm not sure how to take his ending. If he's about to be summarily executed, then that's a pretty dark ending and it paints Anakin in a pretty bad light (not unintentionally I'm sure, but we'll get back to that). But it also ended in such a way that I wouldn't be surprised if Clovis did turn back up. And there would be a fair amount of in-verse logic to keeping him alive since the Nemoidians probably don't want to piss off the Banking Guild.
Speaking of, while I would believe that there could be factions within the Nemoidian Race, or maybe the Trade Federation is not synonymous with the the Nemoidians, it is a little distracting to have Republic agencies dealing with a culture that has always been closely associated with the Separatists, when those sides are at war. If the episode had been about showing that you can't assume someone's side based on their race then this would be good, but this turns out to be a Separatist activity too; so I think it probably should have been addressed why it's not super weird that the Republic would still be chilling with this group.
Okay, now I have to talk about Anakin; because the only time he truly seems like movie Anakin is around Padme, and that's not a good thing in any direction, The subtle shifts in the Vader direction we get in other episodes are in so many ways more interesting to analyze than when he turns into an asshole around his wife. But that doesn't mean it isn't worth analyzing their terrible relationship; because as I've said before, it kind of makes sense that they have an awful relationship considering their limited history and complicated status. They're not built on a firm bedrock, and any couple that has to spend at least 3/4 of their time apart and the rest in the closet is probably going to some issues. And Anakin at least is quite emotionally immature, so of course he has issues with jealousy and trust. I still don't know what Padme sees in him as she's supposed to not be so emotionally immature and this situation doesn't seem to make her very happy.
Of course they do nothing to make it anything less than obvious to Typho at the end, and the Jedi Council seems to just pretending not to know what's going on. So the whole thing seems kind of dumb and painted into a corner by the movie canon.
I don't know if this speaks to a flaw in the episode, or if I was just easily distracted, but I thought this episode was just fine. The end result being that this episode sparks three unrelated thoughts.
I never really think to talk about it but I have a hard time seeing fictional cities as cities and not just a couple tall buildings and some CGI in the distance. I remember it took me seasons of SGA to go 'Damn, Atlantis is like an actual city,' And more recently I found myself doing it with Wakanda in Black Panther; the flyover was completely unconvincing. I think part of it is how focused the action tends to be instead of spending time going out and wandering in the city; plus that it never seems to take people time to get any place. When shows/movies are filming in real places TPTB can get out into the world easier and are aware of how life in those places works (even if they still usually bypass travel time). Corescant is kind of middling on that scale; I don't know where anything is and I don't really have a concept of what a whole city planet would be like, but books and movies have shown some knowledge that those CG buildings out the window aren't just literal window dressing but places in their own rights and there are people in them. What actually set me thinking about this episode was Rhodia, the scale of that being a 'city' is completely not evidenced and ends up looking more like a neighborhood; which was kind of what I thought on the previous episode that went the Rhodia.
Slightly connected, but also veering the other direction; there were a few times this episode when I felt like the animation was improved from last season. In this case it mostly hit me with the scene of Anakin and Palpatine looking out the window, where the lighting felt like it was done with more care than I've been noticing in this show. But at the same time I was having a different story thought, that I'm not sure how take the pointed exclusion of Ahsoka. Is that supposed to be a sign of Palpatine's manipulations, or carefulness, that he wants to continue grooming Anakin but hasn't vetted Ahsoka? Probably something like that.
And lastly, I clearly wasn't deeply invested in the climax on Mustafar because instead of paying close attention, I composed the following poem:
You're not thinking clearly,
Your thoughts are unsound,
I love you, Anakin,
But I have the high ground.
Although I note that Anakin had the high ground in this fight, and he won; so I guess it is a valid position.
Star Wars: The Clone Wars – 2x04: “Senate Spy”
My first thought is that this probably should have been a two part story instead of just one. Though it really only needed to be about an episode and a half; maybe a special event with an actual half hour of story instead of about 20 minutes worth. It's trying to have both a solid plot and a character piece and it doesn't have quite enough room to do both, so both feel underdone.
Secondly, this episode gives me a confused mess of thoughts about Padme. Within that, you have to understand, I hate the character's animation model in this show. I don't think there's much effort put into making her look like the live action version, and her hair is even stupider. In action mode as opposed to fancy mode she's at least a bit more tolerable but fancy mode looks like an ugly doll. So that visual component puts me at odds with all my thoughts of thinking we should see a lot more Padme. Because mostly I think that this episode should have been told much more from her perspective rather than Anakin's, which is part of why the character story never gels. And my thoughts that it wouldn't exactly hurt to use her to see more of what the political side of the war looks like. That part is especially in conflict with the visual as it would mean even more of the stupid Senate looks.
I am not going to be going back and check on this, but weren't the Banking Guild the patsies in the early ep where as far as I recall Palpatine arranged for Padme to end up a hostage with the Separatists? And I believe I asked then if that was going to be looked in to; that either the Banking Guild should be suspect or lead them down a rabbit hole to find out who actually sent her out there. I'm not sure how this element fits in with the shadowy behind the scenes machinations; but I guess it fits to make Padme think it actually was the Banking Guild that set her up. I do wish these events had been closer together; I've only got a few weeks since I saw that ep and I barely remember it if we're supposed to connect the events.
I don't know whether to blame the distracting character model or if it's a flaw of animation making big reactions even more necessary than in live action, or if it's tied in with the issue of the story's focus being wrong that I brought up, but I have a hard time getting into Padme in this ep, even though it might be her best episode. But I say that and then think about how she's still reduced to the damsel in distress for her men to save. So maybe, maybe not.
Clovis is probably worth some analysis, and I'm not sure how to take his ending. If he's about to be summarily executed, then that's a pretty dark ending and it paints Anakin in a pretty bad light (not unintentionally I'm sure, but we'll get back to that). But it also ended in such a way that I wouldn't be surprised if Clovis did turn back up. And there would be a fair amount of in-verse logic to keeping him alive since the Nemoidians probably don't want to piss off the Banking Guild.
Speaking of, while I would believe that there could be factions within the Nemoidian Race, or maybe the Trade Federation is not synonymous with the the Nemoidians, it is a little distracting to have Republic agencies dealing with a culture that has always been closely associated with the Separatists, when those sides are at war. If the episode had been about showing that you can't assume someone's side based on their race then this would be good, but this turns out to be a Separatist activity too; so I think it probably should have been addressed why it's not super weird that the Republic would still be chilling with this group.
Okay, now I have to talk about Anakin; because the only time he truly seems like movie Anakin is around Padme, and that's not a good thing in any direction, The subtle shifts in the Vader direction we get in other episodes are in so many ways more interesting to analyze than when he turns into an asshole around his wife. But that doesn't mean it isn't worth analyzing their terrible relationship; because as I've said before, it kind of makes sense that they have an awful relationship considering their limited history and complicated status. They're not built on a firm bedrock, and any couple that has to spend at least 3/4 of their time apart and the rest in the closet is probably going to some issues. And Anakin at least is quite emotionally immature, so of course he has issues with jealousy and trust. I still don't know what Padme sees in him as she's supposed to not be so emotionally immature and this situation doesn't seem to make her very happy.
Of course they do nothing to make it anything less than obvious to Typho at the end, and the Jedi Council seems to just pretending not to know what's going on. So the whole thing seems kind of dumb and painted into a corner by the movie canon.
