Star Wars: The Clone Wars – 2x22
Mar. 16th, 2021 09:42 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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tori_reviewsSo, this seems like a good week to shake up the posting schedule. Since there's no MCU show for this week and it gives me a chance to split the week in half between seasons of Clone Wars, I'm going to try for M/T/Th/F this week. I've still got a pretty solid lead in doing reviews so I may go back to three CW reviews a week even with Falcon and the Winter Soldier coming up.
Star Wars: The Clone Wars – 2x22: “Lethal Trackdown”
This episode is...odd. It manages to hold together decently in spite of the fact I think it makes bad writing decisions at almost every turn. It doesn't really work, and I'm pretty sure a strong breeze will blow it off of the 'manages to hold together' idea I just claimed, but it's definitely not bad, just...wrong.
This arc has been pretty disjointed in focus. The pieces fit together in terms of plot, but the story is jagged and uneven. As a season finale arc it definitely doesn't work (feels like the season breaks are just somewhat arbitrary pauses in a series of semi-connected events), though it is better than the s1 finale; not necessarily as a finale, but in general.
It was sort of jarring to have this version of Hondo in this episode after the way he was shown the last time he appeared. This is more the Hondo I was lead to believe the show portrayed; he's got his own stuff going on, and he's not a good guy, but he has principles and he certainly doesn't go out of his way to be a dick. Last time felt like he was just being a dick, but this was a bit more complicated, which is good; if I could forget last time I'd be more into him now.
I almost care about Boba in this one; though I'm not quite sure what they're going for. It's showing him as a bit soft, and realistically as a kid who isn't ready to be doing this kind of work. It's showing how deadly the bounty hunter world/underworld is and that it's scary for a kid. It's an interesting look at his relationship with his mother figure that seems to be there to break what little trust he had in people (though like so many things, the story seems to change its mind about her and jack-knife into a different portrayal. She's gone a long way to help Boba out until now for the show to act like she sold him out at the end). But in showing him with more human origins it kind of swings too far into making him a decent or relatable person; then at times this wants to seem like an origin story to the galaxy's greatest bounty hunter, which it doesn't do anything to earn. But it doesn't swing far enough to make him an Anakin, where we see him as a good and noble hero with a tragic flaw that will lead him down a dark path.
And that was an interesting part or the episode, and one I wish had gotten more exploration. Because Anakin is a person who cares about revenge and seeking out one's enemies instead of practicing patience and mindfulness. The transfer of that as a story point onto Ahsoka kind of works because she does have some of the same flaws as Anakin and he encourages her to indulge them when others try to rein them in; but it works for Ahsoka's growth here, not so much as doing anything as a reflection of Anakin's character. Though I do wish Ahsoka had gone on another adventure with the guy for 'Lightsaber Lost,' it's basically the lesson she was getting in that episode, so we haven't seen her really growing yet.
But then there's the final scene with Mace and Boba, which undermines the effort to make the average Jedi look like a definite good guy, because Mace does not come off well. I'm not saying Mace should have taken blame on himself, but he doesn't spare any care for Boba's feelings and experiences. Mace shouldn't get to tell Boba that he has to forgive Mace for anything. They can lock Boba up for all he's done, and they should, but no one can control how he feels about the person who killed his father. Taking into account the quote at the beginning, I can get that they're going for a lesson in how hatred and revenge are weakness that Boba needs to let go of in order to develop; but that's not the sentiment the scene expresses; it expresses thought control being dictated to a child.
Structurally this episode had a problem that it seemed like it should have been two episodes, and after the other two parts had been fairly slow and uneventful, I feel like they could have restructured some things if the other two eps weren't built around gimmicks (for all they worked for those eps). It also made this episode do a lot of telling rather than showing; starting from the opening announcer, they opted to have the announcer explain how Boba felt about taking hostages instead of showing us...and then proceeded to show us.
This season was definitely an improvement on season 1, but not as much as I would have liked. It's not as if I didn't like s1, but I still thought this would be a bigger jump in quality. It had more variety to it and better ideas, but it had at least as many bland parts as good ones, and that gets frustrating. In a slightly different way than me having the need to constantly go on rants about clones and droids does; I got some breaks from that, but I'm not always sure if more generic blandness is better than recurring issues that stand out.
You may not even notice on the reading side (in editing: you won't), but I'm going to take a bit of a break in writing before getting to s3. I'm going to do it, but I'm going to check in on some other parts of fandoms.
Star Wars: The Clone Wars – 2x22: “Lethal Trackdown”
This episode is...odd. It manages to hold together decently in spite of the fact I think it makes bad writing decisions at almost every turn. It doesn't really work, and I'm pretty sure a strong breeze will blow it off of the 'manages to hold together' idea I just claimed, but it's definitely not bad, just...wrong.
This arc has been pretty disjointed in focus. The pieces fit together in terms of plot, but the story is jagged and uneven. As a season finale arc it definitely doesn't work (feels like the season breaks are just somewhat arbitrary pauses in a series of semi-connected events), though it is better than the s1 finale; not necessarily as a finale, but in general.
It was sort of jarring to have this version of Hondo in this episode after the way he was shown the last time he appeared. This is more the Hondo I was lead to believe the show portrayed; he's got his own stuff going on, and he's not a good guy, but he has principles and he certainly doesn't go out of his way to be a dick. Last time felt like he was just being a dick, but this was a bit more complicated, which is good; if I could forget last time I'd be more into him now.
I almost care about Boba in this one; though I'm not quite sure what they're going for. It's showing him as a bit soft, and realistically as a kid who isn't ready to be doing this kind of work. It's showing how deadly the bounty hunter world/underworld is and that it's scary for a kid. It's an interesting look at his relationship with his mother figure that seems to be there to break what little trust he had in people (though like so many things, the story seems to change its mind about her and jack-knife into a different portrayal. She's gone a long way to help Boba out until now for the show to act like she sold him out at the end). But in showing him with more human origins it kind of swings too far into making him a decent or relatable person; then at times this wants to seem like an origin story to the galaxy's greatest bounty hunter, which it doesn't do anything to earn. But it doesn't swing far enough to make him an Anakin, where we see him as a good and noble hero with a tragic flaw that will lead him down a dark path.
And that was an interesting part or the episode, and one I wish had gotten more exploration. Because Anakin is a person who cares about revenge and seeking out one's enemies instead of practicing patience and mindfulness. The transfer of that as a story point onto Ahsoka kind of works because she does have some of the same flaws as Anakin and he encourages her to indulge them when others try to rein them in; but it works for Ahsoka's growth here, not so much as doing anything as a reflection of Anakin's character. Though I do wish Ahsoka had gone on another adventure with the guy for 'Lightsaber Lost,' it's basically the lesson she was getting in that episode, so we haven't seen her really growing yet.
But then there's the final scene with Mace and Boba, which undermines the effort to make the average Jedi look like a definite good guy, because Mace does not come off well. I'm not saying Mace should have taken blame on himself, but he doesn't spare any care for Boba's feelings and experiences. Mace shouldn't get to tell Boba that he has to forgive Mace for anything. They can lock Boba up for all he's done, and they should, but no one can control how he feels about the person who killed his father. Taking into account the quote at the beginning, I can get that they're going for a lesson in how hatred and revenge are weakness that Boba needs to let go of in order to develop; but that's not the sentiment the scene expresses; it expresses thought control being dictated to a child.
Structurally this episode had a problem that it seemed like it should have been two episodes, and after the other two parts had been fairly slow and uneventful, I feel like they could have restructured some things if the other two eps weren't built around gimmicks (for all they worked for those eps). It also made this episode do a lot of telling rather than showing; starting from the opening announcer, they opted to have the announcer explain how Boba felt about taking hostages instead of showing us...and then proceeded to show us.
This season was definitely an improvement on season 1, but not as much as I would have liked. It's not as if I didn't like s1, but I still thought this would be a bigger jump in quality. It had more variety to it and better ideas, but it had at least as many bland parts as good ones, and that gets frustrating. In a slightly different way than me having the need to constantly go on rants about clones and droids does; I got some breaks from that, but I'm not always sure if more generic blandness is better than recurring issues that stand out.
You may not even notice on the reading side (in editing: you won't), but I'm going to take a bit of a break in writing before getting to s3. I'm going to do it, but I'm going to check in on some other parts of fandoms.
