Star Wars: The Clone Wars – 4x08 - 09
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tori_reviewsStar Wars: The Clone Wars – 4x08: “The General”
Well that was...alright I guess. Thematically it's just a watered down version on the previous episode and my WW1 comparisons seem more apt all the time. But there is actually a fair amount here...or at least there's a fair amount that could be here if the episode was focused on the character journeys it's hinting at instead of putting the action front and center and treating the character beats as a sideshow.
Because the pull between valuing the mission and valuing the men is something worth exploring, but this isn't doing that, not really. It's using it, it seems to be the closest thing we get to conflict rather than fighting this episode, probably the whole arc, but it can't go deep with it. It's clearly hinting at there being a story of Rex's growing disillusionment and gradual path to defiance, but hints are not an arc. It would definitely work as an arc, especially with Rex who we've seen takes a lot of pride in his service to the Republic and his people, and putting those in conflict would be an arc.
But Krell isn't a good antagonist for that, he's just an idiot. If he was valuing the mission over the men, but actually a competent commander it would be one thing. Instead, he's Zap Brannigan; throw troops into the fray on the most direct path without spending any effort on thinking about strategy, and then don't care when they die. The episode wants to show a difference between Anakin and Krell, and what they bring up is a valid contrast; that Anakin goes where the fighting is heaviest rather than sending others to fight where he won't go. But even that's wrong because it's Anakin. Because Anakin is not my yardstick to measure moral values by.
Though to bring it back to my point last time; if Krell's casualty numbers are as bad as this indicates, clearly no one else cared about that fact. I'm sure troops under him did, but as those numbers were reported in, no one bothered to check if he could have maybe not had that many dead clones. Maybe when the senate was debating whether to purchase more clones, they should have looked into where the most wasted resources were going. But they didn't, because on the large scale, the people take Krell's view a lot more than they do Anakin's and certainly the clones'.
But this is the first arc in a while that at least is playing in those waters. I gave the show some credit back in s1 for seeming aware of how screwed up the situation they created was, but I haven't felt that in a while. Part of that is that s3 focused away from the front lines so much and even s2 was a bit more personally focused than general war battles. I want to say this is finally bringing back what they've learned about doing more personal stories and putting it into the war stories, but it's doing so in a cowardly way where they won't actually make a war story a personal story.
I think, on analysis, I still come down on the mildly optimistic that the arc can come together. But only mildly, my generally negative feelings about the show are catching up to any optimism earned by what the arc has given so far.
That said, I actually do like the last beat of the episode. The cost of victory comments are well done, I just wish they didn't have to paint Krell as such a dumb villain to get the lines. His lines would actually seem harsher if his position seemed...potentially viable. If they could have won doing it his way, but the cost would have been so extreme it wouldn't have been much of a victory if you care about the people.
Also, the clones don't seem like great people to me either. So far this arc has painted them as pretty merciless with their killing of the other side. They're good soldiers, and the generals should respect them as such, but they're not pure little snowflakes either.
Star Wars: The Clone Wars – 4x09: “Plan of Dissent”
This one ticked back up a notch for me. This actually did a lot of the things I was complaining last episode didn't. Namely, it married the character plot and the action plot into an actual story.
I also think it's a better handle on how Krell works in the story than his rather overt villainy last episode. Because as we see through this episode, he's not a good man or a great general, but he isn't always wrong about everything. Definitely too eager to fight (when he is rarely the person actually fighting) and quick to judge, but at least in a couple things he's right for the wrong reasons. The attack on the supply ship was not a good idea; maybe it could have become one if they'd given it more planning, but we can't know that. Realistically, it shouldn't have worked; they just happened to get the right person to the right place at the right time.
Which fits nicely with Krell's dismissive attitude of the clones. As you dehumanize (for lack of a better word) them, the idea that one person (but non-person) could be what changes the shape of things isn't a thought he would entertain.
I still think Krell is a decent stand-in for the general attitude of people people at large about this war. People are eager to see a victory, for the battle or war to be over, and they don't think about the cost. There does some to be something wrong with Krell, especially for a Jedi he's got a lot of issues with pride, but I can still see him as a representative of a larger problem with the way the war is fought and the clones treated.
The weird variable in this is Obi-wan. I expected there to be something else to the early scene, like Krell not allowing Rex to talk while the generals were discussing plans. But also, Obi-wan does like Rex, so they could have played up Obi-wan listening to a clone's report; which would either annoy Krell further or just remind the audience of what these troops are accustomed to. And while I don't want Krell's action here to reflect back on Obi-wan, I feel like keeping him so separate actually does kind of make him complicit, as the Jedi have apparently been for a while regarding Krell's attitude and behavior.
And while I doubt we'll get it, I would be curious to know Krell's backstory. Was he always like this? Or has the war broken him? Again, this is where making the character model so easy to read as 'the bad guy' muddies the waters, and not in the good moral ambiguity way. It ends up being hard to imagine what this guy was doing back before there was a war to fight. If they had modeled him as more human, it would seem more like there must be a reason he acts this way. Yes he may just be a prideful guy, it may be (theoretically) unusual among the Jedi, but what exactly is the Jedi screening process? Especially before being given a generalship and put in command of people? Of course, they also sent 20 year old Anakin out to be a general, so maybe the answer is that there isn't a screening process.
But those questions take me back to something I wondered pretty early in the show, whether they would reframe Anakin's fall to the dark side through showing the cost the war took on him. Unfortunately, I haven't seen that in practice, and I thought it was a good idea. However, if Anakin comes back from...wherever he is, and sees what Krell has done, it could feed into his eventual decision that the Jedi might be evil. But even though I'm liking this arc, it's not raising my opinion of the show overall or the long term arcs it should be well into by now but hasn't done any of the leg-work for.
But, at least this arc has stopped the nose-dive my opinion was taking so far this season. That's something I guess.
Well that was...alright I guess. Thematically it's just a watered down version on the previous episode and my WW1 comparisons seem more apt all the time. But there is actually a fair amount here...or at least there's a fair amount that could be here if the episode was focused on the character journeys it's hinting at instead of putting the action front and center and treating the character beats as a sideshow.
Because the pull between valuing the mission and valuing the men is something worth exploring, but this isn't doing that, not really. It's using it, it seems to be the closest thing we get to conflict rather than fighting this episode, probably the whole arc, but it can't go deep with it. It's clearly hinting at there being a story of Rex's growing disillusionment and gradual path to defiance, but hints are not an arc. It would definitely work as an arc, especially with Rex who we've seen takes a lot of pride in his service to the Republic and his people, and putting those in conflict would be an arc.
But Krell isn't a good antagonist for that, he's just an idiot. If he was valuing the mission over the men, but actually a competent commander it would be one thing. Instead, he's Zap Brannigan; throw troops into the fray on the most direct path without spending any effort on thinking about strategy, and then don't care when they die. The episode wants to show a difference between Anakin and Krell, and what they bring up is a valid contrast; that Anakin goes where the fighting is heaviest rather than sending others to fight where he won't go. But even that's wrong because it's Anakin. Because Anakin is not my yardstick to measure moral values by.
Though to bring it back to my point last time; if Krell's casualty numbers are as bad as this indicates, clearly no one else cared about that fact. I'm sure troops under him did, but as those numbers were reported in, no one bothered to check if he could have maybe not had that many dead clones. Maybe when the senate was debating whether to purchase more clones, they should have looked into where the most wasted resources were going. But they didn't, because on the large scale, the people take Krell's view a lot more than they do Anakin's and certainly the clones'.
But this is the first arc in a while that at least is playing in those waters. I gave the show some credit back in s1 for seeming aware of how screwed up the situation they created was, but I haven't felt that in a while. Part of that is that s3 focused away from the front lines so much and even s2 was a bit more personally focused than general war battles. I want to say this is finally bringing back what they've learned about doing more personal stories and putting it into the war stories, but it's doing so in a cowardly way where they won't actually make a war story a personal story.
I think, on analysis, I still come down on the mildly optimistic that the arc can come together. But only mildly, my generally negative feelings about the show are catching up to any optimism earned by what the arc has given so far.
That said, I actually do like the last beat of the episode. The cost of victory comments are well done, I just wish they didn't have to paint Krell as such a dumb villain to get the lines. His lines would actually seem harsher if his position seemed...potentially viable. If they could have won doing it his way, but the cost would have been so extreme it wouldn't have been much of a victory if you care about the people.
Also, the clones don't seem like great people to me either. So far this arc has painted them as pretty merciless with their killing of the other side. They're good soldiers, and the generals should respect them as such, but they're not pure little snowflakes either.
Star Wars: The Clone Wars – 4x09: “Plan of Dissent”
This one ticked back up a notch for me. This actually did a lot of the things I was complaining last episode didn't. Namely, it married the character plot and the action plot into an actual story.
I also think it's a better handle on how Krell works in the story than his rather overt villainy last episode. Because as we see through this episode, he's not a good man or a great general, but he isn't always wrong about everything. Definitely too eager to fight (when he is rarely the person actually fighting) and quick to judge, but at least in a couple things he's right for the wrong reasons. The attack on the supply ship was not a good idea; maybe it could have become one if they'd given it more planning, but we can't know that. Realistically, it shouldn't have worked; they just happened to get the right person to the right place at the right time.
Which fits nicely with Krell's dismissive attitude of the clones. As you dehumanize (for lack of a better word) them, the idea that one person (but non-person) could be what changes the shape of things isn't a thought he would entertain.
I still think Krell is a decent stand-in for the general attitude of people people at large about this war. People are eager to see a victory, for the battle or war to be over, and they don't think about the cost. There does some to be something wrong with Krell, especially for a Jedi he's got a lot of issues with pride, but I can still see him as a representative of a larger problem with the way the war is fought and the clones treated.
The weird variable in this is Obi-wan. I expected there to be something else to the early scene, like Krell not allowing Rex to talk while the generals were discussing plans. But also, Obi-wan does like Rex, so they could have played up Obi-wan listening to a clone's report; which would either annoy Krell further or just remind the audience of what these troops are accustomed to. And while I don't want Krell's action here to reflect back on Obi-wan, I feel like keeping him so separate actually does kind of make him complicit, as the Jedi have apparently been for a while regarding Krell's attitude and behavior.
And while I doubt we'll get it, I would be curious to know Krell's backstory. Was he always like this? Or has the war broken him? Again, this is where making the character model so easy to read as 'the bad guy' muddies the waters, and not in the good moral ambiguity way. It ends up being hard to imagine what this guy was doing back before there was a war to fight. If they had modeled him as more human, it would seem more like there must be a reason he acts this way. Yes he may just be a prideful guy, it may be (theoretically) unusual among the Jedi, but what exactly is the Jedi screening process? Especially before being given a generalship and put in command of people? Of course, they also sent 20 year old Anakin out to be a general, so maybe the answer is that there isn't a screening process.
But those questions take me back to something I wondered pretty early in the show, whether they would reframe Anakin's fall to the dark side through showing the cost the war took on him. Unfortunately, I haven't seen that in practice, and I thought it was a good idea. However, if Anakin comes back from...wherever he is, and sees what Krell has done, it could feed into his eventual decision that the Jedi might be evil. But even though I'm liking this arc, it's not raising my opinion of the show overall or the long term arcs it should be well into by now but hasn't done any of the leg-work for.
But, at least this arc has stopped the nose-dive my opinion was taking so far this season. That's something I guess.
