Star Wars: The Clone Wars – 4x10 - 11
May. 24th, 2021 07:57 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jedi_of_urth posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
tori_reviewsStar Wars: The Clone Wars – 4x10: “Carnage of Krell”
Hmmm, there's a fair amount to unpack here, but I think I liked it. It's a well told story, but still ends up making some...cowardly choices in the end. Especially how I can see one small change to Krell's motivations making this a lot more morally interesting.
Give Krell a little bit of foresight. Have him foresee that the clones will be the ones who kill the Jedi. You can still make him a traitor to the Republic, a monster to the soldiers under him and not a good person, but don't make him evil for the sake of evil. Road to hell, good intentions, all that.
Because Order 66 was definitely one my mind when the clones went up against Krell. Mostly in the sense that this undercuts it somewhat since it's really hard for the clones to take out this guy, but won't have a ton of trouble come 66-day; and yeah those Jedi are largely taken by surprise and Krell is not, but I find it to be an odd comparison.
They also don't really explain how Krell developed this hatred for the clones. Are they an obstacle to his plans to go over to the Separatists and it's not personal? But he sure acts like it's personal, and I don't understand why. Is he just evil for the sake of evil now? How long has he been like that? Since he's channeling Palpatine, does Palpi have something to do with it?
You see what I mean when I say that when the show only gives us the broad strokes reasons for the villains, it probably makes me more sympathetic to them than I would be if they gave us reasons? When we have their reasons, I can play the 'cool backstory, still murder' card; but when they don't give us backstory, I assume there would be an actual reason that makes them more sympathetic than they ought to be.
Also, this ending lets the wider implications of Krell that I've ID-ed off the hook. No, he's not highlighting how the entire system disregards the clones. Or how war is inherently awful and makes people hard and jaded and stop seeing the value of people's lives. Or how the next time clones go up against the Jedi it will be because they're being used against people they had spent years working with and respecting. It's a single person problem that's done and dusted in the end; because he was just evil.
It doesn't let the negligible Jedi screening process off the hook though. Yoda is still a dumbass.
I'm a little more torn on not having Rex be the one to make the final call with killing Krell. The problem is that I can see really interesting things to do if he had been the one to pull the trigger; and I can easily see how this choice would have been made for cowardly reasons. It may not have been, it may have felt right to have played up Dogma as the last to turn on Krell, so he narratively had to be the one to kill him. But it feels a lot like they didn't want to have the most recognizable clone character be the killer, not after they had spent the episode framing execution as something the bad guy was into. And yet, because this show wouldn't have done the interesting things with Rex that it could if they'd had him pull the trigger, I can hardly feel cheated that this took the possibility away; those stories were only there in my mind to begin with.
So in an odd sort of way, my lack of disappointment with this choice seems to still speak to my lesser interest in this show. If I had thought the interesting option was really an option I'd be more disappointed that we're not getting it.
Still, a good set of episodes, now we'll see where the next arc falls on the pretty wide spectrum of this season's quality.
Star Wars: The Clone Wars – 4x11: “Kidnapped”
I know going in that I'm not going to sound like I like this episode, but I actually did. It does fall into that trap ranking of 'this could be so much better than it is, but it's not exactly bad as it is.'
Was it because I wasn't wearing my glasses, or did this episode look worse than the last few have? And I mean that in both the still and motion looks. Taking in the look of things in still parts, that could be the glasses; it could be that this episode takes place in the light and a natural environment rather than a dark closed one, and the latter is a fair bit easier for me to work with. So I would say that was what was tripping me up, except the characters in motion look really choppy. They also look a little off model in places, which is kind of a mix of the other stuff. That is probably the only thing I'm ranking as a real negative of the episode, the rest just aren't as positive as I'd like them to be.
For example, I can't decide if this should have come before the Umbara series or not. As noted this episode has a very different composition and color pallet than that arc had, so the contrast is noteworthy. It also reflects in the way Anakin and co. vs. Krell treat the soldiers under them. There isn't a continuity reason why it would be better in either order (although this episode doesn't make reference to those events so they can be swapped easily), it just depends on whether they would have shown what 'normal' was in the minds of Anakin's troops before everything that went down on Umbara; or if I prefer this as a return to normal after it. If the show hadn't been done so out of order, I'd just accept that it was shown the way it was supposed to be.
So there was a sense that the contrast was important even if they weren't addressing it, but only at the start; because as the episode went on I had to wonder why the clones are even here since apparently they aren't trusted with anything to do. Anakin and Ahsoka didn't have to be the only people who could take out the bombs or form search parties.
Also, we never do learn why Anakin was pulled back to Corescant during those episode. Maybe it was part of Palpatine's big plan? To get Krell to the other side, to take out Anakin's loyal soldiers, which might also make Anakin very angry. It could be, but if that's important it's not clear.
On the subject of Anakin's slip to the Dark Side, this episode is a bit odd, but it's odd because of the constraints the saga puts on itself. I want to see Anakin actually lose it and do something big and dramatic. But he can't because the turn has to seem sudden in ep3, not like he's finally committing to a path he's been on for a while. But it also could be all of that if they had done some better planning, because Anakin was starting down that path in ep2, and if they had planned it out, they could have gotten to the right point in ep3 and had more instances where we see him tempted by the Dark Side and not quite avoid going down that path. Back in s2 we had a very good example of that; and I think this is trying to be another signpost, but it's clumsily done.
Obi-wan's fight is awkward too. I get that it was a delaying tactic, that was clear from the start, but I wish there could have been a little more back and forth instead of Obi-wan just getting wailed on the whole time but still having the strength to come back at the end.
Nothing in this episode was bad (barring the animation in parts), I even kind of liked it; but it seems that even the pretty good episodes of this show are only about middling on a larger scale.
Hmmm, there's a fair amount to unpack here, but I think I liked it. It's a well told story, but still ends up making some...cowardly choices in the end. Especially how I can see one small change to Krell's motivations making this a lot more morally interesting.
Give Krell a little bit of foresight. Have him foresee that the clones will be the ones who kill the Jedi. You can still make him a traitor to the Republic, a monster to the soldiers under him and not a good person, but don't make him evil for the sake of evil. Road to hell, good intentions, all that.
Because Order 66 was definitely one my mind when the clones went up against Krell. Mostly in the sense that this undercuts it somewhat since it's really hard for the clones to take out this guy, but won't have a ton of trouble come 66-day; and yeah those Jedi are largely taken by surprise and Krell is not, but I find it to be an odd comparison.
They also don't really explain how Krell developed this hatred for the clones. Are they an obstacle to his plans to go over to the Separatists and it's not personal? But he sure acts like it's personal, and I don't understand why. Is he just evil for the sake of evil now? How long has he been like that? Since he's channeling Palpatine, does Palpi have something to do with it?
You see what I mean when I say that when the show only gives us the broad strokes reasons for the villains, it probably makes me more sympathetic to them than I would be if they gave us reasons? When we have their reasons, I can play the 'cool backstory, still murder' card; but when they don't give us backstory, I assume there would be an actual reason that makes them more sympathetic than they ought to be.
Also, this ending lets the wider implications of Krell that I've ID-ed off the hook. No, he's not highlighting how the entire system disregards the clones. Or how war is inherently awful and makes people hard and jaded and stop seeing the value of people's lives. Or how the next time clones go up against the Jedi it will be because they're being used against people they had spent years working with and respecting. It's a single person problem that's done and dusted in the end; because he was just evil.
It doesn't let the negligible Jedi screening process off the hook though. Yoda is still a dumbass.
I'm a little more torn on not having Rex be the one to make the final call with killing Krell. The problem is that I can see really interesting things to do if he had been the one to pull the trigger; and I can easily see how this choice would have been made for cowardly reasons. It may not have been, it may have felt right to have played up Dogma as the last to turn on Krell, so he narratively had to be the one to kill him. But it feels a lot like they didn't want to have the most recognizable clone character be the killer, not after they had spent the episode framing execution as something the bad guy was into. And yet, because this show wouldn't have done the interesting things with Rex that it could if they'd had him pull the trigger, I can hardly feel cheated that this took the possibility away; those stories were only there in my mind to begin with.
So in an odd sort of way, my lack of disappointment with this choice seems to still speak to my lesser interest in this show. If I had thought the interesting option was really an option I'd be more disappointed that we're not getting it.
Still, a good set of episodes, now we'll see where the next arc falls on the pretty wide spectrum of this season's quality.
Star Wars: The Clone Wars – 4x11: “Kidnapped”
I know going in that I'm not going to sound like I like this episode, but I actually did. It does fall into that trap ranking of 'this could be so much better than it is, but it's not exactly bad as it is.'
Was it because I wasn't wearing my glasses, or did this episode look worse than the last few have? And I mean that in both the still and motion looks. Taking in the look of things in still parts, that could be the glasses; it could be that this episode takes place in the light and a natural environment rather than a dark closed one, and the latter is a fair bit easier for me to work with. So I would say that was what was tripping me up, except the characters in motion look really choppy. They also look a little off model in places, which is kind of a mix of the other stuff. That is probably the only thing I'm ranking as a real negative of the episode, the rest just aren't as positive as I'd like them to be.
For example, I can't decide if this should have come before the Umbara series or not. As noted this episode has a very different composition and color pallet than that arc had, so the contrast is noteworthy. It also reflects in the way Anakin and co. vs. Krell treat the soldiers under them. There isn't a continuity reason why it would be better in either order (although this episode doesn't make reference to those events so they can be swapped easily), it just depends on whether they would have shown what 'normal' was in the minds of Anakin's troops before everything that went down on Umbara; or if I prefer this as a return to normal after it. If the show hadn't been done so out of order, I'd just accept that it was shown the way it was supposed to be.
So there was a sense that the contrast was important even if they weren't addressing it, but only at the start; because as the episode went on I had to wonder why the clones are even here since apparently they aren't trusted with anything to do. Anakin and Ahsoka didn't have to be the only people who could take out the bombs or form search parties.
Also, we never do learn why Anakin was pulled back to Corescant during those episode. Maybe it was part of Palpatine's big plan? To get Krell to the other side, to take out Anakin's loyal soldiers, which might also make Anakin very angry. It could be, but if that's important it's not clear.
On the subject of Anakin's slip to the Dark Side, this episode is a bit odd, but it's odd because of the constraints the saga puts on itself. I want to see Anakin actually lose it and do something big and dramatic. But he can't because the turn has to seem sudden in ep3, not like he's finally committing to a path he's been on for a while. But it also could be all of that if they had done some better planning, because Anakin was starting down that path in ep2, and if they had planned it out, they could have gotten to the right point in ep3 and had more instances where we see him tempted by the Dark Side and not quite avoid going down that path. Back in s2 we had a very good example of that; and I think this is trying to be another signpost, but it's clumsily done.
Obi-wan's fight is awkward too. I get that it was a delaying tactic, that was clear from the start, but I wish there could have been a little more back and forth instead of Obi-wan just getting wailed on the whole time but still having the strength to come back at the end.
Nothing in this episode was bad (barring the animation in parts), I even kind of liked it; but it seems that even the pretty good episodes of this show are only about middling on a larger scale.
