Tuesday, June 27, 2017

Clone Wars -- "The Unknown" (Ep. 6.1)

-- The truth about yourself is always the hardest to accept.


[Remember, you can sign up to join the Clone Wars Project at any time by clicking this link.]
[Well, actually, considering that we're into season five, now, probably no one new is going to sign up, BUT! Hop over to The Armchair Squid for his take on the current episode.]


Technically, we could be through with the whole Clone Wars thing since season six was never aired; however, they did release part of it on disc, so we, of course, own it. And season six has some important stuff in it; in fact, this first arc is easily in the top three arcs of importance in the series and arguments could be made for its being the most important.

So why didn't it air?

I may have mentioned this before, but let's touch on it again.

The Clone Wars was not "cancelled" in the way that TV shows generally get cancelled. This is why season six was so far along in production when the decision was made to end the series with season five. See, Clone Wars was a Cartoon Network show, licensed to them from Lucasfilm on a five year contract but, before the contract was up, Disney bought Lucasfilm. Not a big deal in a general sense except that Disney has its own TV station and didn't want to be licensing out their new Star Wars property to some other network so, when it came time to renegotiate the licensing agreement, Disney made the cost too high to make it worthwhile for CN to pay it and, thus, The Clone Wars abruptly ended at the end of season five with season six production in full swing.

Why didn't Disney just move Clone Wars over to the Disney Channel?
That was about branding.
And, so, Rebels was born as a Disney channel show and Clone Wars was allowed to drop away.
Fortunately, Disney allowed some of the episodes to be completed for a DVD release.

Which brings us to the first episode of season six, as I said, one of the most important arcs in the series as it has to do with Order 66. It also introduces us to the only set of Jedi siblings that I know of. Or, at least, can think of at this moment. Also, Tim Curry as Darth Sidious! And I'd say more, but you should just watch it.


"I am programmed to resist intimidation."

6 comments:

  1. So good. It's summer so I have time to watch ahead. I'm with you on this arc being top 3 (the others being Mortis and Ahsoka on the Run?). And just as with the Ahsoka one, the build up through the rest of the series is vital for fully appreciating it. Fives, man - I was a fan before, of course, but this arc solidifies a unique status for him across the whole series. Just brilliant.

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    1. TAS: Yeah, I would say those are the top three arcs in terms of significance and, maybe, in enjoyment, though the Mortis arc might not make top three for that. Probably top five.

      Fives is one of my favorite characters. Fives and Rex.

      I think you could probably get away with watching this arc without having seen the series, but it wouldn't carry the same impact.

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  2. Probably but knowing Fives's history certainly adds another layer.

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    1. TAS: It does. That's the source of the emotional impact.

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  3. OK so I don't really read the clone wars posts because I gave up on that task long ago. I had to let something go! But I thought I'd reply to your replies to my last two comments.

    On the return to some idealized past rather than the 'real' past: I recall in 2012, I think it was, a candidate for President vowing to return the government to the size it was in 2000. That was a literal promise; I think it was Romney. I was amazed because it (a) seemed to pick out 2000 as some sort of idealized time when the government was perfectly-sized and (b) seemed to ignore that 2000-2008 were largely GOP controlled, so at least SOME of the blame would tend to lie with them. So that's the 'past' people think we are preserving: an anecdotal, hypothetical, colorized version of what we BELIEVE happened.

    As for inspiration for a candidate, it would be great to say we don't need marketing, but that's (not trying to be mean here) naive. Brexit's marketing of the benefits of exiting helped pull the UK out of the EU. Everything has to be sold to someone and while you can decry slick marketing, remember that marketing is the process of explaining to people why they should care. It's not limited to telling people to buy products for made up problems (ring around the collar). It helps tell them why they should worry about Trumpcare, or the Paris Climate Accords, or hydraulic mining. If you can't find inspiration, at least find a good marketing slogan. That was the other problem I had with Hillary!: she didn't really tell people why she should be president. That's marketing: Why should you buy this [Snickers/Car/Detergent/Candidate] instead of this other one?

    Without marketing, people who might have been undecided (I have a whole different theory about THOSE people) had no real reason to come to Hillary!. And people who weren't thrilled about Trump didn't, either. It's still not an excuse to not vote, but instead of saying "HEY PEOPLE SHOULD VOTE YOU PEOPLE YOU!" we could try educating (via marketing) people on why their vote is important, to them and others.

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    1. Briane: It's not that I don't get that; I do.
      But it SHOULDN'T be that way, which was my point. It's kind of been my point all through this... mess. People and their failure to educate themselves. And not just their failure to educate themselves but their expectation that someone should be doing it for them, providing them some sort of information that they could then refute because it didn't fit their small-minded, dogmatic beliefs about the world, positions which were almost always based on falsehoods.

      So, because people refuse to educate themselves, they need to be "inspired." But, really, they need to just do the job they're supposed to be doing.

      And, yeah, you can call it naive, but I'm not really being naive. I know what reality is, but I also know what it should be. I'll go with being idealistic. Which I'm also not really.
      I mean, I also want people to just go the speed limit rather than being the slowest moving car on the freeway because I'm the only one obeying the traffic laws.

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