Rebels: "Ghosts of Geonosis: Part 2" (Ep. 3.13)

-- "We're in trouble!"

Jumptroopers are cool! Or, as they are called in this episode, rocket troopers. But I looked it up and "rocket troopers" are the "also know as" term, so I'm going with jumptrooper.

Also, Saw Gerrera is an asshole. Which I knew, because you can see the asshole streak in him back when he was first introduced, but it's becoming more than a streak, something more along the lines of a big, gaping hole. It doesn't make it less interesting to see the evolution of the character from his first appearance in Clone Wars to his last in Rogue One.

This is one of those frustrating kind of episodes. The team caught a Geonosian last episode, and it keeps trying to tell them about the Death Star, but, well, there's a language barrier and the rebels have no actual way to comprehend what it's trying to say, so they continually misunderstand.

And then they have to fight the Empire.

Most of the episode, though, is dedicated to the question of whether the Geonosians deserve to be wiped out, not the kind of question Rebels usually goes in for, so it was good to have them dealing with a more serious kind of philosophical question. You know, the kind of thing Clone Wars did all the time.

"Stupid sand. It gets everywhere."

"This doesn't look good."

"I want one of those jet packs!"
"I know."

Rebels: "The Honorable Ones" (Ep. 2.17)

-- "Keep it running in case things..."

"In case things go as they usually do?"

We return to Geonosis... to find it... dead. Lifeless. No bugs. No nothing.

Interesting...

Unfortunately, we don't get to find out why in this episode, but my guess is that Palpatine had them wiped out so that the information about the Death Star wouldn't leak out. They did design the thing, after all.

This episode is more of an Enemy Mine kind of thing with Zeb and Agent Kallus, Zeb's nemesis. Yeah, so what if I haven't been mentioning Kallus; you should be watching, then you'd know who he is. It's also not on me if you haven't seen Enemy Mine or know the reference. Where have you been?

Anyway...

Zeb and Kallus get stranded together on one of Genosis' moons and have to depend on each other if either of them are going to survive. Now, you know the reference. It's a good episode. They have to fight ice chickens. Maybe the two even learn some things about each other.

Mostly, though, I'm just hoping that this serves as the introduction to an arc where we get to find out what happened to the Genosians.

Clone Wars -- "The General" (Ep. 4.8)

-- The path of ignorance is guided by fear.

[Remember, you can sign up to join the Clone Wars Project at any time by clicking this link.]

They've done a good job with making Umbara a creepy place. I may have said some of this last time, but it's full of strange, glowing lights; strange, glowing creatures; and strange, glowing death machines that look like strange, glowing creatures. It's fortuitous that these episodes have fallen during the month of October. The only other episodes I can think of that would work so well this month would have been the zombie Geonosian episodes.

General Krell continues to be completely casual about the deaths of his troopers. He doesn't care to explore options because he doesn't have a problem with throwing clones against a wall until the manage to break it down. The lives don't matter because, to Krell, they're not lives. This is brought to light early on when one of the clones, Fives, points out that the general's outstanding record of victories comes along with the highest, by far, casualty count of any other Jedi. This is contrasted to Anakin leading from the front, because Krell leads from the rear. From camp, actually, without, so far, getting involved in any of the combat, something I find odd from a Jedi who is supposed to be such a fearsome combatant.

[Actually, I don't find it odd, because I know what happens from my previous watching of the series; however, I would find it odd if I didn't know. I'm sure my first response to Krell was "what an asshole." Well, now, I already know why.]

The episode is full of some great fight sequences, and you might want to say that they're gratuitous, but they're really not. They serve two purposes:
1. To show Krell's complete disregard for the lives of his clones as he continues to tell them "frontal assault!" no matter how bad things get.
2. To show the divide within the clone ranks themselves as they dissent about whether Krell's orders should be followed.

This is a good story arc and much needed for the redemption of season four.

Also, the opening quote (seen up under the picture) is very appropriate for our own current election season.