Rebels: "Ghosts of Geonosis: Part 1" (Ep. 3.12)

-- "There are times I hate being right, and I hope this isn't one of them."

I guess we're on a dead planet kick: Dathomir last episode, Geonosis this episode and next. Wow! The Clone Wars really left a lot of dead planets. Which makes me wonder about the "current" state of Mandalore. The original conception of Boba Fett was that he was the last of the Mandalorians, but so much of that got changed in the prequels and the subsequent Clone Wars episodes dealing with Mandalore that I'm sure what the current status actually is. I'm not even sure the Fetts were supposed to be Mandalorian at this point.

None of which has to do with this episode at all.

So getting back to Geonosis, a great place for a vacation home!
If, you know, you like absolute solitude. That is until the zombie bugs come for you.
None of which are in this episode.

But Saw Gerrera is in this episode! And he's looking more like how he looked in Rogue One than he did last time we saw him. Saw's an interesting character, one who could probably support his own series. [Hear that Disney? Give us a Saw Gerrera series!] He's gone missing on Geonosis investigating the disappearance of the entire population of the planet. And what do you do when your team investigating a disappearance also disappears? You send more people, of course!
And Jedi, if you have them.

Not that the rebels have actual Jedi, but they have the closest thing to it that's left in the galaxy.

I'm sure all of this is leading us toward the Death Star and Rogue One, but that's just a guess.

"They kind of look like battle droids to tell you the truth. Ugly battle droids that smell."

"Honestly, I was hoping I'd never have to come back to this dust bowl."

Clone Wars -- "Bounty" (Ep. 4.20)

-- Who we are never changes; who we think we are does.

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

Asajj Ventress is alone and on the run after Dooku's second or more attempt to have her killed. Trying to both survive and lay low, she ends up in Boba Fett's gang of bounty hunters. Despite his young age (and lack of Mandalorian armor), Fett is already in charge. Both Bossk and Dengar are in the gang.

This episode has ninjas. Or close enough.

And Simon Pegg does the voice of Dengar.

As opposed to the previous arc, which included a lot of bounty hunters who were fairly superfluous to what was going on, each member of Fett's team has a place and a use. They didn't feel like mere window dressing. As such, this was a really good episode. We get to see them all in action and see some of their personalities. It probably helps that we already have some familiarity to Bossk and Dengar, and it's nice that they are not just standing around in the background.

It's a good episode. Part of an arc, yet able to stand on its own. We get to see more of Fett's evolution, which is interesting. I hope they some day do a solo Fett movie but, until then, it's nice to have his background explored somewhat in Clone Wars.

Also, Ventress may not be quite as mercenary as she would like to think.

Clone Wars -- "The Box" (Ep. 4.17)

-- The strong survive; the noble overcome.

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

Okay, so, the ship they come in on at the beginning of the episode is pretty sweet. I don't remember seeing it in the last episode -- I don't know if I missed it (I get interrupted a lot by child-things) or if they only talked about it, but it's cool -- but it was a cool ship to open with.

Beyond that, though, I'm ambivalent about this episode. On the one hand, we're introduced to a dozen or so new bounty hunters (and there's a great bit dealing with Cad Bane and his hat fetish), and some of them look really cool. However, they are mostly window dressing, and we don't really get to find out any more about them than how they look. Then, again, I suppose that's how the bounty hunters were introduced in The Empire Strikes Back. Other than Boba Fett, it was years and years before we found out anything else about them.

Oh, and don't worry; I'm not forgetting the other hand.

On the other hand, this is one of those video game-like episodes where the bounty hunters are put in "the box," and they have to survive a series of challenges to earn the privilege of being on the team to capture Palpatine. I'm bored of these kinds of episodes, especially in a twenty minute format. It's just a ridiculous idea that has been perpetuated in popular culture through video games, but it makes no sense as something real. Everyone would die, so you wouldn't have any winners from which to form your team.

But Bane and Hardeen seem to bond, which is an interesting development.

Basically, this episode is just a bridge between parts two and four of this arc, but it would have worked just as well for me (okay, actually better) for them to just have introduced the rest of the team of bounty hunters with a "here's the rest of your team."

Clone Wars -- "Deception" (Ep. 4.15)

-- All warfare is based on deception.

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

For anyone having their first experience with Star Wars through The Clone Wars, this could be a traumatic episode for it opens with the assassination of Obi-Wan Kenobi.

Wait, what?!

Yeah, you heard me: the assassination of Obi-Wan Kenobi.

To say that Anakin doesn't take it well is somewhat of an understatement.

And Cad Bane is back, and you can't dismiss Bane.

I remember wondering, when I was watching this the first time, if this was in any way related to the set up for Revenge of the Sith, since that opens with Palpatine being rescued from the Separatists and the actual plot of this arc has to do with a kidnap plot against Palpatine. Guess what. I can't remember if this relates or not, so I get to find out all over again! However, since I can't remember, I'm going to guess that it doesn't relate.

There's also a brief appearance by young Boba Fett and Bossk.

It's a good episode, and that's all I'm saying.

Rebels: "Breaking Ranks" (Ep. 1.5)

"Don't worry. I've been training to be a Jedi."
"Yeah, right. Who isn't?"

In this episode, Ezra goes under cover.

In many ways, this is the mirror to the Clone Wars episode "Death Trap." In that one, a young Boba Fett went undercover as clone trooper cadet; in this one, Ezra goes undercover as a stormtrooper cadet. In that one, Boba was attempting an assassination; in this one, Ezra is trying to steal something the crew of the Ghost needs to save lives. In that one, Boba betrays the friends he's made; in this one, Ezra risks his life to save the new friends he's made.

There's one other significant interesting difference:
Throughout the Clone Wars series, we see the clones being trained to work together, trained to be one unit rather than a bunch of individuals. And, as close as the clones were to each other, they still had to be trained to work together. In this episode of Rebels, though, we see the stormtrooper cadets being encouraged to work for themselves individually, even to the detriment of their fellow stormtroopers. [This might explain why stormtroopers never hit anything.]

Also, there's a brief bit with the Inquisitor, a bit which may be a reveal on what the underlying reason is for the method of training for the stormtroopers.

The only negative I have about the episode is the video game nature of the particular training event happening in "Breaking Ranks." And how easy it is after the commander built it up as the most difficult thing they'd ever face. Yeah, I know it's 20 minute cartoon, but it seems like they could have come up with something more interesting and dangerous enough to be believable.

Clone Wars -- "Lethal Trackdown" (Ep. 2.22)

-- Revenge is a confession of pain.

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

This episode marks the end of the young Boba Fett story arc and the end of season two. It's an interesting to end the season (with no cliffhanger).

Also: The return of Hondo!
In a good way.

Aurra Sing and crew took hostages during the previous episode and use those hostages to entice Mace to come after them and face Boba Fett in combat. Boba does want his revenge.

But Mace is too injured to go because of the events last episode, so Plo Koon goes instead and takes Ahsoka with him.

The interesting bits:
There's a conversation between Anakin and Mace about revenge, because Anakin thinks Mace should go after Boba because of the attempted assassination and all the troopers the bounty hunters killed. Mace has already let it all go and says doing that, going after Boba, would lower him to Boba's level. Anakin... well, Anakin doesn't agree. Mace only "agrees" to go after Boba because of the hostages they took.

Plo gives Ahsoka a lesson on subtlety, something she hasn't learned from Anakin. She's not really very good at it.

Honda is Aurra's ex! I hod completely forgotten about that, so that was a cool re-discovery.

It's a good story arc, and it provides interesting background material for Boba Fett. And it raises some questions, none of which I'm going to say, because there would be spoilers. I will say that one of them has to do with the Slave 1, though. I can't remember if any of the questions get answered, because I can't remember if young Boba returns to the series or not. I suspect that he does from the ending of the episode, but I can't remember it. It makes it like watching the series for the first time all over again.

Clone Wars -- "R2 Come Home" (Ep. 2.21)

-- Adversity is a friendship's truest test.

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

The title of the episode is a little misleading. I suppose it's only meant to bring up images of Lassie. You know: "What, Lassie? Timmy fell down the well? Oh, no!" Which is exactly the kind of episode it is. However, when I read the title, I actually thought of the movie, Lassie Come Home, which is about Lassie trying to get back to her owners, to which I thought, "Again?" So, fortunately, I suppose, it was just an episode where Anakin fell down the metaphorical well and R2 had to go for help.

The episode picks up where the last one left off, just after Boba Fett sabotaged the ship Mace Windu was on. Anakin and Mace have gone to where the ship crashed to look for survivors. Aurra Sing and Boba Fett are doing the same thing but for different reasons. Boba, knowing Mace escaped, is still after him and has set a trap. One that Anakin walks right into.

It's not a very complicated episode, but I do think it's a very well done episode. The group of bounty hunters (Aurra, Boba, Bossk, and a... thing called Castas) have a lot of infighting. And Anakin and Mace's relationship is never one that can be said to all roses and sunshine, so there's a lot of interpersonal conflict in this one.

Then there's R2. Because, like I said, it's up to him to save the day and to deliver the message that Timmy fell down in the well.


"He's got a lot of personality. That's all."

Clone Wars -- "Death Trap" (Ep. 2.20)

-- Who my father was matters less than my memory of him.

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

I have in my head this picture of the young Boba Fett first going off with Bossk and Aurra Sing, of him climbing the ramp into the ship with them, but I don't remember where that happened. The Clone Wars is not all in chronological order so, maybe, that's an episode later in the series. In this episode, though, the young Fett has already joined the bounty hunters, and he's undercover for them as, you guessed it, a clone trooper cadet.

It's unclear what the actual objective of the mission is, but Fett's objective is to assassinate Mace Windu. And it could be that that is the overall mission objective, but it seemed to me that that aspect of it was not actually what was important to Aurra Sing, she being the one in charge.

In effect, this is another episode about clone differentiation. Boba, going by the name Lucky, of course, blends right in with the other cadets. They look at him as a "brother." But Boba, while a clone, isn't actually like the other clones. He's the same but different, because Boba is actually a true clone of Jango, not a modified one like the other clones. Boba, though, still feels a kinship with the clones, the other cadets and the full troopers. He doesn't want to hurt any of them.

Aurra Sing doesn't care about any of them. Including Boba; he's just a tool to her.

The other thing of interest has to do with origin stories for established characters. It's not like Luke or, say, Spider-Man; we got to watch those origin stories as they happened. But you put in a character like Darth Vader or Wolverine, and everyone wants to know their origins. The problem is that the characters are so cool that no origin story can possibly live up to it, although it's entirely possibly that people would have been pissed if we'd first met Luke as full Jedi only to find out later that he started as a whiny farm boy from Tatooine.

Boba Fett suffers from this problem, probably even more than Darth Vader. When I was a kid, everyone wanted to know who Boba Fett was. It was great speculation. Finding out that he's just a clone of Jango Fett was a great letdown for a lot of people, although I think it works rather will considering the implied relationship between Vader and Boba in The Empire Strikes Back.

Effectively, this is an origin story episode. How did Boba Fett become the hardened bounty hunter that we know in Empire? This episode is how. Or, at least, the beginning of that how. There's a moment... but, well, that would be telling.


"When I show off, it is instructive. And inspiring."

Clone Wars -- "The Mandalore Plot" (Ep. 2.12)

-- If you ignore the past, you jeopardize the future.

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

I'm not sure if I can say this is my favorite season two story arc or not, but it is one of my favorite arcs from Clone Wars overall, which I can say because it's one of the ones I remembered best before starting to watch the series again (for this thing that The Armchair Squid and I are doing). This arc has more than a few very memorable, and important, characters/concepts/things that it introduces.

Let's deal with the obvious one first:
"The Mandalore Plot" takes us to the planet Mandalore, a place every kid who got one of those early Boba Fett figures back in 1979/80 wanted to go. Face it, Boba Fett may still be the coolest character ever to come out of Star Wars, and they really never gave us anything to go on for decades. When they finally did, it was in the person of Jango Fett, and they still told us nothing. But "The Mandalore Plot" finally gives us some background.

For one thing, the episode reveals that the Mandalorians, or at least the warriors who wore the armor, had a longstanding animosity with the Jedi. I think the implication there is that their armor suits were developed specifically to counter the Jedi, which would explain why Obi-Wan has so much trouble with Jango Fett in Attack of the Clones. And, actually, again in this episode of The Clone Wars.

Another thing we get to see is the darksaber, an ancient Jedi weapon stolen by the Mandalorians long ago.

The darksaber is a cool weapon and works similarly to a lightsaber. The series never provides much background on what it is or where it came from or anything like that, but it does turn up in later episodes.

And then there's Satine. Satine is an important character for reasons I'm not going to go into yet: They'd be spoilery. However, I will say one thing: I find it completely amusing that they named the character Satine, the name of Nicole Kidman's character in Moulin Rouge. That's a hint, by the way, but that's all I'm going to say. Well, other than that she'll be back.

Oh, and the introduction of Death Watch. That's a thing, too.

Mostly, The Clone Wars doesn't contain this kind of world building. It does occasionally, but it's generally focused on characters or showing us places we've already been or creating an interesting side note that only exists for an episode or two. This arc, though, seems very foundational to me because of the depth it gives us for Boba Fett's background. You know at some point Disney is going to get around to doing a Boba Fett movie, so I would expect that at least some of this stuff from these episodes will come into play again.

Personally, I'd love to see the darksaber make it to the big screen.

"We'll have to stand and fight or, in your case, just stand."

Clone Wars -- "Hostage Crisis" (Ep. 1.22)

-- A secret shared is a trust formed.

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

You can blame it on Boba Fett. Or, more specifically, whoever it was who decided that Boba Fett should be released as a secret character action figure ahead of the release of The Empire Strikes Back. Between that and the actual bounty hunters in the movie, bounty hunters became a mythos of the Star Wars universe without doing much more than standing in place and being told, "No disintegrations."

With that in mind, it's somewhat surprising that they waited until the last episode of season one to introduce bounty hunters to The Clone Wars. However, they did it by introducing a whole team of bounty hunters, including Aurra Sing (of The Phantom Menace fame). But it's Cad Bane who runs the show, and a very interesting character he is.

And I'm not really going to talk about that other than to say that he's an ongoing character and, possibly, one acting outside of Palpatine's machinations.

This episode has a hint of Ocean's Eleven flavoring. It's not a heist, per se, but each of the bounty hunters definitely has a specific role in the plan that Bane is hatching.

Still, with all of the bounty hunter action that's happening, the true story revolves around Anakin and Padme and the stupid things that people can do for love. Specifically, you guessed it, Anakin. It's another step on the path of Anakin's downfall for him, though it might not appear that way, but it's an obvious thing that Anakin does not hold his Jedi code in the place that he should.

All in all, this is a pretty good episode. I think it would have been more enjoyable as a two-parter, especially if they had done an end-of-season cliff hanger but, maybe, that's not a thing in shows primarily targeted to younger people do. I don't know. It's a fun episode as it is, but it could have been a bit more. Of course, season one Clone Wars doesn't have any actual multi-part episodes, so that's probably part of why it's contained as a single episode.

Kids' Clothes Were Never This Cool

Have you seen the clothes they make for kids these days? They're amazing. Kids' clothes were never this cool when I was a kid. It was all like tiny grownup clothes. I mean, they didn't even have Star Wars t-shirts! Well, okay, they did, but it was only every once in a while. And they were made with those big iron decals, basically, so, once you wore it about three times, the image was all cracked and peeling off. Well, not when you wore it; once it was washed a few times, it looked like it really came from a long time ago from a galaxy far, far away. Of course, the answer to that was to never wash it. Right?

One of my friends... Hold on; let me really emphasize that: ONE of my friends had a Star Wars shirt with R2 and C-3PO on it. He was the envy of every boy in our class. I was in my 20s before I had my own Star Wars t-shirt. Unless you count Underoos. Yeah, that was about as cool as it got when I was a kid. You could get underwear with stuff on it but not actual clothes. I had the Boba Fett Underoos

which were cool if you wanted to run around the house pretending to be Boba Fett (a Boba Fett with no pants), but you couldn't really wear the shirt out in public without every other person asking you what was on your shirt. Saying "a chest plate" really didn't help. Yes, I know.
I also had the Yoda Underoos

which were better, because you could wear that shirt out in public. Even if someone didn't know who he was, you could just say, "He's Yoda. He's from Star Wars."

When I was a kid, you couldn't even get band t-shirts (not that I wanted any) unless you actually went to the concert and bought them! It wasn't really until the late 80s and U2 that you could actually go to a store and buy a band t-shirt. Other than Spencer's, I mean. You could get that stuff in there, but I wasn't allowed in that place. Regular department stores and clothing stores had regular clothes, and that was it. Cool was not allowed.

All of that has changed now. Pop culture is everywhere. Any brand of cool you can think of, you can find. And you can find it virtually anywhere.

So, yeah, I've been back-to-school shopping with my kids, and it's always envy-making. Well, clothes shopping in general with my kids is envy-making. Even with my daughter. Not that I want all the pink, sparkly stuff she has, but they have cool Star Wars clothes for her, too! She's got the one shirt with... wait, I'll show you!

I love that shirt! And she even picked it out. I'm not sure what that says about how she thinks about me, but I don't think I really care. And clothes shopping with my daughter always makes my wife depressed. She's always, "I want one of those," or, "I want those colors," but they don't make that kind of stuff for adults.

I just have to say: These days, kids have it good.

And it's not just with clothes; it's with books, too. When I was in middle school, there were no books being written for kids my age. Or, well, there were, but they were all romances aimed at girls. The "YA" section (or whatever they called it then) didn't even get a full-sized bookcase. The entire section was located on one side of a bookcase that was only waist high. And it was all romance like Sweet Valley High, which had just come out. Things like The Chronicles of Narnia were stocked in the sci-fi/fantasy section because Harry Potter was still more than a decade away and the idea that you could actually write mature(ish) books aimed at teens and young teens was still a foreign concept.

I'm not even going to talk about Lego. Because, oh my gosh, THAT is just so unfair.

Anyway...
Kids have it good. And they don't appreciate it.
But, then, what kids ever do?

The Happiest Place on Earth: Part 5: It Just Got Happier

When we were at Disneyland back during the summer, I was joking with my kids about how Disney was going to take over the world. I may have mentioned this in one of the posts about all the Disney stuff, but I couldn't find it upon a casual perusal, and I don't have time for anything more in depth. As I'm writing this, though... wait a minute! Yes, it's here. Disney has been buying so much: Pixar, Marvel, and, now... Star Wars.

Yes, Disney bought Star Wars! Not just Star Wars but all of Lucasfilm including Skywalker Sound and ILM and all of that. They get Star Wars and Indiana Jones. It's a huge deal. A $4 billion deal of which Lucas gets $2 billion in cash. I can't even imagine that.

So this is one of the things that I was joking about while we were at Disneyland as we were strolling through Tomorrowland -- Star Wars being the next step Disney would need to take in their bid to take over the world. Star Wars is the biggest entertainment franchise ever to exist other than Disney itself, so this is... well, it's just HUGE!

The immediate result of the deal is that another Star Wars movie is going into immediate production for a 2015 release. And, yeah, I already hear the moaning out there blah blah blah, but I have just two words to say to all of you who think this is bad: The Avengers. If anyone can pull off another Star Wars film, it will be Disney.

I actually like that Lucas has done this. It opens all kinds opportunities to expand the world of Star Wars. Expansion that Lucas would never have done, because, well, he's tired of everyone bashing him. And who can blame him?

There are three more movies on the horizon now: episodes 7, 8, and 9. Movies that Lucas said he would never make. But I'm sure that's just the tip of the ice berg. There have been rumors going around about a solo Boba Fett movie, and I wouldn't be surprised to see that happen, now, too, especially since Joe Johnston, director of Captain America, provided the final designs on the character. He's also been bugging Lucas about making that movie for years.

The most significant part of the whole thing, though, is that Lucas said he's wanted to see Star Wars passed down for future generations, and there really is no better place for Star Wars to be for that happen. If Disney knows how to do anything, they know how to preserve cherished movies and pass them on from parents to kids and, well, to more kids. Not that I think Star Wars ever would have passed out of memory, but Disney will keep Star Wars alive and growing.

None of this even takes into consideration the great talent that will now be available to play in the Star Wars universe. Hey, Joss Whedon already has a relationship with Disney... can you imagine? There are so many possibilities!

And, well, heck, I'm still stuck on episode 7. Seriously. And my kids are super excited. Exciting times!