Clone Wars -- "Shadow Warrior" (Ep. 4.4)

-- Who a person truly is cannot be seen with the eye.

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After the horrible titles of the last three episodes, we finally get a good title. Of course, it has absolutely nothing to do with the episode. Seriously, the term "shadow warrior" never even comes up. Unless it was mentioned in the bit of dialogue during which my children were arguing, which would not surprise me, but, just in case that's what happened, I tried looking it up and couldn't find it referring to anything other than the title itself, so I'm going to go with the title having nothing to do with the episode. Which makes it kind of a wasted effort.

As you can see from the picture, we're back with the Gungans again. While doing my "shadow warrior" research, I found that this episode was originally meant to be the lead episode of season four, which in my mind would have worked much better considering the beating the Gungan army took on Mon Calamari. Here, the Gungan army, due to the machinations of the Separatists, is preparing to march against the humans to take over Theed.

I think I'm seeing a pattern. Quarren against Mon Cala, now Gungans against the Naboo. It makes me wonder if we're going to see more of this. At least this is just a one-shot and not a whole arc.

Which is not to say that this is a bad episode. It's easily better than the previous arc, and it has a few really great moments in it, like when Jar Jar comes face to face with General Grievous and plays with the height adjustment on his chair to cover his discomfort. That moment is a real gem. And the confrontation between Dooku and Anakin is good. Previously, Dooku took on Obi-Wan and Anakin simultaneously without any real concern but, this time, it's just Anakin against Dooku, and Dooku feels the need for droid backups. He is clearly worried during the duel.

The real issue with this episode is that it feels rushed. They could have taken out the middle segment of the previous arc and made two two-parters and done much better. That and the Gungans... well, the Gungans manage to capture Grievous, something no one else has been able to do, and that feels somewhat, I don't know, either forced or out of place. It's like, "No, look! The Gungans really are competent!" And I get that they want to make a statement that Jar Jar is not representative, but just sticking that in without giving us a basis for believing it makes it feel like one of Jar Jar's fumbles.

Clone Wars -- "Gungan Attack" (Ep. 4.2)

-- Only through fire is a strong sword forged.

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Well... I still don't like Riff Tamson (the shark guy pictured above) as a villain. I don't remember having such distaste for him the first time I watched the series, but maybe I did and that's why I'm disliking him so much this time. Or, maybe, it's just that I'm not liking this arc much.

I suppose there was a call for this arc of episodes after the appearance of Kit Fisto fighting on Mon Calamari in the original series of Clone Wars shorts (2003). Admittedly, that was a pretty cool episode and seeing Fisto fighting underwater was a neat thing. But that was, what, five minutes or so, and sometimes that's all you need to have. There's not really much of Fisto in this arc, anyway. Not that he's not there, but the focus is mostly on Prince Lee-Char, and he hasn't grabbed me as a character. Which is, I suppose, the point, since this arc is about him learning to become a leader.

Yes, there are Gungans. It's not an issue and has nothing to do with my disenjoyment of these episodes. They're brought in as reinforcements after the Republic forces are defeated and forced to retreat into hiding at the end of "Water War" (the previous episode). It's nice to see them get their time as an underwater fighting force since we didn't get to see them fight in that manner in The Phantom Menace.

There's another episode in this arc, though, so you can probably imagine how it goes.

Oh, and the Separatists have another new droid thing inspired by an ocean creature, as if the jellyfish droid (which are still around) wasn't enough. This one is a big squid thing and is even worse than the jellyfish. It's a physics thing.

Speaking of which, and I understand this one intellectually, but I realized about halfway through the episode that everyone talks normally underwater in this arc. So, yeah, the humans have on underwater gear with helmets, so it makes sense that they would sound normal, but the Mon Cala, Quarren, Fisto, and Tamson all sound perfectly normal, as if they are in air, when they speak. I know they need the audience to understand, but what kid hasn't tried to talk under water at some point? Yes, that was another realization that niggled at me, like the Mon Cala women having breasts.


"Hope is something we cannot allow our enemy to possess."

Clone Wars -- "Water War" (Ep. 4.1)

-- When destiny calls, the chosen have no choice.

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"Water War" gives us our introduction to Ackbar, as a Captain rather than as an Admiral. I believe this is the first canon view of the Mon Cala homeworld, Mon Calamari. Mon Calamari is home to two sentient races: the Mon Cala and the Quarren. While the Mon Cala are peaceful-ish, the Quarren are... not so much. The two peoples, however, are mostly unified, right up until the death of the Mon Calamari king, who happens to have been one of the Mon Cala. The Separatists use the death to stir dissension between the two groups.

As a complete aside:
The Mon Cala are a lobster-based life form [the Quarren are squid-like]. Now, think about all of the lobsters you've ever seen and tell me, by sight, which are the males and which are the females. You can't, can you? (I'm not looking it up, but I think it's a size difference.) So we see our first female Mon Cala in this episode and she... well, she has breasts. Um, why? These people have exoskeletons; how exactly can you have breasts that way? Yes, it bothered me to notice this. It just did.
Aside over.

This episode also introduces us to Riff Tamson, a shark-like being from the planet Karkaris. He's the Separatist ambassador who is stirring up trouble. I'm annoyed by this character, also. We already have sentient lobsters and squids on Mon Calamari, and they felt the need to bring in a sentient shark from some other planet? And he's the bad guy. The whole thing just feels too cliche to me. Not in a "I hate this" way, but it's certainly noticeable. Like a crack in your windshield that you learn to ignore but know is there.

The story itself is okay. Adequate. It's fairly standard in its setup with the Mon Cala siding with the Republic and the Quarren wanting to side with the Separatists. It, of course, leads to a great undersea battle between the clones and the Separatist droids. Right up until the introduction of the "invincible" jellyfish droids of the Separatists. [Yes, at that point, I found those annoying, too. I mean, why is that everything in this episode has to have some sea creature origin? There's actually no logical reason for the droids to look like jellyfish within the context of SWU itself. It's just there because of the arbitrary design scheme of the creators.]

Kit Fisto also makes an appearance, which is cool, except that he doesn't do much in this episode.

Don't get me wrong, it's a fine episode. Totally watchable. The stuff that annoyed me are not likely to annoy other people and have nothing to do with the story. Which is fine. Really.


"Today, you learned the hardest lesson a commander can learn: how to live to fight another day."

Clone Wars -- "The Lair of General Grievous" (Ep. 1.10)

-- Most powerful is he who controls his own power.

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Generally speaking, we travel through the Clone Wars with Anakin and/or Ahsoka. Frequently, Obi-Wan is around, although he isn't so often the focus, though we do get some of those episodes. Only rarely do we depart from those characters entirely. This was one of those episodes.

The Jedi are still after the escaped prisoner from the previous episode, but it's Kit Fisto who has picked up the trail... right to Grievous' lair. Like his own private hideout. Which is, not surprisingly, mostly a monument to himself. Seriously, Grievous has statues of himself in his lair. And all the trophies from all the Jedi he's killed.

Of course, it's a trap.

But who's the trap for?

Continuing with the theme of betrayal, we get to see it from the other side in this episode. But, then, that's how the Sith operate.

We also get to meet the former Padawan of Kit Fisto, Nahdar Vebb, now a Jedi Knight. Vebb is also Mon Calamari, so the only thing that could have made this episode more complete would have been for Vebb to have said, "It's a trap!" Alas, he did not say that. He does provide us with a lesson of why Jedi strive not to give into the lust to use power, though.

As what amounts to a standalone episode, this is a very good one. Not only do we get to see Kit Fisto in action, but we get some pieces of Grievous' backstory. And we get to see him at his toughest, when he's cornered. There is a reason he's killed so many Jedi.



"Wait. Where's the other Jedi? ...oh, no."