Rebels: "The Call" (Ep. 2.15)

-- "It's not the strangest thing we've ever done."

"Yeah, that doesn't make me feel better."

So now we know that Jedi can survive and operate in the vacuum of space... unless Kanan and Ezra wear special "pressure clothes" just in case they need to space walk, but I'm going to go with the being functional in a vacuum. We kind of already knew that from an episode of Clone Wars, but, Plo Koon (at least, I think it was him, and I'm not looking back to verify) seemed to imply that was a very limited ability. All of that, or there was some kind of atmosphere around the asteroid they were on providing enough pressure to allow them to function without a suit? But not breathe. The breathing was definitely an issue.

Anyway... Space whales! This isn't the first time we've encountered giant creatures living out in the vacuum of space in Star Wars. Or even the second. The first, of course, being in The Empire Strikes Back and the giant space slug that wanted to eat the Falcon. Not to mention the mynocks.

This episode, the Ghost runs out of fuel. I have to wonder if this is where idiot Rian Johnson got the idea for an entire fleet of ships to all run out of fuel at the same time. Probably not. Anyway, as I said before, I don't have a problem with the fuel idea; it's that ALL OF THE SHIPS ran out of gas AT THE SAME TIME! This was much better. Just one ship running on fumes, not the whole fleet.

And what do rebels do when they're running low on fuel? Steal it from the Empire, of course.

"Sounds like a dangerous plan."

"Don't worry, buddy, you're staying here."

"Sounds like a good plan."

"There's no explosion. Why's there no explosion?"

"Next time we just plan on the plan changing."

Clone Wars -- "To Catch a Jedi" (Ep. 5.19)

-- Never become desperate enough to trust the untrustworthy.

[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.]

The title of this episode is another reference to an Alfred Hitchcock film: To Catch a Thief. As far as I know I've never seen To Catch a Thief, though that might not be true. There are a lot of old movies I watched as a young teenager that I don't remember anymore, and I watched a lot of Hitchcock films, so it is actually possible I've seen this one. Either way, I still get the idea they're going for from looking at the summary of the movie. It does make me wonder if "Sabotage," the first story in this arc, is also a reference to a Hitchcock film, a reference that I'm just not getting. Oh,wait, it is! And it's actually called Sabotage. I suppose I'm going to have to watch all of these again, now, or for the first time, depending. I'm pretty certain I've never seen Sabotage.

Ahsoka's on the run...
Now, let's step back a moment:
Much of the tension in Clone Wars is derived from Ahsoka and the fact that we know she's not around for Revenge of the Sith. We know something has to happen to her, which is something my kids started asking me during season one back when we were first watching the series. So what does happen to Ahsoka?

This arc is the beginning of the answer to that question, which is about all I can say without spoilers. What I can say is that this is one of the best arcs in the series. Plenty of action, plenty of drama, plenty of character development. Because, you know, anything that affects Ahsoka is also going to affect Anakin, and, more than anything else, Clone Wars is here for us to see the subtle shifts that led to Anakin's fall.

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 -- "Cloak of Darkness" (Ep. 1.9)

-- Ignore your instincts at your peril.

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

I'm going to lead on this one with the fact that James Marsters does a voice for this episode. That should have caught the eye of some of you pop culture/Joss Whedon people out there. If you don't know what I'm talking about, just move along. Move along.

Betrayal is one of the themes Star Wars returns to over and over again. Even from A New Hope, we have, "He betrayed and murdered your father," not to mention the betrayal by the clones against the Jedi in Revenge of the Sith and Vader's betrayal against the Emperor at the end of Return of the Jedi. We encounter betrayal frequently, too, during the Clone Wars, this not even being the first episode dealing with betrayal just nine episodes into the first season.

I don't know what to say about all the betrayal. It's just part of the fabric. Against the background of the Clone Wars, you can't trust anyone. Well, okay, you can trust R2-D2 and you can trust Obi-Wan and you can trust Yoda. You don't really want to go putting money down on anyone else, though. I think that's why we encounter it so frequently, though, so that we understand that you can't trust anyone. And it doesn't matter how innocuous the "person" seems.

Another thing the Clone Wars series does well is to let us get to know Jedi we've only previously had glimpses of. This episode is a closer look at Luminara Unduli. Again (as with Plo Koon in the Malevolence episodes), we get our look at the Jedi through the eyes of Ahsoka. Luminara is less good at listening to Ahsoka than I think Ahsoka is used to and gives Ahsoka some orders that Ahsoka doesn't really agree with. There's not an inconsiderable amount of angst while Ahsoka tries to figure out whether to follow them.

And there's a great good cop/bad cop bit when Luminara and Ahsoka are interrogating a prisoner. Luminara, being the good cop, is trying to logic the prisoner into talking when Ahsoka goes all, "I'm gonna gut you like a fish" on the guy. Luminara, though, thinks Ahsoka is being serious and goes all teach-y on Ahsoka about proper Jedi ways. It's an interesting exchange.

All of that and Ventress makes an appearance. Things always get interesting when she's around.

It's a good, solid episode that fits well into the story flow and can probably even be watched without having seen other episodes. Probably.

Clone Wars -- "Shadow of Malevolence" (Ep. 1.3)

-- Easy is the path to wisdom for those not blinded by ego.

"Shadow of Malevolence" is one of the best episodes from season one. I say that from the stance that I still strongly remembered it (before I watched it again) more than five years after my original watching of it. My younger boy did, too. As soon as it started up, he said, "Oh! It's this episode!"

Visually, it introduces the Neebrays of the Balmorra Nebula, large manta-like creatures that fly through space. When I say large, I mean large. Like star cruiser size. They dwarf the squardron of y-wings that Anakin is leading so much so that Ahsoka is worried about being eaten. It's a brief scene, but it's very impressive.

Most of the episode features Anakin being cocky. He's come up with a plan to defeat Grievous and the Malevolence, and he's sure he will succeed. He's the leader of Shadow Squadron, a group of elite fighter pilots, and they have never failed in a mission or even lost many of their members. It's not just Anakin, then, who is cocky but the whole group of them. It's not that they believe they will succeed; it's that they believe they cannot fail.

Ahsoka, who has seen what the Malevolence can do, isn't so sure, but she's just a Padawan, so Anakin brushes aside her concerns as unimportant. However, Plo Koon, who also isn't as sure as Anakin (and who also has seen the Malevolence at work), comes along as an escort to keep an eye things.

Side note 1: We see that the Jedi are not as familiar with which other as we might have thought. Plo Koon is largely unfamiliar with Anakin other than in reputation. He doesn't actually trust Anakin's judgement despite the fact that Anakin is a Knight and a general. The lack of familiarity gives us a vague sense of how large the Jedi organization is and how much the individual Jedi spend working alone (or only with their Padawans).

On the other side of things, we see Grievous being just as cocky as Anakin. He has supreme confidence in his ship and its inability to be defeated. He takes no precautions against the raid Anakin is leading against the Malevolence despite being tipped off by Sidious via Dooku.

Basically, it comes down to whether either of them will see that clinging to their individual beliefs that they cannot fail is what is leading them to failure.

Side note 2: At one point, Grievous knocks the head off of one of his gunner droids for failing to hit any targets, and Dooku tells him that the droids are expensive. Grievous asks, sarcastically, if he's expected to start caring for the droids the way the Jedi care for their clones. A brief philosophical discussion ensues that, again, reveals the belief by the Jedi that the clones are valuable individuals, a belief the Sith believe will be the downfall of the Jedi.

This episode is an excellent example of how seemingly small things are added into the shows that reveal the larger picture of the Star Wars universe.

Clone Wars -- "Rising Malevolence" (Ep. 1.2)

-- Belief is not a matter of choice, but of conviction.

One of the best things about Clone Wars is that it allows us to find out more about characters we only ever really glance at in the movies. This is especially true of the Jedi Masters. In the movies, the Masters mostly just function as cardboard cutouts to fill the Council Chamber. Sure, a few of them get some lines but, other than during the execution of Order 66, we don't see them doing anything. They're just there to look cool.

Clone Wars finally lets us get to know characters like Plo Koon and see them in action.

It's not the same kind of action as with Yoda in the previous episode, though. There's no plowing through battle droids in this one. It's more a survival tale. However, there is more affirmation that the Jedi view the clones as unique and valuable beings, something the clones don't really accept about themselves. There's a piece of dialogue where one of the clones tells Plo Koon, "No one is coming for us. We're expendable," and Plo replies, "Not to me." It's especially poignant considering Order 66.

The other big thing in this episode is the introduction/origin of the ion cannon. You probably remember it best from The Empire Strikes Back has the huge ball turret the rebels used to disable whole star destroyers so that their ships could escape from Hoth. Here, we see General Grievous out testing the first prototype of the weapon in his flagship, the Malevolence, hence the title of the episode. And, I just have to say, the Malevolence is a pretty awesome ship. The animation on it is incredible. The episode is worth watching just for the ship but, even without it, it's well worth watching. [My kid has the Lego of the Malevolence which is pretty awesome, too.]

"Anakin just redeployed himself. Again." -- Obi-Wan Kenobi