Rebels: "The Forgotten Druid" (Ep. 2.19)

-- Chopper, we're not here to shop.

One thing seeing Solo has done for me is renewed my interest in Rebels, not that my interest had waned, I just haven't had a lot of extra time, lately, for watching anything. But, after the reveal at the end of the movie, I was reminded I needed to get back on this show. And, then, one of the first things my son said to me as we left the theater was, "Dad, we need to start watching Rebels again." Apparently, I couldn't agree more.

Historically, episodes centered around droids have not been my favorites, which is unfortunate since I really love R2 and 3PO. They just never seem to stand up to the spotlight being directly on them. Such was not the case with Chopper. Not this time, anyway. And it seems the writers wanted to give us a bit about Chopper's backstory.

The stuff dealing with droids and their societal condition is pretty interesting, all things considered, and this episode was a good one to go along with the recentness of Solo because of it. Chopper becomes... acquainted... with an Imperial protocol droid, and it's immediately clear that there is a marked difference between the condition of the droids on the rebel side -- or, at least, Chopper (and R2 and 3PO) -- and the droids on the Imperial side:

Free will sounds nice. I admire your fortitude.

It's good to be reminded that the droids are sentient beings and that their restraining bolts serve as nothing more than slave collars.

And, sure, the droids are manufactured beings, but is it okay to enslave a sentient being even if it's a being you built? It's an interesting question and one I'm sure we're soon going to be dealing with on a practical level and not just a hypothetical one.

"The entire rebel fleet is betting on Chopper."

"Yeah, try not to think about it."

Clone Wars -- "Point of No Return" (Ep. 5.12)

-- You must trust in others or success is impossible.

[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.]

Is it over yet? I'm so ready for it to be over. It's not me; it's you. You, Colonel Meebur Gascon, or the frog general, as I call him. I'm so ready for you to be out of my Clone Wars.

His name is a joke, by the way. I suppose I could have mentioned that earlier, but it doesn't make it any better. It means "braggart," basically. One who believes himself to be more (bigger) than he is, which is why he's small, to exaggerate the point. heh

On its own, this episode might not be so bad but, after three episode of Gascon, this one already starts with really low marks. Especially since it starts by making a point of Gascon's worst quality (yes, even worse than talking big all the time), that he never does the right thing unless he's forced to. He wants glory without the effort. So, when Gascon and droid company find themselves on a booby trapped ship heading toward a Republic security conference, Gascon's first impulse is to abandon ship and allow the bomb-laden vessel to travel on to its destination. It's only when he finds he cannot get off the ship that he decides he needs to do something about the fact that it's going to blow up.

Of course, it's R2-D2 who really does all the work and, yes, saves the day, but he couldn't save this story arc.

Clone Wars -- "Missing in Action" (Ep. 5.11)

-- A soldier's most powerful weapon is courage.

[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 adventures of Colonel Gascon continue this week, and we get a clone thrown into the mix. With amnesia. Generally speaking, I hate amnesia stories, but the story of Gregor has been the best thing about this arc so far. Except for the Russian-sounding sullustan. And it would have been okay if they had just used the Russian accent for a bit of audio-flavor, but he was clearly culturally Russian, including naming the clone Gregor, and that felt a little weird.

So, yeah, I'm tired of Gascon, the frog general. I think the first time I watched the series I found him amusing -- that's my memory impression, anyway -- but, this time, I just find him tiresome. It's the prejudice against droids and his own self importance that does it. Perhaps, though, it's fitting for the time we're in, right now, because there are some analogies that can be drawn from the character. Clearly, he has the attitudes of the typical white male boomer; maybe that's why they made him a frog, which is a thought I am, at this moment, finding amusing.

Not enough for me not to be ready for this arc to finish, though. I'm ready to get back to the real story.


"I hope you have a plan to get us off this armpit."

Clone Wars -- "A Sunny Day in the Void" (Ep. 5.10)

-- When all seems hopeless, a true hero gives hope.

[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.]

So... Whereas I was okay with one episode with this special droid team led by Colonel Gascon (the frog "general," just as a humor break or whatever you want to call it, I find myself less interested in a whole story arc surrounding this idea. Especially one that begins with an overly contrived shipwreck. Seriously? The piloted their ship through a comet cloud? They have four (FOUR!) astromech droids on this team and they piloted their ship into a cloud of comets and crashed?!?! Come on! At least have them damaged in a dogfight or something trying to escape. That would have been plausible and believable.

But, not only that, but the pilot droid, THE PILOT DROID!, seems unable to come to a decision to avoid flying into the comet storm and goes off to make conversation before alerting Gascon, at which point it is too late to do anything about it.

Which leaves them crashed on a void planet.

Basically, I didn't find anything of real value in this episode and, actually, I don't remember finding anything of value in it the first time I watched it. In fact, I had completely forgotten about "A Sunny Day in the Void," the title being the best thing about the episode (other than a couple of good one-liners), and had a sinking feeling as soon as I realized which episode it was.



"All I ask is that you let me die with dignity."
"Is that possible?"

Clone Wars -- "Secret Weapons" (Ep. 5.9)

-- Humility is the only defense against humiliation.

[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.]

"Secret Weapons" is what you might call a fun little episode and, when I say "little," I mean that literally. I can only imagine the idea for this episode happened over a few a beers one night when someone said,"Wait! The general can be a frog!"
And someone responded, "And it can ride around in R2's head!"
That or someone is a big fan of the daleks from Doctor Who.

I don't have much more to say about this episode other than that it's fun. It's not significant in anyway, just a break for a bit of humor. Other than that R2 is in it (and not even in a significant way), there aren't even any established characters in the episode other than to start it off. That said, Dr. Gubacher is hilarious and is worth the whole episode. Or, at least, up to the part that he's in. He's like a cross between Igor and Q, and it makes me want a whole series where he's outfitting Jedi with special gadgets. That, um, actually sounds kind of awesome.



"Some of you might not make it back."
"What? Why's he looking at me?"

Clone Wars -- "Bound for Rescue" (Ep. 5.7)

-- When we rescue others, we rescue ourselves.

[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.]

Ahsoka got captured. My feeling is that this is a thing that has happened frequently, but, then, so have Obi-Wan and Anakin, I suppose. There really is a lot of getting captured and having to escape or be rescued! Mostly, that's not an issue.

Of course, Obi-Wan is going to mount a rescue operation, but he gets interrupted by being attacked by Grievous. It doesn't go well.

Which leaves the younglings on their own to figure out what to do about being left on a ship that has been damaged and with no supervision other than R2-D2. They do what all kids do -- or, at least, all kids in popular fiction -- they take matters into their own hands.
And join a circus.
Yeah, you'll just have to watch it to understand what that means.

Hondo's still around, because he's the one holding Ahsoka, expecting to make a profit of off her. From whom is a bit of a mystery since, when Ahsoka tells him he can't ransom her to the Separatists, he says he knows because, "Don't ask me why, but Dooku holds such a grudge against me since our little I-held-him-hostage affair." It's a great moment in an episode which is a bit anticlimactic after the previous one.


"If you don't let me go, you'll wish you had been born a protocol droid."
"Sometimes, I do anyway."

Clone Wars -- "A Friend in Need" (Ep. 4.14)

-- Friendship shows us who we really are.

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

The return of Death Watch... and a plan to assassinate Dooku?

Having the Death Watch around is always interesting, and, hey, it's always cool to see the Darksaber, but I actually don't want to talk about what the episode is about. No, again, I want to focus on something that's off to the side of the story.

When Ahsoka, R2-D2, and Lux Bonteri arrive at the Death Watch camp, the members of the Death Watch are busy torturing... droids. For fun. Their pattern seems to be to torture the droids into inoperability then have someone fix the droids up so that they can torture them some more. And I know some of you, right now, are thinking, "So...? They're droids."

It's important to remember that in Star Wars, droids are sentient. They have self-awareness and value themselves as individuals. This isn't a subject that's ever explored in Star Wars, but it's certainly there in the background. It's actually a parallel line of thought to that of the clones.

Now, most people would probably say it would be wrong to torture clones; they're alive, right? But not everyone believed that. They were, after all, built, so doesn't that make them something like organic machines? "But they can feel pain!" Sure, but so can the droids. "It's not the same!" Why not?

Why not?

Of course, after the Clone War, the making of clones was made illegal. So was the making of droids for combat purposes, though that's barely touched on.

Did you know that science (yeah, I know, for a lot of you, I may as well have just said "magic") is showing us, right now, that dolphins and other marine mammals are self aware? They have names for each other. So, you know, when a dolphin gets caught in a fishing net and pulled out  of the water, some other dolphin out in the ocean is going off to tell the pod, "Samson got caught in a net..." Imagine how you would feel if you found out your neighbor caught and ate your dog.

And some of you are saying, "So what. It's only a dog." Or it's only a dolphin. Or... it's only a black person. Or a Mexican. Or a Muslim. Or a faggot. It's not like they're people, right?



"You don't want to make them angry; they are far from rational."

Clone Wars -- "Nomad Droids" (Ep. 4.6)

-- Who's the more foolish, the fool or the fool who follows him?

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

I never watched the Droids cartoon from the mid-80s, but I feel like I am now. Which may be the point with this and the previous episode. Maybe these are meant as an homage to that series. At least it's just the two episodes.

Which is not to say that this was a bad episode. For an episode centered on the droids, it was quite good, actually. It's just that with the weak start of season four, it's at the trailing end of a series of episodes that don't live up to the quality of the previous three seasons. If this episode had been used as a one-shot between more serious arcs, it could have been a welcome addition of humor.

Still, this episode did manage to make me LOL a number of times. When I say LOL, I mean that literally. Not only does this episode feel like an homage to Droids but also to The Wizard of Oz. And, maybe, Willow. The tiny fairy-like aliens on the first planet R2 and 3PO end up on reminded me a lot of the two brownies from that movie.

Speaking of which, their introduction is handled pretty well. It's very A New Hope with the jawa introduction. Oh, with some Gulliver's Travels thrown in. You know, this episode seems to be an homage to a lot of things as I think about it, and, as I think abut it, I'm appreciating what they did here. I really do wish this episode had had better placement within the series as a whole.

Anyway... What I was trying to say is that the moment when 3PO accidentally knocks R2 over onto the leader (the Wicked Witch character) of the little fairy people and squashes him like a bug made me laugh. Even though I've seen  the episode before, I had evidently forgotten that happened, because I was not expecting that happen. Then the fairies start singing the wicked witch is dead song except with slightly altered words. It was a good moment.

And that's just in the first 10 minutes or so of the episode.

Okay, I think this one is worth watching on its merit as a singular episode. I actually kind of want to go back and watch it again right now just to see if I missed any of the allusions. I'm not going to because I have other things to do, but I want to.


"Please note, whoever you are, my counterpart here is programmed in 47 schools of self defense."

Clone Wars -- "Mercy Mission" (Ep. 4.5)

-- Understanding is honoring the truth beneath the surface.

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

I'm going to start by saying that this is not a bad episode; however, it does feel like a throwaway episode. Nothing significant happens in it, and it's not connected to anything else. And there are some things in it that don't make a lot of sense from an overall plot standpoint. Well, one thing: C-3PO and R2-D2 being off on a Republic cruiser with a bunch of clone troopers.

Commander Wolffe and his men are headed to some battle area when they are sidetracked by this mercy mission to aid the Aleena. C-3PO is needed as a translator, which is fine for this episode, but it doesn't explain why the droids are on the ship to begin with. C-3PO tends to stick to Padme's side as her personal protocol droid, and R2 is generally with Anakin, so it's strange that the droids would end up on this ship with Wolffe and his troops. And there's no explanation provided.

Beyond that, it's pretty standard 3PO/R2 hi-jinks. Everyone wants 3PO to shut up, and R2 goes off on his own and does things. There are also fairies and tree people, so I guess it's not quite standard. Oh, and the Aleena have a very ewok vibe with a lot of the same kind of chanting sounds, though they don't quite bring themselves to worshiping the golden droid.

It's a fine episode, I suppose, and it might have been a nice one off as a break between heavier stories, but as the fifth episode of this season in which nothing significant is happening, it just feels like more nothing. I've gotta say, though, the uniforms of Wolffe's group are pretty cool for clone trooper gear.


"Welcome to our disaster. Glad you could come."

Clone Wars -- "Evil Plans" (Ep. 3.8)

-- A failure in planning is a plan for failure.

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

This episode: Padme throws a party!
Which I don't know how I feel about. I'm sure it wasn't intentional, but it seems so sexist to have Padme be throwing a party. A party that just has to be perfect. And she's fretting over it. It seems so cliche.

That's not really what the episode is about, though. It's just an excuse for the droids, R2 and 3PO, to get sent on an errand... so that they can be captured by Cad Bane. Yea! Cad Bane is back! But not really enough in this episode since the action centers around the droids.

The problem here is that Bane is, basically, waiting for the droids so he can capture them, but he had no idea they'd be sent on an errand unaccompanied, so the logic here doesn't work for me.

Nor do I find it believable that R2 just takes off for a droid spa treatment.

[And this is where I got interrupted while writing this and lost my train of thought.]

At any rate, there are a lot of little details like that that don't work if you think about it too hard (or at all), but, still, I liked the episode well enough. I find R2 and 3PO together enjoyable, and there really isn't much of that in Clone Wars. It was a nice diversion that also is setting the groundwork for the next episode.

But that would be telling...

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."

Rebels: "Droids in Distress" (Ep. 1.2)

"Your formal Jedi training starts tomorrow."

"Droids in Distress" actually opens with the distress of Ezra, distress over not being taught to use the Force by his would be mentor Kanan Jarrus, but it quickly moves to the distress of the entire crew of the Ghost as they lament over needing a job or not being able to keep the ship running. [I was strongly reminded of Firefly during this whole exchange.]

The droid part doesn't start until they actually begin their job, which is when we... Well, let's just say I was surprised to run into R2-D2 and C-3PO, basically, right off the bat for the series. They are the droids who are in distress. Okay, C-3PO is the droid who is in distress, but what's new? Of course, C-3PO believes that R2 is also in distress but, as we find out, R2 is really on a secret mission. Also sound familiar?

The episode gives us some the background for Zeb, one of the remaining of the Lasat. We get to find out why. I'll be interested to find out how this particular thread develops. It seems to me to be more along the lines of what Lucas originally had intended for the wookies before Chewbacca happened to them.

There's also what we'll call a cameo appearance by Bail Organa, somewhat like the way he shows up at the end of Revenge of the Sith. Organa was one of the movers behind the Rebellion, so I'm curious as to how often he's going to show up. I think my vote is for "more often," as long as he doesn't become some kind of deus ex machina device.

Star Wars: A Discussion (Episode III)

No, we're not actually up to The Force Awakens, yet. Don't worry; we'll get there.
Eventually.

When my oldest son was not quite two, my wife gave me the boxed (VHS) set of Special Edition for Christmas. My son was not a TV watcher; I mean, we didn't even have TV (still don't). He wasn't (yet) a video watcher either. He wasn't even two and we didn't really have any videos for him to sit and watch. When I put A New Hope in to watch it, it didn't occur to either of us (my wife and me) that he would pay any attention to it. But he did.

He sat down and was mesmerized by it and, when it was over and he got up, he was someone different. He was Luke Skywalker. I'm being serious. He got up and immediately began running around the house as if he was Luke. It was, quite frankly, amazing. By the time we'd watched the full trilogy, the transformation was complete.

Amusing story time:
Those of you with kids will know that two-year-olds aren't the best talkers in the world. Well, ours started saying "fuck" to us. That, also, was amazing and a surprise, because we couldn't figure out where he'd heard it, since we didn't use that kind of language around him. But he'd run into the kitchen and yell "fuck!" and run out again and, really, just leave us bemused. So, one day, he and I were at Target together going through the toys (because I was still collecting Star Wars stuff at the time and, actually, the kid was starting his own collection, too). As we went down one of the aisles, he began yelling "fuck! fuck!" over and over again. People were looking and I was, frankly, embarrassed. I was trying to shush him and sped up to get off the aisle then, as we rounded the corner at the end, he started pointing, too, and stating "fuck!" even more emphatically. And, so, I looked to see what he was pointing at: an endcap display of Millennium Falcons. The "fuck!" That was all he could say of it. It was one of those "oh" moments and it all made sense.

Still incredibly embarrassing, though, because you can't go to everyone and explain to them that your two-year-old is not really swearing, as if they'd believe you anyway, right?


My oldest son was old enough to see The Phantom Menace in the theater when it came out, though he doesn't remember it -- he was only three, after all -- but my second son was released right in the middle of the trilogy. Oh, um, I mean, he was born during the midst of the prequels. He was a great baby, and we could take him to any movie with us, and he would sleep right through it. We couldn't take our oldest son to many movies, because all he wanted to do was get up and walk around. Star Wars was an exception. But, for the first year of his life, we took the second child to all of our movies with us, including Pearl Harbor, which we were sure was going to wake him up it was so loud, but he slept right through it. That lasted right up until May of 2002.

Don't get me wrong, Attack of the Clones was fine. He didn't sleep through it, but he also didn't fuss. What we didn't know was that our one year and change baby was watching the movie. How do we know? Well, sometime after the release of Clones, my wife and I had gone to see some movie that wasn't Star Wars. I don't remember what movie it was, but it was a date movie, and we took the younger boy with us because he had always been fine in movies. Not this time, though.

No, for that movie (whatever it was), he started crying and fussing almost as soon as the movie started. It was unprecedented.

So I did what any good person should do and I took my son out of the theater leaving my wife to watch our date movie alone. I wandered around the theater for a while holding him. When he finally calmed down, we tried going back to the theater but, almost as soon as I sat down next to my wife, he started back up again. After a couple of times of that, I gave up on going back in and had decided to just stand around in the hallway until the movie was over... except that Attack of the Clones was showing in the theater across the hall, so I decided to go just inside the door to see if I could watch a bit of that.

And this is where it gets interesting because my son, my son who was just over a year old, sat up to watch the movie. He almost instantly became totally engrossed in it. But it's hard to tell things with babies since they can't actually communicate with you, so I decided to experiment with him. Yes, I did an experiment with kid. I walked back to the movie I was supposed to be seeing where he immediately got upset again. Then, I went back to Clones where he started watching again. I went into every other movie in that hall, about half a dozen, and he got upset in every one of them. Attack of the Clones was the only movie he would watch. So, well, we sat down and finished the movie, and he sat quietly and watched the whole thing. By the time it was over, I only had to wait for my wife for about 10 minutes.

For the record, that was the last time we took him to the movies with us. Well, until Revenge of the Sith came out, at any rate.

I don't have any stories like that about my daughter, but she is as fully immersed as the boys at this point. She loves R2-D2, Wicket, and BB-8.
Incidentally, they are watching Return of the Jedi as I finish this up. My wife and I have been out, and they were watching it when we got home. That's the way our house is.

Next post, we'll start into The Force Awakens.

Clone Wars -- "Holocron Heist" (Ep. 2.1)

-- A lesson learned is a lesson earned.

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

Evidently, one experience with disobeying orders and refusing to retreat during combat was not enough for Ahsoka to learn the lesson, despite how horrible she felt at the loss of her men in "Storm Over Ryloth." But, hey, that's people for you and, apparently, Jedi. This time, though, she gets punished for not listening.

It's really just a set up to get her into the Jedi Temple so that she'll be present for an infiltration by Cad Bane. Bane is working for Darth Sidious this time, which I think shows that Palpatine recognizes talent when he sees it (after Bane pulled one over on him in "Hostage Crisis"). At any rate, it's not a bad set up for what is a new plot thread in the series.

From the prequels, we see how Order 66 is carried out, and we know that the Sith destroy the Jedi Order and make them "all but extinct," but it still leaves questions. A lot of questions, actually. This episode introduces a plot thread that shows how Sidious plans to fully wipe out the Jedi. Bits of this idea pop in and out of the series all the way through season six.

We also see that the Jedi, just as everyone else, are susceptible to making assumptions that lead them to incorrect conclusions. When they know that there has been an infiltration, they assume that it has to do with accessing their communications and stealing codes to do with the war. It takes them in the wrong direction. It also allows Bane to exploit what he anticipated would be their assumption.

And we get to see just how ruthless Cad Bane is. He sacrifices both of his partners on this mission, but not just sacrifices them; he set them up at the beginning so that he would be able to escape. One of them to its death. Yes, it's only a droid, but you have to remember that droids in the Star Wars universe are sentient. When you compare his callousness to his droid against Anakin's devotion to R2-D2, you can see how devoid of attachments Bane is, something Anakin has issues with.

This is a really good season opener. It's an intact episode, but it opens a lot of possibilities for stories and raises some questions that will be dealt with as the season progresses. This is where we really start exploring some of the background stories and answer questions only hinted at in the movies. As I've said before, if you're a Star Wars fan, this is a series you should be watching.


"They're about to overrun you; you just can't see it."

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 -- "Duel of the Droids" (Ep. 1.7)

-- You hold onto friends by keeping your heart a little softer than your head.

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

Anakin continues his search for R2-D2. Sort of against orders. It's not that they (well, Obi-Wan) told him to stop, they just told him to do something else. And he does do that thing, but he does it while attempting to rescue R2. His rational for his devotion to R2 is that R2 is a friend, not a mere droid as everyone else sees him. Still, R2 is an attachment he's not supposed to have.

In going after R2, Anakin leaves Ahsoka to face off against General Grievous in order to complete their actual mission while he goes to rescue R2, who has fallen into Grievous' hands. Of course, he didn't know Ahsoka would end up having to face Grievous, but, still... Ahsoka fails to understand how outmatched she is and proceeds to almost completely wipe out her clones.

This episode continues the layering of Anakin and his attachments, including his growing attachment to and dependence on Ahsoka. Yoda has already (in a previous episode) brought up that the true test for Anakin in training Ahsoka will be in his ability to let her go, and we see shadows of how all of that is going to play out within the relationship Anakin has with R2. A droid.

And we haven't even gotten to Padme, yet. Of course, most of what happens between Anakin and Padme is in the movies, but they play with all of that stuff in these episodes of Clone Wars.

One other note, the change in the music from the previous episode is carried over into this one. There are hints of it in a couple of places, but "Duel of the Droids" pretty much returns us to the standard musical scheme.

Also, I've skipped what is probably the essential question being dealt with in both this and the previous episode, but it's too much of a spoiler, so I've left it out on purpose. If opportunity arises, I'll return to that question in the future.

"No need to fear; we're all droids here."

Clone Wars -- "Downfall of a Droid" (Ep. 1.6)

-- Trust in your friends, and they'll have reason to trust in you.

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

The first thing to note about this episode is the music. It's quite a bit different than other episodes. Kind of space rock. Upbeat and exciting. I'm not sure why the music is different for this episode in particular, but I liked it.

Now, the episode, upon casual glance, looks kind of like a throwaway episode, but it actually contains quite a few important pieces of information.

Before we get to the important parts, though, here is one that is just fun:
We get the very first look in "Downfall of a Droid" of the IG series assassin droids in action. The IG series is introduced in The Empire Strikes Back with IG-88.

Ahsoka sees a couple of them deactivated and dismisses them as harmless despite Anakin telling her not to underestimate them. She finds out how right he is when they surprise attack them.

Oh, there's also this really cool thing with some tanks, but I can't tell you about that because SPOILER!

Okay, so, Artoo gets lost. Of course, we know that nothing permanently bad can happen to Artoo, because he has four more movies to go after the Clone Wars series is over. However, his loss reveals a couple of things about Anakin that are important to his character development:

1. Anakin wigs out. The Jedi are not supposed to form attachments but, here, we see Anakin really lose his shtuff over the loss of a droid. Obi-Wan even has to sort of reprimand him and remind him that Artoo is a mere droid and that Anakin should see it as nothing more than that. It's replaceable. Or it should be in the sense that Anakin should not have a relationship or feel ownership over it.

Note: This provides an interesting contrast to how we've been seeing the Jedi and their view of the clones. Though the Jedi should have no attachment to any individual clone, there is a lot of emphasis on their value as individuals. Droids have this same individuality. Or, at least, they have the potential to as sentient AIs. To keep the droids from developing true sentience, though, they have a protocol of regularly wiping the droids memories. [In light of what we know today about sentience, limited though it is, I find this idea of accumulated experience being part of sentience very intriguing, especially since this has been part of the story from Lucas since the 70s.]

2. Anakin has failed to follow protocol and keep Artoo's memory erased. Basically, Artoo has enough accumulated experience to operate as an individual. A sentient individual. Which explains a lot about R2-D2, not that we didn't already know it. But we get to see that played out here along with Obi-Wan's anger at Anakin for not doing it.

So, although on the surface this seems like a frilly adventure episode with no real substance, it actually contains significant character points for Anakin. And Ahsoka, too, in relation to her trying to provide a substitute droid for Anakin, but there's more to that than what it looks like, too, just not in this episode.

Do You Know the Code?

Briane Pagel has a new book out. He says it's the best book he's ever written and, seeing that I have quite liked his other books (except for that pineapple thing), at least the ones I've read, I'm really hoping for good things from this one. I've already picked it up but, with the end of the school year and everything going on with my kids, I haven't had a chance to start reading it. I'll let you know what I think as soon as I do, though.

Until then, here's Briane to talk about Codes!

Wherein I Hate Stuff For No Reason (a guest post by Briane Pagel)

I know this is the space Andrew has lately been reserving for his discussion of how to handle, or not handle, a bad (or, as it was, not-really-so-bad) review, and I think that’s important work. Someone has to stand up to bullies, and Andrew has a good platform from which to do so. That’s why I am extra-appreciative of his willingness to lend me his Wednesday slot in order to let me provide some thinly-veiled marketing in the guise of a LISTICLE!

P.S. WHY does everything on the internet have such a stupid name? Years into it, I still cannot bring myself to say that I tweeted something. I tell people “Oh yeah I posted a link to that on Twitter.” “Blog,” “Tweet,” “listicle,” etc. etc. It’s so degrading. I feel stupid whenever I talk about anything I do on the internet. People will say Are you going to try to publicize your book and I have to say Yes, I plan to… *sigh*… blog… about it.

Where was I? Oh, right: Listicle. People love lists! That was one of the things mentioned in an article I read entitled, “These 5 Amazing Things People Love About The Internet Will Change Your Life.” (Other things included cats and lists about cats.) So I’ve been making the rounds, promoting my new book, Codes, and it just made sense. What better way to discuss a near-future book about a corporation trying to perfect the process of human cloning by implanting computer-programmed personalities into them and marketing the result than to create a superficial list designed to generate fake controversy?

Did that sentence make any sense? It’s been a long day and I got lost in some of the clauses there.

Knowing that Andrew usually uses this space to discuss people’s reactions to bad reviews, I decided that the theme for my latest list would at least tangentially relate to that topic, and so I came up with the idea of reviewing shows and books I’ve never even seen, and, of course, panning them.

If you’re like me (and I pray you’re not. TAKE MY WORD FOR IT) then there are LOTS and LOTS of things you HATE, almost-sight-unseen. I am a champion at hating stuff before I know anything about it. I can dislike something practically before I know it exists. It’s a talent. Books, movies, TV shows, songs, certain shades of green… doesn’t matter what it is, I can hate it right up front. And, more than just hate quietly, I can -- based on that completely uninformed opinion review the bejeebers out of that thing I hate. YES! FREE SPEECH! ‘MERICA! Let’s get to it!

1. The Walking Dead: I have never seen this show, or even a preview for it. That has not stopped me from hating it so much that I have started disliking other shows if a commercial for TWD airs during them. Can we NOT have any more allegories about our society told through the zombie format? This thing is all over! I can’t go onto a web page without seeing some picture of a sweaty guy or girl holding a machete and looking fierce next to a headline about how TWD is really going to amazeballs you with the storyline this week. LET ME GUESS: They nearly get overrun by zombies but then hack their way out! Also, where is everyone getting these machetes in the first place? I am 46 years old and I have never seen a machete in real life. Do the zombies bring them? Do they sell them at the True Value ™ Hardware Store? In real life, a zombie apocalypse would feature 100% fewer machetes and 100% more “Dads holding a bed lamp they grabbed off the table.”

2. The New Star Trek Movies: This automatic-dislike probably began when they cast Chris Pine as Captain Kirk in the first “new” Star Trek movie. Looking at Chris Pine gives me the same feeling I get when I grind my teeth, only less pleasant. That was bad enough. But then I heard that in one of these movies they had Kirk driving around in a hot rod on Earth. You know what space operas don’t need? Drag races on planet Earth. But to top it off, they remade “The Wrath Of Khan.” YOU CANNOT REMAKE THE WRATH OF KHAN. That is like remaking a rainbow. Like remaking a glorious, rage-filled, fist-shaking, Enterprise-attacking, earwig-monster-injecting, desert-planet-inhabiting, Fantasy-Island-operating rainbow.

3. The Hunger Games. OH. MY. GOD. From the moment I first heard of this series of books I thought they sounded like the dumbest thing ever. Here is my understanding of the plot: some government starves all its citizens, so that they will send a bunch of kids to shoot each other with arrows in order to get a little bit of extra food. HOW DOES THAT MAKE SENSE? How would that system work? It could never! But then after all the kids shoot each other or whatever, the two (?) winners (?) get elected to the government or something, like Charlie winning the chocolate factory only Jennifer Lawrence didn’t even have to give back the gobstopper? NO DO NOT BOTHER EXPLAINING WHERE I GOT IT WRONG. The plot doesn’t make sense. It doesn’t have to, because it’s a book for teenagers, and teenagers love it when things don’t make sense. It lets them be convinced that adults don’t ‘understand’ them. That’s why I loved The Cure when I was seventeen, and why kids nowadays love The Hunger Games and its sequels, New Moon and whatever the third one was with Percy Jackson.

3a.Bonus hatred: I cannot stand Jennifer Lawrence. Not even a little bit. She is somehow the female version of that guy in 8^th grade who thought smelling farts was funny. Associating her with a movie makes me that much less likely to see it. If “J-Law” showed up on my doorstep with a giant pizza and a bootleg director’s cut of the next Star Wars movie, I wouldn’t even answer the door.

Let’s do one more. This is fun! How about:

4. Anything by Isaac Asimov. To be honest, I am not sure where this one comes from because I do not know really anything about Asimov other than I dislike him and everything I imagine he stands for. I know as a scifi-ish writer myself I am supposed to apparently love Isaac Asimov and everyone’s always talking about how he predicted the future and his laws of robotics and etc blah blah blah, but I can’t be bothered. I’m not even sure what Asimov is supposed to have written. Foundation, I think? I’d go look it up but I’d rather my browser not have a history of searching for Asimov stuff. Even I am cooler than that. I think Asimov wrote that story that got made into I, Robot, starring Will Smith, and can we as a society really take an author seriously anymore if Will Smith likes his stuff? I’m also pretty sure that in reality there’d be no way robots could be programmed not to harm humans, which I think was a ‘law’ of robotics Asimov pulled out of thin air and made people believe was a thing. It’s so dumb: suppose I was being held hostage by Chris Pine and Jennifer Lawrence and the only way I’m getting out alive is if C-3PO (do NOT get me started on R2-D2!) snipes them both with a laser rifle from across the road. OH WAIT there’s a LAW that he can’t kill them, only if he DOESN’T, then he’s harming a human by letting me die, right? That is NOT how laws work, Isaac Asimov. You don’t see gravity only holding people down if it’s nonparadoxical.

In closing, you’ll note that the only people I picked on in here are people who are dead, or who don’t matter, or who are Jennifer Lawrence and Chris Pine and so deserve it. I don’t have to worry about anyone overreacting or calling me crazy or taking me to task for these entirely unfounded and ill-informed, and yet still 100% correct, opinions. Don’t forget to mention in the comments how much you agree with me!

Something I don’t hate: My book, Codes: Robbie had an ordinary life, until she walked into Gravity Sling. Now he’s seeing coded messages everywhere, being chased by shadowy big-corporation goons, and questioning literally everything about the world as he knows it. Some questions need answers. This Phillip K. Dick style debut science fiction novel raises questions about how people use technology and each other.

Links:

Follow me on Twitter: https://twitter.com/BrianePagel

My blog: Thinking The Lions: http://www.thinkingthelions.com

Buy Codes on

Golden Fleece Press’ site: http://goldenfleecepress.com/catalog/fiction/

Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Codes-Briane-Pagel/dp/1942195109

Barnes & Noble: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/codes-briane-pagel/1121816078?ean=9781942195115

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 Star Wars Christmas Special

No, not that Star Wars Christmas Special. Which is just the oddest thing in the world to have a cult following. I mean, have you seen the "Star Wars Holiday Special"? Of course, when I was a kid and I saw it, I loved it. But I was eight. And it was Star Wars. I sort of agree with Lucas, now, though, in that it's the worst thing that's ever been made. I can barely see clips from up without thinking, "What were you thinking? Seriously?" The point is that it's a lot of those same people that hate Jar Jar that also love the Star Wars Christmas thing, and I can only think, "What are you thinking? Seriously?" These are the people that call the Holiday Special the Holy Grail of Star Wars.

But that's people for you.

And we're not watching the "Star Wars Holiday Special" at my house this year. Mostly because I don't own it unlike those made for TV ewok movies which we do own and my kids used to watch constantly.
But I digress...

All of that to say that Star Wars is always a big part of Christmas at our house. For those of you that were around last year, you may remember that I got this:

And I made these (although I don't think I ever posted pictures of them):

(there were also regular peppermint bark ones, but Han shows up better in these)

I added a couple of molds this year and made these:

Then we had not one but two Lego Star Wars Advent calendars!

I'm voting for Snow2-D2 as the astromech's name, but my son hasn't approved it.

There are even Star Wars ornaments on the tree (which is nothing compared to what I have planned for next year!)

Next year, the Death Star will have to be at the top of the tree.

Naboo being attacked by a giant space dinosaur. Yes, we also have dinosaurs on our tree. And Spider-Man (not pictured).

So there's just a little flavor of Christmas at my house. It's kind of pepperminty, don't you think?

Oh! I also have it on good authority that Santa's bringing season 4 of Clone Wars, so I see a marathon coming starting the day after Christmas.

So... however it is you celebrate your holiday, I hope it is a grand and joyous one!

Merry Christmas!!!

[As a special Christmas bonus, most everything I have available will be FREE! for your Kindle or Kindle app on Christmas day and the day after. Just go here for a full list!]