Clone Wars -- "The Disappeared: Part 1" (Ep. 6.8)

-- Without darkness, there cannot be light.

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[Well, actually, considering that we're into season six, now, probably no one new is going to sign up, BUT! Hop over to The Armchair Squid for his take on the current episode.]

Today's episode: Jar Jar Jones and the Temple of Doom!

Honestly, I'm not sure how I feel about this episode. On the one hand, we find out that Jar Jar has a love interest...
Yeah, I'm going to stop right there.
There is humor in it, though, in that Jar Jar goes off with Queen Julia for the night and Mace Windu spends the time freaking out about where Jar Jar has gone and what he could possibly be doing. That the queen is Jar Jar's girlfriend never enters Windu's mind. Inconceivable!

Anyway...

The dagoyan people don't like the Jedi despite their affinity for the Light Side of the Force. They hold the belief that the Jedi are kidnappers because of their practice of taking Force sensitive children to train at the Jedi Temple. And, well, we don't know that the Jedi are not really kidnappers of a sort. All we know is that they take young children to the Temple to be trained as Jedi and that that is common practice in the Republic. We don't know anything at all about how this is carried out or whether it's with consent or how often it might not be with consent or anything. And all of this is something that's mentioned, basically, in passing, but it's the most interesting question the episode brings up.

Well, that and why anyone, even Jar Jar's girlfriend, would trust Jar Jar to solve a mystery. You'd think that someone that close to Binks, in fact, would be the last one to trust Jar Jar to handle an important task completely alone.

Clone Wars -- "Ghosts of Mortis" (Ep. 3.17)

-- He who seeks to control fate shall never find peace.

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The Force is no longer in balance.

If you haven't watched the previous two episodes of this arc, you should really go do that. While I will try to keep spoilers from this episode mostly out of this post, I need to be able to refer back to the other episodes. Seriously, if you are any kind of Star Wars fan, these three episodes are a must.

As we were watching this one, my son said to me in reference to the Father, Son, and Daughter, "Are these physical entities or embodiments of the Force?" My best answer: Yes. That the Daughter is dead, murdered by the Son, spells disaster for the galaxy and the universe. Interestingly, in the previous episode, the Father spoke repeatedly of the danger to the galaxy if the Son was able to escape the planet Mortis but, this episode, after the death of the Daughter, the Father has escalated his warning to a danger to the universe.

The question in all of this is what it means that Anakin is the Chosen One. In the last episode, Anakin refused to take up his role as the person who would maintain the balance in the Force, that balance being the equivalence between the Son and the Daughter. Obviously, the choice Anakin had was real, and his decision not to take his place had dire consequences. Will have dire consequences.

And, now, they have to keep the Son from escaping Mortis so that he doesn't wreak havoc across the galaxy.

So, what we know based on the previous episode: The Dark Side is in ascendance. The Light Side, effectively, at least for now, is dead.

To say more would be to give too much away.



"I am an old fool who believed he could control the future."