Full Series For Discussion of Old TCW episodes...

The Mon Cala arc is kind of unique in that I enjoy it more now than I did when I first saw it. It was my first season debut watching the show and while the action was great, the plot is obviously quite thin. Without the extra pressure of being a season opener it holds up a lot better for me, the battles are killer.

 

Lee-Char was a little too generic for me to get invested in. Some other arcs in S4 have much better plots with the slaver arc showing more justification for the Clone Wars than anything in the PT and the Rako Hardeen arc giving Anakin more legitimate reasons to distrust the Jedi Council than anything in the PT.

 

Been a while. Babysitting three children tonight, what a terrible decision on my part. Watched the Citadel arc while they watched whatever and ate pizza. Triple post incoming.

The Citadel

"Adaptation is the key to survival." Okay. I agree.

We get right to it, the bane of this trilogy, Ahsoka Tano.

Ahsoka: We're going to rescue Master Piell, right?
Plo: You two have much to discuss.

As in, you're not going Ahsoka. Plo seems pretty clear on this.

Anakin does a great job explaining the severity of the danger of the mission.

Ahsoka: You're just being protective again. That's not fair.

His job is to protect you, so it is fair.

Ahsoka: How am I supposed to learn if you won't let me share the risk?
Anakin This isn't a mission for learning, you either do or die.

Great comeback from Anakin, with a nice reference to Yoda's "do or do not". No Padawan needs to go on such a mission, much less a 15-16 year old Padawan.

Hysterical, incredulous 3PO is annoying. "Look out R2, battle droids are behind you!" You're in a Republic hangar. They don't even have weapons. "What do you mean they've been reprogrammed?" What is confusing about them being reprogrammed?

Ahsoka: Master Skywalker doesn't want me to go.
Plo: That is his choice.
Ahsoka: I know, but I think he's being overly protective.

You know it's his choice, but you're gonna put him through this **** anyway? Can't you just, you know, give him this one?

Ahsoka: He's picking and choosing which assignments I can be a part of.

THAT'S HIS JOB. Are you new?

Plo: He is your master.

Oh hey, Plo agrees. Still not seeing the part where Plo assigns Ahsoka to the mission.

Ahsoka: Yes . . . but it's not for him to decide when and how I put my life into danger.

YES IT IS. YOU ARE A CHILD, HE IS YOUR MASTER, YOUR GUARDIAN. What the hell is she even talking about? This is terribly stupid rationalization put into her mouth by the writers that doesn't at all fit the universe.

Rex: I've never been carbon frozen before, General.
Anakin: It's the first time for us, too.

Annnnddd Shipyards of Doom is gone.

Fives: I don't want to end up a wall decoration.

Why the hell would he say that? Has he seen ROTJ?

Sobeck goes on a villain monologue describing the function of the prison, to no one in particular, and for no particular reason. Besides the tac droid, he's in the control room alone. Who's he explaining the function of the prison to? The tac droid? Oh right, he's talking to us of course. -Shrugs- Standard villain behavior, but was particularly out of place.

Here comes Ahsoka's flat out lie.

Ahsoka: I received orders to join the team. I thought you knew?
Anakin: Orders From who?
Ahsoka: I discussed it with Master Plo.

Just for the record.

Kenobi pretty much puts an end to this, he looked tired of dealing with this stuff. Why didn't Anakin make her stay with the ship to reinforce his authority? lol we know why, Ahsoka is above authority, she would have disobeyed him anyway.

The prison is a great set up. It's a total fortress, full of traps, like a tricked out medieval castle.

Oh hey, Ahsoka is immediately proven crucial to the mission by an obstacle only she can defeat. It's just sickening. **** you, whoever came up with that. It instantly trivializes the dilemma of Ahsoka's disobedience, but that's probably what they were going for. Whoever came up with that should have been reprimanded for such a terrible idea. Everyone who knew about it but didn't say no should have been reprimanded, it's amateurish storytelling. Here's the dialogue that went with this ****.

Kenobi: Well, we hadn't planned on Ahsoka being here, perhaps she's right . . .

Are you kidding me? Did you just have a Jedi Master agree with the completely uncalled for disobedience of a Padawan? It was bad enough to use the plot to prove her right even when she's not, but whoever had this hard on for Ahsoka had to take possession of Kenobi's body as well.

Ahsoka: See? I can handle myself after all.

You can handle yourself because you managed to open a door in the first 15 minutes? **** you, you smug *****. I hope you get shot in the face.

A clone mook falls to his death and another clone mook is electrocuted, presumably to death. This prison is great.

Piell is being tortured, and the torture droid threatens to ruin Piell's one good eye! Sadistic! I love it.

Sobeck just has a bag full of tricks waiting for our heroes every step and I'm loving it. I love deadly obstacle courses.

lol at Anakin's arm being magnetized, and him getting shocked. Dude can take the pain. This arc shows the awesome Skywalker I was looking for.

lol at commando droid limbo, caused by Jedi Force push:


The clones have their weapons taken away by the magnet and try to melee with the commando droids and get promptly smacked down. Commando droids were pretty damn cool in this episode and this arc.

Sobeck teaches droids not to use the word "escape" by having the droid who said it shot. I'm pretty sure that lesson, which would have been intended to strengthen the resolve of organic troops, wasn't needed for droids. They're droids, their resolve is constant. But hey with this show and droids, you never know.

Ahsoka somersaults through a hole cut by Anakin. I couldn't figure out why, but that's not the first time that's happened, and it won't be the last.

Anakin: I reserve my trust for those who understand gratitude.

Hilarious, coming from the most ungrateful Jedi ever.

The first time around I gave this an 8, but this time I'm giving it a 6/10. The prison is still awesome as is the action, but Ahsoka is intolerable. The episode really deserves less knowing what's coming.

 

Counterattack

"Anything that can go wrong will". Murphy's law that actually applies really well to this episode, which ends up being a total cluster**** for the heroes.

Piell does a bit of Yoda pinballing, but slower and less intense.

Ah, the clone bisection scene. I quite like it, despite the clone's inability haul his own body weight despite being given ample time, and despite him not realizing he could have just waited on the other side of the door to play it safe. Still, it was deliciously gruesome.

Tarkin: Pity it (the prison) ended up in Separatist hands and not ours.

Ha. Coulda used that for Ahsoka, amirite?

And then this episode turns into a show about Ahsoka's facial expressions. I need close ups of her ******* ugly face every few seconds, we don't get close ups of Anakin, Obi-Wan or anyone else nearly as frequently.

Since they split from Obi-Wan and Piell, Anakin assigns Ahsoka to take point while he lags behind.

Ahsoka: I guess it's a good thing I came after all.

Why? So you can take point? Pretty sure Rex or Cody could do that. And oh, they know the plan, and you don't, which costs the group valuable time that ends up putting them in danger. Oh right, it was just more random reinforcement of Ahsoka's rightness. **** you, TCW.

The commando droids' shields are quite cool.

Ahsoka recklessly rolls a pair of grenades right in between her allies without so much as a heads up, and they explode less than 10 feet away from Anakin and Co, knocking them off their feet. That wasn't dangerous.

But Ahsoka looks down her nose at Anakin as she walks by and I nearly knocked her on her ass telekinetically through my monitor.


Sobeck catches Kenobi, Piell and Co. Not bad, he's playing the game well. Then he just blasts a clone right in the face, point blank. Brutal.

Remember what I said about Sobeck playing the game well? Forget it, the prisoners are led by two B1 battle droids marching in front of the prisoners, WITH NO ONE GUARDING THE REAR. The prisoners could have just walked off and the idiot B1s wouldn't have noticed.

But the reprogrammed Republic B1s show up and take over. Suddenly, the prisoners' binders are just gone, they disappeared, poof. Don't really know how they got them off, they didn't show it.

Ahsoka monkeys up the outside of a ladder that has a support system to prevent falling, apparently because she's too good to climb it like the rest.

Just absurd.

When she gets to the top, she runs along the top of a pipe instead of just walking on the catwalk, like the rest.

Ahsoka is like a hyperactive child.

Ahsoka: I think I found a way out.

You mean that ladder everyone can see? Good job.

Ahsoka recons the area outside the pipe, is surprised by battle droids and chops them up, causing a shower of sparks to fall down into the pipe.

Thought the gas in the pipe was highly combustible? It is, Anakin blows it later with a grenade.

The airfield battle was pretty damn cool. The big turrets made a sweet thumping.

Hey, you wanna know when you're hearing a stupid plan in TCW? When you hear the words "full frontal assault". It's not that full frontal assaults are always stupid, they're not, but they're the favored tactic when someone is espousing a terrible plan, this time it was Tarkin. "Full frontal assault" represents the suicide tactics of WW1.

Piell gets a boost from Anakin.


Anakin totally kicks ass in this fight. Anakin steals a STAP, which is quite a habit with him.

Piell piggyback.

Alright TCW, we get it, he's short. Cool it.

Some total badass commando droids takes a grenade blast, gets up and mans a turret like a Terminator.

Echo's death is still stupid, he tries to block an entire shuttle with his body.

Was I supposed to care about this? I didn't.

For some reason it's always reminded me of when Bishop saved the X-Men by taking a massive blast from Onslaught right in the chest. Except Bishop's action was cool, heroic and made sense because his mutant power allows him to absorb energy. Echo's action was just stupid and suicidal.

The last 40 seconds of the episode are pretty much wasted on exposition, but at least they underscored the danger of the prison. Still quite a waste for a show that often doesn't have enough time.

This is definitely the best of the arc, simply because Ahsoka's presence is the least annoying, it's limited to merely her standard absurd acrobatics and attitude and not a total wreck of the characters and universe surrounding her. The prison was awesome, I could tell the people at TCW were having fun killing clones.

The first time around I gave it an 8, this time I'm giving it a 7/10, because Ahsoka's presence limited the potential enjoyment.

 

Citadel Rescue

"Without honor, victory is hollow". From the Jedi point of view. Not one I really agree with.

The episode starts with the heroes being chased and harassed by droids. For some reason it made me think of the long, deadly escape from the worldship in Star by Star.

I think Dooku makes it obvious that the Nexus route is the very same that is used to attack Coruscant in ROTS. It really wasn't ambiguous.

Hey, it's the three reprogrammed Republic B1 battle droids from the start of the trilogy. I know I didn't mention it, but one of them blew up in "Counterattack". Oh well, there will be more errors to come. The last B1 did get out "all for one, and one for aaaaahhhh" before he died.

More clone mooks fall to their deaths.

I was kinda disappointed that the Republic only sent four Star Destroyers for the rescue. Kinda trivializes the effectiveness of the Separatist blockade.

More of the "Ahsoka Facial Expression" show. These two shots happen back to back.

Right side sneer:


Followed immediately by left side sneer and eye roll.

TCW thought it was important that we see this stuff, so I figured it was important that I include it.

Anakin: The Jedi Code often prevents us from going far enough to achieve victory.
Kenobi: A rather simple point of view.

Yes, a rather simple, yet demonstrably true point of view, compared to Kenobi's infamous convoluted and obviously false point of view.

Sobeck is aware of what the Republic wants to do, he comes off as pretty smart, it's just that the Jedi's extraordinary performance overcomes his sound tactics. No shame there, really.

Tarkin: I've fallen into favor with the Chancellor.
Anakin: I happen to know the Chancellor quite well myself.
Tarkin: Oh, really?
Anakin: Really.

It's like, so meta.

The anoobas attack. Anakin redirects two Anoobas in midair with the Force with a casual awesomeness.

The heroes "ambush" is terrible, it wasn't really an ambush at all, even if it worked perfectly. It was way too slow, it didn't work at all and only served to split up the group when they would have been better off sticking together to cover each other.

Kenobi shows off some excellent blaster deflection, as he should.

Anakin pulls off three consecutive backflips, but unlike Ahsoka, he has a reason for it, a STAP is strafing his position.

I have to admit, there was some very cool action with Piell and Ahsoka taking down crab droids, perhaps the best action of the arc. The choreography was amazing, very tight and very slick.

Piell is dying, but there's no marks on him. Strange for such a dark arc that showed a blaster hole on a clone helmet after he got shot point blank.

Ahsoka admits her lie to Piell, but he lets her know what really matters.

Piell: You are now the most important part of it (the mission).

All hail Ahsoka, the Chosen One, the Alpha and the Omega. The glorification in this arc is just infuriating and part of the problem that makes Ahsoka such a terrible character.

Btw earlier in the episode Sobeck said the anoobas were just supposed to track the heroes, not attack them. What happened to that?

Ahsoka carrying a casualty through the fog of war:

Really highlights the child soldier aspect. But nah, Ahsoka definitely should have come. I'm pretty sure Ahsoka hadn't seen many allied deaths up to this point besides mooks. Anakin and Kenobi Force lift Piell up and lower him into the lava, Ahsoka does not participate.

The fleet shows up. Hey, cool, ARC-170s.

lol they choose the worst extraction point ever, an island surrounded by lava.

Oh hey, tri-fighters and Hyena-class bombers. More cool factor.

Meh, here's a close up of the big guns, right before a sweet Hyena bombing run strafes a Venator's dorsal hangar doors, doing internal damage.



Here's a classic OT starfighter sweep around a capital ship.

Well, the image doesn't capture it, but there's two more starfighters trailing the one on screen. It was very reminiscent of the looping around cap ships seen in the Battle of Endor.

More clones appear out of nowhere, but I don't really care.

Anakin steals another STAP. This guy.

Ahsoka shanks Sobeck from behind, when she could have taken a more Jedi action. She could have just took his arms or legs off, that would have saved Tarkin.

But wait! lol a ton of crab droids just show up from underneath the lava as our heroes are escaping on the gunship.

The Venators take some damage as they are swinging around to escape. At least they gave us that much, they shouldn't have been able to take on the blockade. Still, the space battle was entertaining.

And here TCW totally destroys the arc when they could have easily redeemed it.

Anakin: Did you assign Ahsoka to the mission?
Plo: It appears I did.

WHAT?! Did that just happen? Did you set up a lie from Ahsoka just to bail her out with absolutely zero consequences? TCW just had a member of the Jedi High Council tell a flat lie to bail out a Padawan for no apparent reason, apparently because lying is the Jedi way. What a terrible message. Just a complete disaster of a conclusion, one TCW should be ashamed of, it's fan fictional. I can't even express how awful that was right now. They even could have had Ahsoka be something other than a terrible character by having her fess up, but no, that would imply that Ahsoka was actually wrong about something. Ahsoka IS RIGHT ABOUT EVERYTHING and can do no wrong. Remember her protests early in the first episode of the arc? Despite being nonsense, they were just reinforced, as was Ahsoka's completely unjustified and deliberate disobedience. I'm not even sure why Ahsoka has a Master, no one can tell this character what to do. Just promote her to Grand Master and let her run the Jedi Order.

It sounds like quite a contrast to what apparently happened in the S5 finale (I haven't seen it).

Take away the horrible ending, and this episode could have easily been an 8 despite the obvious technical discontinuity with itself (clones and droids reappearing), or possibly higher. The action was awesome in this episode. But with that ending, I have to knock it down to a 4/10, which is probably letting that horrific ending off the hook.

I gave this trilogy three less points than I did the first time around, simply because of Ahsoka. She really ruined an otherwise incredible arc, that without her could have been among the very best the show has produced. Even if they just treated her reasonably it would have gotten a much higher score from me, each episode would have gotten at least an 8, maybe higher. Without her all three episodes probably would have gotten 10s from me, they were that good aside from Ahsoka, she was my only complaint, but it was a massive one and it's entirely TCW's fault.

As is, it got 17/30 from me, or a 5.67 average, which is just a shame considering how good the arc could have been, how good the majority of it was.

 

Apologies for all the typos.

 

It's k, I just skip to the last paragraph anyway.

Ahsoka was definitely the worst part of that arc.

 

"Without honor, victory is hollow" is supposed to be the Jedi point of view in contrast to Tarkin's ruthless ways, but I just realized that it also applies to Ahsoka and even Plo. Plo just ignores his duty and personal honor as a Jedi Master on the Jedi High Council in order to help a child he's fond of get away with a lie.

 

Don't forget that according to Filoni; Plo, Yoda and Obi-Wan oppose the rest of the Council in the S5 finale.

They apparently always support her.

 

The power of peepholes and boob tubes.

 

I really didn't get that from Mace or Yoda. It seems like just Anakin and Obi-wan supported Ahsoka. Plo should have had a bigger role in the Fugitive arc.

 

Re-watched season 2's Mandalore arc. Pretty good stuff there.

 

CT 867 5309,

your reviwes are a goldmine.

i luaghed so hard.

 

Mace did not apoligize. he just said "The ways of the force are mysteriose". ROFL. Mace is such a sneaky guy.

Ahsoka "The great" (LOL) looked not pleased and not amused at windu.

 

Of course he was. He backed his favourite padawan, he gave Anakin and Obi Wan the middlefinger and he showed what a wise master he is, by assigning the usefull padawan to the mission!

bazzooonga!

In Filonis Plos World everything is so damn easy. Just like eating cookies, chocolate cookies!