Full Series For Discussion of Old TCW episodes...

So I'm thinking of sorta casually checking out old episodes I haven't seen in a long time, just to see what I think of them now, and to gauge the accuracy of my memory. I've been making my way through S1 for a while now and I'm on two episodes I didn't remember with any particular fondness, but they sort of surprised me by not totally sucking.

Jedi Crash

The fortune cookie was particularly cheesy. "Greed and fear of loss are the roots that lead to the tree of evil."

The opening battle was nice, with an excellent shot of the Munificent class' underside guns pounding away.

Yea, tactical droid. After crippling a Venator, the tac droid sends in a wave of rocket B2s to board and take the Venator. Just simple fleet stuff, but still so cool. This is what I mean by keep it simple.

A rocket B2 lands on a gunship and rips off the canopy, and I believe the pilot along with it. Suitably brutal.

I actually let out a laugh when Anakin just dives off the gunship and rides a rocket B2, that was recklessly awesome. He follows that up by charging through the ship, hacking up one B2 after another like some sort of, I don't know, superhero. He Force pulled a B2, impaled it (like in the ROTS video game), and then hurled into a column of droids, knocking them down (like some Force Unleashed ****). THIS IS THE ANAKIN SKYWALKER I WAS LOOKING FOR.

lol the tac droid orders his ships to open fire on the Venator even with the battle droids still inside it. Cold and calculating, as he should be.

The action in this episode is just thrilling. It's faster, more intense.

Jumping to hyperspace while still well inside a planet's atmosphere = total fail

Things slow down once they get to the planet. Wasn't painful, though.

Ahsoka's "forbidden to form attachments, supposed to be compassionate" followed by Aayla's "don't lose 1000 lives to save 1" was just too on the nose. It's like they're seeing into the future, because that's exactly what the writers did. I can't say I enjoy watching Ahsoka learn all the lessons Anakin failed to learn.

The Lurmen's roll is totally cool, imo.

This was much better than I remember. 8/10

Defenders of Peace

Fortune cookie was better this time. "When surrounded by war, one must eventually choose a side." It's not attempting to be poetry or anything, it's just practical wisdom.

Ahsoka tries to talk the Lurmen into fighting, and Anakin of all people accepts their pacifism and doesn't even try to talk to them about it. It was just out of character.

The music throughout this episode was very nice and fit the episode's peaceful theme.

The Defoliator is a cool and smart weapon imo. It's a weapon that kills organic life, but leaves inorganic material unharmed. That's exactly what the CIS should be trying to accomplish, so kudos.

The head Lurmen dude's line "If it is our destiny to be destroyed in your war, so be it" is just one of the dumbest lines in the history of the show. But that's his character, he's stupid. Too bad TCW can't represent pacifism without strawmanning. I know some types of pacifists refuse to fight back no matter what, but not all of them do. What makes it worse is that he knows for certain that his entire tribe will be eradicated and that he wouldn't even have to kill anyone, he'd only have to turn droids into scrap.

Unfortunately the final battle just wasn't very good and it was highlighted by an obvious plot hole. The Jedi put up a shield to defend against the Defoliator. People and droids can walk through this shield. Why can't Durd just drop a Defoliator shell through the shield? Oops. They tried to cover it up by having the droids fire the Defoliator shell well short of the shield, with the shield blocking the resultant flames. This was pretty transparent, since they were able to drop a Defoliator shell pretty much at the feet of two battle droids earlier in the episode. After coming up short, all Durd had to do was fire until he put one through the shield. Instead, he tasks his battle droids to destroy the shield generator. The Jedi moved to intercept them, and spend a minute fighting the droids outside the shield. Why not just fire the Defoliator on the Jedi while they fight outside the shield? Bye bye Jedi, and the droids remain unharmed (not that Durd should care about sacrificing a few battle droids). That's what the weapon was made for. Ugh. The droids eventually manage to get the shield down and Durd attempts to fire the Defoliator, but it was way too slow, way too late and Anakin put a stop to it. They bungled the final battle, it just didn't make a lot of sense.

Not good, but not as bad as I remembered. Still a failure imo, but not by much, a few tweaks could have gotten this episode a passing grade. 5/10

 

I just watched Trespass. Not sure why, it's exactly as I remember it.

The best part of the episode is the beginning, with the dead clones and destroyed droids, it still comes off as eerie.

Well, the Chairman is a brainless, violent extremist who apparently has never actually seen battle, if one judges him by his reaction to the Talz's trap. I might be a little more understanding of the character if he were some grizzled war veteran who has seen a ridiculous amount of violence and has gotten to where he is by killing everything in his path. But apparently this Chairman guy has played Halo and thinks that makes him a tough guy. Really one of the dumbest characters in the show. After watching the Lurmen the other night and Satine's death recently, I have to say I'm really tired of these unrealistically extremist characters.

It was nice seeing Anakin and Obi-Wan playing Jedi ambassadors, though. They played the role pretty well, though I don't think they should have allowed the Chairman to behave that way. They're Generals in the Grand Army of the Republic and Chi Cho is ruler of a single moon, he has no authority over Anakin and Obi-Wan, especially not in military matters. I know they were basically just humoring him, but they shouldn't have even done that.

Anakin's "most impressive" thrown in at the end just made me sigh and shake my head.

This episode isn't so bad it's maddening, it's just boring and has little entertainment value of any kind. 5/10

 

My favorite part of Trespass when Rex comes to Chairman Cho's rescue and after tossing him roughly over the shoulder audibly slams him onto the back of the speeder.

 

An interesting observation. Avatar was released December 2009. Trepass was released January 2009, so nearly a year before Avatar. However, I wonder how much earlier Trepass was actually in production. I'm curious if writer's ideas tend to spill over to each other and that's how some of these similarities come up.

 

Aren't Lucas and Cameron at least acquaintances?

Cameron wrote the treatment for Avatar in 1994 and announced it after he made Titanic. Avatar was supposed to get made about the same time as TPM, but didn't happen because Cameron thought the technology wasn't there yet. It's possible Lucas knew some of the general ideas long before the movie came out, or even entered production. Once he heard about the movie, he could have included the name "Pantoran" as a bit of an homage, which Lucas likes to do.

I doubt Lucas would even have had to know anything about Avatar until it went into production, I'm sure he could have called up Cameron or someone and asked for some details, and they probably would have obliged.

 

You think it's unrealistically extremist for a character to be a complete xenophobic war-"hawk" just because they don't have personal combat experience? I think there's plenty of history and modern politics that completely quash that notion. Quick and easy examples. President Obama's nominee to head the Department of Defense is Chuck Hagel, an actual war veteran who still shrapnel lodged in his chest today from wounds sustained in the Vietnam War; he's being opposed by Senator Ted Cruz - someone who's never been in combat - because Cruz contends Hagel is not a fan of the military. Look at what they did to John Kerry in the 2004 election. Dick Cheney was alive through multiple U.S. wars - all of which he supported, none of which he fought in - and his reelection campaign relied heavily on attacks on Kerry's patriotism and behavior in war zones when Kerry fought in Vietnam. Look at the 2012 election just last year. There were photographs of Mitt Romney in a group of people protesting against people who were protesting the Vietnam War, supporting the war wholeheartedly in words while avoiding the draft. Ted Nugent similarly is a rampant war-hawk, and he avoided the draft by going in for his physical with his own feces in his underwear.

Unfortunately, stuff like this happens all the time in real life. It might actually be less realistic if the chairman was a war veteran. Disappointing that anakinfansince1983 didn't pick up on that.

I find pretty often that when a case is made based on what intuitively seems like should be correct alone there's crucial reality-based context that is lost. Seeming realistic is a reflection of reality, not isolated intuition.

 

Done with season 1 except for Hostage Crisis. Good 21 episodes. Ready to see where Season 2 and Hostage Crisis takes me.

 

I'm not saying he wasn't an idiot, or that it wouldn't have made sense if he was an actual war veteran. That would have been fine. But saying it's unrealistic for someone without personal combat experience to be an extremist xenophobic war-hawk ignores reality, which should be the basis for claims regarding realism.

 

Where did I say this? Nowhere.

I said I might be a little more understanding, as in appreciative of his viewpoint, if he were a grizzled war veteran.

I wasn't even talking about realism in terms of portraying fiction, I was talking about the characters themselves. The Lurmen, Satine, Chi Cho, they don't have a realistic view of the world around them, it's like they're living in their own reality, ignoring what goes on around them.

 

CT-867-5309 Sorry for misunderstanding the post, but what was unrealistic about the chairman then? Surely not just the propensity towards violence.

 

The guy seemed completely out of touch with reality. Regardless of what was presented to him, he just ignores it and goes "MINE! MINE! MINE!" like Daffy Duck after finding treasure. Every scene plays out with someone trying to talk sense into him, and Chi Cho just thinks he can "win" on bluster alone, even though he's losing the debate at every turn.

He even had the gall to try to order the Jedi and the clones to wipe out the Talz on many occasions despite being told no every time, as if Jedi would actually go along with it, as if he had any authority over them. He actually gives them commands, and they just ignore him, like one would ignore a crazy person ranting on the street. He actually thinks they're just going to kill the Talz from the moment he learns of them all the way through his dying breath. Anakin kinda says it himself, "no matter what the Chairman thinks, we're not going to war".

He actually walks into the Chief Talz's hut and starts making threats and giving orders, as if the Talz recognize his imaginary authority, as if the Talz couldn't just tear his throat out at any moment. He personally instigates a war against the Talz (with the foolishly arrogant line of "Then war it is") , as if he has any ability (or the legal right) to fight it, which quickly becomes clear that he doesn't. He immediately leads the clones into a trap, ordering them to attack the Talz (again Rex points out that they're not under his command, but it falls on deaf ears). The trap is sprung, and when things start getting deadly, he just stands there with his mouth agape, unbelieving. The clones are getting slaughtered and Rex orders a retreat, and Cho is actually incredulous, seemingly unaware of how close he is to defeat, to death. He saw all the dead clones at the beginning of the episode, did he think they would just steamroll the Talz without difficulty? Oh right, he did, because he's living in his own little world.

He seems to think that his actions are justified, even though the Jedi and Riyo seem to think otherwise at almost every turn, and eventually Riyo gets permission from her government to just go over his head.

Early in the episode, Cho asks Chuchi if she is "ready to fight and die for her people" and claims that he is, even though there was really no reason to believe that it was necessary. In the end, Rex and what few clones remain try to make a last stand against hopelessly overwhelming odds when the Jedi intervene. The Jedi have made it abundantly clear from the beginning that they're not going to wipe out the Talz, and when they land everything suggests that they're maintaining that stance, but Cho gives Chuchi his final order to destroy the Talz in vengeance anyway. Chuchi gives him the news that the Pantoran government has declared him out of order and that she is to negotiate peace and Cho responds "impossible", "never" and "I died for our people", showing how delusional his war-mongering was.

Does this sound like a person who is aware of the reality of the situation?

While we're talking about "realistic" portrayals, while I'm aware that stupid, unthinking, unrelenting, fatally stubborn people exist on Earth and in that way are realistic, I'd appreciate it if TCW took a more balanced approach when they put characters with opposing stances in the spotlight. I know many of these episodes are intended as "lessons", but I think making these characters so stupid, or at least having them raise terribly stupid points, puts a strict limit on what can be learned. I don't really need them to put the dumbest people at the podium so they can prove them wrong, it comes off as strawmanning.

 

The Chairman was annoying as heck. I'm glad he was offed.

 

Still, he was a "villain" that was technically on our side, something I really want to see more of. "Trespass" remains my favourite episode of the first season, due to the Jedi actually being keepers of the peace. I wish we saw the Jedi in this role more, but I guess the point of the Clone Wars is to bring the Jedi into an attacking role.

 

Touche. I will give you that.

 

Cargo of Doom. Amazing. Start to finish. Most favorite episode so far.

 

Yeah, the zero-gravity battle sequence was fantastic.

You have an absolutely EPIC 5-episode storyline coming up next by the way. Enjoy it!

 

CT-867-5309 your analysis is accurate and thorough and I give you credit for a wall-of-text that stays on-point, but as a fellow Star Trek fan, don't you see any similarities between some of what you complained about with the chairman and some classic Star Trek episodes? In the original series episode Let That Be Your Last Battlefield, the two opposing sides have just as spurious reasoning for believing in their own superiority, and they both spend the whole time trying to order Captain Kirk around in handling their opponents with him turning them down time after time. In the Next Generation episode The Drumhead, that crazy old lady sticks to her species-ist anti-Romulan ideology to the bitter end but because of her high position no one realizes she's basically crazy and the bureaucracy doesn't stop her until she goes way overboard, just like Chairman Cho in Trespass. Not that any of this diminishes your points because for all I know you could have the same issues with those Star Trek episodes or we could perhaps discuss ways in which Trespass is worse despite being similar, but Trespass always reminded me of Star Trek and to me these similarities are notable. I have loved Trespass since I first saw it because of the Star Trek vibe I got from it.

 

I didn't find the Chairman all that unrealistic, myself: he's one who is used to full obedience and he most likely hasn't faced any situation like this before. He's so convinced of his "divine right" so to speak that he can't see beyond it and uses the power of his office and personality to override other opinions when they don't coincide with his.

I find him far more convincing a "bad good guy" than moustache-twirling Krell myself. There was a wasted opportunity - a Jedi committed to winning whatever it took (throwback to Tarkin and Anakin's talk in the citadel episodes) and went crazy over the line from whatever the means to further a good cause.

Yes, some nuance in characterization would be good, but not necessarily each and every villain - just most of them (IMHO).

 

Both battles were amazing. The one in Space with the AT-TE's and then the one on the ship. Both were great. Hope they keep those up. Can't wait to see that 5 episode storyline then