Full Series Grade Episode 6.12: Destiny

2/10

+Welcome back Jaime King, it's been too long.
+Beautiful animation
+I can at least pretend that I really saw Petro(sp?) dead.

-Tom Kane's Yoda is okay in small doses. Up front and center it's grating.
-Ahsoka's "death" was completely unnecessary.
-Gollum Yoda. Are you kidding me? The entire scene had me rolling my eyes.
-Some really awkward transitions... one second we're jumping across giant mushrooms with lighthearted music playing, then the we're treated to some super-serious ominous stuff going on over in this black cloud. This one in particular felt incredibly unnatural.

 

(Wrong thread)

 

...Do you want to know how mind-blowingly gullible/stupid I am? I actually googled it to check because I thought that sounded wrong.

(On a completely unrelated note, the wookieepedia page for fuel is a little lacking.)

 

Destiny was without a doubt one of the most mind-blowing episodes of TCW ever aired. I came into this episode with lofty expectations, having read a couple of reviews prior to the episodes airing on Netflix, and I have to say, it not only met but also exceeded my expectations. How they managed to pack all that meat into a single 22-minute episode was indeed astounding, IMO. This episode went further than any prior source of exploring Yoda's character in depth and explaining his transformation from wizened Jedi Council war leader in the PT to an enlightened and truly wise hermit on Dagobah in the OT, as I've highlighted in this post made days after the episodes premiered on Netflix.

Such a profound episode. Where to start? Firstly, Yoda and R2 enter a brilliant, gaseous nebula which housed their final destination. This was merely one of a great number of scenic locales that would make Destiny one of the most beautiful and brilliantly-animated episodes to date. Apparently, the planet Yoda lands on is one of the wellsprings of the Force, and a brithplace of the midi-chlorians from which lifeforms may touch the Force. A place where one can actually "see" life exist, sprouting forth and returning to their source, the universal wellspring of the Cosmic Force. The surface of the planet is barren and devoid of life, with only numerous geysers in craters that give off luminous yellow light that apparently were midi-chlorians made manifest. But the interior of the planet was just the opposite; bright, and teeming with life. Each landmass is a large floating rock or seemingly-lighter-than-air mushroom formation, the former not unlike what can be seen in the planet Pandora from the film Avatar. On one of these landmasses Yoda encounters a mysterious masked figure, the Priestess of Serenity, one of five powerful Force-beings who represent a certain emotion, a certain aspect of the Force and its all-encompassing will. I liked the designs of the Priestesses, whose masks were quite similar to those worn by actors of ancient Greek plays, though I felt that the effects used to give Jaime King's voice an ethereal quality seemed a bit overdone; sometimes it was difficult to make out what she was saying.

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"We are one and one is all." Dizzy yet?​

Yoda must complete a variety of trials to determine whether he is worthy of the "great gift" of learning to retain his identity after death. This was to be Yoda's reward for teaching "one that will save the universe from a great imbalance." This was a gift that the five Priestesses had attained themselves, long ago. It calls to question whether these are the Whills of George Lucas' original treatments, and referenced in the RotS novel? The "Shaman of the Whills" who taught Qui-Gon how to retain his identity after death could well one of the Priestesses, a reimagined Whill.

As Yoda confidently proclaims that he has long ago conquered his fears and his desires, I grew curious as to what kind of trial the Priestesses would put him through that could possibly shake this seemingly ironclad belief. It was evident, then, that there were still things a Master as old and wise as Yoda still had to learn. Much like Luke confidently believing that he couldeasily complete his trials prior to facing Vader in TESB. Indeed, in that place of darkness, the island of fear (the root of all evil), Yoda must face his own inner darkness. Fear is what motivates evil; true to what Yoda mentions in TPM, fear leading to anger, etc. For it is fear that causes those who are evil to justify their evil actions...look no further than Anakin Skywalker's fall. In the island Yoda confronts what appears to be a dark version of himself, a red-eyed, shadowy imp whose mannerisms were quite evocative of Gollum from LotR.This "dark Yoda" reminded me very much of a passage in the novel Yoda: Dark Rendezvous, one of the few EU works to delve into the psyche of the Jedi Grand Master:

At first Yoda refuses to recognize the shadowy creature, but this only served to give it power (for one cannot defeat great evil simply by ignoring it), and the two engage in a one-on-one brawl where Yoda finds himself pretty thoroughly beaten, until he realizes that he had to embrace his inner darkness in order to truly defeat it. "Through patience and training, it is I who control you." In doing so, Yoda has conquered his greatest flaw, his hubris, a flaw present in all of the PT Jedi Order, and the biggest reason why they were unable to stop the Sith's Grand Plan as it was being hatched literally right under their noses. Yoda has taken the first step into realizing that even the wisest Jedi must be humble and able to recognize they have flaws, and always be striving to become a better individual. Now Yoda accepted the fact that the Priestesses did indeed have much to teach him.

The next two trials were definitely the highlights of this episode. Through the Valley of Temptation, Yoda must confront the five emotions that the Priestesses represent: Confusion, Anger, Sadness, Joy, and Serenity. He must face various temptations that would bring out these emotions, and learn to conquer them. The second trial involved a foreboding scene of a devastated Jedi Temple littered with the bodies of numerous Jedi, including Mace Windu and Petro from the Youngling arc. This is Yoda's greatest fear; the destruction of the Jedi Order at the hands of the Sith, but something he must learn to accept could easily become a reality. Overcome with confusion and pain, he sees a dying Ahsoka Tano, who reprimands the Council for expelling her (in a way they did, but they also accepted her back, so I felt the dialogue could definitely have been better). With her dying breath, she fearfully wonders whether she would become "one with the Force" since she was no longer a Jedi. Struck with grief, Yoda refers to Ahsoka by her first name for the only time I remember in the series. It is then that he sees the Tholothian youngling Katooni, who promises to take him to a place of peace and happiness. This is Yoda's third trial.

The idyllic scene with a peaceful Jedi Temple never beset by war or conflict was definitely the greatest highlight of the episode, and easily one of my favorite scenes in the entire series. It spoke to Yoda's innermost desire for a world where the Sith never returned to bring war to the Jedi; one where Qui-Gon Jinn is still alive and Count Dooku never left the Jedi Order to join the Sith. We see numerous Jedi Masters, Padawans, and younglings (including those who have died like Adi Gallia) happily conversing with one another before gathering about the great tree. It's a beautiful scene, and shows what could have been. A good-natured old Dooku, a well-respected Jedi Master prior to his fall, happily talking about the time Yoda confronted "a giant terentatek" on Kashyyyk. Awesome reference to KOTOR, and I'm glad that this one line brings terentateks to canon status. But Yoda realizes that this joyful scene is all an illusion, and rejects it accordingly. He embraces the serenity and peace of knowing this, and he passes this test. It is then that he learns the Priestesses have long been dead, but have discovered the ability to retain their identity after death. Now Yoda has one final trial: to go to Morband (Korriban), the ancient homeworld of the Sith, to confront the trials the dark side has in store for him, "the gravest of journeys."

What a mind-bending and thought-provoking episode. Destiny went a long way to showing us that a Jedi Master as seemingly wise and infallible as Yoda had his own personal flaws, one that he must conquer through training in order to get to the state he was in TESB. It gave us another fascinating glimpse into the nature of the Force, but without revealing too much about its limitless secrets. This and the subsequent episode gave ammo for discussion in years to come. I hope that the trials that Yoda must face would become hallmarks of Luke Skywalker's new Jedi Order in the ST. We will have to wait and see. Overall, this was an excellent episode that I gave a perfect 10/10, one of my top three favorite episodes on the entire show.

 

According to the official StarWars.com Encylopedia, Qui-Gon is a "student of the Whills." That definitely cinches it.

 

Did anyone else almost cry when you realized how much Yoda cared about Dooku? I found it really moving


Sent from my R2 unit

 

Interesting. Maybe the Whills are the Priestess's bosses? But that would just make me all the more pissed that there was no reference to the Whills in the episode...