Clone Wars Grade the Episode - 316 "Altar of Mortis"

On a scale from 1 to 10, what score do you give this episode?

Please note this is NOT the episode discussion thread, so please limit the discussion to the grades and overall evaluation of the episode.

Grade average (55 votes): 7.49

10. It was almost perfect. Only two things brought it down:

- "Then I guess we must fight."

- I would have liked a fight between the two most powerful Force users in the galaxy to involve more than lightning and blocking said lightning.

How about if they, like, morphed into giant mythological animals and charged at each other?!
Isn't it amazing how used we get to amazing things?

I gave it an 8. It was good, but definetly a step down from Overlords. Not much to think about, and some pretty bad dialogue. Great action with the duels and dark Ahsoka was very entertaining. The dagger is very good symbolically, but plays out in a very hackneyed way. All in all, I was quite happy, though.

7. Although I really want to give it something higher, I can't help but feel we're being given a hollow story disguised as something epically mind-boggling.

1/10

In many ways worse than Overlords, but also featured a lightsaber battle and unintentional humor to provide at least mindless entertainment, something Overlords didn't have.

I would give it a 9/10. I agree that Overlords was better, but I still thought this episode was good. Favorite thing about this episode was the Son. Great voice and I liked how some of his mannerisms were similar to Palpatine's.

I gave it an eight. Good animation, but it seemed to be lacking a bit from the previous episode. It was cool to see the connection to the PT, mainly how Father said that the Sith would become more powerful, connecting to Mace's statement "I believe it is time we inform the Senate our ability to use the Force has diminished." you can argue it's them explaining too much again, but it still was kind of cool to see the connection.

Good point, but by the end of the battle the lightning had gotten extremely repetitive.

Gave it an 8. Some hiccups, but it did spark some fantastic discussion. I personally thought that it was similar to some of ESB's darker moments.

Special mention for Sam Witwer. Another good showing of voice acting.

Gave it a 9.

Where Overlords had Qui-Gon and other awesome encounters, this episode really shined in the symbolic department. Best symbol: the sword.

I find myself watching it again and again, every time noticing new details that remind me of classic Star Wars moments. Just watched it again and made four connections I hadn't thought of before.

What else? Dark Ahsoka: awesome. Even if she never falls to the dark side, on Mortis, she did. (From a certain point of view)

Griffin vs. Gargoyle, big duels between the three 'Ones' (the only reason they might have looked downplayed is because we just had TFU powers in 'Witches of the Mist)

Daughter giving her last breath of life to Ahsoka really makes me wonder what consequences this may have for Ahsoka's character.

It may not have been a perfect episode, but I just can't get enough of the whole feel of this thing.

Back when RotS was in pre-production I had this theory on how Obi-Wan might discover some forgotten temple somewhere, which would reveal something more about the prophecy. It never happened in RotS, but here it is. Colour me happy for now.

The discussion of this episode was even more interesting than the discussion about 'Overlords'.

The third episode however may turn out to bring it all down, but that doesn't count for now.

That was extremely laughable.

9.

A great addition to the already fantastic arc of episodes.

I loved dark side Ahsoka and I found a special liking towards the Son's prison creature form.

Not as good as Overlords, which was one of the better episodes of the series, but I gave it a 7. It was very exciting but some things just were weird and didn't feel right.

gave it a 7. Like Barriss, I just felt it was hollow. It was entertaining, but I didn't find anything earth shattering about it.

Gave it a 10. I was originally planning on downgrading it to a 9 because of the sword thing, but H_J explanation(s) surrounding that whole thing really illuminated the entire topic for me and made me appreciate the different significant ways of looking at it. The single biggest reason for the 10 is that they totally maintained the incredible amount of interpretive liberty granted to the audience, which I was afraid would take a hit following "Overlords."

Ahsoka turning to the Dark Side because of the bite, if that's what you're referring to, is also something I wasn't crazy about at first, but after reading multiple interpretations and possible explanations from people in the episode discussion thread who were less put off by it and put more thought into it than I had I found a lot of interesting ways to look at it that redeemed it for me. I'm glad that happened, because I wasn't really giving it a chance and thus wouldn't have thought of those things on my own.

No, that "dark side poison" has been used before and it didn't bother me as much. Maybe the biting through her glove...

It was just the strange, nonsensical way Ahsoka was presented and her character movements, voice, were just non threatening and just laughable. She pulled off more of a joker than a threat of any kind toward Obi-Wan and Anakin.

Ahsoka's "dark side" was absolutely hysterical, easily the most entertaining scenes of the episode.

It's like Ahsoka did a really bad impression of Harley Quinn, her "villainy" is purely comical and her sexuality is creepy rather than arousing.

Yeah I definitely don't think she was ever a real threat to Anakin and Obi-Wan, it'd be kinda silly if she was.

I still think any perceived "sexuality" is entirely in the eye of the beholder, some complained about it but others didn't even understand how that interpretation was possible. I still can only see it if I'm looking for it, I don't get that impression at all just watching it.

I also don't think she acted like Harley Quinn at all. She may have looked like her a little a bit because her "lekku" (sp?) I think they're called, but HQ was truly maniacal whereas Ahsoka was pretty much just saying things she had perhaps been subconsciously resentful about. She was acting strange at first but that seemed to be because she was toying with Anakin who didn't know anything was wrong right away. She didn't act as all-out crazy as Harley Quinn (at least from Batman: The Animated Series from the 90's, which is how I always think of her).

I thought it was great. It brought out a real human darkness. Not the typical über-villainy.

I'm so surprised you guys aren't digging Darksoka! After all, you love absolutely everything about her...

That's what I thought of too

This was another great episode. Not as good as Overlords, but that one is hard to beat, mostly because it had so many great surprises. Altar explored the conflict set up in Overlords and fleshed-out the symbolism, which makes it just as interesting, IMHO, if not more so.

9/10

8/10. Not as good as Overlords.

I didn't like Overlords as much as others seemed to... (it was okay, IMO, but had some rather glaring faults) However, I liked this episode a lot, and it even made the last one better by osmosis!

Sam Witwhatsy was GREAT as the Son. The animation was awesome, especially during the battles. Some parts (e.g. the sword) weren't well-explained, but made sense when I thought about them later. The Eye of Sauron was as badass as ever () and I, personally, really liked Darksoka. There were also some great subtle character moments, especially on Anakin's part.

I'm not a fan of Matt Lanter, but I liked him better in this episode.

All in all, I'm much more into this arc when it's material, as opposed to vague metaphorical concepts. (Although there's something to be said for metaphor, I'll give you that.)

The only things that bring it down, for me, were: A) the Son's Dobby-creature shape (wtf?)... and B) the way the finale was handled. Or really, just the finale in general. I can see why someone would like it, but it just didn't work for me... at all.

With that said, the good far outweighed the bad, so I'll rate this one a solid 9.

Like anything in this story, the 'Dobby' creature doesn't make sense if you take it too literally. It could have bitten Ahsoka while she was still chained, after all. It just symbolizes the figure that seems helpful at first, then gently takes you by the hand, sowing doubt about a trusted ally, before fully delivering its vile poison.

Much like fatherly Palpatine was 'helpfully guiding' Anakin in RotS, feeding his distrust with the council before fully injecting the 'Padme poison'.

[/$0.02]

Gave it a 6/10 for the visuals and some great shots in the lightsaber battle.

Only gave it that high because of Humble_Jedi and others who pointed out some decent, although not great, metaphoric work in the episode.

I still think the sword angle wasn't handled great, and there isn't really any single metaphor from the Saga that fits it, IMHO.

A lot of the dialogue was terrible and it felt pretty LOTR or Harry Potter to me. I mean, basically having Orthanc as one of the towers was just an eye-rolling moment for me.

And I guess that's how I really felt; whereas Overlords, despite the issues I had with it, was intriguing and gave us the longest episode thread in LACWAC history, this episode made me roll my eyes.