Full Series The Clone Wars - 5.17 - Sabotage - discussion thread

I'm still hitting myself for so dismissively writing it off as a crap writing job. I've learned something about myself from this...namely that if I'm ever addressed by a law enforcement official I'll probably incriminate myself as a bomber at the first use of 'accusatory word play'.

 

Guys I created a separate discussion for the episode commentary by Dave Filoni here: http://boards.theforce.net/threads/commentary-for-episode-discussion-s05e17.50009438/

 

That's why you shut your mouth and ask to speak to a lawyer!

 

And that's when your assigned WAC-47 as your state appointed lawyer.

 

Nice to see this ship return.

 

I'm amazed by the effort. Almost a frame-by-frame analysis.

 

Why blame the Jedi? The Jedi are not in charge of the military or the government. The Jedi did not start the war. They did not declare war on the CIS. And the don't have the authorization to end the war. They are ordered to fight by their government. Palpatine is the top commander of all military forces. The Jedi have to follow the commands of Palpatine and the Senate. Protest should be done on them. The Jedi should be scene as heroes. They are the ones fighting on the front lines.

If the Jedi did not accept the ranks of generals, Palpatine and the Senate could have made them all privates and put the clones in command of them. If the Jedi refused to fight, they would have been seen as police officers refusing to go after criminals, firefighters refusing to fight fires, or soldiers refusing to fight in their country's wars. They would be people not doing their jobs, which is to defend the citizens of the Republic. To me, that would cause people to protest against the Jedi.

 

From a couple pages back, but the only thing R2 did to any of the buzz droids was smash one over the top with one of the starfighter's radiator foils.

 

Yes, they actually are. Every Padawan is a Commander, every Knight a General, and every Council member a High General. They have practical command of the army at every level. While Palpatine technically is the Supreme Commander, that's mostly ceremonial up until the issuing of Order 66, just as the United States president is technically Commander in Chief of US military forces, but does not function as a practical military leader.

It's been established that there were a number of anti-war protests aimed at the Senate and the politicians during the course of the Clone Wars. This episode simply focused on one aimed at the Jedi. And while it's a true fact that the Jedi do not have the ability to end the war when they choose, public knowledge of their failure to secure the safety of a Republic world, or of the Jedi who have sided with the CIS or gone to the dark side...these are tarnishing the image of the Jedi in the eyes of the people.

By that line of thought, the clones should be equal heroes in the eyes of the people, as it is them who fight and die in far greater numbers than the Jedi.

Highly unlikely.

Then it is the people's fault for not understanding the role of the Jedi in contemporary Republic society. As it's been said more times than I can count: They are keepers of the peace, not soldiers. It should not be their obligation to fight a war if they don't wish to be a part of it, it should be a choice. There are other ways to serve the Republic, even in times of war, than as front-line military units. The Altisian Jedi, for instance, chose to bring humanitarian aid and refugee assistance to worlds and people ravaged by war. The people of the Republic have no more business demanding the Jedi fight their wars than the people of DC-verse America have demanding Superman destroy the Taliban single-handedly.

 

What struck me as odd is the immediate insistence in distrust in the Jedi caused by the explosion, that people automatically started thinking "the Jedi did it".

That doesn't make much sense to me, and they didn't provide a reason for it, the episode just started that way.

Why would the Jedi bomb their own Temple? That's like hearing about an embassy bombing, and thinking the diplomats bombed themselves.

Even IF a rogue Jedi or a group of Jedi did do it, it doesn't follow to cast suspicion on the entire Jedi Order, especially not from the people that know better.

Please do not cite paranoia, I'm well aware of the possibility, but I find it to be a weak explanation. I just didn't feel like it flowed naturally, I don't think they set up that aspect all that well. Unless we're supposed to believe these people being mentioned are actually just conspiratards.

I will wait for future episodes, a little more knowledge might light our way.

 

You may not have noticed, but much of that post was in jest. I do raise my criticisms, but I'm not above silly jokes. Still, Cad Bane and TODO 360 managed to infiltrate the Temple on Ahsoka's watch, she shouldn't be so surprised.

 

That would make more sense.

 

Good episode. It was cool seeing Cin Drallig, as well as the Eta-2's. CSI plot in Star Wars actually works. Can't wait til next week!

 

Dooku and Krell's actions have given the people of the Republic less reason to trust the Jedi?

 

Dooku is leading the CIS in war against the Republic....Krell that shouldn't know about.

 

I forgot to mention that awesome blink and you miss it moment in my thoughts post.

Well, I did really like that they dropped his name in there, for the sake of connecting these stories together. I always loved that on kids shows as far as I can remember. It makes the stories feel more real to have characters remember their history beyond what we see in the episode.

 

I can't speak for Krell, but many of the general public see Dooku as an ex-Jedi, rather than as a Sith Lord. So the faction that has pulled the Republic into war is being led by a Jedi....and the Republic's military is being led by Jedi. Hardly surprising that people are protesting against being dragged into a religious war that they believe they have no vested interest in.

Which is where people like Tarkin find their feet when they speak out against Jedi leadership. The state needs to be separate from this "hokey religion".

There were ~10,000 Jedi at the beginning of the Clone Wars. Only a tiny fraction of the galaxy's bajillion-sized population would ever see one, let alone meet one, talk with one, etc. So Jedi trickled down the grapevine as figures of myth and legend. Most people don't even know if they're real. They're exaggerated, glorified as most tales that pass by word-of-mouth are. That's why you have kids like little Anakin in Episode One believing that nobody can kill a Jedi. These guys are legends.

Then with the Clone Wars, more people start muddying the waters. Between the reality of the Jedi's actions and the Mr Average on the street hearing about their antics over a water cooler, the Tarkins and Isards of the galaxy step in and mix up the story. They speak of religious fanatics overruling the legal system. Of crazy monks telling people to trust in their spiritual intuition instead of military strategies. And people buy it. Why shouldn't they? Why should they believe these figures of legend that they're never going to interact with over the men and women in Republic uniform, their senators, their elected officials, who tell them otherwise?

 

On top of what anakinfan posted, where is the connection to the explosion? It's such a vague explanation that really has nothing to do with what was going on in the episode.

It wasn't just random people, it was people who had worked alongside the Jedi in the Temple, they know the Jedi. Why would they think a Jedi bombed their own Temple, instead of a disgruntled civilian? I suppose if you're a conspiratard, your mind could go there, but letting that take over your senses makes you seem a little nuts.

"Is it true a Jedi bombed the Temple? Is it true? Is it true?" You guys work here, what do you think?

I even find the notion that the people are suspicious of the Jedi because the war has gone on a whole three years to be....unconvincing.

I don't really buy the whole "Jedi plot" involving one of their own, Dooku, pulling off some charade for the Jedi to take over (though it's not too far off, they shouldn't know that). Way too many Jedi have died for that to make a lot of sense.

What? It's been presented as everything but a religious war. We hear words like Republic, Confederacy, Separatists, corporations, banking, corruption, etc. The Clone War is very much presented as a political/economic war. What we haven't heard is GFFA equivalents of Crusade, Jihad or whatever. We see Dooku making public speeches about the Republic Senate's corruption and greed, but we don't hear him or anyone else talking to the public about the Will of the Force, the balance of the Force, the light/dark side, etc. Dooku's public beef isn't even with the Jedi, it's with the Senate. Dooku is presented as a "political idealist", not a religious extremist.

 

I think this passage from the Revenge of the Sith novelization best sums it up:

Spoiler

The adults know better, of course. That's part of what being a grown-up is: understanding that heroes are created by the HoloNet, and that the real-life Kenobi and Skywalker are only human beings, after all.
Even if they really are everything the legends say they are, who's to say they'll show up in time? Who knows where they are right now? They might be trapped on some Separatist backwater. They might be captured, or wounded. Even dead.
Some of the adults even whisper to themselves, They might have fallen.
Because the stories are out there. Not on the HoloNet, of course—the HoloNet news is under the control of the Office of the Supreme Chancellor, and not even Palpatine's renowned candor would allow tales like these to be told—but people hear whispers. Whispers of names that the Jedi would like to pretend never existed.
Sora Bulq. Depa Billaba. Jedi who have fallen to the dark. Who have joined the Separatists, or worse: who have massacred civilians, or even murdered their comrades. The adults have a sickening suspicion that Jedi cannot be trusted. Not anymore. That even the greatest of them can suddenly just...snap.
The adults know that legendary heroes are merely legends, and not heroes at all.
These adults can take no comfort from their younglings. Palpatine is captured. Grievious will escape. The Republic will fall. No mere human beings can turn this tide. No mere human beings would even try. Not even Kenobi and Skywalker.
And so it is that these adults across the galaxy watch the HoloNet with ashes where their hearts should be.
Ashes because they can't see two prismatic bursts of realspace reversion, far out beyond the planet's gravity well; because they can't see a pair of starfighters crisply jettison hyperdrive rings and streak into the storm of Separatist vulture fighters with all guns blazing.
A pair of starfighters. Jedi starfighters. Only two.
Two is enough.
Two is enough because the adults are wrong, and their younglings are right.
Though this is the end of the age of heroes, it has saved its best for last.

 

Completely true, but that's a different context to what I was referring to. Dooku isn't selling it as a religious war. The Jedi aren't selling it as a religious war. It isn't a religious war (for the most part anyway, there's obviously undertones of this given that it is Jedi-vs-Sith on some level). The ones selling it as such are the ones with an agenda behind alienating the Jedi in the eyes of the everyday Republic. The ones who benefit from having people believe it is one.

The "religious war" angle isn't the only one either, mind you. Those trying to extend their own powerbase (Tarkin and the future Moff generation, for example) will adopt any position so long as it furthers their goals in decreasing Jedi influence in favour of their own. Whether that's claiming the Jedi are too spiritual to be effective military commanders (a la that letter from Tarkin to the Chancellor that someone posted which was from an official source as far as I know), insinuating the possibility of Jedi treachery in the Temple itself (as appears to be foreshadowed in this episode, with the talk of the military police muscling their way in, etc), or whatever.

 

I would say using unnatural born people (clones) to fight their war has some bearing on religion, no?

But the problem with this whole war is not who they're fighting, but why?

 

I love that passage. Stover is a literary genius, keeping it simple and yet almost poetic in the flow of words.

 

I'll buy the ineffectual commanders angle.

Mia, even that quote didn't make sense to me. "They don't trust them because some of them have gone bad." How does that make Jedi any different from anyone else? Yeah, a Jedi gone bad can do a lot of damage, but so can one soldier with a gun, or even one nutjob with a gun and lots of ammo who has gone to the firing range a few times.

It just seems really irrational. I know for sure that some people are that way, but most aren't. I mean, we know what some of our troops have done in recent wars, and we don't have some paranoid distrust of them. We have way more reason to be distrustful of the CIA, but we aren't.

The Republic hasn't been particularly effective at keeping the war far from home, and I remember the paranoia after 9/11.

Basically the entire Senate erupted in applause when Palpatine spun a tale of a Jedi plot and presumably the public went along with it, so TCW is going to have to step it up if they're trying to present reasoning for it. They can't just assume distrust, they have to show it, or at least explain it instead of asserting it.


You can always say that it doesn't matter, that you can just wave your hand and cite distrust/suspicion/fear/paranoia, but I'd rather have TCW come up with a solid explanation that made me go "oooh, so that's why" instead of me having to mind trick myself. That is part of good storytelling and I don't think it's unreasonable to expect it.

 

We've seen the first signs of that explanation, as far as the TCWverse is concerned anyway, in this episode. It's far from answered all the questions though, but we have three more episodes yet. Hopefully we'll get a more rounded portrayal of this "mistrusting the Jedi" concept by the end of the arc.

And I echo your suggestion that the show needs to continue this sentiment as the show progresses from here on, rather than keeping it contained as a 'theme' for this one arc. The Senate applauding in ROTS is a good example; we need to understand how they get to that point.