Full Series The Clone Wars: Episode 216: Cat and Mouse Discussion Thread (Spoilers Allowed)

This is definitely an episode taht should have been longer or made into two episodes.

As for the cloaking device, I don't have a problem with that. I know about the "too small to ahve a cloaking device" line. I'm just eyeballing here, but I think the "needle" ship was bigger than the Falcon. So I think this episode established the minimum size a ship would need to be in order for the cloaking device to work.

 

The thing to understand about Needa's line in TESB though is that it was never the whole truth. It wasn't totally true in 1980 and it certainly isn't now - unless you choose to believe that Needa knows absolutely everything about cloaking devices, their use and history and can therefore make highly authoritative statements at a moment's notice. That is not very likely. He was always speaking in a general way, from the perspecitve of an Imperial officer, and one who was currently dealing with a beat-up Rebel freighter. Therefore any statement he makes about the size of ships that have cloaking devices has to be taken whithin those boundaries.

There was always ample room in the SW universe for small ships with cloaks. It is just that Needa, like the majority of people, have no knowledge of them. Therefore a prototype for a dedicated stealth ship fits in well. Size issues may be a factor for ordinary ships with cloaks, but it is entirely possible that a 'stealth' ship which is supposed to be cloaked most of the time it's in use could be much smaller than an ordinary ship with a cloak, which only has to use it occasionally.

It surprises me that so many people seem to be ready to castigate Lucas for disregarding his own continuity in a matter such as this. He is not disregarding it, just working within the bounds of what is possible - ie that there are many types of cloaked ships, both known and unknown. Most of the small ones are unknown, possibly because of the difficulty associated with applying the technology to them. So in other words, Needa sees the Falcon, recognises that it is not a dedicated stealth ship and is therefore too small to have a cloaking device. Had he encountered a different type of small ship, he may well have entertained the idea of it being cloaked.

Also, I would say that people need to get some perspective concerning comments made by the makers of TCW. I don't think that a few minutes of commentary by Filoni are really representative of the entire development process for an episode. Therefore the brevity with which he describes Lucas's comments are not indicative of a dismissive attitude to other people's ideas. Clearly they discussed it more than that, and probably the salient facts of the matter were brought up - ie the points I have mentioned. The result was that everyone decided that a small ship, of such a type, could indeed be cloaked.

 

If Yularen knows that small ships can have cloaking devices, and Yularen goes on to work for the Empire, why wouldn't Needa know that small ships can have cloaking devices?

 

Gry you hit the mark with that statement, and it is what I unfortunately envision when GL finally says that his clone wars cartoon series will be the definitive bridge between Epsiode 2 and 3. Thats when the boards here will go off the chain. The other thing, is that in the end the EU material is like source material for GL. He can use it, tweak it, or change it to fit his vision. Unfortunately, the fans, have a problem with accepting that due to the almost 20 years of EU, which does not come cheap (books, video games, comics, toys, etc)

 

Look at it this way - we finally have an explanation for this line from 1977's ANH: General Kenobi, years ago you served my father in the Clone Wars.

 

Nice episode, and nice to see a cloaked ship. It's probably crystal powered, like Maul's ship. I noticed some trek like music for a bit when Anakin was dodging the torpedoes. Always good to see some fleet action. Hopefully we will see more good space battles in the future and some starfighter action from Anakin as well.

 

Yes, Star Wars - for some reason- is now blatantly copying Star Trek, what with the music cue lifted from TWOK and the whole using-a-torpedo-to-track-a-cloaked-ship thing from TUC.

 

It was copying Trek and a few submarine movies.

I personally wish they'd done the entire episode on a water-based planet and had Kit Fisto at the controls of the ship instead of Anakin. The Separatists and Republic forces could have legitimately been trying to find one another under water vs. having to use the concept of a cloaked ship. Given that they were copying submarine stories (the sound of the incoming bombers, having to "run silent", etc., it would have just been cool to have just BEEN on a submarine.

Also - the fact that this is a flashback to the beginning of the series/CW movie... how will they explain that they had a cloaked ship so far back? There have been plenty of instances so far in the series when having a cloaked ship would have been a great help to the Republic. Knowing they had one AGES ago and never mention it again seems odd. Those are the little "issues" that seem hard to accept at times. Like having to turn off your shields to fire and then conveniently, for the story, needing to have them recharge so that Anakin has enough time to destroy Trench's ship. There are ways to write around needing the shields to go down vs. having to explain the need to turn them off.

 

I would say that:

1. Yularen probably doesn't go around telling everyone in the Empire everything he's ever seen.
2. By the time of the OT Yularen isn't in the Navy any more.
3. The Millennium Falcon is not a prototype stealth ship. The message to draw from this episode and TESB is that if a small ship has a cloak then it is probably of a special type, hence they are quite rare. Whether Needa knew of the existence of small cloaked ships is not wholly relevant. He would have believed that only large ships or special small ships could cloak. The Falcon was neither of these, therefore he did not believe that it could be cloaked, nor would any similar ship.

 

Well, it went well for the first season, Dave had a reasonable amount of weight to throw around when it came to ideas.

BUT, ever since Season 2 started, and George decided he didn't want his "vision", to be dictated by an outsider like Filoni, we have been getting more and more of the stuff that bemused us in the Prequel Trilogy.

I think that the big man can't let anything go, unless he is in complete control.

 

I think George is loose on some things in the SW universe but others he's very adamant and that can be both a good and a bad thing sometimes. Like in "The Mandalore Plot" Filoni originally had Pre Vizla wield a vibroblade against the Jedi. George said that a vibroblade can't be as good a weapon as a lightsaber otherwise what's the point so they changed it to an ancient darksaber, which I think is better.

I can fanwank Piett not knowing about cloaking devices on a ship that small because he's younger than Yularen and not as high ranked.

 

oh and trench's death is a usual thing for those in the navy.

 

My thoughts exactly.

The cloaking devise thing didn't bother me at all though, TCW has some faults with the EU, but I'm used to canon being shifted around or changed.

 

BUT, ever since Season 2 started, and George decided he didn't want his "vision", to be dictated by an outsider like Filoni

How do you manage to come up with these insights? In the absence of actually knowing anything, it might be better to not say anything, rather than just making up things, especially things that make you sound so ridiculous.

 

I'm perfectly fine with Trench biting it in his first appearance, what with his whole being-a-spider-ness making me shudder every second he was onscreen.

I don't LIKE spiders, you see. Freaky little eight-eyed things with those little waving pedipalps... eeuugh. *shudders* Oddly enough, insects and other arthropods don't bother me at all. Just arachnids (don't much care for scorpions or daddy long-legs either...).

Perhaps it was just Trench's presence, but I was totally underwhelmed by Cat and Mouse. Nice story, some awesome moments (I LOVED Bail's "You're our only hope!" line!), but having to sit through half an hour of a giant talking spider just totally sucked the fun out of it.

And yes, I'm aware that's a totally, unfairly biased way of looking at the episode, but sometimes, you just can't HELP it.

 

Scorpions are my #1 fear. They are so creepy and dangerous looking! My heart's going a mile a minute just thinking about them...

 

Rats are my number one fear. Cutesy cartoony ones, sure, I can handle, but not the vicious, feral ones, least of all in swarms.

George probably isn't all good or all bad, but he's got a lot of childlike wonder, I imagine, which is good for brainstorming but not so good for consistency. Like Gry said, I think it'd be awesome if he took more of a mentor role. It's a good thing that as much power as he has, there's still a pretty large crew to manage it and attempt to execute it well.

That said, to quote the Filoni/Gilroy interview, we really have no idea of how powerful Dave is getting at the Ranch.

I also had this funny image in my head of George being Dave's mentor. I'm imagining a sudden and very drastic increase of Jar Jar and Plo Koon episodes.

 

Eh? I hate spiders too but I didn't have a problem with Trench.

Anyway, thumbs up on this episode. The cloaking device brings up all sorts of canon contradictions, but I guess I'm willing to overlook that. The episode wasn't as much outright fun as Grievous Intrigue, but it was still enjoyable.

 

*t-ch-ch-ch-ch-chshhhhhhhh*

 

It was more Star Trek than Star Wars, quite frankly.

 

In this case, I don't mind since it was a cool episode.

 

Trench's teeth snickering got kind of annoying.. Reminded me of Boss Nass.

 

My thing is, the whole episode would've made more sense if Anakin had simply done his first decloaking and torpedo launch while sitting right in front of Trench's bridge windows.

If your enemy simply cannot detect you, you don't try to snipe them from a great distance . . . you just walk right up and cut the throat.

 

yes...but did he have to say EXACTLY the same thing??