Full Series The Clone Wars: Episode 302: ARC Troopers Discussion Thread

Good, since the (actually somewhat valid) "waning morality in Western animation" debate and discourse is over, let's move on to the subject of why you feel the need to retort to a clear JOKE about James Cameron with a slew of brash, arguably homophobic comments against Filoni? Talk about "sketchy" and "disheartening."

 

... Uh oh. Not another debate.


Stay on topic we must.

What did everyone think of the new battle droids? They were okay...and I wouldn't have minded a mix of Super battle droids with the others.


I like the part when Obi wan is on the back of that flying water creature after he falls from the collapsing platform. "We got to stop meeting like this, my friend." lol.

Anakin vs Ventress is my fave duel next to Gen. Grevious vs Obi wan. I did like the little action scene moment of Shaak Ti. I hope to see her again and possibly duel Grevious in any future episodes.

 

So far no one has mentioned the look on Ventress's face as she hi-tailed it outta there with Grevious.

I think someone failed again. Sidious isn't gonna like that ;-)

 

Oh yeah. That look. Count Dooku will not be pleased when he learns of her failure and has to report to Darth Sidious.

 

The droids were neat. I thought their design mimicked Grievous a little more than the other droids we've seen. Also, their voice and mono-eye reminded me of the common portrayal of renegade sentient artifican intelligences.

When I saw Grievous interacting with Ventress, my mind practically screamed 'we just got another fanfic pairing'.

Also, Grievous vs. Obi-Wan...retreating in the face of the Force...OR A TACTICAL MANEUVER TO A BATTLEFIELD WHERE MAGNETIC TALONS WOULD COME IN HANDY?

 

Who is making things up now?

 

Does anybody know whether Obi-Wan Kenobi is now the unofficial Ace Ventura of the SW galaxy? There was (1) the aiwah in TCW (I remember "aiwah" because it's intended to be an obvious contraction of "air whale"), (2) Boga in ROTS, (3) the eopie in ROTS (although that wasn't necessarily anything special) and then (4) he remembered BOGA so much that they retconned his scream to the Tusken Raiders in ANH so that it sounded like Boga.

I also thought that Shaak Ti looked great. (Too great, actually. The episodes triggered me to go to Wookiepedia where I saw that the EU says that she survived Order 66 now. That event has been so diminished by the countless Jedi the EU keeps saying survived it that it now has about as much gravitas as a retirement announcement from Brett Favre.)

 

Law_Jedi - haven't seen you in a long time!


Brennan - I was thinking the same thing about Obi-Wan.

Next episode there will be a cat on his shoulders.


Not really sure why they needed so many aqua droids when most of them were simply stored in the ships.


On Ventress at the end, the expression on her face is fantastic, and I think it might have been Filoni who said we're going to see far more expression on characters' faces this season.

On Shaak Ti, her eyes were a purple/lavender, which was quite noticeable on the HD version.

On whomever referenced them mentioned Hevy dying and not the others, to me it was obvious they were telling 99 because they knew he had a bond with Hevy.


EDIT: Anyone notice the Crawl Creator on the OS? It takes the narration newsreel and turns it into the classic SW crawl. I think I actually like it better the classical way.


EDIT 2: Episode guide confirms episode does NOT take place directly after Rookiees. Also confirms this is the first time Ventress and Grievous meet face-to-face, as I expected.

 

Sup Garth.

The Ventress scenes were very welcome and very interesting, even if it reminds me why I both love and hate the femme fatale trope. What was interesting is that the censored bits not only involve a sensual kiss, but a simultaneous female (symbolic and literal) penetration of a male character. Its pretty vivid sexual imagery for a cartoon, which speaks to the choice of censoring it. While I don't necessarily ever agree with censorship, I do have mixed feelings about the scene:

A. I don't like the first real mainstream Star Wars she-villain is so overtly defined by her sensuality. Can't she just be an awesome badass without practically dry humping every male in the series?

B. At the same time, she is very empowered through her sexuality. Not only does she commit the... um, penetrative act on the clone, but she follows that up with a dismissal of Grievous' "swinging" lightsaber skills, with a casual, unimpressed glance down below his waist. Her reaction of his impotent attempts at asserting his power remind me of the Catwoman/Penguin dynamic in Batman Returns.

Oh yeah and 99 made me cry.

 

Welcome back, Law_Jedi! Glad you could join us for the premiere!

Interesting analysis of Ventress, to be sure. Not that I actively look for the Freudian implications, but now and then a particular scene involving blasters or lightsabers gets my attention. Like the interrogation of Jester and his blaster in Hidden Enemy.

While I did outright love the duels in this episode, they do have a pretty common flaw in this series: They're kinda setting up a 'main heroes versus main villains' clique, wherein the go-to characters for a showdown with Grievous and Ventress are Obi-Wan and Anakin, and to a lesser extent, Ahsoka. True, a simple and reliable formula for a TV series is to follow its main faces, but I do hope they'll throw us background Jedi fanboys a bone or two.

It makes sense with Obi-Wan considering his history with the two antagonists, but I do wonder whether they had the resources to animate Shaak Ti in a duel with one of them. Then again, look at all the cloth and flowing that must be involved with her model. I certainly don't blame them for that particular issue. XD

 

Don't worry I'm sure they will have every Jedi in the Republic defeating both Grievous and Asajj by the time Season 5 is done. It's the cool thing to do.

 

Sadly, I am inclined to agree with you at least partly. Still, hopefully they'll make it a pretty sweet ride or a hard-earned victory, if defeats are as sparse as Jar Jar episodes. And at the very least, they cannot claim that EVERY Jedi has bested Grievous and Asajj because of the technicality that Anakin can never face the general in person. The Episode Guide even points it out.

 

Thanks, koonfan. Just one man's opinion, but with femme fatales in pop culture, the cigar is rarely just a cigar!

BTW, did anyone else get a really intense Battlefront buzz from some of the Kamino battles? Made me want to break out my PS2 and snipe alongside Echo and Fives!

 

Do you think that TCW is going to let a silly little thing like the movies stand in the way of their melodrama? I think they've been walking the tightrope between complementary stories and total contradictions since they introduced Ahsoka (and I think that they crossed over into outright contradictions a few times, in my opinion). So it's just a matter of time before the line is shattered altogether and LFL is declaring that the movies are now the EU and TCW is the official canon.

I this instance, General Grievous will prep for his fight with Anakin on TCW with some leg attachments that super-size him (he is a cyborg, remember). Anakin will, of course, defeat him, but then they'll be able to say that when Anakin said, "You're shorter than I expected" in ROTS, they just meant that he'd shrunk since they fought in TCW.

With the sexual innuendo for Asajj, they've been doing that since Season 1 when she was seductively disrobing in front of Obi-Wan (so overtly that I remember many fans thought that there was going to be a romance there). Like I said, I like the kiss because at least they just dropped their cornball double entendres and just basically admitted that, "This character is here for sexual titillation and salacious gags. Hope you enjoy it." ('Course, they then cut the kiss. But they obviously want fans to know about it.)

 

Stunning visuals, great entertainment, good character work, nice lightsaber battles. The only it lacked was a bit of Shaak Ti action.

9/10

 

That scene definately isn't for kids, but its not something that needs to be censored.

Adult Swim came on immediately after TCW where I live. 'Nuff said.

 

Also, can we talk about how Anakin was using Darth Vader one-handed dueling style against Ventress?

 

Or why no one used the Force, besides the default once in a while all powerful Force push. They just simply used aggressive close combat against one and another. Interesting, but meh.

Speaking of Vader: did any catch Grievous' awful line "All too easy"?

 

Great episode

Random Thoughts

99 was starting to grow on me

I understand why they cut the scene where Ventress stabbed/ kissed the clone, but I would have loved it be included.

Loved the Ventress / Grievous chat.

It seems that Ventress is more powerful then Anakin at the moment, though I don?t think Anakin was 100% out of the fight.

If the above statement is true then why isn?t Ventress worthy of becoming a Sith, after all Count Dooku nearly came a cropper against Anakin.

Come to think of it when is Anakin finally going to start showing some of these amazing force abilities he?s purported to have.

 

I've been trying to forget that terrible line.

The more I watch it, the more I love the Anakin/Asajj duel. It's so fluid it almost looks live-action. Do the fighting styles they use remind anybody else of their original fight on Yavin IV in the microseries?

 

Not quite. I think the lightsaber duels have improved, but it still feels "choppy" for me for some reason. They move around and feels like other duels in TCW, and then at a certain point they stop and saber lock for a few seconds before doing something else in the duel.

 

I actually feel the duel was completely movie-quality.

The Obi/Grievous duel, however, didn't quite make the cut IMO.

 

BWAHAHAHA!
I'm so sorry everyone that I've dug up this quote, but I just caught up on this thread and it has got to be the funniest, most nonsensical post of the entire thread. Are you working on a comedy act there, chief? I hope you do, cause otherwise I'd be amazed by how low you went to bash Filoni- especially about his dating life?!

In Filoni's defense, he's one of most awesome Star Wars fans out there- he perfectly understands the heart/ core of this franchise, which you'd know if you ever heard one of his heartfelt speeches. They couldn't have gotten a better guy for the job. AND: he looks really dapper wearing a black suit with his trademark fedora.

NOW, here are my thoughts on the episode:

-The audio encryption the Republic managed to intercept was way too crips an exposition-heavy ("The Cloning Planet of Kamino"). Would have been much nicer if they kept that to the opening narration instead.

-The troops marching off of the ramp of the Republic Cruiser coupled with the Kamino theme from AOTC gave me chills.

-Liked the little nostalgic exchange between Echo and Fives before meeting 99.

-That alignement of Republic Star Destroyers/ Jedi Cruisers was breathtaking in scale!

-Really liked the first shot of Grievous as he's walking towards the window to look at the fleet.
Especially because of the precise and professional task list the droids verbally go through. The music really added to the atmosphere.

-There's something about that shot of a hooded Asajj Ventress as she's sitting in her submerged craft that made her even more sinister looking.

-Did Matt Lanter have a cold during the sound recording? He sounds like it.

-Great strategy hiding the invasion crafts in the debris.

-Gungan Bongo sound effect! Takes me back to TPM.

-Loved the Aiwa escape from the Aqua Droids. "Thanks for the lift, friend". Very Obi Wan-ish.

-The shot of the "Cloning Plant Trees" crashing on top of each other is awesomely detailed- but pretty graphic if you think about it. There are little Clone babies in every one of those pods.

-Loved sunny daytime Tipoca City and the fact they exactly replicated that one concept artwork they showed at CV.

-Commander Colt's death is quite spine-chilling.

-Loved the little tension-filled exchange between Grievous and Asajj. Especially when she touched his head and told him there's nothing she would want from him. I guess Asajj has a soft spot for Obi Wan's pointy beard.

-The cliché prep talk between the soldiers and the Clone Youths wasn't handed very well.

-Okay, I now understand the duels between Anakin vs. Asajj and Obi Wan vs. Grievous aren't really exciting to me because of the combat, but the surrounding. Especially the shot of Obi Wan moving in circles to avoid Grievous' spinning blades seconds before the platform started tumbling over.

-I liked the Clone Youths hiding in the overhead sleeping pods strategy.

-99's death was predictable,

 

Agreed. Especially the second scene we see with them where after Anakin swing his lightsaber once(a touch I loved) they move very fast and it looked great. Though when Ventress kicks Anakin over her, his landing was a bit stiff.