Full Series The Clone Wars: Episode 305: Corruption Discussion Thread

Interesting, because for me the politics here weren't as interesting as the stuff in the previous eps. Well, let me rephrase.

The real political stuff (fallout from neutrality) I found quite interesting.

But the other stuff....Some people (including gov't officials) on Mandalore are greedy. Ok, that's not good for them. No doubt. And I'm curious as to how high the corruption goes. And that there were guns and fighting was good I guess. But that's not really politics. More like government intrigue (a.k.a., who's the greedy jerk). Those two things are different.

Satine burning the wearhouse...now I don't know Mandalorian law. So this may be a moot point. But...it seems to me kind of dumb burning the wearhouse since, as the dude said, there's evidence in there. I get that you don't want kids poisoned again. But 1) will any parents even let their kids drink that stuff again, and 2) don't you want to lock up the perpetrators so they can't do it again?

 

I have to admit the music was above average in this episode. Not S1 quality, though.

 

I am going to say right up I enjoyed this episode. I need to say that, because I have enough complaints to qualify as a rant.

-So...no Sep plot, no Death Watch, no plan really...just lazy cost cutting?

-Smuggling children's drinks? Is that really worth the effort? I was expecting drugs or medicine or something that would actually justify the bribery. Unless there are coca-cola smugglers out there I am unaware of.

-On that note, it was interesting to see children's drinks and a school. Just reminds you people live in Star Wars, and it isn't just a place for epic battles.

-People getting sick from bad fun: Happens on earth a lot. Usually, it is handled by a lawsuit. Not the President, the British ambassador and the Secret Service getting into a shootout with the manufacturer.
Thought that would make for more entertaining news.

-The criminals were stupid. Not only the superintendent giving away his involvement by just walking off, but worse was the smugglers starting a fire fight. I mean, smuggling, bribing and not meeting food safety standards is going to be what...a fine? A few years in jail?
Killing two cops and wounding a third? Shooting at high ranking officials? Good luck living through your sentence.

-Corruption was apparently on everyone's word of the day calender.

-Satine came off as a colossal jerk. Dismissing the meeting because people didn't agree with her, destroying evidence in a fit of rage, threatening the captain with arrest on "your with me or against me" logic, even after he saved her from attack and was wounded in the line of dutyeven after he saved her from attack and was wounded in the line of duty. For a champion of democracy she is acting like a dictator.

-I have a feeling we will see these guys again. Their models were too elaborate just to show up in one episode.

-On that note, I wonder how the Gotals are connected to them. Also why criminal rings seem to be dominated by aliens when humans are the most common member of every other type of organisation.

-It occurred to me this could have been a great episode had the show been set in peacetime, because I imagine this is the kind of stuff that jedi would do whena war isn't on. As it is...it feels too unconnected to everything else.

-Great mechanical and character designs. A real visual treat.

-Action was pretty cool as well.

 

This episode was really disappointing. It wasn't terrible but it certainly wasn't the same quality as the previous episodes this season. We already know that the universe is corrupt we don't really need to get it jammed down our throats. Also Mandalore without any mandalorians is just plain boring I see now why people were upset about the pacifist retcon. The trailer for this ep summed the entire thing up without even having to sit through a full 20 minutes of it.

I also really hate feeling like I'm drawn out of the universe, Star Wars is action, intrigue, and adventure I don't need to see a school cafeteria where kids get sick from drinking unapproved softdrinks. It hit a little too close to home with the whole controversy over pop machines in schools even if it wasn't trying to. Also what kids even like tea? Do mandalorian children not drink milk? I think the reason they got sick is from caffeine overdose and lack of calcium.

Only good parts of this episode was that the stubborn police chief guy was pretty cool and he took a bullet for Satine. Also I loved the new Padme model and the limited bit of action she got. The next episode preview looked great but why does it have to come back to Mandalore. I was hoping mandalore would come back for the deathwatch arc not to see Ahsoka train the national guard, there really isn't any reason to put her there unless they wanted to reuse assets and save money, atleast next week is action oriented.

 

I think the jury is still out on those points. That is, it might be that there's more to this plot than it seems. Even though Satine seems to be magic guessing girl (i.e., if she doesn't like you, it turns out you're guilty), she might be wrong about no Death Watch.

And besides, right now it's not smuggling drinks anyway. It's smuggling a substance that can be added to drinks to make them go longer, thus increasing profit margins. Since they didn't know it would turn to poison, all they were trying to do (as far as we know) was make more money. In the USA it'd be illegal. But it'd be an FDA matter.

True. But Satine doesn't really seem to be completely analogous to any of those real world people. I mean, she gets involved with the school thing because she happens to go there for a visit.

Plus, the planet is in, if not a state of emergency, at least a state of hightened security.

Agreed on all of that.

I wonder how Jedi would've handled things differently. Wonder what Obi-Wan would say about Satine's actions in this episode.

 

While I agree with most of what you said, this is the big one. I lost track of the number of times I heard Dee Bradley Baker... Though overuse of voice actors is a problem in many animated shows.

Anyway, this was definitely one of my least favorite episodes of The Clone Wars. Bottom five, for sure. For one... The plot... Tea smuggling? Poisoned children? Really? This is what we're devoting an episode of The Clone Wars to? I don't have a problem with political episodes as an idea, but they're almost always executed poorly. The politics range from ridiculously simple to crazily convoluted. This episode didn't prove an exception to the rule.

The dialogue has to be some of the worst to come out of the series. Everything was so simplistic and awkwardly worded. I can't remember specific examples but the scene that stuck out the most was when the superintendent of the school or whatever he was tried to sneak away. His confession was terribly written.

And a big problem for me was Padme. I've never had a problem with Padme, not in the movies and not in this series, but this time... I don't care if she IS a main character, she should NOT be more effective in a combat scenario than trained soldiers.

 

The dialogue has been particularly weak this season -- this episode especially. I think I've heard that superintendent's speech at the end of every Saturday morning cartoon show where a villain is captured. Padme's response didn't help... ([sic] "You were greedy!")

The scene where Satine was talking to Padme at the dinner table was also... odd. If you actually follow what Satine's saying, she's basically telling Padme about how corruption is... bad. Padme's skills in feigning interest must have been honed by listening to Ric Olie all those years.

 

There was some good stuff here, particularly the last few minutes of action. Seeing Satine's increasingly tougher actions was interesting, as was the effect the war is having on neutral planets. The parade for Amidala was particularly impressive. But this was definitely the weakest episode of the season. It looks to be a part of a bigger arc though, one that could turn out to be pretty good.

 

I noticed Padme's outfit changing too, I think it was a gag, probably a reference to Carrie Fisher's George Lucas roast

A lot to say about this one...but first is I liked it, though more for the information it gave and what it showed us than for the actual writing.

Much of the talk about politicians serving their own and by extension corporate interests was obviously a commentary on the state of politics in the US for the last decade or so. The anti-corporate stuff, lack of regulation (does Mandalore not have an FDA?), and anti-greed messaging all fit the tone. Given the turnover for an episode of this show is around 2 years, this episode was probably conceived around the time of the economic collapse, which leads me to the fortune cookie: "the challenge of hope is to overcome corruption." I don't think it's too far a stretch to say that's a reference to Obama.

I liked that in addition to Padme and Satine obviously being interested in doing the right thing, they showed Almec as being a good guy too caught up in the political system to really be thinking straight rather than paint the light side/dark side absolutes Star Wars is fond of. By extension, I obviously hope that was NOT Almec in the preview for next week. I also liked that we got to see a much more domestic side of the galaxy here: schools, hospitals, doctors, lots of references to gory political details all the way to a company's cost cutting measures having dangerous consequences for consumers, something we've seen far too many times in recent years. Things like that help the Star Wars universe feel like a real place where people actually live out their lives. I'm glad we got to see this side of the universe, but coming on the heels of two other episodes not terribly related to the ongoing conflict, the timing could've been better, I think it would've played better as a breather after some heavy combat episodes.

The thing that bothered me the most was Satine threatening to have her guards rough up the superintendent. For her character I thought it was a little far, if Obi-wan questioning people with that caged assassin droid "borders on torture" what exactly was what she did? I suppose we'll see next episode if this was a fluke or we're going to be seeing a much harder edged Satine from now on. I was puzzled by the vaguely Egyptian dress of the smugglers. Some connection I'm not getting?

 

Meh, like Supply Lines, I skipped this episode. However, not on purpose. Just the overall plot didn't interest me when I first saw the preview, so I just simply forgot about the episode tonight.

 

Maybe they do have an FDA, and that's why this was a punishable crime. (I mean, they have government funded schools. So they don't have a minimalist gov't.)
If it was all about Obama, then I must say I hope such doesn't continue. That's partially because I don't agree with him politically. But it's also because I'm not a fan of the show picking sides on real world politics. I prefer it when the show takes Obi-Wan's position on politics.

And then there's the whole issue of balance. You can be against greed, but also for individual liberty. It's a question of what's the proper scope of gov't. That's a can I'm not trying to open now. Just saying, I like it when this show gives a fair hearing to both sides of the issues. And if the show goes in for a pro-Obama position, you'd lose that sense of balance.

Oh, and corruption cannot be stopped. You have to try of course. But it cannot be stopped. No magic gov't, no amazing preacher, nothing can completely stop people from choosing the quick, easy, and wrong path.

Unless of course he's a bad guy like some here suspect.

Me either. But right now we simply don't know. I don't like Satine treating people like their guilty of corruption until proven innocent. But it may be that she's wise to, at least on some level, trust no one.

Although...as I think about it...all this fear of high up corruption from a (from what we know so far anyway) accidental food poisoning, where's it coming from? She seems awfully convinced there's this deep conspiracy at work, but has little evidence.
But she's also strongly convinced...sure even...that Death Watch has nothing to do with it. Also without evidence.

Yeah. Although this episode may be more related to the conflict than we see.

Talking about the cost cutting measures the private company made...this episode teeters awfully close to "commerce is bad." Again, truth is commerce can promote greed. It's one of the fundamental dangers in a free market economy. But there are also many good things about free market economy. As long as the show isn't wanting to throw the baby out with the bathwater, I'm ok. And so far, it isn't. At least insofar as the government isn't shown as the all powerful benevolent solution...since some in the gov't are corrupt.

So hopefully the point is commerce can be good. And gov't can be good. But selfish greed (in any

 

I give this episode 8.5/10. I like the animation it keeps improving, and the story, well its like I've said all along. The varitey of things are making this series not only very enjoyable, but, exciting to watch. With this episode we now have 49 epsiodes aired. Next week will be the big 50 for the series.

This series has been a big pioneer in doing different kinds of stories. The one thing that I don't want to see its like the old G.I. Joe ones where every week Cobra Commander had a scheme and lost. And he bickered while he did it. That got pretty old. Like the preview for the next one.

 

Liked: The dynamic between Padme and Satine.

Did not like: Everything else.

Political intrigue can be good. But I'm not sure it can work in a half hour show aimed primarily at children. And doing it 3 times in a row really doesn't help. And I'm not wild about next week's Ahsoka saves the day stuff either.

Satine asked for a jedi spy. Quinlan Vos anyone? Alas, guess his episode is later in the season.

 

I thought the episode was interesting enough I noticed Satine was showing more of her Mandalorian warrior side this episode which was pretty interesting.


I must admit the the smuggling child drinks seemed odd to me. How much money would you make from Jawa cola?

 

I guess I'll skip two weeks of TCW.

 

Talking about the cost cutting measures the private company made...this episode teeters awfully close to "commerce is bad."
Maybe...maybe not. A big deal was made about using legitimate businesses as opposed to the black market, and the cost cutters were smugglers.

Based off what I learned about Japan right after World War 2 or America during the Great Depression, it strikes me as true.

-Something else that occurred to me: The Republic is in desperate straights, Mandalore has declared itself neutral...and it sounds like Satine still expects for the Republic to provide for them.

 

The whole watering down tainted drinks and poisoned kids reminded me of the diluted penicillin that Harry Lime(Orson Welles) was selling on the black market in post-war Vienna in The Third Man.

 

I don't mean to suggest the episode was about Obama - more that the episode was a condemnation of what our political system has turned into and the fortune cookie was about Lucas' hope for Obama to fix it. I didn't notice Obama in any of the characters here - no soaring oratory, no togetherness rhetoric, and Satine was far from Obama's unshakeable calm. I think Lucas is wary of doing anything that direct, I remember there was a speech of Padme's in episode II cut because it was too close to something McCain said. Most of the political stuff in the prequels was taken from the falls of democracy to dictatorship in Rome and Germany, I think that's the route to take with getting on a political soapbox in a medium like this.

Being outright anti-business would be terribly ironic given Lucas owns several big companies. I think you've hit the nail on the head - if anything he's saying mixing business and government is bad for both. The Republic is a corrupt government that's turning into a tyrannical dictatorship (and we got Lucas' anti-military industrial complex attitude summed up in Halle Burtoni back in senate murders) and the CIS is a bunch of corporations trying to act like a government, and from what we've seen so far are tyrannical about it as well and are likely still a source of corruption, judging from the fact the tea/slavin originated on a Commerce Guild planet. In that light Mandalore and Toydaria's neutrality makes perfect sense.

 

I like episodes like these for the same reason I liked the addition of planets in the ROTJ celebration, seeing the impact of a conflict on more than just the soldiers fighting it. However, this is starting to get out of hand with too many similar episodes after one another. I hope they're gearing up for a huge battle sequence, which is why we're seeing more low-key stories right now.

As for standing on its own merits, I liked this episode a lot. Liked hearing how they're gonna use crowd-shots more often as a result of the techniques they used in this, too. Makes the universe seem more populated and lived-in. Someone called this ep "Mandalore Vice". Rather fitting.

 

The Prime Minister has Corruption written ALLLLL over his face!

 

Anyone else think the mandalore society looks a lot like a fascist regime? The extreme minimalism to clothes and houses, while Satine and the other counselors have clothes that have color. That Satine gets outwardly angry when people don?t act or talk exactly like she wants them to. The fact that everybody was out and greeting the arrival of a senator, that came only to visit her friend (not to help), felt very unnatural. That the people looked redicously happy while doing it felt a bit perverse to me, particularly taking into consideration they were suffering from hunger.

I didn?t feel this the first time we were shown Mandalore, but this time I really got the feeling that this society, despite being dedicated to peace, is built on ideals that aren?t as humane as we are ment to believe.


edit: The scene were Satine yelled at the captain of the guard, saying she would consider him part of the conspiracy unless he burned down the storehouse, despite the fact that as the captain said it was probably full of evidence, was just baffling. Satine wants to continue the investigation, but is willing to convict an innocent man, because he doesn?t want to burn down a house containing leads. Leads that are probably their best chance of solving the case at all. Satine seams rather inept and quite a bit unbalanced.

 

Episode was allright after all- i was expecting much worse. Plot was very predictable though but allright- what really saved this episode was awesome animation- really- this episode looked great - so much new models and improved animation- i was really happy to see so many new humanfaces, vehicles and locations made for this episode-

but voices- ugh voices were just as bad as in all eps of the season3- Dee Bradley Baker had half of the roles and so on... he always sounds like a clone- he was ok as Bossk because Bossk does that hissing sound all the time....

Satine really continued her odd way to be "pacifist" threatening captain and burning evidence (i didn't get what's the point of that burning anyway ) I don't think she is a capable leader at all- she is leading her people to destruction with that kind of acts- she really was like a dictator in this- she means good but she cannot control her emotions at all- everyone knows why he is always bit angry- that's because she cannot be with Obi-Wan of course....

Yes music is one thing they've been focusing on during this season- Sphere and this one had lots of musical effects creating excitement and they worked. I absolutely hated music in some episodes of the season1 but now it's ok... if only they would use real John Williams.... i hope that they will- preview clips from Ventress Arc had awesome music straight from the movies

 

Not a bad episode. A nice look at the spread of corruption on Mandalore, and I agree in the hopes that Almec isn't totally evil when this clears up, but caught up in politics, even if he ultimately proves to be behind it. Nice locales and a pretty good police raid. Smaller in scale and scope, but I can appreciate that. I rather liked the Satine/Padme dynamic. They seem to have a lot of common ground and get along great.

Tea being poisoned...well, it's not the most outrageous crime they could have used, but I still think it's, if not completely important on the galactic scale, at least emotionally charged because a) there's still news or scares of milk and products being watered down with stuff like plastic or chemicals, and b) poisoning kids just ain't cool.

As to Satine's behaviour...I would agree that it's starting to get more hardline, but I'm thinking it's probably because of the stress and the idea of her world collapsing around her, and it's possibly intentional that they make her NOT rational, what with the police chief going out of his way to say so. If every character behaved rationally and in the best interests of others, there wouldn't be much of a conflict.

 

Yea, but it seams completely cuckoo to burn the evidence, especially when you think the situation is so difficult to solve that you call in the Jedi to investigate.


Maybe Satine is just PMSing?

 

I liked the episode.Id give it a 7/10.
I know Satine comes off being mean but she's pissed and tired of the corruption and the DW,I don't blame her.Look at our real life,the downfall of the economy,the war on terror,corruption among politicians,its all there.
I like that they went into both a hospital and a school too,this really shows the SW universe as being a somewhat mirror to real life.Maybe soon Ahsoka will go into a target or best buy,that would be fun {joking}.