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  1. In Memory of LAJ_FETT: Please share your remembrances and condolences HERE

Full Series The Clone Wars: Episode 414: A Friend In Need Discussion Thread

Discussion in 'Star Wars TV- Completed Shows' started by Garth Maul, Jan 9, 2012.

  1. Swashbucklingjedi

    Swashbucklingjedi Jedi Grand Master star 5

    Registered:
    Oct 3, 2010
    Well not exactly poetry but I dunno... it sounded like some sort of attempt to be poetic or at least too eloquent "My heart is beating, hoping that kiss will not become a scar. You are in my very soul, tormenting me..." that crap I mean - it was not a poem really, but that language is just so terrible and sounds like attempt of some sort of poetry to me:oops: ...
     
  2. Gry Sarth

    Gry Sarth Ex 2x Banhammer Wielding Besalisk Mod star 5

    Registered:
    Jun 24, 1999
    Are you just aimlessly trying to troll him? The problem is not that we had not heard about that stupid device before, it's that if it existed it would be part of every Jedi utility belt. Or yet, nobody would send a holo-transmission to anybody else, in fear of being tracked down. That device does not fit the universe presented so far, so for it to suddenly pop up in the hands of some random kid is totally contrived.
     
  3. darthcaedus1138

    darthcaedus1138 Force Ghost star 5

    Registered:
    Oct 13, 2007
    Thanks Gry, I was about to say that. It's clearly a plot device created to put information into the hands of the person who needs it, but it completely changes the way the universe works. With this device now in existence, there's absolutely no reason why the Trade Federation shouldn't know that Darth Sidious is Palpatine. This along with the 'information retrieval' completely invalidates holographic conversation as a secure means of communication. Dooku is a Sith Lord, and if he can be tracked, than so can Sidious.

    I don't think that's too trivial to call out.
     
  4. fistofan1

    fistofan1 Jedi Master star 4

    Registered:
    Dec 8, 2009
    Seriously, how hard would it have been for Lux to steal a component of the holoprojector, or somehow hack into it to find the location? At this point I'm assuming the device is custom-made for Lux using money inherited from his mother. Or maybe Dooku wasn't using as secure a transmission as Sidious uses.

    Fortunately it's not that hard to think of an explanation, but the fact remains that tight writing wouldn't require viewers to think of one.
     
  5. quiller

    quiller Jedi Master star 2

    Registered:
    Jun 1, 2005
    Okay... my take, they meet at a time when both were curious about the "other" side, saw each other liked what they saw, added confusion their idea's and thus kept each other in mind... meet again... each have grown up a little still "like" what they see... get together again and we go from there..

    And nothing like surviving a life and death situation together with each saving each others lives to turn a infatuation, mutual attraction into a budding relationship and yes LOVE.

    And I hear talk about this "Love American Style" and people think that is the way it is and should be, well it is not like that in most of the cultures in the world and even our own history. It wasn't so long ago that a majority of marriages were arranged, or a happenstance of circumstances, not the accumulation of a series of dates with each person getting to know one another and falling in love over time. Personally when I'm watching a action movie or show I don't need to be guided through a couples romance to believe that two people that are attracted to each other can fall in love rather quickly in times of stress and or life and death situations. If I wanted to watch two people slowly fall in love over time with a series of scenes then I'm going to the lifetime channel not an action flick or show.

    Otherwise on topic not a bad episode. I had higher hopes. I found the beheading a little off more in build up then practice, I personally feel it was a little hokey how easily she was captured. (though they do this with Obi all the time). But the actual move was okay to me, and yes I listened to the complaint about "10 secs", well I found that no more unbelievable then the scene were Palps kills the Jedi with Mace.

    I can live with the trace, not too outlandish or hokey in my mind, I mean just tracking back a transmission from once source done all the time, we do it with cells phones now all the time, and in fact a little sneaky.

    The knock out on the ship was cool too, as was the kiss. Ahsoka was acting a little too superior and it allowed Lux to show some moxi ... In a way made me think of Han and Leia, Leia acting all that and Han sitting back all cool with a little disdain then doing something to surprise Leia.
     
  6. Seerow

    Seerow Manager Emeritus star 6 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Jun 7, 2011
    I dunno, they were running across the field fine and seemed just as tough. They were just glitching out. Hardware damage and software damage is not the same thing.

    Did you notice Ahsoka checking out her nails in HoBS and then in ?Needy Friend? she?s got long, painted nails!!?! How do these things happen?!No but I noticed in "Corruption" and "The Academy" how much those laptop looking things all over Mandalore look like current generation Alienware laptops like the M17x. Big and beefy, the stealth-fighter like front edge of the keyboard deck, the FX backlit keyboard, the design of the hinges, and the backs have rib patterns like a tribute to the pre-Dellienware models. But maybe that's just the techie in me really reaching for something to enjoy with those episodes.

    Can you imagine if Deathwatch popped up on some battle ship with poor 'ol Grievous?

    We're still only at the start of Ahsoka and Lux's relationship. They just barely started to show any feelings for each other at the end of this episode.There is alot of room for further devel
     
  7. Gry Sarth

    Gry Sarth Ex 2x Banhammer Wielding Besalisk Mod star 5

    Registered:
    Jun 24, 1999
    I don't understand this trend of justifying a terrible scene by comparing it to a previous terrible scene. Yes, both those scenes were bad. Palpatine didn't come off as "badass" when he quickly disposed of three Jedi Masters, because in order for him to do it, the writer had to completely switch off the victims' brains. Likewise with Ahsoka and those Mandos.


    Sparks shooting out is a dead sign of hardware damage in my book.
     
  8. GGrievous

    GGrievous Jedi Grand Master star 5

    Registered:
    Nov 6, 2005
    I agree, exactly. They didn't do anything, and just stood there with their heads up their asses.
     
  9. rumblewagon

    rumblewagon Force Ghost star 4

    Registered:
    Sep 24, 2004
    No, I didn't "aimlessly" try to troll him. I get peeved when people get all riled up about something, that hasn't previously existed in the Star Wars universe, gets created. The idea that a universe must remain static is silly. Furthermore, this is a Separatist Senator who is conversing with a Separatist leader on a Separatist hologram channel. The idea that a device cannot ever be invented to track a transmission shows lack of imagination. And perhaps Jedi (or the Republic) don't have those devices because they've not yet decrypted Separatist transmissions that would enable them to do so. I DON'T FRIKKIN KNOW! BUT I'M NOT GOING TO DISCOUNT THE POSSIBILITY.
     
  10. Darth_Zandalor

    Darth_Zandalor Jedi Master star 4

    Registered:
    Aug 2, 2009
    Doesn't seem to stop you from discounting other people's opinions.
     
  11. Garth Maul

    Garth Maul Manager Emeritus star 6 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    May 18, 2002
    rumble, if you had said that the first time around, probably would have gone better.

    what was the craptastic plot device they used for Corruption or the Academy? There was something similar, face scanner or something.
     
  12. Darth_Zandalor

    Darth_Zandalor Jedi Master star 4

    Registered:
    Aug 2, 2009
    It was a hologram magnification device, that somehow managed to gather Almec's facial features, despite the fact that the camera recording never had any footage of Almec's face to build from.
     
  13. QuangoFett

    QuangoFett Jedi Grand Master star 4

    Registered:
    Jun 11, 2011
    True that.

    Even if it's just a reasonably common piece of hardware, I'm sure that Sidious anonymises his transmission to his minions on the other side so that it's impossible to trace. In Labyrinth of Evil, the Republic actually has to capture Gunray's communications equipment just to begin the process of tracing Sidious to a cave underneath the vast 500 Republica district on Coruscant. Physically moving himself to his various hideouts is Sidious' added layer of security.

    Dooku, meanwhile, probably does not normally need to bother anonymising his transmissions. He's the Head of State, not a shadowy puppetmaster who is constantly in hiding from even his own Republic minions. In this episode, Dooku is establishing a connection to a CIS ship crawling with CIS Congress guards, simply to gloat at a no-name Separatist kid before he has him killed. Arrogance is certainly part of Dooku's character, so it should be surprising to no-one that he doesn't anonymise this one transmission.

    Besides, wasn't holotransmission tracing technology used in TPM? The Trade Federation get Sio Bibble to send a distress message to the Royal Cruiser, and the Jedi specifically mention this technology, saying that returning the transmission would establish a trace for the TF to follow. However, just their receiving the transmission is enough for Darth Maul to trace them to Tatooine.
     
  14. darthcaedus1138

    darthcaedus1138 Force Ghost star 5

    Registered:
    Oct 13, 2007
    I'm absolutely certain that at some time in the series the Republic has listened in on the Separatist communications.

    It's not that it's created and new that bothers me; it's that it doesn't fit the kind of technology we see in the movies, and is simply a plot device to move along Lux's plot from talking to Dooku on Mandalore to talking to Death Watch. Instead of say, hiring some kind of slicer character who would specialize in this kind of action, they conveniently said that a certain machine is able to do that. Which, on the surface is fine, but in further analysis wrecks how the galaxy works.
     
  15. Seerow

    Seerow Manager Emeritus star 6 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Jun 7, 2011
    It was the Hologram Identifier. That was dumb as hell. Much dumber than the hologram tracing device. That would probably be like tracing a cell signal. It would be way cooler if it caught something like the MAC address of the transmitter.
     
  16. fistofan1

    fistofan1 Jedi Master star 4

    Registered:
    Dec 8, 2009
    I agree with darthcaedus. I had no problem with the electro-proton bomb in The Zillo Beast or holographic dashboards in The General because they seemed plausible and didn't interfere with plot devices in the films. It's true, Star Wars would be very boring if it was static in terms of technology, but there's no questioning that miracle bacta burn cream would interfere with Vader's transformation in ROTS or that teleporting devices would make the hyperdrive failure in TESB seem like a minor equipment failure.
     
  17. ImNotAStarWarsFanboy

    ImNotAStarWarsFanboy Jedi Grand Master star 5

    Registered:
    Feb 25, 2011
    Sorry to come completely out of the blue on this, but they really could have benefited from doing another episode before this one with Ahsoka and Lux, to actually set it up that they're attracted to each other and are more than just friends. Unless if it was love at first sight, which it wasn't, then I fail to see how these two could logically become so close after meeting once before the events in this episode.
     
  18. CaptainYossarian

    CaptainYossarian Jedi Master star 3

    Registered:
    Mar 30, 2003
    Except that it did, or it wouldn't have been able to do what it done.

    Almec's face was in darknes and so no one could see it in the hologram (they're not too high quality in SW). However, it may well have recorded his face, since darkness would not affect a holo-camera, it would just record a dark image - eg a hologram of a dark room would look dark, but it would still have all the furniture etc in the image, you just wouldn't be able to see it unless you manipulated the image. And that is what their other device did - one of it's functions was to identify things, including holo-images. So they used it on the darkened face in their image and it identified it as Almec.


    The problem is not that we had not heard about that stupid device before, it's that if it existed it would be part of every Jedi utility belt. Or yet, nobody would send a holo-transmission to anybody else, in fear of being tracked down. That device does not fit the universe presented so far, so for it to suddenly pop up in the hands of some random kid is totally contrived.

    Lux made it sound like it may not be a well-known device. He gives it to Vizsla saying ?this device will tell you his location?. He makes it sound like it?s not a common piece of equipment. It may well be that it?s something only specialised people like spies would have, or it may be something that his own people have created. He had the resources to be able to do that. So it's all fine, really.
     
  19. Drunk_Lando

    Drunk_Lando Jedi Master star 1

    Registered:
    Oct 19, 2010
    What does the tracing device actually trace? Does it just trace where the signal originated from? If Dooku is on a ship in sector A, and he leaves and goes to sector B, does the trace follow him and his holographic transmitter. Or does it just show he sent the transmission from sector A. It seems like, unless he is in a stationary location, this info from the tracing device is useless if not acted on quickly. And Deathwatch wasted alot of time.

    Maybe the tracing device should have been said to trace Dooku's holographic signal, because it recorded his frequency. So now, whenever he used it, Deathwatch could track him.
     
  20. quiller

    quiller Jedi Master star 2

    Registered:
    Jun 1, 2005
    In making my point about Ahsoka beheading, While I think it is at the edge of being too dark for her, I would say it is not the same as Anakin and the jailers, or even Obi standing by while Rex does his thing, but the scene itself is a common type situation in this series/movies we saw it with Palps and yes even with Obi and Maul. My personal take on the act itself it is easy to put too much emphasis on this scene, I personally feel it was done for its "cool" effect but also remember by this time Ahsoka might be a bit tired of being held captive on point of death by the bad guys (Padawan lost, slaver arc), saying to herself enough is enough and its time to stop playing nice.
     
  21. Humble_Jedi

    Humble_Jedi Jedi Master star 4

    Registered:
    Oct 14, 2004
    What was that other plot device from 'Lightsaber Lost', some kind of blood-sampler 'information retrieval' thing... I can't remember.

    Anyway, I'm getting pretty sick of these silly devices. I wouldn't mind them if it involved some special skills or knowledge to build them... as it is, they're just 'TADA!' devices.
     
  22. rumblewagon

    rumblewagon Force Ghost star 4

    Registered:
    Sep 24, 2004
    Agreed. I'll try to choose my words more carefully.

    To comment further on that tracing device, we never got any confirmation from the episode that it actually worked. It could have been some silly device that some hacker conned Lux into buying. We don't see Lux or Vizsla actually verifying that it traced Dooku's transmission. It may be much ado about nothing.
     
  23. Seerow

    Seerow Manager Emeritus star 6 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

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    Jun 7, 2011
    That was in "Sphere of Influence" as well.
     
  24. darthcaedus1138

    darthcaedus1138 Force Ghost star 5

    Registered:
    Oct 13, 2007
    Now if that was so, I'd be incredibly happy.
     
  25. JM_1977

    JM_1977 Jedi Grand Master star 6

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    May 23, 2011
    It star wars they have outrageous technology, stuff that'll take years for us to develop so of course they'll have some 'TADA' devices.