The mishandling of Season 5

i've really lost interest in it this season. i guess it started with Maul coming back last season. that just completely jumped the shark for me. then they put it on saturday morning which lost the specialness of it. a lot of the episodes seem to resemble each other (neutral planet being fought over by Republic and Seperatists)
then the droid arc...

 

I liked the Onderon and Young Jedi arcs, and the Maul arc is surprisingly really good. The Droids arc =

I also have problems with this season, originally announced at 22 episodes, is being cut down to 20 episodes. I can't stand the idea of more episodes being cut out of the season.

 

The problem with the latest episode in the Maul arc, as with the last episode, is that it felt terribly rushed. And that itself is indicative of what's wrong with this season, and actually last season, too. We spent four pointless episodes dicking around with WACky and the Frogman, and now we're having to hurtle through some genuinely interesting material at breakneck speed, with episodes that are rushed to the level of seeming incomplete. I felt this about last season, too, with superfluous, semi-interesting episodes taking time away from stories that really needed to be told in greater depth. The problem with The Clone Wars right now isn't so much in the individual episodes, but in the planning out of the seasons as a whole and the decisions about which stories get allotted how many episodes in order to tell them.

 

I didn't think it was a problem "Eminence" was rushed, it worked for that episode. However it hurt "Shades of Reason". It had to be that way do to time constraints I guess. I would have fixed that by rather than showing the gangsters starting their attacks glossing over it with quick snapshots of the middle heavy battles at the targets which would have eliminated the problem with weak ass Mando guards and made the stakes seems higher. I guess its predictable the guards were pretty weak, underarmed, and to inexperienced to do anything but stand their ground. It does make Satine's overthrowing more credible. Then when Deathwatch rockets in to the rescue I would have done the same thing showing different battles concluding with Deathwatch's intervention. Rushed at it was "Shades of Reason" was still the best character driven episode to date and capped it with an epic duel.

 

The entire Maul arc has been too rushed. This is for the weakest of the arcs of this season - a season that has been pretty great!

I mean even with the day to night transition... at one point Pre is saying to Maul during the day that the show must begin and then it is night at the docks when it happens. Then back to day and back to sundown...

 

I completely disagree with you on this one Dan_Grievous_Tikkes_Fan. This arc blows away Onderon, Young Jedi, and Droids IMO. I'm so exciting I finally have something from TCW that has serious complexity again so I have alot of dots to connect. I can't wait until "Lawless" arcs so I can stack the episodes and watch them as a big arc. Actually I'm planning to watch all the Satine/Maul episodes together in one big mini-marathon. I can't wait to see what new stuff jumps out at me in them.

 

Let's agree to disagree..

It is all depending on POV. This arc is not that strong if you remove the tons of fan service away from it. And IMO it is not connecting a lot of dots, but just trying to hit two birds with one stone by having mandos and Maul in one arc.
In the end, the arc lives on fan service mainly...
But that is me. I am not a fan of the way they are doing the arc.

PS: Interesting idea about the big Marathon.

ONE THING IS CLEAR - The season has been great overall.

 

I think season 5 should be purely about the Maul brothers.

 

HELLLLLL NO!

It is not about them... Savage is the worst character ever and the other should not even be alive!

 

Season 5 is called Army of Revenge, so it is about Maul and Savage

 

There is no such thing... There has been no official thing like that on the Internet. SO I repeat... HELLLLLLLLL NNNNOOOO!

 

Onderon was above average, Young Jedi was brilliant, the droids arc was horrifying, and Maul is pretty awesome.

 

This three-episode arc (ignoring Revival) should have been six episodes. Give it some real depth - have Vizsla and Maul's relationship develop with the proper time it deserves. Maul is an antagonist that carries actual weight. He actually seems threatening.

I mean, we could have had Maul actually go to Coruscant's Underworld and recruit the Pykes. Then, we could have had the Hutt conflict be less rushed. Then, the Takeover of Mandalore could have been more fleshed out.

 

I think they might have gotten an entire season long arc out of the Mandalore/ Maul stuff.

 

Oh, yeah, they could have. But I can't deny that there are people who want variety. Have a 7-episode storyline, follow it with a couple of standalone eps, have a finale 6-7-episode storyline.

That way we get a mixture of short and sweet Star Wars, and also some really in-depth stories, ideally really getting into the character's motivations.

 

Definitely, that's a tough call with my own attention span. And you don't just do something like that completely linear. Some of the episodes in a super long arc should be more like, "Massacre" and "Bounty" were to allow for alot of variety while keeping everything connected and flowing. That would give some episodes a stand-alone feel while seem like part of a larger arc.

 

When each episode has the short running time of 22 minutes, you don't need to set up a rigid timetable. That's the problem with this season - they've stuck rigidly to having 4-part arcs. The benefit of having short episodes is that you can adjust the amount you use to fit the amount of story you have to tell. It's very telling that there are some arcs this season that went too long, and other that went too short.

If they're going to rigidly have 4-parters, they might as well give us 45-minute episodes.

And, yeah, the way Season 4's finale did it was great. Having 4 "separate" episodes but with an underlying story underneath it - Ventress being redeemed and coming back at the end - is a good way to have people watch one episode and feel fulfilled, then watch all 4 and be fulfilled.

 

I just think more effort should be made to link arcs together across the entire season. There can still be distinct arcs, but they should flow into each other.

For instance, rather than the droid arc being about some random macguffin that we will likely never, ever see or hear about again. Perhaps they could have used that decryption module to decode a transmission by CIS intelligence referencing pirates attacking Mandalore causing Obi-Wan to go there, or resulting in Palpatine being informed of that message by Anakin, leading to Sidious seeing the opportunity to go there and deal with his former apprentice.

Something like that. There still would be distinct arcs, but what happens in one would impact the story of the next and so on, throughout the season. Rather than one arc ending and moving onto something completely different with the consequences of the prior arc not coming up again until several seasons later (if at all).

 

No, Sidious go to deal it by himself is just a super stupid mistake made by TCW.

 

The breaking of the Rule of Two is a threat to Sidious more than anyone. That seems like something he would certainly want to deal with.

 

Maul is potentially in control of 2,000 planets now. Seems pretty reasonable that Sidious is worried.

 

Sidious never cared much about Rule of Two, that's why he always use new apprentice to kill his old one.

The expose of his identity could result with the doom of the whole Banite Sith, he got Dooku and Anakin to deal with it, why should he go by himself?

 

So what? He controlled the Republic and the CIS, both the Jedi, especially Anakin and Dooku, the leader of CIS hate Maul a lot, he could easily use them to kill Maul, or simply use Maul to do his work rather than risk to expose his identity, which could result in collapse of the whole grand plan of the Sith. That's always his style.

 

Obviously he doesn't think Anakin or Dooku are up to the challenge. Plus Maul is aware of his identity - he risks Maul revealing him the longer he stays around.

 

Nice... Onderon is around that for me, but it is great when watched as one whole thing. Young Jedi - can not argue with you there - it is genius!
I loved the Droids arc - so much variety and interesting concepts.
Maul has been mainly for me ok fan service.

The whole 2000 neutral systems seems like **** they created for nothing. If you are represented in the Republic senate like Orn Free Taa does in the series and he was part of Satine's fold in S2 then you are not neutral... YOU ARE REPUBLIC.