Full Series The Trandoshan Duology (Season 3 Finale)

The Season 3 finale duology ('Padawan Lost' & 'Wookiee Hunt') is is my opinion one of the highlights of the show.

I think this short arc did a really good job developing Ahsoka as a character, taking her far away from her master and having her eventually being forced to take on the role of the leader of the small group of jedi younglings. Seeing Chewbacca as a supporting character in the latter episode was a lot of fun and the episodes also had some great animation and design (I really like the look of Felucia in the first act of 'Lost' and this shot below is definitely one of my favorites from the show):



Does anyone else enjoy these two episodes a lot?

 

Yes. I do. I don't think the show has yet visually beat this two part story. It was a really good story too, simple, but for this show,simple is good, because when they try to go even a big complicated, it spins out of control because they don't do complicated well enough to really invest in the characters.

But yeah, this was great, and if all the episodes were like this one, I'd be inclined to love this show.

 

Battle of Felucia. Point ended.

 

This is the most beautiful highlight in The Clone Wars. You can literally stop those episodes at any moment and see a beautiful piece of art worth any museum.

[edit]
Just... wow:

 

Applause to this thread!
Padawan Lost remains my absolute most favorite episode of all of TCW and it would take an episode of incredible brilliance to de-throne it.
It certainly helped to establish Ahsoka's growth as a character and had true emotional consequence with Kalifa's death.
Then we got Chewbacca in Wookiee Hunt to make for a spectacular finale.
Great writing by Bonnie Mark and directing by Dave Filoni. It only make sense that Filoni would save the best for last (for himself).

 

Yeah they were good episodes, I liked Wookie Hunt more though, because that fight scene between the Wookies and Trandoshans at the end was great, and Tarfful was in it! I wish he'd been in TCW more than just part of 1 episode.

 

Yeah those episodes were awesome

That one girls death was well done. Realistic breathing while in pain.

Also very suspense filled.

 

http://boards.theforce.net/threads/...-321-padawan-lost-discussion-thread.31602025/
http://boards.theforce.net/threads/...-322-wookiee-hunt-discussion-thread.31603379/

 

My issue with this arc was that the ending was such a huge tease that hasn't really been built upon, and instead S4 seemed to have a fair share of backsliding for Anakin. It's like S4 ending with Maul saying that he's counting on the Jedi tracking him down, but then in S5 he seems flustered by the thought and urges Savage that they need to get their act together.

The biggest strength I think the arc had was in the visuals, which I don't think have been matched since in regards to the attention given to the smallest details. I recall the arc being applauded for the visuals and Filoni suggesting that they would be a taste of what was to come in S4, but aside from Umbara and Zygerria, I don't recall ever thinking that the landscapes/environments really stood out relative to S3, and even then I don't feel they lived up to the Trandoshan arc.

 

I didn't really see any growth for Ahsoka, but I loved everything about the hunt, surprisingly even the Velociraptor voices.

Also

http://boards.theforce.net/threads/for-discussion-of-old-tcw-episodes.50006334/

 

Admitted!

 

From the Padawan Lost: Ahsoka and Anakin in Star Wars thread I made on temps:

I was just watching Padawan Lost and Wookiee Hunt again, and there were some things that stuck out to me more after seeing S4.

Anakin's clearly pissed when telling Rex to search the same area again, which isn't something that normally happens. He's still really different from General Krell in that he's not demeaning them personally and he's acting that way because he's upset that his his Padawan is lost. Emotion is clouding his judgment the same way I'd argue Krell's emotional reaction to serving with clones colors the way he interacts with them, though. It manifests itself different ways for the two characters.

After Ahsoka's dropped off and meets the captured younglings, they try to show her how they survive by always being on the run and not helping others and she has an instinctual, gut reaction against that. She says they have to act instead of being so passive. Essentially, trying to more directly control fate, perhaps past the point of being realistic.

An important factor that's introduced at this early stage but developed more as the episode goes on is hope or the lack thereof motivating action or inaction. Ahsoka symbolizes hope for the younglings, but there are a lot of variables here and this concept applies throughout the whole Star Wars saga depending on how you look at it, starting with Luke Skywalker as Obi-Wan Kenobi’s hope and motivation for action in Ep. IV.

I’ve always loved the scene where Ahsoka stops the youngling from killing the Trandoshan with the dark side of the Force, but when I started thinking of things in these terms this scene took on some new meaning. As we’ve now seen in S4, Ahsoka can tell when Anakin dips into the dark side and actively protests when he does. It’s an interesting and I think important part of her character that she’s that way without him being right there and for people other than him, not just when he’s the one who needs to be held back.

After that scene, the younglings tell Ahsoka that her arrival is a sign that maybe all hope isn’t lost for them, which it had been before her arrival. They say that they’d forgotten who they were - Jedi - essentially they’d stopped being themselves. This also connects into the larger Star Wars saga in important ways. Anakin who comes along, potentially fulfilling the Chosen One prophecy and thus offering hope to the Jedi Council at the very same time they were learning that the Sith were resurfacing in the galaxy. As the retroactive centerpiece of the saga, he’s also kind of unique for going from cause of hope in the PT to the cause of despair and reason there’s need for a new hope with Luke in the OT. And obviously what the younglings say is true of them is also true of Darth Vader in the OT up until he redeems himself in Ep. VI - he forgot who he truly was, a Jedi, and stopped being his real self, from a certain point of view, of course.

I also find their search for the Trandoshan’s hidden fortress highly symbolic of aspects of the larger Star Wars saga. This adds a whole new dimension to hope motivating action, which is whether or not your short term goal matches your long term goal. Being too eager to get to the action makes it all irrelevant if you wind up with the wrong goal. The fortress they were searching for, as they found out, didn’t actually exist - they were too eager to take action and their short term goal turned out to be wrong (even though they didn’t have great options to begin with). And to me this is really Anakin’s biggest character flaw and reason he becomes Darth Vader - he’s too eager to take action, to the point of having the wrong short term goal. He’s so desperate to save Padme he takes whatever course of action seems most drastic to the point where he didn’t seem to be taking long term goals into account at all. Obviously that’s a much more dramatic example but the point is they’re on the same spectrum. Then at the end of Ep. VI we find out really everyone had the wrong short term goal except Luke, who eventually realized the solution was to bring his father back from the dark side instead of killing him.

The last layer comes at the end of the episode when Plo Koon asks Anakin what Ahsoka’s greatest strength is, Anakin said she has no fear, and Plo said that can be weakness. Specifically, fearlessness can be a weakness if it leads to aiming for smaller, seemingly more easily achieved, but ultimately wrong goals, which leads to a bad outcomes. Ahsoka being a symbol of hope but over eager to engage in action without fully thinking it through - thinking she can control fate more than she really can - leads to the death of the girl youngling. Anakin being a symbol of hope but over eager to engage in action without fully thinking it through - thinking he can control fate more than he really can - leads to the fall of the Jedi Order and the rise of the Galactic Empire dictated by the returned Sith.

Anakin is as much a Padawan lost to the dark side when he becomes Darth Vader as Ahsoka is a Padawan literally lost in this episode.


I always thought the PT made Anakin look pretty selfish - it was clear he wanted Padme for himself and that's why he couldn't let her go. With Ahsoka it's different, he doesn't have any romantic or sexual intentions with her, so it's more altruistic of him to react the way he does in these two episodes than it is in the films with Padme. I'm glad to actually see that he has that aspect to his personality instead of it just being implied at best as it is in the films. That's important.

I'm really fascinated with new facets of Anakin's character revealed through his relationship with Ahsoka, and how it fleshes out that seemingly mythological figure from the OT.

 

I found it really interesting how these episodes really started developing some toe stepping between Plo Koon and Anakin. I can only imagine the near beating that Boost, Comet, and Sinker might have gotten from Anakin for losing Snips. The big hug he gave her when she got back was sweet and telling. Ahsoka was more composed than Anakin was. That may have been foreshadowing to how straight up mature she is here in season 5. Nothing seems to get to her any more. She is powerful and lethal as her final battle with the Trandoshan leader showed and season 4 really built on. She has learned to set aside loss like Khalifa and Steela. She has learned to let go as with falling out of love with Lux. The change in personality was abrupt but its interesting to step back and look at how these episodes played into the character arc of Ahsoka Tano.




This arc is quite eye catching. But there is more here than pretty pictures. Over all I enjoy this arc. Its got a nice mix of action, character driven dialogue, I love OCs, and some complexity to boot. There are plenty of those puzzle pieces I like to play with here. I didn't mind Chewie showing up. I figure that Ashoka may well have learned to talk to Wookies during her training. When you don't watch TV, play X-box, and Facebook all day like an earthling teenager you've got nothing better to do than to keep learning stuff and keep practicing. That is particularly true when your Ahsoka and you already seem exceptional at everything. ( =P ) . It was cool to see her ass get kicked around a little and the end of this arc with the Wookies flying in to save the day was epic. Still the best season finale in series history me thinks.

 

Yes, I know there's already threads where to talk about this, but I felt like an appreciation thread like this would be better, where we could talk about both of the episodes as a whole and no others (like the thread for the Slavers arc).

 

Oh, so not a "discussion" thread, but an "appreciation" thread. Right, I forgot about this being gusher heaven.

 

Well, when I think of it, it is both a discussion thread for the two episodes as a whole and also a bit of an appreciation thread for them.

(And I don't see the need to be sarcastic; I don't see a lot of 'gusher' threads around)

 

She was at the Jedi Temple since age 3, and now that we've seen Gungi, it's not too far a stretch to believe she learned the Wookiee language (or enough to be conversational - think Han Solo).

Contrarily, there are certainly some very prominent "basher" threads.

 

rumblewagon. I don't have any problem with Ashoka speaking to Wookies and never implied otherwise. I figure she could have learned just about anything before becoming a padawan and even afterward. Ahsoka seems to be very gifted already with things like fighting with her sabers so she might as well pick up other skills.

 

Ahsoka is gifted regarding everything...or so it seems sometimes, true or not.

 

I don't think her being able to understand Wookiees in any way symbolizes her being gifted or special or unique. It makes perfect sense that people being raised in the Jedi Temple around myriad alien species would pick up on multiple languages. Did anyone think Han Solo or Obi-Wan Kenobi understanding Chewbacca in Ep. IV made them super special lingual-master-geniuses? It's a sci-fi universe, this seems like basic stuff to me.

 

This is not what I'd call a fan club and at the moment, these are the only episodes I want an "appreciation thread" for (I also never thought that all episodes should have "appreciation threads"). Feel free to close this if it is indeed an unnecessary thread, mods.

And about Ahsoka understanding the Wookiee language, I think that most Jedi younglings are taught to understand the languages of the races that doesn't speak basic and I think that is exactly how she understands it.

 

Nothing really suggested that the two younglings, Jinx and O-Mer, didn't understand Chewbacca (if they didn't, I'm guessing they got kidnapped before they learnt it) and Ahsoka was pretty obviously taught to understand it; why wouldn't she have been?

 

I'm also not sure if the other younglings understood or not, but I don't see it as a problem if they didn't. They're younger than Ahsoka as it is, we don't know how young they were when they were actually captured (presumably even younger), so it would be senseless to contend that they should know every single thing she does, and even if they were Ahsoka's age I don't see why every single youngling would have to know the same exact list of alien languages. In many schools on Earth students choose which language(s) they want to learn, so they obviously don't all pick and learn the same ones. Also, I've speculated in the past that younglings could learn languages by communicating with other younglings. Ahsoka could have known a Wookiee in the temple while the other younglings didn't.