Full Series The Clone Wars 7.02- A Distant Echo-Discussion Thread (Spoilers Allowed)

The scene where Rex finally gets to Echo and pulls him out of the stasis chamber is incredibly emotional. Props have to the given to Dee Baker, his performance is solid. When you see our usually stoic and tuff as nails Rex holding back tears it's just raw. This is the third time on screen. Rex was wearing his helmet when 99 died. He killed brothers in the friendly fire incident during "Carnage of Krell" and Fives died in his arms. I can only imagine what was going through his head when he was holding Ahsoka captive in the Gunship during the Fugitive arc. He goes back and forth between staring her in the face with a distant expression to looking over at Mace crossly. I've always wondered if there is symbolism in that Ahsoka's head leans toward Rex and the shadow of his pauldron shields her face.

It's interesting to see the throughline of "Choice" change from dismissing there are other choices to giving lectures about thinking for yourself making you a good soldier. Pretty stark considering Tup listened to that lecture and he was the one we first heard chant "Good soldiers follow orders." Then Fives in his dying breath telling him "It's bigger than he ever could have imagined" So has been the price of a war Rex no longer understands. Now he's making the choice to follow his heart. You have really have to appreciate the work put into Rex and Anakin's friendship where he's treated as an equal. Anakin isn't just leading, he's there to help Rex just like he used to with Obi-wan. He's always treated Rex this way. Well unless Padme was involved because in the Clovis arc he straight up vented his frustration on Rex when they were going in to rescue her. That's probably why he was like "Oh damn..." when Obi-wan called out Anakin. Anakin even treated Fives as in equal which is why he apparently idolized Anakin. Rex doesn't have much more left than this because see the fortune cookie for "Innocence of Ryloth". Echo embodies all of that stuff.

Echo and Fives, the rewrites to this arc do make it easier to understand why Rex sided with Ezra over Saw on Klik-Klak.

 

Tambor’s just the worst. Aside from Sebulba and Plo-koon (and some of the Neimodians), the PT has such bad alien designs,

 

There are some pretty lame alien designs in the PT (on the Separatist Council even!) but I think Tambor's kind of cool. However, I absolutely can't stand the AOTC "misfiring translator" gag, though, one of so many odd "jokes" in that movie that are puzzling in that they seem pitched at kids but I can't see even kids thinking they're funny.

Let's take a moment for the "D-wing air support droids" as I am surprised to learn they are called -- I couldn't make heads or tails of them in the story reel version, and here they look cool, but still kind of hard to figure out, I guess a little less clarified than I thought they would compared to the reel. Oddly their faces, which haven't changed much, now make them seem somehow related to D-O!

 

The droids in this episode were laughably bad. When they are outside the door to Echo's room, the droids' blaster fire is coming from both directions of the corridor behind them and continuing past the alcove area. So the droids out in the corridor are just firing at themselves. Plot armour is sky high in this episode, oh yeah and that rock that Wrecker shifted would have probably weighed over 100 tons, making last week's LAAT lift a minor feat in comparison.

 

PT alien designs being lame is definitely one that I have never heard before. In fact I've heard a lot of people saying the sequels should have used designs more like the PT aliens.

 

Nature is alot more creative than we are and arrives as some really neat ideas. If you described an Elephant to someone who had no idea what one was like they weren't from planet earth, they'd think it was a dumb-looking alien to. I liked the more creative alien designs like Watto, Sebulba, bugs like the Geonosians which make it feel like the Galaxy Far Far Away isn't entirely a galaxy of convergent evolution that ends up just like on earth. Where every sentient species ends up upright walking and humanoid. Yes, there are successful basic body plans nature always selects for. It's not really that surprising the cat and the dog's highly successful and adaptable body plans evolved multiple times in the GFFA but it's still boring.

 

A decent episode my favourite part was Wat Tambor interacting with Admiral Trench.

Skako Minor was gorgeous and the concept of the planet was very creative.

I appreciate how unique the Techno Union droids are.

I’m not the biggest clone fan, but I love the Bad Batch - Wrecker and Crosshair especially.

Originally when I heard Echo was being brought back from the dead I was skeptical it would feel cheap like Gregor being brought back. However Echo being alive served the story well and in a way he suffered a fate worse than death, so it didn’t water down Echo’s meaningful death in the citadel arc.

I don’t know how Wat Tambor can claim neutrality after leading a CIS invasion of Ryloth, going as far as saying to Mace Windu “we will all perish for the glory of the Separatist alliance”

There are big plot holes with Wat Tambor that I hope someday will be explained. Also if he captured Echo after the citadel arc does that mean his cameo in prison in S5 is non canon/to be ignored?

However I must say at this point despite the plot holes/flaws it is such a relief to see a CIS council leader on screen again as they were absent for so long.

Wat Tambor’s aids look cool, it’d be nice to see them post ROTS since they weren’t present during the council slaughter and likely lived on.

 

One of my favuorite bits about this episode was Anakin saying "Yes, we do" and doing this little head nod/eyebrow raise to the side to Cody, probably some of the most human subtle character animation we've seen on the show since... ever, I guess? Certainly more subtle than the S1 literal puppet dolls type of faces. Also I found myself wondering Ankain's hair animation was consistent, it did move in the wind a lot, I think I'm just traumatized by Erza's living-moving-medusa-hair-of-snakes he had in S1&2 of Rebels.

I'm still going Anakin not noticing Padme being visibly pregnant is because he can be kinda dopey sometimes. Maybe myopic is a more charitable term.

 

Anakin was standing really close to the holo and besides that even though he's clearly relishing having this communication with Padme he still seems distant and distracted. Yeah, he's concerned about Rex, helping him, and above all making sure he doesn't disappear from Anakin's life either but I think his real concern probably lies elsewhere with the person who is missing from his life and the distrust he feels constantly towards council members. He does not like being around Mace. Rex's mission may have forced him to contact the council to his chagrin. Rex's mission to save Echo means Rex will be in danger but atleast it will get him out of there. That may also be why he doesn't notice.

 

I like the ST but I thought the alien design sucked. Compared to both the PT (the best) and the OT

 

Here's the bit from the story reels about the Padme nose art (I think it gets a mention in the episode at the start?) that was cut instead for the Padme/Anakin scene. Unfortunately the person uploaded it says something about the Disney Feminist Agenda or whatever nonsense. Oddly, apparently this bit of art pops up in Rebels later

 

Dave has no reason to lie but people love to blame Disney for everthing. Which I absolutely despise, but as I have said before the scene itself is pretty funny, but I get why it was removed

 

It would have been interesting to keep the scene in especially the context of right after Anakin just had a heartfelt conversation with her, would make his ire feel even more genuine, but it is kind of superfluous about the Bad Batch and Wrecker yelling how hot Padme is. Also pacing I guess but D+ doesn't have to keep it at 22 minutes like the old show.

 

The first episode was 24 minutes long

 

I just found this quote from DBB about the changes to the Bad Batch arc from story reel to final:

When did you record these new episodes? We saw an early version of The Bad Batch arc when Lucasfilm released the unfinished story reels a few years ago.
A lot of The Bad Batch is lifted from the original sessions years ago. And then we came in and they made some spot changes and tweaks to the story. So part of it's old and part of it is new. The resolution and how it plays out is different too. It's gearing towards the grand finale.
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So i guess we have some more changes to look forward to especially at the end, i'm all for this since i thought the end of the story reel was kind of anticlimactic. Here's the article: https://www.cnet.com/news/star-wars...-back-to-the-battlefield/#ftag=COS-05-10aaa0j

 

Thank DBB. It's encouraging to hear the end will now move towards the finale. I might get what I want from the end if this Arc yet.

 

For me, the best Clone Wars episodes or arcs are the ones that do not include Anakin, Obi-Wan or Ahsoka. After episode 1, I was hoping this arc would have been one of those. The involvement of Anakin knocked this one down a bit for me, but otherwise a nice episode.

 

Oh, let's be real here, Disney totally has an agenda. Just look at the drawing boards for the High Republic project.

But thankfully, it wasn't a factor here according to Dave.

 

Yep, they really want dinosaurs. Honestly that's the actual worrying thing on the whiteboard. Maybe it was a joke, but something tells me it wasn't.

 

The problem with creativity by committee. The Jedi look all glowing and angelic like they're straight out of Heaven. The villains are all cliche with scary, metal masks and machine-like integrations to their bodies. Then someone tosses out the idea of dinosaurs and the rest of the committee all nod and agree of what a good idea that is because no one wants to actually say how silly that might be....

 

Wolves, cats, owls and dinosaurs...

 

I thought today, the beginning scene from A Distant Echo with the gunship flying in to the base up through the conversation with Anakin, Rex, and Hunter... is this the first time on Clone Wars where we've actually seen three different versions of this scene?! First would be the story reel, second is when they did a version for #CloneWarsSaved trailer which was completely different, and finally the final version we saw in the episode?

 

In this case I do think Filoni added the more drama and sentimental scene with the pregnant Padme hologram and they really did not need the nose art scene. I do think that hologram Padme exchange scene is better than just Anakin getting a lil angsty at the artwork on the commando ship. However being that this is Disney +, I do not see why they could not of had included both since it did end up on Rebels anyway..