Full Series The Clone Wars 7.03 - On the Wings of Keeradaks - Discussion Thread (Spoilers Allowed)

That screen shot is gorgeous. Rex and Anakin stand tall with Echo coming between them.

Spoiler

I wonder if it will be Anakin or that dick Crosshair who is going to suggest putting Echo down and leaving him.

 

Wow, they edited this one down to under 19 minutes.

 

That was aggressively underwhelming. An entire scene was cut for no apparent reason, and the whole episode is just a paint by the numbers escape sequence and "team up with natives who want to be neutral but now they have no choice" kiddie show fare. Why exactly did they need to stop at the village again? Now the place is destroyed, half the tribe is dead, and the Techno Union will slaughter them all a few hours after you leave. Great job heroes. Action and animation are good as always, but there were hardly any good character moments, and it has a super short run time to boot. What the hell happened here? I remembered this episode being the weakest of the bunch and it seems there was no improvement.

2/10. I put 3/10 at first, but then I remembered that we only get 12 episodes in this season and had to dock a point for that. The fact that they somehow felt this was worthy of being its own episode instead of getting chopped down and folded into the next one is utterly baffling to me. This, more than ever before, illustrates to me that some TCW arcs really didn't need to be four episodes.

 

Felt like an unnecessary episode. Not the first time we've had TCW arcs that felt like they were "Three and a half episodes" long.

 

This didn't have as many new surprises as the other episodes compared to the story reels.

This was an action episode. Basically one long fight scene. Very Clone Wars which is fine. It was shorter too. In some ways it felt like the Clones could have just escaped the tower and flown away. It did feel like the Clone Wars.

I did like the call back to Anakin taking down those big H.G.Wells style walker in The Clone Wars movie. We've seen the natives help the Jedi fight the Separatists story line before. This was by the books as those go. Not my favorite story line.

If I remember correctly, next week's episode is more action but should have some of the most epic scope we've yet seen on The Clone Wars as a huge number of Clones square off with an equally large army of Battle Droids. Lots of Jedi. And lot of action. And lots of troopers.

I'm glad The Clone Wars is still trying to follow the orignal plans laid out for the series before Lucasfilm was bought by Disney. The rest of the episodes were planned out. This story line was never meant to be so close to the end, and the episodes weren't meant to be precious.

I'm hopefully we still get all the unfinished episode. Fingers crossed "Final Season" means the the episodes that contain the series final, and not the last episodes. This series jumped around in the chronology of episodes before. I'm holding out hope we still see them all. Be it in 5 years or 50 years. If that means a bit of filler in these 12, it's okay by me.

I'd rather get 12 episdoes with some that feel more like filler than only get 11 this season. And I'd rather get four that can take some time than three that feel rushed. Also the way budgets for this show work with creating new enviroments and character means episodes like this are probably the only way the show is cost effective.

 

Yep, nothing much to see here.


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Yeah definitely the weakest episode we've gotten, by a long shot.

Felt unevenly paced at times and the addition of some of Wrecker's dialogue was way too forced and awkward.

The whole beginning scene with the decimator was a mess with all the cut scenes and dialogue for no apparent reason. I assumed they'd cut that to get some better character moments at the end of the episode (Something that was missing in the original reels, Echo asking about Fives) but we don't get that.

Saying that though...the episode again is gorgeous and the fight scenes in the village were pretty amazing.

A bad episode is bound to happen in shows, it is just natural but this episode didn't have to be bad and with the supposed "final season" only being 12 episodes long, we can't have mess ups like this.

 

That whole Poletecs/Keeradac subplot in Episode 2 was also the one part of that episode that felt extraneous. If their payoff in episode 3 had been worth it, it would have been justified as a setup but now, I think that whole angle could have been jettisoned from the arc and freed up time for something more meaty.

The episode isn't bad per-se but feels like a missed opportunity given the limited time the show has.

 

Why is this episode 19 minutes? I hope they don't cut episodes down like this again. It's not an unneeded episode. We have to see how they escape. It reminds me of how "Plan of Dissent" was called the unneeded filler episode of the Umbara arc. It's the underrated gem that sets up "Carnage of Krell". This just ended up being a weak episode that doesn't hold up to the third episode in the Umbara arc. I have to go back and watch the story reel but it really feels like stuff is missing and this is just a bunch of hollow action. Even the News Reel felt a little clunky at the beginning. What's up with the amateurish screen wipes? Also, that animation mistake where Rex has the night vision attachment on happens several times. It's like they couldn't make up their mind if he should have it on or not. On the other hand, Disney let Echo have nipples. Rex didn't have any in "The Deserter".

Don't get me wrong the escape was cool to watch and the "War of the Worlds" action sequence looks awesome but the first two episodes were so nicely character-driven. I'm waiting for them to really deal with Echo. The best part of the whole episode is the "It's going to be just like old times" conversation between Rex and Echo at the end. It's clearly not going to be like old times and there is definitely something ominous about the final frame with Echo. If he's got all the Techno Unions data what else does he know? Does he know about other CIS stuff? Does he already know about Fives? Has he hacked Dooku? This is the stuff I care about.

Rex actually gives a cool-sounding speech about choices and Echo's humanity being taken away. It's a deep, loaded speech that finally channels the Order 66 arc, it really channels every clone centric episode or arc preceding it. There is plenty of material to pick apart with this. Rex really doesn't see how he's used? Then its thrown straight out the window. Half the Poletecs get killed in the fight. Tambor was more of a mustache-twirling villain in the Storyreel for "A Distant Echo". It seems they kept this but should have changed the dialogue because it makes it sound like Tambor would have chased Anakin and the Clones to recover Echo and left the village alone. Anakin seems to think of what Tambor did to innocents on Ryloth. Maybe what happened to the Lurmen when CIS tried to defoliate them. It makes sense given that experience they'd stay and defend the village and short of number there is no choice but to rally the Poletecs to defend themselves. However what's to stop Tambor from doing this again when they are gone? But after the defeat Tambor moves onto a plan B. It's way to ruthless for Rex and Anakin otherwise. They are smarter than this. The problem is it's such a basic execution and there are more interesting subjects in the episode waiting to be tackled. Why not get on the shuttle, give Anakin the yoke and escape with a space battle at the end to atleast fill this out to 24 minutes?

Way to break what would have been a top-four arc with wasted potential. The final episode of the arc has alot of ground cover, it really needs to come back to where this episode dropped the ball on Echo and Rex's big speech. It had better be 29 minutes long and give me back the missing five minutes.

 

Suspension of disbelief is a weird thing. Out of all the fantastical elements - wizard with a laser sword, cloned soldiers including one with superhuman strength, droid armies, aliens who speak in stereo-surround sound, flying beasts, Wat Tambor - the one thing, the one thing, that went too far, at least in my mind, was Echo regaining his strength faster than Steven Seagal in Hard to Kill.

 

The third episode is naturally the climax for an arc, so being action heavy in an action heavy series is good. I think the best part was the ironic ending where Rex assumes everything is back to normal while Echo's body and mind have been deeply traumatized. It's another example of how the series is able to consistently remain subtle in its subversive critique of war.

I also love every moment with the Poletecs and Keeradac -- awesome design.

The unique battle droids taking flight was also a nice moment, and felt more natural in how it was handled than ROS's stormtrooper flying moment.

Although I loved watching Anakin take down the walker, I couldn't help but think -- if they electrified those things or gave them shields, Anakin would be leaping to certain doom.

Again, love the Techno Union crew who are an example of how TCW gets its intentionally pulp villainy right. Sometimes villains are supposed to be flat for the direct enjoyment of their one dimension, and the Techno guys are sufficiently pulpy and kitschy to achieve this. I like how their main complaint isn't losing a battle, but having damage done to their profit margin.

It's little moments like that that make me continue to love the series.

 

The episode is a little better on a second viewing where I'm starting to make more sense out of it. I think the conversations in this episode and the mishandling of the situation with the Poletecs is setting up Rex for a Heroic Blue Screen of Death in the near future. It's interesting to think of the parallels between Fives' demise and Echo's rescue. The former died a shiny stripped of all his individuality at the hands of brothers. His customized ARC Trooper armor he earned long gone. The later lives but was left for dead and finally rescued because that's what Brothers do. Rex has had a bad run with his "sons" here. He started out fearing Echo would be alive, when he heard that voice he obsessed on it. Rex has stopped moving forward.

Echo was turned into a machine literally stripped of his humanity and is now going to be deeply traumatized. His ARC Trooper armor apparently waiting to be replaced. It seems inevitable he'll rejoin to war and this is a clone who never really made his own decisions, to begin with. Echo or Fives were never free or at the end able to make a choice they wanted as Rex thinks. It's pretty clear Anakin is the reason Rex even thinks this. Anakin treats Rex as an equal. Fives admired him. Echo just echoes he's still a showoff. Some of Fives' final words are he was "Just trying to do his duty".

Its pretty dark to think when Fives was en route to Coruscant, Palpatine might have asked behind the scenes for all the info on CT-5555 the "Algorithm" could give him. Nothings going back to normal and the last time something like that was said Fives said it right before the hell that was the Umbara arc which sounds like a really bad omen. Really we all know its a terrible omen because these "normal" days are numbered.

 

Wat Tambor's always been the blandest, least compelling villain in the entire show for me, and this ep did nothing to change that.

On the plus side I loved Wrecker throwing dudes everywhere (reminded me of Mace throwing his clone troopers in Liberty on Ryloth) and the War of the Worldsy tri-droids are awesome.

 

The fact they removed that scene doesn't make it any better.

 

I’m well annoyed that they cut the scene where Wat Tambor used the decimator on a Poletec prisoner, that scene was a perfect demonstration of how ruthless Tambor and the Techno Union are, not to mention it added greater suspense knowing the danger the Bad Batch were in of being decimated. Also was nice to have a conversation between Anakin and Tambor which seemed to explain he’d been offered a deal by the Republic Senate.

Aside from this though at least the rest of the stuff from this brilliant episode reel was included. It was nice to see a lot of poletec casualties before as it shows the Techno Union are a deadly force, something one could forget when you watch how quickly the Bad Batch were mowing down their troops previously.

 

Hate go say it but maybe the episode is 19 minutes because a completed scene was cut after delivery.

Anyone else get weird vibes from Echo joking with Skywalker that he still likes showing off and getting the reply, "You know me Echo"?

 

No, I liked how that seemed to show Echo was recovering his memories and good humor ... what kind of weird were you picking up?

 

My biggest moment was when they decided to run plan "Rock-Slide" again... I was like What?! Are there conveniently-placed, large, round boulders all around this Poletecs village just in case they need to be rolled down onto the village?! And just how smart are these Poletecs if they build their village in a narrow valley with large, round boulders that are just ready to be rolled down on top of them?!

Aside from that, the action and animation was excellent. The "War of the Worlds" tri-pods were very cool. I love the sound and force of their blaster firepower.

Not the most solid of episodes and if anything, we should be getting longer episodes since D+ isn't constrained to a 22-minute time slot.

 

It felt to me like Echo struggling with the blaster and finding his rhythm showed his recovery but your probably right. Felt like the line with Anakin was foreshadowing though not because of Echo.

Poor Echo only just got found but he's got the motherload of death flags on him. Going to be interesting to go back and see if the old Storyreel gives me the same feeling.

 

Decent episode, shame they cut a perfectly good scene, and it bugged me how quickly Echo recovered. Next week's should be better though, going off the animatics

And speaking of the animatics, heads up, Disney has started copyrighting all of the episode reels INCLUDING Utapau.

 

Lol that's the truth, it's really funny what weird lines in the sand our minds make