Full Series The Clone Wars 7.12 - Victory and Death (SERIES FINALE!) - Discussion Thread (Spoilers Allowed)

100/10 for that final scene alone.

 

I give it a 10/10, even though I think it could have used a smidge less action and a smidge more resolution/payoff. But still, the arc overall is so good and this was such a satisfying conclusion that it feels like nitpicking.

I wasn't expecting the Vader moment the way it happened, but I loved it. A little bit of resolution for those two that felt very poignant. My favorite shot, though, was the graves. Well... And the reentry. What a gorgeous episode.

I also like that the focus was on Rex and Ahsoka and them working together and their friendship. This feels like what SW is about. Ahsoka survived because of him. It's about family.

In terms of not wanting to kill clone troopers, that too I feel is just because of Rex. Here she is fighting for survival with Rex, who risked everything to help her, and when she had a chance to breathe and plan, she saw them as his brothers. It's actually a turnaround from releasing Maul. She clearly knew Maul would kill clones when she set him free as a diversion.

Holding his ship felt like a RoS shout-out. I appreciate that she struggled with it. I wish Maul wasn't flying away when she had to pick between him and Rex. The way it was going down didn't seem like much of a choice. I don't think she had a chance of force landing that ship and getting Maul.

 

10/10 like I graded every episode of this story arc.

AhsokaSolo reads my mind. How I feel exactly.

 

The Story Group.... THEY DO NOTHING

 

It was so appropriate how the one clone helmet that was exposed from the snow when Vader was there just happened to be one of those with Ahsoka's markings. Very well done. Probably a pipe dream, but I wonder if there will be a future Vader comic showing what brought him to that obscure moon in the first place. Was he actually looking for what happened to Ahsoka?

 

I'm going to blame Anakin for both. In essence it comes down to 'traditional' jedi vs. Anakin and how he led and how he trained Ahsoka and Rex.

Anakin formed attachments. It is of course the entire reason for his downfall. And while it's easy to look at just Padme, one can compare how Anakin interacts with Rex vs. how Obi-Wan interacts with Cody or how Plo Koon interacted with Wolffe. Sure, Yoda made sure the clones knew they were individuals and Plo Koon indicated that they were valued. But both would not hesitate to kill or be killed because they don't form attachments. Yoda said it himself: Train yourself to let go of all your fear to lose. Yoda did that. I'd also indicate that Obi-Wan escaped Utapau and so never killed a single clone under his command in the 212th. He only kills the 501st when entering the Temple with Yoda. Now, I don't think this means that if he had to, Obi-Wan wouldn't have killed his men, but he never tries. He just up and leaves.

But back to Ahsoka. Ahsoka is not a jedi. It's easy to look at her and classify her as a jedi but she herself makes clear to Yoda that she is not ready to return to being a jedi. That is because she fundamentally disagrees with them. And again, she made attachments. She valued those clones as her friends. She did all she could to try not to harm them. But, this also felt like a Batman move. She didn't kill them. But she didn't exactly save them. She told Maul to go cause chaos- and he did, killing dozens of clones on his way and then sentencing the rest to die by destroying the hyperdrive and sending the ship into the moon's gravity well. So just because Ahsoka didn't personally kill them, doesn't mean she hadn't accepted they would have to die.

Rex on the other hand definitely was prepared to kill them. And I think THAT is why Ahsoka didn't kill them. I wonder if Rex had been safe or dead, would Ahsoka have held back? She didn't kill the clones perhaps because of what doing so would mean for Rex. She, I think, was also trying to spare Rex the trauma of murdering his brothers. Yes, their deaths are tragic, but in the end, it wasn't something Rex could have prevented (unless he thinks he could have stopped the chip or had listened to Fives earlier). But if Ahsoka had told him to kill? I think that would have destroyed him. For all his bravado, Rex is still technically a child. He's only 13 years old by the end of the war. Ahsoka is a mature 17, but when you really look at it, both of them are children forced to kill or be killed.

As to Rex resisting- he really didn't resist. He immediately says "Yes, Lord Sidious" and he pulls his guns on Ahsoka and shouts find Fives before shooting at her but that is the extent of his resistance. It's a matter of seconds. As to why he resisted, I again defer to the attachments that Rex was encouraged to form by Anakin. Anakin believed compassion was the highest form of love and that they are encouraged to love. And he trained Ahsoka to feel that compassion for the clones and for Rex to do the same with civilians. That Anakin would of course be the one to betray those ideals is the most tragic of all, but it shows what his training and leadership instilled in both Ahsoka and Rex- their compassion is what prevented them from just slaughtering the clones like Yoda did. Sure, Yoda may have compassion, but it's more like pity that it has come to a him vs. them situation and not any attempt to disable or disarm the troops- which Yoda absolutely could have done. Rex though, particularly because of his friendship with Ahsoka let that attachment, that emotional attachment overtake his programming and that is perhaps what gave him those precious seconds to warn Ahsoka. In contrast, Cody did not have as warm a relationship with Obi-Wan. They were comrades but I would not consider them friends - despite the "When have I ever let you down?" line in ROTS. And Yoda had little attachment to Gree- wasn't he Luminara's commander anyway? I'd say perhaps the most surprising of the group is how quickly Bly kills Aayla, but again, the emotional attachment is not the same as Rex and Ahsoka. Anakin had Ahsoka training personally under Rex at times. Rex watched as Ahsoka matured from a padawan to essentially a knight in all but name. And Rex has hunted Ahsoka before as well. So these feelings are definitely more powerful and different then the other clone commanders. So yeah, I blame Anakin for this one.

 

Considering that that whole spaceship ended up there because of a broken hyperdrive, I would say that it was probably discovered by one of the probes that the Emperor and Vader sent all over the galaxy to search for any remaining Jedi and rebels. Eventually, one of the probes made it to that moon, and after reporting the findings of a crashed Destroyer from the end of the Clone Wars, Vader showed up in person to see what it was about, maybe even suspecting that it could have been Ahsoka's lost ship (especially if the probe reported serial numbers etc). It must have been a few years until Vader showed up there.

 

By the way, that was obviously Morai, right?

 

Definitley time has passed by the arrival of Vader. We don't see any remnants of Republic technology by the Imperial search team. The Empire was still using Republic transports and clone armor months after ROTS.

 

It was.

 

Yes which if I recall is the earliest we see it in the timeline when it comes to Ahsoka depending on when that scene takes place

 

I find it very hard to believe that this scene is AFTER Vader has confronted Ahsoka in Rebels, as some suggested.

His surprise that "the apprentice lives" should not be negated because he found her lightsaber. For all he knows in that scene, she could be dead.

 

I agree. I mean, the original thought behind her leaving the saber behind was to convince whoever found it she was dead. That's why she did it in the Ahsoka novel and I don't see how it would be any different in the actual episode.

I really think he finds the Saber before they meet in Rebels, and I don't see the logic that it would take place afterwards as it wouldn't mean anything then.

 

If I had to put a timeline on it I would say it’s between 1 month and 5 years after Order 66 no way this is after they fight.

 

Can't be a month due to the abundance of Imperial tech, clone equipment and troopers were used up to 2 years after the Empire was formed.

 

Yea a month is to close but I would say 5 years is likely. I just think it’s best to have a good chuck of time between that scene and Rebels just to have Vader stew on her being “dead” for a while

 

Yeap.

I just wanted to add that when Vader says "The Apprentice lives", it does not have to mean that he thought she was dead. He might have been thinking that her fate is just unknown to him, which could mean either dead or alive. It would still cause a great surprise to him when he saw/felt her alive.

 

I ordered the Ahsoka book so I don’t know too much about it, but I have two questions.
1) why only leave one light saber? Why not leave both?

2) I know it’s only a show, but I think logically. Ahsoka didn’t have her cloak with her for the whole episode, but somehow appears with it at the end? How does that work?

In general with other characters, there is also so many story lines that just leave you dead ends and with no answers. It sucks that the series had to end.

 

I'm trying to remember which comic/timeframe it was where he has the vision of he and Ahsoka having their fateful duel. Could be the impetus for his trip to the wreckage and subsequent finding of her lightsaber stemmed from this vision. Perhaps he went there looking for proof of her death?

 

Keep in mind, when Filoni started Rebels, he didn't think he'd get the chance to finish TCW.
I think the team pieced everything together as best they could.

 

Probably a combination of things. Your theory of a droid finding wreckage and identifying it as that ship, Records that that was the ship Ahsoka was on, and that an alert went to Vader with that info.

 

What I love about that Vader scene is that it is an epilogue but it doesn't tell you anything about what happened to Ahsoka and Rex after the war and only serves as a visual symbol to tell you it's really all over.

The show doesn't try to outlive the conflict. I think that's really cool.

 

To piggyback on this, what we've seen through Rex in this series is that they (the clones) have a choice, even as clones, to do the right thing, not only as soldiers but as individuals and men.

We also know Rex has an idea of the inhibitor chips being in their heads and the possibility these things can be used to do things they don't want to do. Fives even says they can be used to betray the Jedi. It isn't like he fought it off for minutes or hours, it was about 20 seconds to get something out before the chip put him into kill Jedi mode. His personality and how he is as a clone and person was well developed over the first 6 seasons (would of been more if Lucasfilm wasn't bought out by Disney when it was). With him having an idea about the chip, he was able to resist it for those precious seconds. While other clones he told, probably Cody, just brushed it off and wouldn't dream of something like that.

I saw Cody and Obi-Wan as friends, something I would of liked to seen more of but we had some good moments between them during the series. At the same time him, and probably every other clone weren't prepared for this like Rex was and didn't have such an unorthodox Jedi like Anakin around so often. Its only natural that clones like Rex, Fives and Echo would have such unique and strong personalities.

 

I think we should imagine this concluding scene being relatively soon after Ep. III. There's a shiny newness to all that Imperial technology, a purity and clarity which suggests that this is the immediate consummation of Palpatine's grand plan. That was certainly the way that scene read to me...

... but this whole episode was just so brilliant on so many levels that I'm still barely coherent in my excitement as I see all the ways this works so well...

(Also, over on twitter, someone suggested that this is Honoghr, the homeworld of Rukh from REBELS - in the original pre-reboot backstory, a Clone Wars ship crashed there, and Vader showed up with stormtroopers to investigate, then recruited the natives as commandos. I think that's brilliant.)

- The Imperial Ewok