Full Series The Clone Wars: Episode 119: Storm Over Ryloth Discussion Thread (Spoilers Allowed)

This episode was very, very cool.
Great to see more zooming in into the Anakin-Ahsoka relationship, she is a picanto lady!
The space battle strategy was awesome

 

He lost a lot of ships and Ahsoka was basically begging him to end the attack on Grievous b/c of their losses. Here's the episode guide for that one:

http://www.starwars.com/theclonewars/guide/episode003.html

So maybe "wiped out" implies that he lost every ship - but the point was that the battles were very similar and both Anakin and Ahsoka lost a lot of fighters and questioned themselves later.

 

Great opening sequence...space battles always get me excited: Intense action and I liked the interactions between the clone pilots. And the Neimoidian captain is pretty cool, I like his slimy accent, almost like a Mafioso...and he's smart too.

Okay, the checking in of the pilots was I guess to make their demise more compelling, but I think they needed to move it along a little faster. Ahsoka definitely made a huge mistake here, but I think Anakin handled it appropriately...he understands since he sometimes interprets orders differently(or disobeys them.). BTW, that exchange between them was good.

Ahsoka seemed to sulk too much, I know she was pretty much called out on her mistake, but Anakin really didn't jump on her too much. But she made so good points and Anakin agreed with her. And she still seems too attached to Anakin since she kept begging him not to go through with his plan...and a nice way for the clone commander to make her feel worse than she is.

That was a good plan, I think she may have learned something here...we'll see. And I hope we'll see more of this Neimodian captain...even if he did retreat like a coward. And I loved Obi-Wan's barb at the end!

Anyway, this is a great start to this trilogy, I hope the next two episodes are just as good or better...ground assualts, FTW!!

 

According to the episode guide this episode was production number 15. Its weird that they made it that early, but perhaps it took a long time to make it.

 

According to the Filoni commentary that they did an overhaul in editorial after looking at the footage because they thought Ahsoka didn't feel bad enough for losing her squad. They added the strategy she uses later which Filoni got from the Zahn books. It's a strategy Grand Admiral Thrawn used.

I love that Mar Tuuk wanted to learn more about the enemy commander he was facing.. It reminds me of Patton when Rommel and the other Nazi generals wanted to learn all they could about General Patton.

According to the Episode guide:

The spinning scope device on Captain Mar Tuuk's data goggles was partly inspired by the mechanical monocle worn by a Ko-Dan fleet officer in The Last Starfighter. Originally, Mar Tuuk was to have died aboard his ship, but he proved interesting enough to George Lucas and The Clone Wars crew that his life was spared. A new scene of him leaving the bridge was added late in the making of the episode, and a line of dialogue was given to a battle droid explaining that Mar Tuuk fled in an escape pod.

I'm very glad for this because it's been established that Anakin doesn't meet Greivous face to face until Episode III, it's nice to see him have a rival general on the other side to battle from time to time. He can't keep fighting Dooku and Ventress and beside it's on a more personal Jedi/Sith level. Anakin should have a rival militarily.

 

Really? That's why it looked familiar. Thrawn used that strategy with the Star Destroyer on it's belly? Which book was it? I want to look it up.

Awesome episode, I love that we're probably going to see Mace Windu finally. And...ground assault? AMAZING.

 

Anakin should have a rival militarily.

 

Should have a military rival.

 

The episode production sequence is weird.

I'm super glad they're keeping Captain Kir...I mean Tuuk. We need more repeating villains.

Also, Asharak is right about the strategy being used in Ender's Game - I don't know if it was first used there (but it's older than HTTE), but Ender freezes his troopers' legs so that they act as a shield whilst still allowing them to fire back at their opponents.

 

Exactly the type of episode I've been wanting to see since the start of the show.

The story was gripping, the visuals were outstanding and the dialogue was great.

I especially enjoyed how Anakin behaved exactly as we would expect him to. He clearly didn't know how to handle his padawan's misconduct and went to do what he did best...deal with the problem on his own.

Ahsoka as well shined in this episode; I especially loved how she pointed fingers at Anakin and tried to blame him for her own problems...then it got better when she began to doubt ever winning the battle after the previous skirmish.

I have to as well applaud Dave Filoni for making that awesome strategy reference to the Heir of the Empire books- I didn't even know about it until he mentioned it in the commentary.

Great director that man, big fan of all his works.

I really hope we get to see more episodes like this and I'm especially glad Mar Tuuk was spared an early death!


Storm Over Ryloth, my new favorite, as I expected.

 

"The Enemies gate is down"

 

I liked the space battles but I really hate the fighters the Clones are currently using, the V-19 Torrent. They were from the Tartakovsky series and I didn't like them there either. When in the timeline do they switch to the proto X-Wings used in the Battle of Coruscant, the ARC-170s?

[image=http://images3.wikia.nocookie.net/starwars/images/3/32/Starfigher.jpg]

 

Meh, nothing wrong with the V-19. It's pretty much the main Republic starfighter and it doesn't look half bad ever since they redid its appearance for this series. The ship I really want to see is the V-wing, but that was introduced later in the war and we still have three more seasons to see it in action.

In any case, I like how Emperor's Spear was imported into this episode =P

 

i love how filoni got the tactical idea from heir to the empire zahn/thrawn references are always cool. now if we could only see thrawn in one of these episodes. i thought it was a very good beginning to the trilogy. ashoaka's massive screw up then redemption was well done. the space battles looked great - can't wait to see them in hd on tnt. now on to mace windu taking charge on ryloth!

 

It would be awesome if Thrawn or Tarkin turned out to be Obi-Wan`s "Yularen"

 

I think some people are going to be pissed now because they think it now means Ahsoka thought up the Marg Habl maneuver and Thrawn got it from her! It's supposed to be an old tactic and maybe Ahsoka just looked it up in the records. I also think it's not used that much because in Thrawn used it on an Elomin captain who would be succeptable to it and Battledroids are dumb enough to fall for it.

 

When an episode is produced doesn't have much barring on when it will be aired. Three episodes of the season 2 production will ultimately be shown in season one. And that means that some of the season 1 production episodes will be seen in season 2. It all depends on how they want to present the stories to us.

 

It would be awesome if Thrawn or Tarkin turned out to be Obi-Wan`s "Yularen"



Thrawn is with the Chiss during the Clone Wars.

 

then let's have an episode about the chiss that would so cool, especially if they brought up outbound flight.

 

I would love an episode in the Unknown Regions, some lone jedi caught up in the war between the Chiss and the Vaagari.

 

But I thought the animation was some of the best of the season.

So either they touched it up after the initial production, or one of the studios is much better than the other.

 

Very good episode. It only suffered a bit because I had such high expectations of it, and the one thing I was really hoping for didn't really happen. Still waiting to see some real starfighter dogfighting... but... anyway... Someone above complained about the V-19s, and it's an interesting thing... I have nothing against the design, it's a nice throwback to the Lambda shuttle and all, but it does seem to me that the ship doesn't work very well in action. It seems to be... unbalanced. Their attack scenes just don't have the same kinetic energy and flow that other fighters do. It's a very strange thing, and I can't really put my finger on it, but for me there's just something off about that ship flying.

As great as the ship action was, turns out the strongest asset of this episode was really the characters. Ahsoka got a nice little arc there, going through her emotions in a fairly realistic way. I really liked the strategy meeting scenes with the clones, where she really must learn how to behave like a commander, believe in yourself so that others will believe in you. The clones would follow any of Anakin's crazy plans without blinking, because the guy exhudes confidence (and has the skill to pull it off), but when it's a little padawan doing it, it's nice to see them undercutting her command power. Then there's Mar Tuuk, definetly among the best new characters from this show. His design is flawless, from his posture, his lopsided mouth and his goggles, and the voice acting was dead on. On top of this he's actually smart, isn't full of himself and knows to do his homework. Contrary to what someone said, I don't think it was cowardly of him to sneak to an escape pod. When a Star Destroyer is coming right at you, it IS the smart thing to do.

I really liked it that they used some ship strategy here. The amount of damage each capital ship could withstand was a bit tipsy, with a handful of starfighters doing lots of damage, one Venator standing up to 6 frigates, and all that. But for me simply the fact that they considered the strategy aspect of it all is enough to make me happy.

I think the problem with this episode is that it really suffers from the 22 minutes runtime. Because of how fast everything happens, most of the drama gets lost. Unlike other episodes, there's nothing really that could have been trimmed here to make more time for this, though. They decided to focus on the character stuff, and that worked, but the action suffered as a result. At the beginning, Ahsoka's squadron getting wiped out didn't really carry any weight, because the pilots hadn't had any setup, and the death scenes were very straightforward and casual. In the final battle as well, the Y-Wing attack was over before it began, with not much tension to it. But the biggest missed opportunity was Anakin in the escape pod. They set it up to be this huge gamble, but in the end he just sits there in his cosy pod watching the battle play out. If would have been great if he had been in real jeopardy, with fighters coming at him and the clones or Ahsoka would have to fly to the rescue in the nick of time. I know this show really wouldn't work as a two-parter, but maybe if the show was at least 30 minutes they could have made it all that it could be. Oh, HBO, why didn't you aquire this show??!!

PS: Kamikaze Droid Starfighters? Is that really an effective strategy? Against a bridge I can understand, but those things were peppering the entire hull...

PPS: Someone mentioned that Anakin's actions would constitute a war crime, and I have to agree that it felt very dishonorable while I was watching it. It was like waving a white flag, declaring your surrender, walking towards the commander and then shooting him in the face. It's effective, but not very Jedi-like.

 

Obi-Wan did a similar wool-over-the-eyes surrender in the CW movie, too. Perhaps a bit more of an honorable one.

It reminded me of Batman's finest lesson in the new Brave & the Bold series "when outmatched, cheat!"

 

Yes, it's interesting, first Obi-Wan "faking" his surrender; well, at least half-faking, since he's totally relying on Anakin.

No one ever said you couldn't change your mind about surrender though.

The war and its effects on the Jedi is something that Matt Stover explored in Shatterpoint, and apparently now Filoni, Gilroy et al are looking at it.

 

Yeah, Obi-Wans's "negotiations" ocurred to me as a previous example. But there the situation was considerably different and much more honorable. He had indeed surrendered and sat down to have a civilized negotiation discussion. It was only when the tides turned that he managed to escape and capture the commander. Anakin simply threw a Star Destroyer on his face, it would be akin to Obi-Wan stabbing Loathsom the second he got off the tank. Obi-Wan didn't use his surrender as a tool to kill the commander, only as a diversion to stall him.