Full Series The Clone Wars: Episode 302: ARC Troopers Discussion Thread

All it takes to have a lightsaber work underwater is two crystals. Why can't Obi-Wan modify his lightsaber because he's going to a water world or maybe just say he's always had two crystals?

 

I thought this episode was alright. It's too bad that the ARC Troopers got wasted fast in this episode, and I would have liked the fleet battle to last longer too. Alas, it seems the animators still find every excuse to keep proper slug matches between warships short instead of developing one throughout most of the episode.

 

Episode Guide and commentary is up.

 

This pair of episodes was the perfect thing to watch between AOTC and ROTS (think I'll try it with Rookies tonight), and so far the only set of episodes compatible enough with the films in tone and lack of Ahsoka. ARC Troopers is my favorite episode yet. Love love love it.

 

Nevermind about this it appears ARC Troopers revealed another ARC trooper with double red pauldrons. We had the blue one, yellow one, Commander Colt and this new guy.

 

Freakin awesome!!!

My favorite parts
- Anakin "I plan to let the clones execute you right now" BADASS! And he would have too! This is what I like to see, sometimes Anakin doesn't seem like the same guy from EP II and III.
- Obi Wan got another creature to ride, he is good at ridding critters!
- Grievous doing the spider crawl on top of the platform, great! Also seems like his cloak is far more detailed than it has been. The scene of him walking across the deck with his cloak on - awesome! From behind looks a shot straight from the prequels.
- Anakin and Ventress lighsaber fight, maybe the best looking one in the series so far. Sometimes the animation can get a little herky jerky in those but theirs was more fluid than usual.
- Space battle - wow the scale and action of these are getting more and more incredible.

Little criticisms
- space battle I know its only 22 minutes but would like to see more mini stories and bits of action going on during the battle, and I wish we could get the metal communication headband on anakin and obi wan.
- In the final Anakin Verntress duel when she got the upper hand would liked her to have said something like "you see, the dark side is always stronger" maybe planting seeds in his mind.

Really looking forward to having the REAL JAR JAR back! woo!

 

Not sure if anyone cares but... The Tactical Droid in this episode is TV-94, the same one in "Grievous Intrigue". Also, anyone know if the command ship was the Invisible Hand? Or if it even was a Providence? It might have been one of those new "Supersized" ships like Trench had... I actually liked Grievous V. Obi-Wan. It wasn't as good as in "Grievous Intrigue" but it was better then "Destroy Malevolence". I do wish Anakin stayed in space while Shaak Ti fought Ventress though, would have been cool to see her in a lightsaber fight. I hope this isn't the last Grievous episode this season like Season 2 only had one (Two if you count the second half-hour) About the "Lightsaber underwater" I loved it. I actually wished he could have used it more down there then just one droid for one second. 99... Somehow I just knew he was gonna die the second I saw him in "Clone Cadets". The Ventress kiss I didn't notice or know existed. Is there anywhere I can find it on the internet? Or do I have to wait until next year for it to come on DVD? Lastly, I did find some of it rushed, but I guess that's because they had to stuff an entire battle, the second largest since "Landing at point Rain" in one episode... So I understand why it was rushed. Overall, I thought it was really good. It had everything, rushed or not.

 

I really liked how well these two episodes work together, and this was a great battle. Some things I felt I had to give credit to...

First off, Grievous wasn't too bad here: He didn't ALWAYS run, and he put up a nicely brutal fight against Obi-Wan. Also, the strategy of using the debris wasn't bad. Pretty clever, especially considering Anakin's tendency to be overconfident in space. Unfortunately, Obi-Wan is very well acquainted with Grievous' tactics, and the good general isn't a hero, and therefore, cannot expect the unexpected. But he acquited himself well, I'd have to say.

Ventress was nicely creepy in this episode. Keeping the skirt helped add to her assassin vibe, yet her raw FURY in the final minutes of the episode were great.

They had a justification for a Separatist retreat, despite the IMMENSELY amped up scale. Characters often note that 'this is too easy' or 'there are too few ships', and seeing them work out a surgical ambush strike, it makes some sense. Still, the fact is that the battle in the city was going back and forth, lots of great action shots and destruction going on. It was also great to see the cadets fighting back, too. Echo and Fives joined the pantheon of clone pairs.

And the duels...my gosh the duels...Not since Lair of Grievous have I seen such combat. The duels got much smoother, and they could fit two in this episode!

99 worked great, especially set up from the last episode. He was a nice new character, and I was a little sad to see him go. Still, whatever his fate, it would have been 'done to death before', so at the very least, we have someone with a really tragic death that didn't completely make sense.
I felt that having him bond with Hevy was brilliant, as it added weight to both his reunion and his death: He got to serve in the front lines and give his life, much like the brother he was closest to. I'm not too sure on what Gunga Din is meant to be like exactly, but looking it up on Wikipedia, I can see the connection: Here is a clone that is viewed as deformed, deficient, not worth anything, yet his spirit is recognised, and he helps bring out the best in the others.

Shaak Ti was...a little underused here, but I like her design. Besides that, she had some pretty good character moments in the first episode, but that's for another topic. One of those 'pick a few seconds and extract a paragraph' background Jedi fanboy things.

 

Another thing about trying to capture Jango's DNA, do they want the altered clone DNA or the original? Cause if they are looking for the original I wonder if Sidious knows they are keeping a big chunk of it in jail just down the street.

 

The morality of the Clone army situation is really messed up and I think I'm the only person that really notices it, the Republic builds an army of slaves and even makes use of child soldiers.How are these people considered good guys?

The episodes were almost just wall to wall action sequences and that really can't be exciting when the Separatists are such weak villains and the outcome of the conflict is already known.Have the Separatists won even once?

The demise of 99 and the lack of fatalities amongst the kid soldiers was very predictable.

I'm probably expecting too much from a kids show and the whole clone/slave thing rankles me.

 

Sidious and Dooku don't really want the DNA at all - they just want to keep perpetuating the war. Dooku himself hired Jango Fett and Sidious was intimately involved with the clones (see: Order 66) until he allowed the Jedi to stumble across them to create the phony war.

Therefore, Sidious and Dooku wouldn't truly care if he knew that he had Boba Fett in custody. They'd still invade Kamino just to keep the Republic in a state of war-loving frenzy and have them continue to cede more power to the executive branch and the military.

 

Technically, "the Republic" didn't build an army of slaves, Sidious and Dooku did.

But I agree that, for me, it's weird and feels totally contrary to the spirit of the Jedi to see Shaak Ti standing at the head of a bunch of thugs born and bred solely for killing - and that's presented as heroism in the show's quintessential shot (in 'Clone Cadets').

Also, what about the part where the clones spot Anakin and one dramatically declares, "It's the general!" Aren't all the Jedi generals and weren't there a minimum of two other Jedi there concurrently? So why would he use the singular "the"? Other than it sounds cooler than, "It's a general!"

 

In this context the trooper likely recognizes which General it is specifically, as opposed to a random Jedi, therefore "the" is appropriate.

 

I really liked Colt, and it was a shame that he got killed. Liked the episode, but little thing like Obi-Wan vs Grievous (again), small space battle, and two clones being promoted to ARC Troopers without doing anything special was dissapointed.

Anyway, I guess we are going to have one more space battle (the one from the trailer with the Ventress' fanblade).

 

It wouldn't make a difference, gramatically, if he knew that it was Anakin and not Shaak Ti or Obi-Wan, the term still "the" still implies singularity when the Jedi were plural. If your theory were correct, then he could've just said, "It's General Skywalker!"

It's kind of a trivial point, but I just thought it was another example of the show opting for cool melodrama even when it contradicts with common sense (or, in this case, basic English).

 

I don't understand the complain. When he says "It's the General!", he's just identifying him. Probably those clones were from the 501st.

 

I mean, this ain't rocket science. Can't you guys just use examples from everyday life to figure this out?

Ex.: You and your girlfriend are at home waiting for people to come over for a TCW party, and you're expecting about 10 people. The doorbell rings, you go and answer it. You girlfriend calls to you from the kitchen, "Who is it?"

"It's the guest." You reply.

"Ummmm, which one, honey?"

Most people totally understand why the article "the", meaning a singular or specific thing, simply does not work here. If there are multiples of a given thing, people naturally know to use a different article ("It's a guest.") or be specific about which one ("It's my buddy Tom.")

This is completely natural and intuitive to people, not something that typically needs to be explained to grown-ups at a message board.

And even if they were from the 501st, they'd still know that there were a number of other Jedi there, and so they would specify which one.

 

I'm not an expert on lightsaber construction. But in the original CW cartoon, Anakin and Asajj Ventress both fight in heavy rain with no apparent problems with their lightsabers extinguishing. So is the rule just that they can't ignite underwater but, if they're pre-ignited, then they can subsequently go underwater?

 

That example doesn't apply here. Take this one for example: You and two more people are at work, doing something. Suddenly, you spot your chief, and then you say for your partners:

"Look, the chief is here."

or

"Look, chief Smith is here."

As you said, this isn't rocket science. There is no need to mention your chief's name, because it's your only chief, the one your partners know.

 

There were multiple Jedi interacting with the clones in question in the episode. In your example, there's only one chief. Therefore, your analogy doesn't work.

If there were multiple chiefs and they all interacted with all of the working people, then your analogy would work. But as you laid it out, it does not.

(And, for the record, I don't even think that that was the 501st. But even if it were, they would still no that there were a number of Jedi on the scene.)

 

Not to get bogged down in a grammatical debate, but the clone's line would only have been grammatically incorrect if there had been several generals in the vicinity. As only one was visible - and was clearly being pointed out by the clone in question - it is just as grammatically viable to use the phrase 'the general' as it is to use the phrase 'a general'.

 

That's kinda a theme with them. In the comics, when they are first introduced, all of them except Alpha get taken out within two panels. They're BAMFs by themselves but in groups all but one get wasted. Kinda like the Spartans in Halo.

 

There were three generals there - Anakin, Obi-Wan, and Shaak Ti. The clone was calling the attention of the other clones to the fight, and when they heard his words, "The general" would not have been appropriate at all because they would have no idea which of the three he meant or why he used words which implied that there was only one Jedi there. In that situation, no person who speaks better than kindergarten level would say "the" rather than "a".

This is not "bogged down in a grammatical debate" any more than saying "2+2=4" is getting "bogged down in a mathematical debate." This is simple stuff.

 

As I said, if you think those troopers are from the 501st, it makes sense that he only says "the general", because Skywalker, to them, is "the general". And since he was the only Jei rund there, I really see no problem. Worthless nitpicking.