Star Wars The Clone Wars Season Five News and Discussion

[cooleddie74]

Mr. Adventure wrote:

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I'd like to see Maul wrapped up and I wouldn't mind seeing some fallout from what happened with Ahsoka, even if it's just Anakin being a little testy.

Anything that makes Anakin more uncertain about the Jedi and upset with the system is a good thing. It was many things spread across almost a decade and a half that turned a nine-year-old boy Podracer with a trusting heart into somebody who'd murder all the Jedi in the Temple to save his wife from death. Anger and disappointment over losing Ahsoka would contribute to the grumbling, paranoid Anakin we see throughout most of Episode III.

[EnsignRicky]

I doubt The Clone Wars would have wrapped up Maul's story anyway.

They're going to want to spread that out over novels, comics and video games for many years to come.

[cooleddie74]

In case anybody was still in the market for Season 4 of the series on DVD and BluRay, Amazon had them on sale about a week ago for $18.49 - $24.49 per set depending on format. I believe the prices have returned to normal by now, but I'm not sure. You might want to go to Amazon and check to be certain. Those prices sounded like an excellent value for an entire season of the series.

[Set Harth]

delete

[JD]

I just had a crazy idea, what if the mystery protagonist from 1313 is (or is it was now) going to be Asohka, and that was why they had the placeholder, because they didn't want to ruin the end of the CW season.

[PsychoPere]

What "mystery protagonist"? The male bounty hunter we've seen in every look so far at 1313?

[cooleddie74]

I'm not up to speed on 1313 as I probably should be. Most of my focus in recent months has been on Episode VII and the fate of The Clone Wars. Which bounty hunter are we talking about?

[DarthPipes]

Here's a good interview with James Arnold Taylor (Obi-Wan Kenobi) about the cancelation of The Clone Wars.

http://www.ign.com/articles/2013/03/...entures?page=1

[PsychoPere]

cooleddie, pretty much all that's known about the playable character in 1313 is that he's a bounty hunter pursuing targets on Coruscant. The character in the image on the page I linked to has been assumed to be that protagonist since he's been featured in all promotional materials released so far.

[JD]

I've read a couple articles that said that was a stand in, and that the real protagonist was going to be revealed later.

[PsychoPere]

Either way, the protagonist was explicitly stated to be a bounty hunter and definitively not a Force user. Ahsoka would not have been a possibility.

[cooleddie74]

Under normal, healthy market circumstances there'd be tie-in action figures to accompany a new game like this and both would appear in stores at about the same time, but with the present toy and action figure market being in a state of flux and hostage to rising labor costs and disappointing sales we probably won't see any of the game's characters turned into plastic for fans and collectors.

Does anybody here remember the ample selection of characters from the first Force Unleashed game that were available in stores? Rahm Kota? Juno Eclipse? Maris Brood? Others? Yeah, don't expect anything like that this time around. Not unless Hasbro has some very fun surprises under its sleeve, and I'm doubting that.

[Dimesdan]

cooleddie74 wrote:

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hostage to rising labor costs

So people in countries like China where the bulk of these toys are made want more more a few quid a day in wages and you think they're taking the manufacturers hostage?

Good for them I say.

[cooleddie74]

NO, that's not what the heck I meant at all. I am not in favor of slave wages for labor and am glad Chinese workers' pay is rising after years of toiling in that sweatshop environment. More power to them. Get everything you can.

I'm just repeating the terminology a lot of others are using, and you shouldn't read something unsavory into it when it's not there. All I was saying is: costs are rising. Nothing more.

[CorporalCaptain]

I haven't really chimed in yet since the finale, so I'll do so briefly. I had intended to rewatch it and let it jell some more before commenting, but given real life, I won't have the opportunity to do so, or to read everything upthread, anytime soon.

Anyway, when the credits rolled, it was pretty obvious that the show would most likely be canceled. There was enough "ambiguity", if you could call it that, that seemed to leave the door open for more story, but Ahsoka's arc as a part of the Jedi was pretty clearly irrevocably over. (Cancellation is for the best anyway, as far as I'm concerned. No way would I have paid more to add a premium Disney channel to watch another season of TCW.)

Indeed, the Jedi all but turned their backs on Ahsoka. They really came across as assholes. When they offered her a chance to rejoin, they completely marginalized the position that they had put her in. That right there was a major clue that it was coming to an end—or, more precisely, that any continuation in which Ahsoka said in effect "No worries!" would have been completely implausible and unsatisfactory.

As to the arc involving the assassin, I thought there were at least three important dangling threads.

The level of Tarkin's complicity, including whether there was really any at all, was one important dangling thread. Tarkin's self-confidence struck me as a narrative device that de facto excluded the possibility that Tarkin could have been mistaken or fooled by certain means of framing Ahsoka for the assassination of Letta Turmond. In particular, if Tarkin was not complicit, then, unless the security of the prison block was intact to the best knowledge of the military, I would have felt betrayed by the narrative itself. This is just part of who I expect Tarkin to be: when he struts badassery, he can back it up all the way, at least at this point in his career. Leading up to the events of ANH, all his past successes should reinforce his self-confidence, so that at the end he doesn't believe there is any need to evacuate the Death Star. Making him incompetent before that point would just diminish his character, not to mention the Rebels' accomplishment.

If Tarkin was telling the truth about the evidence against Ahsoka, then the question becomes how was it that he was fooled. Under the assumptions of the previous paragraph, it could only have been some extraordinary means, such as involving the Sith, as discussed upthread, or another fallen Jedi. The question of additional conspirators besides Barriss Offee, even if Tarkin was telling the whole truth, was never settled, either, and was another important dangling thread.

Any continuation which would just let those threads drop, by not having, or having had, the Jedi look into them, would have been completely unsatisfactory. Even if, say, Tarkin tried to argue that the problem was no longer a Jedi concern, but rather a military one, that wouldn't be so. The Jedi should be concerned with whether Barriss Offee really was the only Force-wielder involved in the assassination of Letta Turmond, as any additional people involved could reasonably still be among the Jedi ranks, or be Sith. Naturally, it would be logical in any continuation for Tarkin to assume the role of an inquisitor against the Jedi Order, to try to expose any other conspirators.

Further, unmasking the assassin as Barriss Offee hardly automatically explains everything. If the mere fact that she is a Jedi is enough for her to have been single-handedly responsible for everything, then every Jedi should have been a suspect. If it really was only Barriss Offee doing all that, including breaking prison security without Tarkin's knowledge, then that could be touted as a clear and present danger to the Republic. It could form part of the cornerstone for Special Order 66, which if it did would surely be worthy of some screen time. As far as I recall, this rift between the Jedi and the military really began with the assassination arc, though Tarkin was always shown to be skeptical of the Jedi. What's behind this rift, including whether and how responsibility is shared between Tarkin and Darth Sidious, constitutes another important dangling thread.

The finale felt really rushed. I would have preferred that the final season spent less time on nonsense like the D-squad, and have instead devoted at least one more episode to wrapping up or at least addressing the outstanding issues I had.