Excellent episode. Not quite up to the level of Overlords but still the continuation of a great arc. Sam Witwer is really bringing it as The Son.
Star Wars:The Clone Wars S3......so far
- Thread starter JediKnightButler
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This arc is really out there but an interesting departure nonetheless. I wonder if the ad about "think you know everything about Anakin's destiny, maybe, maybe not" is just usual marketing blather or if there's anything to it.
Tape? What is that?
Seriously though, might be a legitimate glitch but I'd make sure your TV isn't set on the SAP secondary audio. Maybe both feeds are present and you're set on the Spanish one.
When I rewound the tape to get it ready to go this evening, I noticed last week's taping was totally in Spanish!
Tape? What is that?
Seriously though, might be a legitimate glitch but I'd make sure your TV isn't set on the SAP secondary audio. Maybe both feeds are present and you're set on the Spanish one.
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I'm not quite sure to make of this current arc. I give the writers credit for trying to be ambitious and explore what it means to be the Chosen One. I never cared for the concept and I think its something overused, but they took it on and took it in directions I wasn't expecting.
The first episode was better than the second. In the first, I really liked Shmi's appearance and that scene with Anakin. That was well played. I didn't get why Obi Wan wasn't similarly suspicious of Qui Gonn's ghost. The first episode was a good set up, and it presented Anakin with an interesting dilemma.
The second episode was okay. I enjoyed the Son. I really liked his character design and his portrayal. It threw me when he slipped into Palpatine's voice, but once I read a Sam Witwer interview where he said Son would reflect many of the dark side users that we've seen throughout the series, it seemed interesting. Son is the dark side, IMO. I think Daughter got short shrift. I wish more had been done with her.
I wasn't super impressed with the Ahsoka-Anakin duel, though I like some of the parallels between Obi and Anakin in ROTS. I agree with Fett that it had already been suggested that the dark side was ascendant in AOTC, even the Jedi being clueless about the return of the Sith in TPM could be seen as a sign that the light side was waning. Now, with this CW episode, I guess it opens the door to a complete dark side triumph, which we'll see in ROTS.
I'm curious to see how this will conclude. I wonder why this Son would need a starship to escape, if he is so powerful? I wish there was something else, the Father or Daughter perhaps, that was just holding him there, or maybe Father and Daughter. Son sort of reminds me of Abeloth in the current Fate of the Jedi novels, in terms of being a raw source of the dark side. I wonder what his fate will be, and if he doesn't die-not sure how they could kill him anyway-if he will someday resurface in the novels or comics.
The first episode was better than the second. In the first, I really liked Shmi's appearance and that scene with Anakin. That was well played. I didn't get why Obi Wan wasn't similarly suspicious of Qui Gonn's ghost. The first episode was a good set up, and it presented Anakin with an interesting dilemma.
The second episode was okay. I enjoyed the Son. I really liked his character design and his portrayal. It threw me when he slipped into Palpatine's voice, but once I read a Sam Witwer interview where he said Son would reflect many of the dark side users that we've seen throughout the series, it seemed interesting. Son is the dark side, IMO. I think Daughter got short shrift. I wish more had been done with her.
I wasn't super impressed with the Ahsoka-Anakin duel, though I like some of the parallels between Obi and Anakin in ROTS. I agree with Fett that it had already been suggested that the dark side was ascendant in AOTC, even the Jedi being clueless about the return of the Sith in TPM could be seen as a sign that the light side was waning. Now, with this CW episode, I guess it opens the door to a complete dark side triumph, which we'll see in ROTS.
I'm curious to see how this will conclude. I wonder why this Son would need a starship to escape, if he is so powerful? I wish there was something else, the Father or Daughter perhaps, that was just holding him there, or maybe Father and Daughter. Son sort of reminds me of Abeloth in the current Fate of the Jedi novels, in terms of being a raw source of the dark side. I wonder what his fate will be, and if he doesn't die-not sure how they could kill him anyway-if he will someday resurface in the novels or comics.
^ "What does...God need with a starship?" LOL.
Not quite as good as last week, and although I always expected them too, Ahsoka's "death" was a bit of a cop out, as was her turn to the dark side.
I did like the animation of the battle though, it seemed much more fluid and dynamic than every other lightsaber fight we've seen in this show.
Overall though, It was above average, and im looking forward to the conclusion.
I did like the animation of the battle though, it seemed much more fluid and dynamic than every other lightsaber fight we've seen in this show.
Overall though, It was above average, and im looking forward to the conclusion.
What does God want with a starship?
Well, he's not a god, just a powerful Force-wielder. The Force can do a lot, but it's never been shown to enable one to breathe in vacuum or travel through hyperspace.Really impressed by Sam Witwer here. I had no idea, from the roles I've seen him in, that he was such a capable voice artist or character actor. He did a really good job as the voice of the creature in the prison with Ahsoka.
It seems from the things they said here that they're going with the "balance of light and dark" idea after all, as opposed to the alternative interpretation of light = balance and dark = imbalance that I proposed earlier. Then again, maybe it's a mix of both. The Son wasn't a Darksider to begin with; he just tended that way, but the Father's influence kept him from actually embracing it until recently. So maybe it is reconcilable with the Eastern view I was discussing: there are opposing forces, but neither is intrinsically good or evil, since both can be constructive as long as they're in balance with one another; but if the balance is lost, if one becomes dominant and the other diminished or absent, then great harm and evil can result.
I noticed that when possessed Ahsoka fought, she initially didn't use her trademark inverted grip on the lightsaber, instead holding it the normal way. That was a clue that she wasn't in control of her own body, that she was possessed. But when she drew her second saber, she held it inverted. So maybe Ahsoka's spirit was coming more under his influence and starting to participate rather than simply be dormant? Or maybe I'm reading too much into it.
I thought it was interesting that it was the daughter who's force powers saved Ahsoka from dying; not really Sith knowledge like Palpatine would lead Anakin to believe in ROTS. In retrospect that scene in ROTS seems odd to me now that Anakin was the conduit by which the daughter saved Ahsoka, and yet he acts as though what Palpatine described to him (using the force to save the ones he loves from death) as if something he had never witnessed before.
This arc is really out there but an interesting departure nonetheless. I wonder if the ad about "think you know everything about Anakin's destiny, maybe, maybe not" is just usual marketing blather or if there's anything to it.
When I rewound the tape to get it ready to go this evening, I noticed last week's taping was totally in Spanish!
Tape? What is that?
Seriously though, might be a legitimate glitch but I'd make sure your TV isn't set on the SAP secondary audio. Maybe both feeds are present and you're set on the Spanish one.
Yeah, probably just a glitch. Those digital converters have been glitchy since we got them.
I agree this episode was out there. Not bad, but not nearly as good as last week. I must say though, it really reminded me of the Superman/Batman: Apocolypse animated movie I saw recently. I probably wouldn't have seen it if the DVD hadn't come through our library, but it was pretty neat and I just saw it last week. It involved the arrival of Kara (Supergirl) and a mean character named Darkseid, from the weird world of Apokolips, who kidnaps her to be one of his minions and turns her against her cousin Superman. I instantly noticed the parallels to an Apocolypse scene when "Dark Ahsoka" turned around and was yapping all mouthy to Anakin as he entered the room where she was kept. In both productions it was the "unveiling of the whiny teen bitch" followed by a duel of the former allies.
I also have to say, I was immediately thinking of Temis the Vorta when they played the previews for next week. Just think of the possibilities.
What happens in Mortis stays in Mortis? Maybe they won't remember these events upon their departure.
Then again, this wasn't just an ordinary mortal using the Force to save a life; it was the supernatural being called the Daughter giving up the last of her life energy to save Ahsoka. Anakin might not think of those as equivalent.
The more I think about the Son seems to be taken from Lucas's original concept of the Ashla and the Son of the Sons from one of his early drafts, just adapted to conform to current continuity.The last few episodes are interesting.
Another excellent episode. My only concern is that I hope they're not setting up the Son's ascension as the reason why Anakin ultimately turns to the Dark Side in ROTS (effectively removing Anakin's decision). The other thing is that I wonder how Anakin can plausibly be so bloody naive in ROTS after the experiences he's had during the CW series. Not that I care overmuch. I love the evolution of the series and I'll continue to enjoy ROTS regardless. But it's amazing how much more depth these characters are beginning to have, compared to what we saw from the films.
How conveeenient for Lucasfilm that as Ahsoka grows up, they need to keep changing her look and her clothes. Are there action figures for the Mortis family yet?
But if they're just Force users, then why does Anakin need to balance them? That would make sense only if the Daughter and Son are embodiments of the Light and Dark Sides, in some sense. At the very least, they are qualitatively different from Jedi or Sith, who have a comparatively limited understanding of, and access to, the Force.
As for linkages to the PT, they're rewriting stuff all over the place. Now the implication is that Anakin's fall occurred because the Daughter was killed and the Dark Side is unstoppable. The political and psychological dimensions might still be there as contributing factors, but the death of the Daughter seems to be the biggest thing now. Even Palps is just a pawn of larger forces.
Presumably this imbalance will persist until the Daughter comes back to life, or she gets a replacement (Ahsoka? that might not work timing-wise since the Dark Side remains ascendant until ROTJ) or the Son is killed.
My Jedi mind control is working perfectly, I see.
But yeah, they're really going to have to include the events from ROTS as the ending of this saga, because now Anakin is not going to fall because a) he's a psycho (that idea has long since been tossed); b) he's stupid (also now implausible); or c) he hates democracy, thinks the Republic is corrupt, etc (never really developed in the PT but hinted at). So what does cause his fall? The death of the Daughter, apparently, which leaves the Son free to start driving Anakin nuts by getting into his brain. Palps was just another of the Son's pawns, helping the process along. Which is good - I never saw any reason why Palps should have been able to turn Anakin unless Anakin was stupid or insane. Now we have the "missing" element by which the story makes a lot more sense. But since it's vital to the story, it needs to be in the story, all the way to the end.
And there's another huge missing element as well: this can't all be about the Son's mind-control of Anakin, because that makes Anakin a mere victim and pawn. There needs to be a moral dimension to this story, which means that Anakin needs to make a choice of his own free will to embrace the Dark Side, and it has to be done in such a way that we can't interpret it as being any sort of mind-control trick.
And that choice needs to be made sometime during the events of ROTS, around the time he kills Mace. The Son, not Palps, is the true antagonist of this story. We need to see Anakin making the choice to join the Son, not Palps - a fantasy/vision sequence would work just fine, because that's the only place where we can be reasonably sure Anakin and the Son are on equal footing, and Anakin's choice is therefore a valid one, of his own free will. The real story happens on the metaphysical realm. Anakin comes out of the "trance," and then tells Palps, "okay pops, I'm with you." Palps thinks he was the one who convinced Anakin but that's not really what happened. We haven't yet seen what really happens.
I think it's "balance of Light and Dark" with maybe some off-kilter elements that they didn't think through so well?
For instance, I can see how destruction and creation are both necessary to have in balance and either one on their own would be bad. But selfishness vs selflessness? Does that really work in the same way? If the whole galaxy became selfless, would that be a bad thing? Maybe you could say technological innovation wouldn't happen because it's driven by Bill Gates type egomaniacs, but that's not the same as selfishness, and couldn't a selfless person also want to create stuff so that other people can have better lives? The creativity and ability would still be there.
I think they're scrambling to try to shoehorn previous ideas about the Sith and Jedi into a new framework. It would make more sense for the Sith to embody destruction for its own sake rather than selfishness - they go around, Joker-like, causing havoc. They are a microcosm of the Son, in isolation, just as the Jedi are a microcosm of the Daughter.
What I got out of it is this: the Son and Daughter are fine as long as each is balancing the other (with Father as referee; his actual role is a bit murky). The Son may be ruthless but after all, he's a godlike being. Even the "good" Daughter was presumably ready to kill Obi-Wan if Anakin failed the test. The Son only becomes "evil" if there's nothing to balance him.
Oh probably, but I think it's inevitable that there will be follow-up to this arc - Ahsoka has been possessed by the Dark Side but also resurrected by the Light Side. So the battle of balance could very well take place within her, at some point in the future, such as the series finale.
Yet another element to rewrite for ROTS, but maybe not so hard to do. Anakin sees visions of Padme's death. He assumes it's a threat from the Son, because he can't be so stupid as to trust any dreams or visions from here on out.
But it's a real threat, and since he knows he countered the Son's blackmail attempts once by resurrecting Ahsoka with the Light Side, he'll want to make sure he can do it again, if the Son does manage to kill Padme. But without access to the Daughter, what can he be a conduit for? There's a solution to the problem in there somewhere, but it will take some fancy writing. Could very well tie into Ahsoka's plotline, if she somehow still contains both Light and Dark Sides.
And if Padme died because the Son put some lunatic idea about "dying from grief" in her head, or just showed up invisibly and touched her on the forehead, then that clears up the problem of Padme's death being idiotic.
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They weren't clowning around in the OT.
Yeah, why not - Lucas likes to rewrite stuff anyway. It's funny that the literal events of the PT are largely okay. It's just how they were done that was the problem. I would love to see AOTC with the TCW's Anakin and Padme falling in love, because I could buy that now. Of course they'd need new dialogue, but it doesn't have to be Shakespeare, just tolerable.
I'd also love to see the Mustafar fight, this time with characters I can actually care about, who I believe are such close friends that they could consider themselves "brothers." Now Obi-Wan's line won't ring hollow and make me roll my eyes.
And by adding the mystical dimension, which was completely missing from the PT, they now have the option to correct even the most inane stuff, like Padme's death (the Son killed her with a touch to her forehead, just as he threatened) or Anakin's motive to fall to the Dark Side (he finally buys into the Son's ideology that the Dark Side is not inherently evil, and balance is not required.)
It's still an open question how the Son will make a convincing case to Anakin that will allow his choice to seem reasonable from his point of view, not manipulation or mind-control. But they have a couple more seasons to figure it out.
I wonder if they're going to end up going for a symbolic retelling of the entire saga with the Mortis trilogy:
Episode one: The Family discovers Anakin as the Chosen One to bring balance to the Force. He's put in a position where he has to show off his abilities and displays great force power (The Phantom Menace).
Episode two: The Son/dark side plots to rise up and destroy the balance. It uses Anakin and his attachments as a pawn to do so. Meanwhile, Obi-Wan is guided by the light side to a tool that he's told will destroy the dark (the sword/Anakin), but that tool ultimately ends up destroying the light and helping the ascendancy of the dark side. (Attack of the Clones/Revenge of the Sith)
Episode three: The son rises, perhaps even gets Anakin in its clutches for a good part of the show. But at the last minute, Anakin uses the sword to destroy the Son because he's threatening the ones Anakin loves (Return of the Jedi). The three heroes leave Mortis unaware that they've just acted out the prophecy of the Chosen One in full, from episodes one to six of the movie trilogy.
Episode one: The Family discovers Anakin as the Chosen One to bring balance to the Force. He's put in a position where he has to show off his abilities and displays great force power (The Phantom Menace).
Episode two: The Son/dark side plots to rise up and destroy the balance. It uses Anakin and his attachments as a pawn to do so. Meanwhile, Obi-Wan is guided by the light side to a tool that he's told will destroy the dark (the sword/Anakin), but that tool ultimately ends up destroying the light and helping the ascendancy of the dark side. (Attack of the Clones/Revenge of the Sith)
Episode three: The son rises, perhaps even gets Anakin in its clutches for a good part of the show. But at the last minute, Anakin uses the sword to destroy the Son because he's threatening the ones Anakin loves (Return of the Jedi). The three heroes leave Mortis unaware that they've just acted out the prophecy of the Chosen One in full, from episodes one to six of the movie trilogy.
It would take some fancy writing to get the Mortis story to mesh with the "mundane" level plotline. For instance, as already pointed out, the Dark Side can't be ascendant in AOTC because the Daughter wasn't dead yet. At worst, there might be some feeling of disturbance in the Force as the Father weakens.
In retrospect, the Father was being kind of dim in calling Anakin to Mortis and expecting him to just jump at the chance to spend the rest of eternity there. He must not understand people very well. Maybe being a godlike being explains that.
It would have made more sense for the Father to have directed Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon to Tattoine, to find Anakin and raise him to have no attachments - the Jedi don't need that rule, but Anakin does - so that he'll have no reason to refuse to stay on Mortis.
And it would help a lot if he'd explained things to Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon so the Jedi would have been a lot more vigilant. Anakin and Padme live together in the same apartment, don't the Jedi keep tabs on their people at all?
I wonder what kind of report Obi-Wan is going to deliver to the Jedi Council. "It was great, we met the embodiment of the Light Side of the Force in person! And then uh, we sort of got her killed. So I guess we're pretty much screwed."
In retrospect, the Father was being kind of dim in calling Anakin to Mortis and expecting him to just jump at the chance to spend the rest of eternity there. He must not understand people very well. Maybe being a godlike being explains that.
It would have made more sense for the Father to have directed Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon to Tattoine, to find Anakin and raise him to have no attachments - the Jedi don't need that rule, but Anakin does - so that he'll have no reason to refuse to stay on Mortis.
And it would help a lot if he'd explained things to Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon so the Jedi would have been a lot more vigilant. Anakin and Padme live together in the same apartment, don't the Jedi keep tabs on their people at all?
I wonder what kind of report Obi-Wan is going to deliver to the Jedi Council. "It was great, we met the embodiment of the Light Side of the Force in person! And then uh, we sort of got her killed. So I guess we're pretty much screwed."
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