Star Wars:The Clone Wars S3......so far

[Temis the Vorta]

Well the PT made sense if you assume Anakin is a dunce. And since he acted like a dunce in the PT due to Hayden's zombie-like performance, that did make sense.

Seriously, how stupid would he have to be not to wonder how Padme can die in childbirth in a technologically advanced society that should have highly advanced medical care as well? And how massively stupid would he have to be to think Palps isn't playing him for a fool (which of course he was; Padme DIED anyway, hello!)

Anakin wasn't led to believe she died in childbirth, she was buried with a bulge so the general belief was that she had died before giving birth.

I wasn't talking about after the fact (and btw how did that little secret stay a secret under 20 years of oppressive Imperial rule? They wouldn't be above torturing her family members or digging up the grave to learn the truth) but what did Anakin think he was seeing in his vision? Certainly not any kind of normal death, since their medical technology should be so advanced that death from any kind of illness would be unthinkable.

But the real, real question is this: here's a guy who's been told all his life to avoid the Dark Side like the plague. Don't even think about it. It will backfire badly if you try to dabble. Yet he jumps right in like an idiot, arrogantly assuming that the rules are somehow different for him.

Now that Anakin is no longer being depicted as an arrogant fool - I can't see the TCW guy making that same mistake - what's going to convince him that everything he's heard about the Dark Side simply doesn't apply to him? And how will the audience know that he hasn't suddenly lapsed into sheer stupidity?

I think they could be on the verge of coming up with something that will solve the problem very neatly. We've already seen - not been told about, but seen - Anakin's powers being far greater than the Jedi, or presumably, the Sith. That was the point of the scene in the yin-yang arena a couple episodes back, to make it real for us and for him.

The other key element is that Anakin must believe that the Jedi rules about the Light and Dark Sides are simplistic and limited. And didn't the Father tell him just that? The Father seems like a trustworthy guy who knows what's going on in the cosmos. It wouldn't be stupid or arrogant of Anakin to believe what he says is true. It sounds plausible and synchs up well with the taoist underpinnings of the Star Wars cosmos.

Next week, they just need to cement those two ideas together so that Anakin starts to suspect that he might not need to fear the Dark Side so much. He'll still be leery of it of course. It's to his credit if he's skeptical of his own ability to control both Light and Dark Sides, even after the arena scene. That shows he's intelligent enough to be suspicious of anything that smells of an easy fix, especially since his attempts to use the Dark Side do go badly awry. We don't want to have to feel like he was an idiot and he deserved it, like in the PT.

Then over the next 2 1/2 years, we see the problems in the galaxy pile up relentlessly. Anakin already is unable to live openly with the woman he loves, which must be a constant source of frustration. He's constantly dragged away from her, fighting in a war to defend a government that might not deserve defending. His wife is starting to wonder about that, too, which is going to create tension in the home front - if the war isn't justified, then he's a fool and all his sacrifices are in vain. He might be able to take solace in the camaraderie of soldiers in battle, but even then he's expected not to be attached to any of them. He's given a padawan to train, who of course he feels immensely responsible for, but when he displays concern for her safety, he gets a big fat Jedi lecture about the danger of attachments.

In short, this guy's life is a living nightmare, and they have years to make it even worse. Now I see it's not at all hard to make his "fall" plausible. Every new disaster that befalls him is more opportunity for that little voice in his head to say, "you could stop this all, you know..."

The series finale will most likely involve some final-straw disaster that befalls Ahsoka. I think she very well might have to take the Daughter's place in order to halt the total takeover of the Dark Side. Or it could be something else. Whatever it is, Anakin will be devastated, and of course will blame himself for not figuring out a way to save her.

I never found the scene where Palps convinces Anakin to join the Dark Side to be at all believable unless you assume Anakin is a stupid, spoiled brat who just wants his own way. But a heroic, intelligent, reasonably stable and definitely moral Anakin - the TCW guy - would need to be convinced by someone with a hell of a lot more credibility than Palps, and he also needs to be shown his power, not just told about it.

If he's never actually controlled the Light and Dark Sides, as in the arena scene, he'd have to be an arrogant fool to think he can, just because of an obvious flatterer like Palps. But now TCW has established that he did experience it. I can see how Anakin would already be trying to figure out how to get his paws on some of that Dark Side power, long before Palps ever sidles up to him.

 

[DWF]

Well the PT made sense if you assume Anakin is a dunce. And since he acted like a dunce in the PT due to Hayden's zombie-like performance, that did make sense.

Seriously, how stupid would he have to be not to wonder how Padme can die in childbirth in a technologically advanced society that should have highly advanced medical care as well? And how massively stupid would he have to be to think Palps isn't playing him for a fool (which of course he was; Padme DIED anyway, hello!)

Anakin wasn't led to believe she died in childbirth, she was buried with a bulge so the general belief was that she had died before giving birth.

I wasn't talking about after the fact (and btw how did that little secret stay a secret under 20 years of oppressive Imperial rule? They wouldn't be above torturing her family members or digging up the grave to learn the truth) but what did Anakin think he was seeing in his vision? Certainly not any kind of normal death, since their medical technology should be so advanced that death from any kind of illness would be unthinkable.

But the real, real question is this: here's a guy who's been told all his life to avoid the Dark Side like the plague. Don't even think about it. It will backfire badly if you try to dabble. Yet he jumps right in like an idiot, arrogantly assuming that the rules are somehow different for him.

Be thankful he thought that otherwise Luke and Leia woudn't exist in the first place. But it's doubtful that Anakin even bothered to find out the truth he was too busy torturing himself over her death.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

Well I know he couldn't find out, or Leia and Luke would be raised as little Siths (like that kid in the VW commercial). But there are ways to write stories so that details like that don't require annoying contrivances. That's just one of many examples where the PT script could have used a rewrite or ten. I'm just happy that TCW is repairing a good deal of the damage, as much as is repairable anyway. TCW is the rewrite the PT needed.

 

[Set Harth]

and btw how did that little secret stay a secret under 20 years of oppressive Imperial rule?

Obi-Wan, Yoda and Bail, not being idiots, just didn't tell anyone about it. Otherwise it wouldn't be a secret.

They wouldn't be above torturing her family members

Her family members didn't know. Remember the film? You can oppress people all you want, it won't make them magically conjure up information they don't know.

or digging up the grave to learn the truth

Which they would have no reason to do, since they thought they already knew the truth while there was no one to tell them otherwise and no reason to doubt themselves until after ANH. But we've been over all this before.

The other key element is that Anakin must believe that the Jedi rules about the Light and Dark Sides are simplistic and limited.

Or that the dark side is the only way to get something he wants, as in the film.

but what did Anakin think he was seeing in his vision? Certainly not any kind of normal death, since their medical technology should be so advanced that death from any kind of illness would be unthinkable.

He was seeing a vision of somebody dying, you say? Could this idea perhaps survive into the next paragraph?

But the real, real question is this: here's a guy who's been told all his life to avoid the Dark Side like the plague. Don't even think about it. It will backfire badly if you try to dabble. Yet he jumps right in like an idiot, arrogantly assuming that the rules are somehow different for him.

Apparently not.

 

[Whofan]

The next few episodes will see the return of a character from Star Wars: A New Hope that was very underused in the prequels....

Spoiler: Clone wars season 3

Tarkin

 

[Set Harth]

Stewie didn't really need to be in the prequels.

 

[Christopher]

The next few episodes will see the return of a character from Star Wars: A New Hope that was very underused in the prequels....

Spoiler: Clone wars season 3

Tarkin

Neat. Any word on who's playing that character? The same actor from the prequels, or someone else?

 

[Temis the Vorta]

After the current arc, are they going to focus more on clone troopers and the fleet? Is there a Rex-centric arc planned? Not really my cup of tea, but I don't mind seeing a variety of topics - really adds to the depth and richness of the series overall.

My favorite topic is anything to do with Anakin and Ahsoka, and of course all the wild mystical stuff, but I know they need to use that very sparingly. It has to remain special.

I'm eager to see more on the Padme/political/"nice" Separatists front. The way they left things, she's gotta know something pretty bad is afoot. Let's see her start digging to find the truth.

I also want to know what happened to little Boba Fett! Did the Jedi send him to be "rehabilitated"? What do you do with a criminal that young, and considering the Jedi directly contributed to his "delinquency"?

I definitely approve of the way they seem to have forgotten about the existence of Jar-Jar Binks.

 

[Whofan]

I personally wouldn't mind if they bring up the Death Star in some form. The history of the station has been overcomplicated in the Expanded Universe, mainly because the early EU works went with the implication that it was the Empire's project and built shortly before the trilogy, not something that had been a seperatist-designed weapon and was under construction since ROTS.


One fan theory about the Death Star is that the Seperatists build part of it, and it's later captured by the Empire after Vader takes care of the seperatist leaders.

 

[Christopher]

The history of the station has been overcomplicated in the Expanded Universe, mainly because the early EU works went with the implication that it was the Empire's project and built shortly before the trilogy, not something that had been a seperatist-designed weapon and was under construction since ROTS.

One fan theory about the Death Star is that the Seperatists build part of it, and it's later captured by the Empire after Vader takes care of the seperatist leaders.

The thing to keep in mind is that the conflict between the Republic and the Separatists was engineeered by Palpatine all along. He was directing both sides -- the Republic through his role as senator/chancellor and the Separatists through his role as Darth Sidious -- playing them against each other in order to engineer a situation that would elevate him to a state of absolute power over the galaxy. So he was presumably the one who initiated the Death Star project, getting Dooku and the Separatists to design it and then building it once he'd established the Empire and absorbed both sides under his power.

 

[Hound of UIster]

One fan theory about the Death Star is that the Seperatists build part of it, and it's later captured by the Empire after Vader takes care of the seperatist leaders.

Why does it take 20 years for them to finish when they were half finished with the DS2 in 3 years?

Unions problems?

 

[Marc]

One fan theory about the Death Star is that the Seperatists build part of it, and it's later captured by the Empire after Vader takes care of the seperatist leaders.

Why does it take 20 years for them to finish when they were half finished with the DS2 in 3 years?

Unions problems?

well in the real world, the first of new model is always take the longest and then as you move down the line the later models are built quicker.

the death star would of taken a lot new desgin etc but once the first one had been that R&D was already in bag so you could just build the sucker.

of course the flaw in the theory is that the DS2 was supposedly bigger and more powerful than the first.

 

[Set Harth]

SW gets the reset button! OH YAEY!!!!!

Anakin's destiny is... exactly the same as it was before.

And if anyone thinks his turn in ROTS was too arbitrary, have I got a TCW for you.

 

[fett51]

Well, that was

Hunter X called it.

Thoughts on the episode: I was surprised and rather impressed they were willing to show a suicide like that. Granted there was one in the Mandalore episodes last year, but that guy was a terrorist.

Funnily enough, as a kid I always thought Anakin turned into Vader in order to end the clone wars, off his temptation speech to to Luke in ESB. Nice that was at least on Lucas' mind.

Thoughts on the arc as a whole: Jedi transponder code had to come from somewhere, and I recall in overlords the Father mentioned they had left "the temporal plane" so I would say this did happen, and the father, son, and daughter were real, if elsewhere. This now officially being a force-enfused ball of wibbly wobbley timey wimey, I think there are two ways to look at it: either it all happened in an instant and Mortis has nothing to do with the rest of the Force despite what everyone was saying, or it actually took place over the course of the entire saga, specifically the daughter dies prior to AotC to support the dark side being dominant by then, and the Son and Father die in RotJ to restore the force to balance.

There were also some jumbled similarities to Anakin's story as a whole - visions of the future prompt his turn, he has to sacrifice himself to stop Palpatine, he accidentally kills Padme, the father/son angle etc. If they were trying to make this arc foreshadow Anakin's life it didn't pull together properly.

 

[DarthPipes]

Great episode. The Chosen One trilogy was indeed epic. Great animation, voice acting, story, and themes. Loved the interaction between The Father and The Son and their twisted version of "there is still good in you". And of course, I loved Anakin's vision of the future and the fact that Alderaan's destruction was there. That sequence reminded me of the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark.

Cons...I didn't like that Anakin needed The Father's Deus Ex Machina to turn back from the Dark Side. I really would have liked to have seen turn back from the dark himself, leading everyone to think he overcame his own darkness. Though I understand why things had to be reset. Anakin and the Son would have wrecked even more destruction on the galaxy. Also, if made no sense of Ahsoka to be the one to fix the ship although I can understand wanting to have Anakin ready to protect everyone if the Son arrived. Was glad that Anakin killed The Son in the end.

BTW, I really hope Sam Witwer returns to the Clone Wars. He was excellent in this trilogy.

Interesting point someone brought up...if the Father believes the future is always in motion, what's the harm in Anakin seeing what he saw? I don't think he was destined to become Vader. He could change that. I certainly don't think he would have done what he did in ROTS if he knew how it would play out.

 

[Set Harth]

I think there are two ways to look at it: either it all happened in an instant

This... ( with Mortis still having been a Force nexus and the Son having been a potential threat, it's the Contact ending )

or it actually took place over the course of the entire saga, specifically the daughter dies prior to AotC to support the dark side being dominant by then, and the Son and Father die in RotJ to restore the force to balance.

...but not this. Because the Father even says that balance in the galaxy proper has yet to be achieved. This distinguishes it from the balance in Mortis, but Anakin ends up doing the same thing in both cases to achieve balance: destroying the instrument of the dark side, the "super-Sith" or equivalent.

 

[fett51]

Because the Father even says that balance in the galaxy proper has yet to be achieved. This distinguishes it from the balance in Mortis, but Anakin ends up doing the same thing in both cases to achieve balance: destroying the instrument of the dark side, the "super-Sith" or equivalent.

I recall him saying the balance was broken right after the Daughter died. When did he say it before that? The Father also mentioned war as a consequence of the Son dying, which really confused me last week.

 

[Set Harth]

I recall him saying the balance was broken right after the Daughter died. When did he say it before that?

I'm talking about what the Father said right before he died.

The Father also mentioned war as a consequence of the Son dying, which really confused me last week.

I don't think it was a consequence of the Son dying.

 

[fett51]

I'm talking about what the Father said right before he died.

Well yeah, Anakin's going back to before most of that happens in normal time. What else would he have said?

I don't think it was a consequence of the Son dying.

That's because I had a braino and meant Daughter. He said last week after she died that the Sith had gained strength and war would escalate in the galaxy. Both of which happened around AotC.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

WTF, that wasn't a "reset" - Anakin, Obi-Wan and Ahsoka all remember what happened (Anakin's comment at the end shows he definitely does) and most importantly, he remembers that he is the Chosen One and was able to control both the Dark and Light Sides of the Force, and what it means to have that control.

Just as he did for Mortis, so one day he must do for the Galaxy. The Father just wiped out the plot-spoiler future visions from his brain, and left all the rest. They couldn't very well have Anakin going all darkside this early in the show (and the way it was depicted was far too much like mind control anyway - Anakin needs to be depicted joining the Dark Side much more freely.)

It's now finally clear why Anakin later "falls" for Palps' manipulations. He didn't fall for them at all. He already knew what he was capable of, and must have been looking around for a long time, wondering how to put his power to use. Like I said, they now have 2 1/2 years to make the situation around Anakin spiral more and more out of control. By the time we get to the events of ROTS, his fall will not be a WTF head-scratcher but an inevitability. It is going to be a very interesting 2 1/2 years.

The hilarious thing is, this is the most important part of the prequel story. And Lucas didn't put it in the movies! Without this, the story makes zero sense. I guess we'll never know whether Lucas didn't think it was important, or maybe it was Dave Filoni's idea all along (I'm leaning towards the latter), but either way, I don't care. As long as TCW makes sense, that works for me.

At least they dispensed with the silly notion that Anakin fell because he was in a panic about Padme dying. That just made him look like a ninny. Now we know that was just the final straw in a very large pile of hay. The true reason was that he sees chaos all around him, unending war, personal problems, everything is massively frakked up, and he's the one guy in the cosmos who can put it right.

Even his demand to join the Jedi Council, which seemed like a tantrum of a spoiled brat in ROTS, now can be interpreted as justifiable. But again, ROTS is now wrong, because why didn't Obi-Wan understand why Anakin was making that demand? And why didn't Obi-Wan report everything that happened in these episodes to the Jedi Council? Did they think the three of them had a shared hallucination and it wasn't worth bothering anyone with? There's no way around it, they need to do their own TCW version of ROTS now, and tie the whole story up in its own internal continuity.

But ROTS is definitely wrong now. There's no way that Anakin could be so clueless in his scenes with Palps. They've destroyed Star Wars canon for good with this episode, and good for them for doing so!

I really would have liked to have seen turn back from the dark himself,

His "turn" to the Dark Side in this episode was a cheat, very parallel to what happened to Ahsoka, basically just magical mind control. It was too easy, and therefore had no dramatic weight. So to have his turn back to the Light also have no dramatic weight (just hokey amnesia) did make sense. His true turn will happen much later, after a lot of build-up in future episodes to give it dramatic weight that will be equivalent to what he finally does in ROTJ to claw his way back into the Light.

if the Father believes the future is always in motion, what's the harm in Anakin seeing what he saw? I don't think he was destined to become Vader. He could change that. I certainly don't think he would have done what he did in ROTS if he knew how it would play out.

You're right, that's the flaw in the episode. It's not plausible that thinking he'll do evil is what makes Anakin evil. The only plausible explanation is that he thinks he's beyond the Jedi and Sith definitions of good and evil, and ultimate power in his well-meaning hands will be a good thing. But the ultimate power thwaps him in the head because in the end, he's still just a mortal and he can't handle it.

It's also nice to see that the destruction of Alderaan has been laid at Vader's feet. I remember arguing with people here who thought Vader was somehow innocent and it was all Tarkin's fault! Vader apologists, what'll they think of next...

Another interesting detail - apparently the Force has a "will." Hmm.

TCW is turning out to not just be a good space opera series, but a great one, at least on the same level of Farscape and probably better. If they keep going like this, they'll be getting into DS9 territory.

Since we have this mega-thread, I'm going to play a little game and dig up my old comments to see how they've panned out.

From Nov 23:

So far, what Clone Wars isn't delivering is any sense that there's something grand and epic to the very idea of the Force. We have a grand and epic war, sure, but even that isn't very grand or epic since we know it's all a fraud and the participants (except for Palps) are chumps. It's high time we had more mythology built around the mystical or even theological aspects of the Force (light side and dark side alike). So far we've seen that it's a handy tool to use when swinging around a lightsaber. But it's gotta be a lot more than just that.

From Dec 8:

Here's how I'd nail down the canon of the Force:

- It has a will and an intelligence, but so far beyond human comprehension that those terms only vaguely apply. It doesn't communicate directly with anyone and it certainly doesn't take sides.

And lo and behold, this episode establishes that the Force does have a will! But if it's communicating with the humanoids of the galaxy, it's doing so in an extremely oblique way.

- It strives for balance (since everything in nature strives for balance) between the Dark and Light sides (why would it have any interest in human notions of morality? that should be so far beneath it, it would be like us worrying about the habits of ameoba).

And this arc definitely establishes that "balance" means balance between Light and Dark sides.

From Dec 10, regarding the Dark Side:

Possession/drug addiction can be in the mix, but the main idea behind the Dark Side has to be that evil is attractive. Anything else is a cop-out.

Oops, I got that one wrong. The Dark Side can also be attractive simply because it is one half of the total Force, which together with the Light Side can be harnessed to do good things. Do'h! I should have thought of that!

I've been complaining that the PT story has Anakin's fall as entirely psychological (due to the absence of the mystical dimension of the story), yet my imagined explanation was also fairly heavy on psychology.

TCW is streamlining things by reducing the psychological component still further and tossing most of the story into the mystical basket. The only psychological part of Anakin's fall is now that he's a good guy trying to stop bad things from happening and feels the responsibility to use the power that only he has - that's not a terribly unique type of personality, it's tending towards generic-hero territory, but that kind of streamlined approach feels right for Star Wars, akin to fairy tale or myth.

It's also touchingly similar to Luke's personality. In ROTS I could never believe that nasty punk could be at all related to wonderful Luke. But this Anakin is definitely Dad!

I think at this point, TCW has delivered everything that it has needed to. It's transformed Anakin's depiction from horrible tantrum prone punk to likeable, fun, terrific hero. It's fleshed out the political landscape by depicting the Republic as having problems that could cause the war, and Separatists who have reasonable motives for leaving. And it's made clear that the personal and political dimensions of the story are mere sideshows, in favor of the mystical story, which is the true reason for Anakin's fall. The real story takes place in his head. Now all that's left is to enjoy the rest of this epic saga as it unfolds - we're only about at the halfway mark right now.

Sorry for ranting at great length about this, I'm too excited to shut up.