Clone Wars, S1

[Temis the Vorta]

This is the thread for discussing Season One of Clone Wars. (Please code spoilers for subsequent seasons in this thread.)

Originally I watched just the first episode and got a negative impression that it was a) just a lot of fighting and b) I hated the animation style. But I gave it another shot and my attitude has done a 180 or at least a 175. Which I suspected would happen if I just accepted the parts I don't like - cartoon villains, dopey battle droids as enemy cannon fodder, and the essentially interchangeable clones, not to mention the moral issue that is being glossed over by their presence in the story. I just have to stop wanting CW to be the Star Trek TV series that I’m increasingly desperate to see.

First off, I appreciate the newsreel-style recaps at the beginning of each episode. They're a nice reminder that Star Wars hails from the tradition of old late-20s and 30s space opera serials, and even though the text crawl is famous, it would be a clumsy way of conveying the same information. The fortune-cookie aphorisms at the beginning of each episode are pretty silly, though.

The “blue shadow virus” storyline near the end of S1 is a good example of what I’ve been wanting to see from Star Wars. The premise that the heroes have to rescue their friends, trapped and dying from a virus unleashed by a mad scientists, which takes the heroes to a forbidden planet where they battle giant ferocious fanged Venus fly traps to secure the cure is just about as Flash Gordon-y of a story as you could hope for! Star Wars has returned to its B-movie space opera roots, and I love it!

The Ryloth stories and "Hostage Crisis" at the end of the season have allayed any fears I might have that there would be a lack of complexity in either the characters or the political makeup of the Republic. There is a maturity and depth to these stories that I associate more with DS9 than with Star Wars, and all the crazy, colorful and humorous characters are on full display.

A couple episodes into the season, I was thinking, "yeah I can live with this, even if it's really just for kids." But as the season went along, I started to see the larger picture accumulating - that there's more depth and sophistication to this series than you would expect in a show that's "for kids." By the last six or so episodes of the season, Clone Wars really started to click as a very worthwhile addition to the Star Wars saga that had value entirely beyond the moving-plastic-at-Toys-R-Us level I'd figured the franchise had stalled out at.

I really appreciate the attention to detail, whether its a mini-AT-AT Walker being used to gallop across the plains, a Twi'lek doll with a couple of cute little "tails" on its head, or a bounty hunter with the good sense to attach some doohickeys to his neck to keep himself from being Force-choked when going into battle with Jedi. This series is being made by people who actually think about what they're showing on the screen - HOORAY!

For a little emotional and psychological depth, we have a (believable at long last!) forbidden romance at the core of the story. Just one brief glimpse of Anakin and Padme surreptitiously holding hands is more romantic than the sand-loads of bad dialogue and anti-chemistry the PT inflicted on us. Romance doesn’t seem to be the priority of this show, but they’re not doing it half bad, and shouldn’t be shy about developing this part of the story.

The other thread that might lead interesting places is Obi-Wan and Anakin’s differing views of how a Jedi should behave. Rather than lecture Anakin about being able to adopt an attitude of compassion towards all but attachment to none, Obi-Wan just admits to being able to “hide it better.” Is the Jedi way so inhuman that the only way to pull it off is by living an emotionally fraudulent life?

I love the way they write, voice-act and animate Anakin - if I'm not mistaken, his look is based on an adult Jake Lloyd, who being less of a pretty-boy type than Hayden Christensen, is far closer to my idea of how the guy who becomes Vader should look - more masculine, a bit brutish (it's the forehead) and with intense, striking eyes. I’ve always had trouble envisioning the actors playing Anakin ever being the guy in the big, black suit but several times, the animators have used lighting and expression to depict Anakin in a strikingly scary way, that does match the guy in the suit. Then the scene changes and we’re back to nice-guy Anakin.

The character is likable and heroic, which is how Anakin should have started out. Sure, he's overconfident and breaks rules, and occasionally behaves a bit more violently than the other Jedi, but that's a long long ways from blowing up planets. He cares greatly about Padme and Ashoka of course, but also about the lives of Clone Troopers and Artoo, while Vader just sees everyone as disposable in his quest for ever greater power - how the heck does that transition occur?

Anakin is a huge improvement over the film strategy of making him a surly, stalker-ish brat from the outset, but leaves open the problem of how is Filoni going to realistically start to move him to the Dark Side, which needs to start to happen a couple of seasons before the series end for plausibility's sake. I’ve been told that ‘something’ emerges along these lines in S2, so I’ll sit tight and wait. (Code those spoilers please.)

Considering the barren desert sci fi on TV has become, it is a welcome surprise to discover a space opera series that can really deliver both entertainment and as much depth as you can hope for from a show that is expected to appeal to viewers from 8 to 88 years old. I'm eagerly awaiting the release of S2 later this month and I have many more things to discuss about S1, but I guess I should pace myself, so I'll cut it off here. Thanks, TrekBBS, for not letting me give up on this series after one episode!

Bottom line: For the first time since the end of ROTJ (I don't even want to think how long ago that was), I'm fairly excited about Star Wars again. I have some issues with the series, but it's good and it's space opera and given how little of that is around nowadays, I'll just shut up and be happy.

 

[Mr Light]

while Vader just sees everyone as disposable in his quest for ever greater power - how the heck does that transition occur?

Are you referring to Vader killing off some of the admirals in the movies? Maybe it's just novel retro-continuity, but Vader always remained intensely loyal to ground soldiers and had a disdain for spoiled admirals who needlessly waste their lives. Like in ESB when the one guy brought the fleet in too close to Hoth, alerting the Rebels, thus ensuring the ground troops would met with a prepared resistance.

 

[Greylock Crescent]

A couple episodes into the season, I was thinking, "yeah I can live with this, even if it's really just for kids." But as the season went along, I started to see the larger picture accumulating - that there's more depth and sophistication to this series than you would expect in a show that's "for kids." By the last six or so episodes of the season, Clone Wars really started to click as a very worthwhile addition to the Star Wars saga that had value entirely beyond the moving-plastic-at-Toys-R-Us level I'd figured the franchise had stalled out at.

[...]This series is being made by people who actually think about what they're showing on the screen - HOORAY!

I've been saying this for a while now, and it's nice to get another convert! The Clone Wars is actually a fairly well-constructed series with a lot more depth than would seem possible. Obviously it suffers from the bad stigma of the PT, the admittedly awkward character design and the oft-silly aphorisms (though, occasionally, I find that they fit the story nicely). But the writers take these episodes seriously. And the results are fairly impressive, given the format. Put simply, this is a more mature series than one would expect. It isn't merely a "kids show."

And I agree, The Clone Wars seems more like "real" Star Wars than the prequels ever did. The trend continues right through season 2. Season 3 hasn't featured the same level of action as the first two, but thus far it has focused rather heavily on political and moral issues.

 

[Mr Light]

Yeah of the first six S3 episodes only one has been a proper war episode

 

[Temis the Vorta]

Are you referring to Vader killing off some of the admirals in the movies? Maybe it's just novel retro-continuity, but Vader always remained intensely loyal to ground soldiers and had a disdain for spoiled admirals who needlessly waste their lives.

I haven't read any novels and from the OT, I never got a strong sense that Vader really cares about the common troops. Maybe I missed that nuance in ESB - it's been a while since I've seen it. But Vader is part of a war machine that blithely blows up whole planets, so it's hard to believe he has much empathy for anyone, certainly not compared with Anakin, whose problem seems to be that he's incapable of the chilly emotional distancing expected of Jedi.

At this point, I'm thinking that the only way to make the transition is for the tension between who he is and what's expected of him simply drives him insane, but I'd prefer the explanation stop short of full blown mental illness.

Maybe it's the OT that also needs some fleshing out, to get the guy in the big black suit to synch up better with Clone Wars Anakin. The OT Vader isn't getting the advantage of a five-season TV series to let us understand that he's more than some guy who goes around choking people and shaking his fist. I wouldn't at all mind the idea of a Clone Wars style series in the OT era.

Just btw, was the kid from the Planet of a Thousand Moons supposed to be ten-year-old Han Solo with an alias? Because they sure drew and wrote him to give that impression. Maybe he was a bit more tech savvy than we think of in Han's case, but after all, he kept the Falcon flying, so he had to be handy with a socket wrench.

And I'm starting to get over my aversion to the noble Jedi fighting a bunch of droids, which I hated because I thought it was a cheap way of avoiding the moral issue of killing hordes of sentient beings. The droids are being more and more depicted as sentient beings, with individuality, humor and the ability to be eeevil (the tactical droids, which I think there are more than one of?)

Yeah of the first six S3 episodes only one has been a proper war episode

Fine with me, there's no reason this series needs to be All War, All the Time, which most of S1 was, and I was starting to find it downright tedious. I'd like to see it follow the pattern of DS9, where there's a big war in the background that the characters never forget about, but isn't always the main topic of the episode.

The problem with the war is that the clone troopers will never be fully fledged characters with individual stories, which makes Band of Brothers type in-depth war stories interesting. Except for Anakin, the Jedi are so repressed and emotionally vacant that I don't find them fascinating characters either.

But Clone Wars has solved the PT problem of having a political landscape that makes no sense. Now things do make more sense - Palps' phoney war offers opportunities to various galactic rogues, who are jumping into the fray to try to carve out or expand their sordid little fiefdoms, and they're keeping the Jedi busy. Even if Palps wasn't behind all this, I can easily see how holding a galaxy-spanning Republic together would be a monumentally difficult task, especially since Clone Wars is doing a great job of resurrecing the idea that the galaxy is colorful and crazy, filled with self-serving, devious, manipulative and hilarious types like that Hutt (was he called Zero the Hutt?) that Cade Bane rescued.

 

[JediKnightButler]

The character is likable and heroic, which is how Anakin should have started out. Sure, he's overconfident and breaks rules, and occasionally behaves a bit more violently than the other Jedi, but that's a long long ways from blowing up planets. He cares greatly about Padme and Ashoka of course, but also about the lives of Clone Troopers and Artoo, while Vader just sees everyone as disposable in his quest for ever greater power - how the heck does that transition occur?

Anakin is a huge improvement over the film strategy of making him a surly, stalker-ish brat from the outset, but leaves open the problem of how is Filoni going to realistically start to move him to the Dark Side, which needs to start to happen a couple of seasons before the series end for plausibility's sake. I’ve been told that ‘something’ emerges along these lines in S2, so I’ll sit tight and wait. (Code those spoilers please.)

Glad you're enjoying the show. I'm a big fan of the show myself and enjoyed the first two seasons immensely. I haven't started on season 3 yet since I had to ditch cable this past summer but I've been following the previews of each episode on iTunes and may download one if one comes up that looks particularly interesting. I've heard that they are going to bring the Night Sisters of Dathomir into the storyline at some point (characters featured in the EU novel "The Courtship of Princess Leia")

As to your feelings about Anakin, he is given a lot more depth and better characterization in the series than in the films, although Lucas only had about two movies to flesh him out and move him towards the dark side, some of which worked, some of which, frankly, didn't. My understanding is that season 3 is going to have him moving towards the dark side a little more but what will actually happen that moves him towards the dark side remains to be seen though I have my suspicions that it has something to do with Ashoka's "absence" from the rest of the Star Wars series. We know that Anakin doesn't handle loss (or the possibility thereof) very well. We shall see.

If you want some good reading about Anakin's transformation into the Darth Vader we see in the OT, a good novel to check out would be James Luceno's "Dark Lord:The Rise of Darth Vader". It is set a few weeks after the events featured in ROTS and does a good job IMHO of illustrating his psychological transformation from Jedi Knight Anakin Skywalker into the Dark Lord of the Sith Darth Vader. There are also some cameo appearances by Bail Organa, C-3P0, Tarkin, Chewbacca(?), and even Obi-Wan Kenobi, as well as some new Jedi and non-Jedi characters featured in the story. Well worth checking out, especially in audiobook format.

 

[Mr Light]

But Vader is part of a war machine that blithely blows up whole planets, so it's hard to believe he has much empathy for anyone, certainly not compared with Anakin, whose problem seems to be that he's incapable of the chilly emotional distancing expected of Jedi.

Recall that Vader chided the admirals for their pride in the Death Star. "Don't be too proud of this technological terror you've created. The ability to destroy an entire planet pales in significance to the power of the Force".

Vader basically believed in the Empire delivering the justice that the galaxy needed, saving it from the in-fighting and corruption he witnessed first hand in the Clone Wars. So naturally he's going to feel pretty blood-thirsty when it comes to that dirty rebel scum that's threatening his new world order of peace through terror.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

Recall that Vader chided the admirals for their pride in the Death Star. "Don't be too proud of this technological terror you've created. The ability to destroy an entire planet pales in significance to the power of the Force".

I intrepreted that as meaning, he believes in his "ancient religion" and thinks the secular normal people around him are just clueless. He probably sees them as mere hangers-on, who benefit from the way he can tap into the Force, and he treats them with the contempt they deserve. They do seem like a bunch of little maggots in uniform, except for Tarkin. The Empire obviously attracts a despicable sort of person in its supporters (except for the stormtroopers, who I see largely as a bunch of clueless recruits with maybe some adventurers and thugs scattered among them).

I got the impression from the OT that Vader has respect only for fellow Force users, which explains his loyalty to the Emperor and his efforts to recruit his kids (Force users are rare, it's stupid to kill them unless there's no option). But I never got any impression he gives a flip about the stormtroopers.

Vader basically believed in the Empire delivering the justice that the galaxy needed, saving it from the in-fighting and corruption he witnessed first hand in the Clone Wars.

That must have been from the PT, where Anakin was depicted as such a stupid, surly brat that I didn't pay much attention to his opinions on that or any other topic. However, if Clone Wars wants to take their Anakin in that direction, more power to them!

The Republic has some obvious problems - their inability to recruit their own citizens to defend it is a big red flag - and the way the Jedi have set up their organization is inhuman, bizarre and creepy. I'm 100% behind Anakin if he wants to shake everything up.

I think they need to do some more work to convince me that the Republic is really all that bad - so far, it's just the clone thing that seems weird, and I could be misinterpreting that. Maybe Republic citizens would fight for it, but haven't been asked? It's not the Republic so much as the Jedi that need to be looked at. How can they expect their people to behave like monks when the genders aren't segregated and they throw them into battle, which is famous for creating very intense bonds of personal loyalty? They are begging for trouble!

Then the problem becomes convincing me that Darth Vader is the bad guy later on, and even if he thinks Palps is a useful ally to help in his revolution, why wouldn't Vader immediately start trying to screw Palps over, considering that the two of them have radically different philosophies about what's the right way to organize a society?

If Anakin and Vader have essentially the same worldview, and they should, that means using power to cleanse the Republic but return it to a form of democracy, not leave it under Palps' iron fist.

 

[Mr Light]

If I recall the novelization of ROTS correctly, Anakin was planning to overthrow Sidious once he saved Padme but then he ended up crippled and severely depowered. After all if it is the presence of midichlorians in your blood that gives you Force power, and he just lost all four of his extremities, his M-C count probably just fell by half, explaining why he's so weak and slow in the OT.

The novels tend to lend more three dimensional interpretations of the movie characters. One Star Wars novel revealed that Sidious wasn't evil at all. He had a Force vision of an invincible extragalactic alien invasion and knew he had to transform the weak Republic into a militaristic Empire capable of repelling the invaders.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

If I recall the novelization of ROTS correctly, Anakin was planning to overthrow Sidious once he saved Padme but then he ended up crippled and severely depowered.

I never read the novel, but that makes no sense. Vader never acted crippled or depowered in the OT. He acted like he was the Emperor's loyal servant and at the height of his powers, so why would he have been weaker 20 years before, when he was much younger? This is just more evidence that the PT was a hopeless mess.

What does make sense: Anakin figured he'd use Palps to seize power and then stab him in the back. The only thing that changed in the equation was that if he was counting on the kids to be part of the plan, he had to assume that they were dead (apparently without investigating things like whether Padme gave birth very thoroughly, despite having the whole Imperial intelligence system at his beck and call) but even then, they couldn't have been a factor for a couple decades, so what exactly did he plan to do in the meantime? Maybe cool his heels and ride the Emperor's coattails for twenty years.

That's fine if you assume Anakin was just power-hungry and as evil as Palps, but makes no sense if you think he wanted to become some sort of revolutionary and overthrow the Emperor. In that case, he wouldn't be riding the Emperor's coattails, merrily blowing up planets along the way. He'd spend those 20 years doing everything in his power to undermine Palps, and long before ANH came along, the conflict would have blown wide open and one of them would be dead and the other victorious.

There's just no way for this story to make sense and for Anakin to come off as the good guy. He wasn't depowered, he was perfectly powerful and doing the Emperor's evil bidding for 20 years. Then when he found out one of his kids was alive, he decided to stab the Emperor in the back, but he wasn't about to leave the dark side. He tried to convince Luke to join the dark side. He just didn't want to be second banana any more. He never had anyone's best interests at heart but his own. Maybe he had some fatherly feelings for his kids, but that's as far as it went.

After all if it is the presence of midichlorians in your blood that gives you Force power, and he just lost all four of his extremities, his M-C count probably just fell by half, explaining why he's so weak and slow in the OT.

The midichlorians are total BS as an explanation for anything, and for it to all come down to the volume of blood you have in your body makes even less sense because that would mean little Yoda, who presumably has far less blood than a big guy like Anakin, even without his limbs, would be a poor excuse for a Jedi, and in fact he was dead wrong when he told Luke not to judge him by his size. Since the midichlorians are running everything, it makes complete sense that a bigger Jedi is a stronger Jedi.

The novels tend to lend more three dimensional interpretations of the movie characters.

They may be three dimensional, but if it's three dimensions of nonsense, that's not much of an improvement.

 

[Whofan]

As for why the Republic doesn't enlist it's own citizens, apparentally the senate were going to do that (The vote Padme was going to do in AOTC), but they got an instant army all ready and trained with the clones.

The Republic doesn't have an army beforehand, according to the EU each planet sort of has a milita (like Naboo's in TPM) and of course the Jedi Knights are there, but that's it. The explanation often given is that once the Sith were gone the Republic grew overconfident and retired it's military.

As for Vader's powers, apparentally he does have most force powers, but he can't do Sith lightning because he has no real hands. Also force powers do have a physical toll (mainly exhaustion) as we've seen in some of the films. So using too much of the force might be too exhausting for what's left of Vader. Just a theory, that.

 

[Python Trek]

Clone Wars isn't bad, but I wonder if I would enjoy it a helluva lot less if I didn't have two kids saying, "Hey, dad! Let's watch Clone Wars!". I see it through their eyes (they're ten and seven), so it doesn't suck quite as badly as it otherwise might.

Interestingly, my kids enjoy the this Clone Wars 'toon series and the previous one much more than they enjoy the PT, although they do enjoy ROTS quite a bit, especially the first half hour. To their credit, they do enjoy the OT, as well.

 

[Mr Light]

Vader could barely defeat an old man and a novice who had a modicum of training, he was slow as hell and could barely use his TK powers. Compare this to his invincible superhuman feats in the prequels and in the Clone Wars micro-series. He clearly lost a great deal of his power. The "Dark Lord" novel goes into this in detail, how he can barely move in the suit and every movement is agony for him.

Just look at how fast he moves in the ROTJ duel with Luke versus how fast he moves in the ROTS duel with Obi-Wan.

 

[Greylock Crescent]

^ I chalk that up to one of the fundamental discrepancies between the OT & PT. Heck, even Palpatine was doing swirls and twists and flips and such in the PT. And no one in the OT could do that? Really?

I see it more as a stylistic difference than informing us about the realities of the characters themselves.

 

[Mr Light]

By ROTJ Palpatine's body was ravaged by the dark side and it was time to move into a new clone body. Which he did so, in Dark Empire

 

[Greylock Crescent]

That doesn't change the fact that, during the OT, lightsabers were treated as having the heft of heavy swords while in the PT characters were twirling them like rapiers. The fundamental differences in what we see between the OT & PT were based far more on stylistic decisions rather than character development decisions.

Besides, having to explain the discrepancies in the films with EU material just doesn't do anything for me. I like The Clone Wars not only for being a fairly intelligent show, but also for how well it expands on the films -- it even feels more like Star Wars than the prequels -- but no matter how creative The Clone Wars gets, it still cannot compensate for the problems in the films (one of which is the depiction of Force Users between the OT & PT).

 

[Silvercrest]

He probably sees them as mere hangers-on, who benefit from the way he can tap into the Force, and he treats them with the contempt they deserve. They do seem like a bunch of little maggots in uniform, except for Tarkin.

Not in every case. Admiral Yularen is one of the people in that room. He seems to be a competent officer in Clone Wars. Although who knows what he's like after twenty years, or what Vader thinks of him.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

Vader could barely defeat an old man and a novice who had a modicum of training, he was slow as hell and could barely use his TK powers. Compare this to his invincible superhuman feats in the prequels and in the Clone Wars micro-series. He clearly lost a great deal of his power. The "Dark Lord" novel goes into this in detail, how he can barely move in the suit and every movement is agony for him.

Just look at how fast he moves in the ROTJ duel with Luke versus how fast he moves in the ROTS duel with Obi-Wan.

That's because the OT duels were lame in comparison with modern expectations, because there were no modern expectations at the time. When I originally saw them, I didn't think there was anything unusually slow-moving or pathetic about them, and I don't remember anyone complaining, yet they look idiotic now. If they were re-done now, everyone would be flipping around like jackrabbits. Luke was young and strong, yet he's nothing compared with what people expect to see nowadays.

^ I chalk that up to one of the fundamental discrepancies between the OT & PT. Heck, even Palpatine was doing swirls and twists and flips and such in the PT. And no one in the OT could do that? Really?

Yep, the real explanation is that nobody put that much effort into fight choreography in prehistoric times when the movies were originally released. We were all so very, very easy to please.

But the real issue is: do we want Vader to be a pathetic, decrepit old man who can barely lift a lightsaber? Or do we want him to bounce right off the operating table with his amazing new bionic limbs and a full charge of midi-whozits as a terrifying killer robot-Sith who is ready to rip the galaxy apart with his bare teeth? I know which one makes a better villain, that's for sure. Turning Vader into a wuss in a sad bid for audience sympathy is just about the worst idea Lucas has ever had, and yes that includes Jar-Jar and Greedo Shoots First. Luke is wuss enough for the entire Skywalker family. Let Vader keep what made him cool.

I like The Clone Wars not only for being a fairly intelligent show, but also for how well it expands on the films -- it even feels more like Star Wars than the prequels -- but no matter how creative The Clone Wars gets, it still cannot compensate for the problems in the films (one of which is the depiction of Force Users between the OT & PT).

Absolutely, Clone Wars feels a lot more like Star Wars than the PT ever did, but I'm also noticing that Clone Wars manages to sidestep the problems with the PT. The idea of a clone army may be morally questionable, but the show just accepts it as a basis, and dabbles a bit in the morality issue. Padme, being intelligent and responsible, should realize that ignoring Jedi rules of celibacy is stupid, because those rules have a reason to exist, but the show doesn't deal with or dwell on that issue.

Which leads to the interesting possibility of Clone Wars starting to undo some of the damage. Maybe Padme doesn't really understand or respect Jedi rules. Maybe nobody except the Jedi really thinks those rules have any value.

Maybe a lot of people are uncomfortable with the idea of clones as cannon fodder, but are not sure what to do about it. Maybe we'll see some efforts in the Senate or among the general population to start phasing out the clones and replacing them with regular recruits, and instituting programs to give the poor guys some options in their career choices.

With five seasons to work with, there's gonna be a need for a greater range of story topics than just fighting all the time. And it goes without saying that Anakin's fall can be treated with a great deal more nuance and hopefully plausibility.

Admiral Yularen is one of the people in that room. He seems to be a competent officer in Clone Wars.

Is he the guy with the British accent and the mustache? I've been wondering why he keeps popping up.

 

[Hound of UIster]

^ I chalk that up to one of the fundamental discrepancies between the OT & PT. Heck, even Palpatine was doing swirls and twists and flips and such in the PT. And no one in the OT could do that? Really?

I see it more as a stylistic difference than informing us about the realities of the characters themselves.

Palpatine didn't expect Vader to betray him.

His entire weakness or shatterpoint was that he absolutely trusted Anakin to act as his pawn.

 

[Silvercrest]

Admiral Yularen is one of the people in that room. He seems to be a competent officer in Clone Wars.

Is he the guy with the British accent and the mustache? I've been wondering why he keeps popping up.

I like referring to him as "Admiral Cleese." Easier to remember.

I don't know whether 1) they intentionally created him in Clone Wars to give a backstory to the guy in the Death Star briefing room (whom you can barely even see), or 2) they spotted the guy in the briefing room, took the existing Clone Wars character, and connected them by announcing they were the same person.