Clone Wars S2

[Set Harth]

Clone Wars at least proves how good the PT era can be when Lucas isn't writing it.

Especially the latest episode, which featured the animated debut of Quinlan Vos, along with other gems such as Sy Snootles in a relationship with Ziro the Hutt, Ziro the Hutt's obese-even-by-Hutt-standards Southern-fried mother ( voiced by a black man ), and a musical number which turned out to be the Huttese version of Anything Goes as seen in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. This is the stuff that was really lacking in the prequels.

 

[Mr Light]

The entire time I was watching the Prequels I kept saying to myself, "this needs more musical numbers!"

 

[Temis the Vorta]

Hey this is for S2 episodes, no spoilers!

...I have heard about the Hutt musical, tho. Looking forward to it in a few weeks or possibly months...

 

[fett51]

Especially the latest episode, which featured the animated debut of Quinlan Vos, along with other gems such as Sy Snootles in a relationship with Ziro the Hutt, Ziro the Hutt's obese-even-by-Hutt-standards Southern-fried mother ( voiced by a black man ), and a musical number which turned out to be the Huttese version of Anything Goes as seen in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. This is the stuff that was really lacking in the prequels.

It's obviously not a perfect show, but I'll still take 2 minutes of Mama the Hutt over 2 hours of Jar Jar or horrific romance dialogue any day of the week. However your response here highlights another strength of clone wars over the PT movies - bad episodes are forgettable and generally have no impact on the overall canon. Meanwhile, we get lines like "Senators, I assume you are all acquainted with the collection of half-truths and hyperbole known as Obi-wan Kenobi?" as opposed to "You look beautiful." "It's only because I'm so in love with you." "No it's because I'm so in love with you." "So love has blinded you?"

Yeah, I'll stick with my morbidly obese hermaphroditic Hutt, thanks.

 

[Set Harth]

The show's way ahead on interspecies romance, I'll give it that. Lucas simply didn't have the cojones for that one.

It's obviously not a perfect show

The phrase you're looking for is "jumping the shark".

However your response here highlights another strength of clone wars over the PT movies - bad episodes are forgettable and generally have no impact on the overall canon.

So that's really nothing more than an expression of preference for one medium relative to another, excusing lower overall quality due to the presumed ability to "jettison" episodes. As far as having no impact on the overall canon, I always said returning to the Clone Wars was unnecessary.

 

[fett51]

The phrase you're looking for is "jumping the shark"

I might be, had star wars as a whole not jumped the shark in 1983 when teddy bears overthrew the Empire. If I couldn't deal with the more whacked out elements I wouldn't still be a fan.

So that's really nothing more than an expression of preference for one medium relative to another, excusing lower overall quality due to the presumed ability to "jettison" episodes. As far as having no impact on the overall canon, I always said returning to the Clone Wars was unnecessary.

No, the ability to jettison episodes is a bonus, that they keep their ridiculousness contained (like for example if episode 1 had ditched Jar Jar before leaving Naboo) speaks better of the writers ability to be critical of their own work. I picked on Jar Jar and romance as examples because they're both things Clone Wars handles better than the films. Why? Good writing.

Clone Wars isn't relevant to the Anakin side of the story, no. That's precisely why Lucas skipped over it. But it is relevant if you're interested in the universe or other characters, which I and a great many other people are.

 

[Set Harth]

I might be, had star wars as a whole not jumped the shark in 1983 when teddy bears overthrew the Empire.

All I'm saying is that when Arthur Fonzarelli looks at Season 3 of The Clone Wars, he turns green with envy.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

Clone Wars has stuff I like in it. PT doesn't. Simple, really.

Any chance they might do AOTC flashbacks in Clone Wars and give us some decent dialogue and convincing scenes to overwrite my memories of the putrid Anakin-Padme blather?

Clone Wars isn't relevant to the Anakin side of the story, no. That's precisely why Lucas skipped over it.

It's relevant to making me buy the Anakin side of the story, which I never have but I'm starting to now. A successful story isn't just a writer saying X is true, it's also the audience believing that X is true.

It's relevant to making me buy the notion that Anakin is someone a) Padme would fall in love with and b) Obi-Wan would call a friend, also something I never believed until now.

It's also doing a better job than the PT of depicting Obi-Wan as being someone I can buy as the same guy played by Alec Guinness in the OT.

And I'm not even done with S2 yet. I can also see other things Clone Wars may contribute something positive to, such as a more convincing basis for Anakin's belief that democracy is stupid (depending on just how badly the Republic is going to be depicted; I still can't tell whether I'm supposed to be thinking of it as hopelessly corrupt and vile because of such things as using clones as cannon fodder).

Also, by portraying Anakin as someone who is capable of caring about someone other than himself, the relationship between Anakin and Palps, which frankly confused me in ROTS, is making more sense because of Clone Wars.

Basically, Clone Wars is providing a lot of the story that Lucas needed to, but forgot to do/didn't realize he needed to. And it's not just a question of only having 6 hours for the movies because the movies had a lot of extraneous stuff. All the stuff with Anakin as a kid could have been ditched if you ditched the psychological BS, which doesn't really belong in Star Wars anyway, and came up with a more appropriate reason for his fall to the dark side (love of power, hatred of rules, and no respect for democracy sounds perfectly workable to me - honestly, his mother never even needed to be in the story, she could have been long dead before the story starts). Lose that, and you free up two full hours to get into the material that Anakin's story needs in order to be successful.

 

[Set Harth]

Also, by portraying Anakin as someone who is capable of caring about someone other than himself

Which the PT did quite blatantly, assuming the viewer wasn't too distracted by Jar Jar and sand to pay attention.

All the stuff with Anakin as a kid could have been ditched if you ditched the psychological BS, which doesn't really belong in Star Wars anyway, and came up with a more appropriate reason for his fall to the dark side (love of power, hatred of rules, and no respect for democracy

All of which have no psychological dimension whatsoever. But this could be more concisely rephrased as "Children in films should be seen and not heard. Kid characters piss off the audience and Lucas is a douche for not knowing that."

honestly, his mother never even needed to be in the story, she could have been long dead before the story starts).

Isn't it unfortunate that the story didn't conveniently jettison those parts which contradict your representation?

 

[fett51]

Also, by portraying Anakin as someone who is capable of caring about someone other than himself

Which the PT did quite blatantly, assuming the viewer wasn't too distracted by Jar Jar and sand to pay attention.

Oh? Anakin as a kid perhaps, but if Hayden-Anakin ever made one truly selfless choice I didn't see it. Much of what people put down to as caring about others looks to me like possessively guarding his attachments to the point of total disregard of the person's wishes.

 

[DarthPipes]

Wow! Sounds great! I better finish up with S2 and burn thru my saved up S3 eps so I can catch up to the regular review threads in time for the good stuff.

I've been very impressed at how grown-up this series is, which amazes me, since the Neilsens ratings track the 6-11 and 9-14 age groups (it's doing very well btw). If that's how they make their money, then any effort spent on grown-up issues like Obi-Wan and Satine's regret about their past or Senate politics is "wasted" effort. I guess at the worst, the grown-up stuff isn't alienating the kids.

Here's another topic they could start exploring more: put Anakin and Palps in more scenes together. So far, they haven't had a lot to do with each other, except for some passing scenes, such as Anakin putting more reverence into his greeting of Palps than you'd expect from the guy, and Palps' complement about Anakin's tenacity delivered via Bail Organa.

I can't imagine that Anakin thinks much of Palps, other than perhaps a generalized respect for the office of Chancellor, since all he's seeing is Palps' pose of being a genial but ineffective old coot. Anakin respects strength but maybe he'd be well inclined towards Palps, for starters for not being on the Jedi Council and therefore not always telling him what to do. Not appearing to be the kind of guy who would ever tell him what to do would also be appealing to Anakin.

For the sake of the future plotline, I feel like the writers need to be more convincing that Anakin genuinely likes Palps long before he realizes the truth. Palps obviously has his eye on Anakin already as being potentially useful to his overall plan, but what's going to lure Anakin in?

One idea: if Palps can appeal to him to help fend off his many treasonous enemies in the Senate who are trying to sabotage the war effort. Palps needs to be very careful here, so as not to disrupt the illusion of being a hapless old guy who is barely holding things together. He needs to get Anakin to think "this guy needs my help or it'll be total chaos."

Even better if the Jedi Council is starting to have their suspicions about Palps, which Palps can use: "Even the Jedi are turning against me! Woe is me!" Anakin will definitely feel sympathy for anyone who is having trouble with the overly rigid and pigheaded Jedi Council.

Palps needs to set himself up as the one guy who knows what needs to be done (more war! Anakin will love that) and is beset by shortsighted or traitorous enemies on all sides, in a desperate fight that is almost certainly doomed to failure, but will be amazingly glorious if, against all odds, they succeed. That is exactly the type of situation that Anakin will not be able to resist jumping into.

From what we saw in the prequels, Anakin genuinely likes and respects Palpatine. We don't see much of them together in AOTC but it's clear that Anakin respects his opinion. ROTS does cement the relationship between the two although I do agree there needs to be more Anakin/Palpatine in the series.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

Also, by portraying Anakin as someone who is capable of caring about someone other than himself

Which the PT did quite blatantly, assuming the viewer wasn't too distracted by Jar Jar and sand to pay attention.

Funny I guess I missed that part. The kid seemed sweet enough but grownup Anakin was a self-centered twerp from first to last. Something awful happened to him between the first and second movies, but not something interestingly awful, alas.

All the stuff with Anakin as a kid could have been ditched if you ditched the psychological BS, which doesn't really belong in Star Wars anyway, and came up with a more appropriate reason for his fall to the dark side (love of power, hatred of rules, and no respect for democracy

All of which have no psychological dimension whatsoever.

Somewhat, but not obnoxiously so. The idea here is not to annoy the audience by creating a weakling who the audience mocks and despises, and who cannot be connected up plausibly with Vader later on. Whatever psychology that takes is what should have been implemented. Lucas was wildly on the wrong track.

But this could be more concisely rephrased as "Children in films should be seen and not heard. Kid characters piss off the audience and Lucas is a douche for not knowing that."

Useless kid characters piss of the audience, sure. But most of the damage was done by Hayden Christensen anyway.

honestly, his mother never even needed to be in the story, she could have been long dead before the story starts).

Isn't it unfortunate that the story didn't conveniently jettison those parts which contradict your representation?

I have no idea what the fuck that even means. But it's a good idea to jettison parts of a story that don't work and just drag things down, yeah.

Much of what people put down to as caring about others looks to me like possessively guarding his attachments to the point of total disregard of the person's wishes.

Yep. I don't know whether this happened because Christensen was incapable of any other performance besides "off-putting creep" or because Lucas directed him to perform the character like that, but I never got any sense that Anakin was anything other than completely self-centered. He was definitely incapable of authentic love, which made his romance with Padme very creepy and also made Padme look like an oblivious moron. I cannot believe Lucas actually intended all that.

Since Clone Wars has done a 180 on that aspect of the character in particular, either Lucas never intended Anakin to be performed that way, and simply made a horrific casting choice that sabotaged the character, or he has repented his earlier mischaracterization of the poor guy and is using Clone Wars to make amends. Either way, I'm more than willing to forget and forgive.

From what we saw in the prequels, Anakin genuinely likes and respects Palpatine. We don't see much of them together in AOTC but it's clear that Anakin respects his opinion. ROTS does cement the relationship between the two although I do agree there needs to be more Anakin/Palpatine in the series.

The movies basically tell us that Anakin likes and respects Palps, but doesn't provide the underlying rationale for why he should do so, other than that Anakin likes being flattered, which is the wrong way to spin the situation since it implies that Anakin is shallow and stupid. Poor Anakin already was being portrayed as a dumbshit kid, and we didn't need more bad writing piling on that characterization.

It wouldn't have been terribly difficult to give us some plausible scenes that will set up that relationship, but we didn't get those scenes. The PT is a laundry list of a) scenes we needed and didn't get and b) scenes we got that weren't needed and didn't work.

 

[DarthPipes]

You do raise an interesting point. Anakin mentions that he hates politics and how nothing gets done. By that rationale, shouldn't he hate Palpatine who would come across to everyone who doesn't know he's a Sith an an ineffective politician. The galaxy is falling apart under Palpatine's leadership.

It could be that Anakin thinks Palpatine is right and that the galaxy would be better off if they listened to him. Also, Palpatine accepted him completely unlike the Jedi. In ROTS, we learned that he told Palpatine what happened with the Tuskens on Tatooine. The Jedi would have flipped out over this and rightly so but Palpatine wouldn't have passed judgment and probably would have approved. Anakin did know what he did there was wrong but he felt Palpatine was the only one he could trust.

Maybe Anakin sees himself in Palpatine. If the Jedi would let him do what he wanted, Anakin knows he could save the galaxy. If the Senate allowed Palpatine to do what he wanted, Anakin believe he could fix the government.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

You do raise an interesting point. Anakin mentions that he hates politics and how nothing gets done. By that rationale, shouldn't he hate Palpatine who would come across to everyone who doesn't know he's a Sith an an ineffective politician. The galaxy is falling apart under Palpatine's leadership

I think I get what Lucas was getting at now that I've seen some of Clone Wars. From the movies, I had the impression that I was supposed to take the Republic at face value - it certainly would have its problems, but nothing catastrophic and that everyone in the Republic would agree that it's the best system of government.

Now I realize that those were both unsupported assumptions on my part. I don't know anything about the Republic, and neither do the characters in the OT who were desperate to re-create it, and whose struggle I identified with. Maybe they were wrong and I was wrong, and we need a whole new set of assumptions?

If Lucas wants to depict Anakin as not having any respect or love for democracy, he just needs to a) show us that people in the Republic aren't socialized to think of it as being the only viable option (maybe Jedi aren't even taught that - are they taught anything about the Republic or just expected to blindly risk their lives for its survival?) and b) show us that the Republic is rotten in some important ways (using clones as cannon fodder being one big piece of evidence).

I'd throw in an episode where the Republic sends the Jedi to go defend some world (Planet X) from the Separatists and it becomes abundantly clear that the world is run by a corrupt cabal that is interested only in retaining their own power. They are mismanaging Planet X horribly, creating chaos and causing immense suffering. The Republic isn't going to fuss about the internal affairs of Planet X because they don't want to push them to the Separatists. Establish that this isn't the first time that Anakin's seen something like this. Obi-Wan makes disapproving noises but doesn't have any ideas for improving the situation.

Now if you were Anakin, what conclusions would you draw? Furthermore, if the Jedi are supporting the likes of Planet X and hypocritically ignoring their own so-called values, how much can you trust them on other issues, such as the idea that the dark side is "bad"? Well it's bad because it's called the dark side, right? Wait, who was it who labelled it the "dark side" in the first place? Hmm.

It's not too hard to whomp up a plotline that has Anakin's "fall" to the dark side being a perfectly understandable, rational and intelligent course of action. Once it happens and he realizes his mistake, it's too late to take it back, because the dark side also contains aspects of mind control and drug addiction (not total, but enough).

As for Palps, I'd have Anakin be disgusted with him. He's a doddering old fool and emblematic of the weakness that Anakin deplores in the Republic. It's only when Palps reveals his true self that Anakin realizes he's powerful and has ideas for correcting problems that Anakin himself has seen (and importantly - that the audience has seen and understood).

Also, Palpatine accepted him completely unlike the Jedi.

This doesn't even have to be about the Tuskens. Anakin is a creature of instinct, and his instincts say that attachment is right and the Jedi are just repressed idiots. Palps just has to validate everything that Anakin's instincts have been telling him all along, that the Jedi and the Republic they are fighting for simply aren't living up to their billing.

And I'd also throw the twins into this. I'm astonished that Lucas didn't make use of the idea that the Jedi would of course take the twins away from both their mother and father, on the assumption that they were extremely powerful and must be trained in isolation, away from any temptations of attachment. For a creature of instinct, to be separated from his "cubs" should be an intolerable threat. And I'd also make more of the idea that the cubs would be very useful apprentice Siths as well.

With that avalanche of motivation, it shouldn't be hard at all for a strong, intelligent and even fairly moral Anakin to jump into the dark side feet first, no hesitation or regrets, and no need for him to be manipulated one iota by any outside force. There was never any reason to invent some hideous, bathetic story about how he misses his mommmmy.

 

[Mr Light]

I'd throw in an episode where the Republic sends the Jedi to go defend some world (Planet X) from the Separatists and it becomes abundantly clear that the world is run by a corrupt cabal that is interested only in retaining their own power. They are mismanaging Planet X horribly, creating chaos and causing immense suffering. The Republic isn't going to fuss about the internal affairs of Planet X because they don't want to push them to the Separatists. Establish that this isn't the first time that Anakin's seen something like this. Obi-Wan makes disapproving noises but doesn't have any ideas for improving the situation.

Isn't this what that ice planet episode in Season One was about? The one with the "savages" that the blue eyed aliens were trying to control?

 

[Temis the Vorta]

I've already (!!!) forgotten the details of that one, but I just watched the Zilo Beast two-parter (wow, great visuals!!!) and they went in the opposite direction by having Anakin argue against Mace Windu's principled stand regarding killing the Zilo Beast for expediency's sake.

So in light of that, Anakin can hardly turn around and complain the Jedi aren't living up to their ideals. I'm not entirely certain Anakin buys those ideals or cares about them enough to choose them over expediency, which raises the question of what he does believe and why, and how that explains why he would drop-kick the Republic (who he was willing to defend in this episode regardless of morality) in favor of the Empire.

If he doesn't balk at killing a possibly sentient life form like the Zilo Beast, then I doubt he's really all that concerned about all the lives being lost in the war (and that wouldn't parse with his later bloodthirstiness as Vader anyway).

Does he just value order for its own sake, like the Founders? That doesn't synch with his chaotic temperament, love of conflict and improvisation and hated of rules.

So does he value chaos for its own sake? This is the explanation that makes the most sense, taking in the storyline for all the movies and the TV series.

He lives to fight, he's an adrenaline junkie, and he loves power. He's fine with being a Jedi as long as they allow him the freedom to live as he chooses. But he has hide the parts of his life that they'd disapprove of, so it's not ideal. So when Palps offers him a way to get even more freedom of action - continue the mayhem, but no stupid rules regarding attachment - he jumps at it, because that's who he is.

His so-called political beliefs are paper thin, just rationalizations that give him permission to follow his instincts. The Republic or the Empire, it's all the same to him. And it has nothing to do with his childhood trauma, unless you can trace love of power to feeling powerless and being kicked around. His basic motivation should not be fear but power - that synchs up perfectly with Vader, who was all about power.

Maybe not a very heroic characterization but it's the way the story still makes sense even with an Anakin who seems too intelligent and psychologically healthy to fall for Palp's bs as happened in the PT.

 

[Greylock Crescent]

Does he just value order for its own sake, like the Founders? That doesn't synch with his chaotic temperament, love of conflict and improvisation and hated of rules.

I'll be purely speculative (and poorly psychological ): It's possible that he behaves so chaotically because of the upheavals in his life: Slavery, separation from mother, overly restrictive "code" of Jedi training. His actions are those of rebelling against authority, but because all he's known are authoritative environments, he strives to recreate them -- he doesn't really know of any other way to function.

Convoluted, I know.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

It could all be simplified if they'd jettisoned his mother and given us a backstory (no need to devote a whole movie to it) of him being a kicked-around slave on Tattoine when he was adopted into the Jedi Order. Just focus on his need to squelch all feelings of powerlessness and you have a pretty streamlined story - everything about his story makes sense if you see him as an elemental being who represents the will to power.

What motive could any of the Sith have, except that they want power? Palps targets him because he recognizes a kindred spirit. And if he's deftly depicted as not being particularly aware of this aspect of his personality, then he doesn't even have to be unsympathetic.

 

[Set Harth]

I'm astonished that Lucas didn't make use of the idea that the Jedi would of course take the twins away from both their mother and father, on the assumption that they were extremely powerful and must be trained in isolation, away from any temptations of attachment.

Apparently Lucas hasn't bought into the Jedi baby-snatching myth like you have.

The idea here is not to annoy the audience by creating a weakling who the audience mocks and despises, and who cannot be connected up plausibly with Vader later on.

Strangely, Steve Perry connected up an almost identical Anakin portrayal plausibly with Vader in 1996, before the onset of the prequels, when there was only the OT to go on. Thus, once again, the appearance of the all-powerful "cannot" serves merely as a futile attempt to dismiss what could, and did, occur. ( Meanwhile, unless "The Audience" is your Jersey Shore name, you're fallaciously projecting your own opinions on a large group of individuals who did not necessarily share in them. )

If he doesn't balk at killing a possibly sentient life form like the Zilo Beast, then I doubt he's really all that concerned about all the lives being lost in the war (and that wouldn't parse with his later bloodthirstiness as Vader anyway).

This completely misses the point of his fall to the dark side. If you expect Anakin to behave the same before and after the turn, you negate the significance of the turn.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

Thus, once again, the appearance of the all-powerful "cannot" serves merely as a futile attempt to dismiss what could, and did, occur.

You're missing the point. I know what occurred, and I think a lot of it was crappy (and I don't seem to be alone in this opinion), so I'm presenting ideas that would work far better. If you don't like them, tough. You've never presented any counter-argument that was worth the effort to type it out. It's impressive that you keep trying, I guess.

Strangely, Steve Perry connected up an almost identical Anakin portrayal plausibly with Vader in 1996, before the onset of the prequels, when there was only the OT to go on.

Then Steve Perry is a shitty writer, too (assuming you're representing the guy fairly.)

This completely misses the point of his fall to the dark side.

Does it have a point, other than to create a cool villain in Darth Vader? It might provide a useful moral lesson, but Star Wars doesn't map to the real world well enough for that. What's left is for it to be entertaining, which it fails at, due to being too stupid and annoying to be truly entertaining.

( Meanwhile, unless "The Audience" is your Jersey Shore name, you're fallaciously projecting your own opinions on a large group of individuals who did not necessarily share in them. )

I'm projecting my opinions onto a whole lot of TrekBBS members who have complained vigorously about the same stuff I'm complaining about. Since those are the people whose opinions I respect, I am speaking on their behalf.

If you expect Anakin to behave the same before and after the turn, you negate the significance of the turn.

I expect him to behave similarly enough that I can believe he's the same guy. Otherwise the story is "Anakin vanishes and is replaced by an unrelated character named Darth Vader." What's the point of that?