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

[Whofan]

Palpatine being sort of a guy who likes to play games in a galactic scale is sort of a trait that's introduced in ROTJ: He lets the Rebellion have the information on the Death Star so he can lure them into a trap. Of course, this kind of backfires when the Rebels manage to win anyway.


The EU also has him have a lot of other manipulative schemes as well.

 

[Christopher]

And why is it such an issue now? When Luke blew up the Death Star, I don't recall complaints about all those poor Stormtroopers who were probably just dumbass conscripts from backwater worlds too stupid and naive to know that serving the Empire is wrong. Maybe they were just in it for the paycheck.

Yeah, but then, Lucas was a fairly minor, new director doing a movie that he didn't expect anyone to take seriously. When he made the PT, though, he was the mogul of a far-reaching media empire and he knew that his creations would influence millions of young viewers -- and, more to the point, that his creations would be turned into toys that could make his company millions of dollars, and it might reduce the profits if the toys were seen as too violent. Don't underestimate the power that toy marketing can have over film content these days. (The reason the upcoming Captain America movie has retconned the Nazis out of its WWII setting in favor of HYDRA is that the toy company doesn't want to sell toy tanks and motorcycles with swastikas on them.)

Why should it being Palps' idea make any difference? They should disapprove because it is morally wrong.

As I said, it was a matter of timing. Palpatine sprung it on them just when they were at their most afraid, most willing to compromise their ethics in the name of survival. Much like the Bush administration and the torture, wiretapping, and other erosions of American principles that they pushed through in the name of national defense. Congress and the people protested on moral grounds, but they were afraid enough to buy into the argument that it was a necessary moral compromise. The whole idea of the political storyline of the PT was to serve as an allegorical commentary on that, to protest the then-ongoing erosion of freedoms and values in the name of national defense. And the fact that it did have such strong real-life parallels underlines how disturbingly plausible the political side of the story was.

If the Republic was supposed to be desperate, they needed to do a better job of conveying that, because I didn't see that at all. Was the Republic unable to recruit soldiers from its own population because it had already burned through billions slaughtered in an unending war, and faced a popular uprising of an exhausted populace?

On the contrary, my understanding is that the Republic had been at peace for so long that they didn't have the wherewithal to assemble a fighting force of that magnitude.

That's the main reason I dislike the PT - because it's a dumb story. Palps is way ahead of everyone from first to last. The good guys never even come close to beating him or even realize what game they're playing. A good story should have much more dramatic tension and give and take between the two sides so you are always wondering who's going to win (even in cases like this, where you know the outcome in advance). The PT is like watching a tennis match between a tennis pro and a toddler. Not my idea of entertainment.

Well, to each one's own. To me, one of the most (okay, one of the few) effective things about the PT is that overarching sense of inevitable tragedy.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

When he made the PT, though, he was the mogul of a far-reaching media empire and he knew that his creations would influence millions of young viewers -- and, more to the point, that his creations would be turned into toys that could make his company millions of dollars, and it might reduce the profits if the toys were seen as too violent. Don't underestimate the power that toy marketing can have over film content these days.

Oh believe me, I don't. I know very well that a lot of what I think is dreadfully wrong with the story can be traced to the malicious influence of Darth Toys-R-Us. I just don't accept that as an excuse because I don't care how much money Lucas makes from his little plastic toys. I want a good story, or failing that, I want to bitch my head off about it.

Palpatine sprung it on them just when they were at their most afraid, most willing to compromise their ethics in the name of survival.

For the oh so moral Jedi to be depicted as supporting such a thing, the situation should have been depicted as a lot more desperate - bombs raining down on Coruscant, that sort of thing - and they also should have done everything in their power to end this emergency measure as soon as possible.

Much like the Bush administration and the torture, wiretapping, and other erosions of American principles that they pushed through in the name of national defense. Congress and the people protested on moral grounds, but they were afraid enough to buy into the argument that it was a necessary moral compromise. The whole idea of the political storyline of the PT was to serve as an allegorical commentary on that, to protest the then-ongoing erosion of freedoms and values in the name of national defense.

Somehow I don't expect Republicans to be as moral as Jedi, or if the message here is that the Jedi are only as moral as Republicans, then why am I supposed to accept them as the unquestioned good guys? Also the amount of torture that actually occurred doesn't come close to the heinousness of manufacturing people to make them cannon fodder. Think about it - cloning people is probably do-able now. Imagine if some country in the real world revealed it was cloning and altering human babies to raise them as cannon fodder for war. I think the moral outrage would be a wee bit greater than Abu Ghraib. It would be one of the most hideous ideas humans have ever devised.

But what really makes the analogy fall apart is that the Jedi are depicted as being "right" to continue using clones as cannon fodder without making any serious efforts to change the situation. So does Lucas actually agree with the Bush Administration that torture is okay? That's what he's telling us by analogy, and also telling a new generation of American kids, wotta guy!

On the contrary, my understanding is that the Republic had been at peace for so long that they didn't have the wherewithal to assemble a fighting force of that magnitude.

Huh? If they don't have an army, okay, but then they should get their butts moving on assembling one. If they need to use clones in the interim, fine, but it should only be with a decent amount of hand-wringing about how awful it is, and how desperate the situation is, and how they'll switch over to their own recruits as fast as possible. At the very least, they should shut cloning down as soon as they discover it's happening. If a bunch of brainwashed clones already exist, then that's not the Jedi's fault. The moral issue stems from the way they kept it going under their own control.

To me, one of the most (okay, one of the few) effective things about the PT is that overarching sense of inevitable tragedy.

I like that part, too, but it's there anyway because we know how the story ends. And the PT sabotaged even that by making Anakin a character that I found it impossible to sympathize with. The Clone Wars guy would have been far better as a tragic figure.

 

[Admiral_Young]

The idea of the Republic not having a standing army to deal with any potential growing threats is because that was the Jedi Order's job. The Jedi were supposed to be great peacekeepers and negotiators and able to stop a war or conflict from happening before it did. The growing influence of the Dark Side of the Force interfered with their ability to do their job as did dwindling numbers of Jedi.

Palpatine as a Sith Lord realized this and initiated his plan. As a politician he was fully aware of all the inner workings of the Republic, knew how weak and decadent it was along and exploited those weaknesses. He manipulated events to become Supreme Chancellor. As Supreme Chancellor he could militarize the Republic and prepare them to engage against an enemy that he himself as Darth Sidious had created for the purpose of splintering the galaxy, spreading thin the Jedi Order, and opening a door for the creation of his new Empire.

 

[fett51]

One thing that doesn't make much sense is why the Mandalorians aren't more torn over this. After all, the Republic is burning through cloned Mandalorians like there's no tomorrow.

They've disowned him. Back in season 2's Mandalore episodes Obi-wan mentioned Jango Fett to the Prime Minister and he denied that Jango was Mandalorian. Whether that's another retcon or just political crap from Satine's pacifist government was left up to us.

It's also creepy that the cloning is riddled with imperfection, so that it's expected that some batches will come out "wrong," and when that happens, the "defective products" are relegated to menial tasks. Hey I guess we should be happy they aren't just dumped in the ocean.

Dumping them into the ocean was precisely what I thought the Kaminoan PM wanted to do with Domino Squad, which prompted the lecture from Shaak Ti. The Jedi, I think, are the only reason any defective clones are still alive. From Shaak Ti's calling them "living beings" rather than "people" or something similarly humanizing, my guess is the Jedi think of them as animals.

Unless the intent is to depict the Republic as hypocritical and corrupt, which I've been watching for, but so far it seems like the intent is to portray the Republic as essentially noble with only a few understandable defects.

Keep watching, there's more dirty politics and corruption coming than most people have been able to handle I wouldn't necessarily skip the Jar Jar one btw. There's more exposition on the politics of the war and the b plot produced one of the best action sequences they've done so far. Not a particularly solid piece of storytelling though, as was pointed out.

 

[Christopher]

Think about it - cloning people is probably do-able now. Imagine if some country in the real world revealed it was cloning and altering human babies to raise them as cannon fodder for war. I think the moral outrage would be a wee bit greater than Abu Ghraib. It would be one of the most hideous ideas humans have ever devised.

No, because it wouldn't serve any purpose in real life. Real cloning is nothing like the fantasy portrayed in fiction. Your clone wouldn't be your xerox copy -- it would be your child, simply an offspring that didn't have a second parent genetically. Your clone would gestate and age at the same rate as any other human being, and wouln't inherit your knowledge any more than a normal child would. So it would take at least 18 years to grow a "clone army," and its members would need just as much food, water, housing, clothes, education, etc. as non-clones would. So there's no advantage to producing new population by cloning. In fact, there's a definite disadvantage. Why go to the added expense of using cutting edge biotechnology to produce future soldiers when you can just encourage your population to make babies the natural and fun way? And why settle for only one genetic template for your entire army instead of benefitting from the full diversity humanity has to offer?

And even if some tyrant were stupid or crazy enough to think reality would function like a comic book and actually try to clone an army (which is certainly possible, I suppose), what are the odds that their war would still be ongoing, or that their regime would still be in power, a couple of decades later when the clones reached maturity? It would more likely turn out like Shinzon's backstory in Star Trek: Nemesis -- one regime sets the plan in motion, then it gets overthrown and the next regime scuttles the whole cloning business because it's such a complete boondoggle.

It is fair to say that if there were cloning, some misguided people might buy into the pop-culture myths about what a clone is and come to devalue human life in general because they'd believe a dead person could be "replaced," even if it took a couple of decades. Or they might develop an irrational prejudice against people conceived by cloning rather than natural methods, seeing them as somehow less than human. Still, there's just no percentage in trying to create an army of clones.

Besides, we're already very close to being able to realize the other side of the PT equation: an army of droids. We're already using robotic aerial drones in combat, and other types of military robots are in the development stages as well. That's a far more practical way to go if you want mass-produced, disposable troops.

 

[DarthPipes]

And if Palps weren't considered a disasterously incompetent old fool before, he certainly should be after that incident, getting who knows how many people killed! Why aren't the Jedi agitating for his removal? Maybe they don't like to meddle in politics, but Palps' apparent stupidity is simply beyond endurance. Everyone should be after him now.

Seriously, after the Zilo beast episode, how could anyone in ROTS be cheering when he announced that the Republic would be reorganized into the Empire? Who would possibly trust a man who decided to bring an exceptionally dangerous beast to a planet with one trillion people?

 

[exodus]

Unfortunately because of it there is no balance(in the force) this season as well.

I don't know what this means. The Force is not going to be balanced until ROTJ.
They did say the balance of the Force was going to be addressed in some way this season, or so I thought.

My comment wasn't about any of that, it was just a joke playing on a phase.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

The growing influence of the Dark Side of the Force interfered with their ability to do their job

Running a military doesn't require Jedi precognition. It does require a whole lot of people to populate your military, fly the spaceships, fire the guns, etc. They don't have to be Jedi. You'd need a small number of Jedi running a military of millions or billions of recruits.

How did the Dark Side stop the Jedi from knowing they need to do all that once they realized they were in a war, and then doing it? Normal people can do that kind of thing.

And the civilians of the Republic must have been incredibly complacent just to leave everything up to the Jedi. When the Jedi were caught napping, I'd have thought there would be a popular outcry for them to be removed from military command, due to incompetence.

I really cannot fathom how either the Jedi or Palps keep their jobs. I figure nobody in the Republic is actually paying attention to what they've been getting up to.

As a politician he was fully aware of all the inner workings of the Republic, knew how weak and decadent it was along and exploited those weaknesses.

I'm still waiting for the Republic to be portrayed as weak and decadent. It seems to be in some ways. Using a clone army is wrong; Palps and the Jedi are screwing up royally and nobody is paying attention (maybe they don't care); the Jedi claim to care about the people of the Republic but then we run across cases like Boba where it's all just talk. However, I'm still not sure that I'm meant to see all these things or if it's just careless writing.

From Shaak Ti's calling them "living beings" rather than "people" or something similarly humanizing, my guess is the Jedi think of them as animals.

Could be, but that's another ambiguous case. I'd just like something definite - the Republic is rotten, clones aren't regarded as equal to real people, etc.

Keep watching, there's more dirty politics and corruption coming than most people have been able to handle

Hurray! Things are looking up.

Besides, we're already very close to being able to realize the other side of the PT equation: an army of droids. We're already using robotic aerial drones in combat, and other types of military robots are in the development stages as well. That's a far more practical way to go if you want mass-produced, disposable troops.

That's the thing that gets me - a droid army stops you from having to use your own people as cannon fodder, so isn't it a good thing? Why are the bad guys the ones with the droids, then? The moral issue with droids may be that they make war sanitized for the side that uses them (assuming both sides aren't using them) but that point hasn't been part of the story so far.

But your missing the real point, which is that if Lucas disapproves of the Bush Administration's use of torture, why is he continuing to portray the Jedi's use of the clone army as noble, heroic and good? I've been waiting and waiting for the other shoe to drop, but it hasn't and I don't think it will. I think that whole analogy is yet another half-baked idea from the PT, not worth fussing over I guess.

Seriously, after the Zilo beast episode, how could anyone in ROTS be cheering when he announced that the Republic would be reorganized into the Empire? Who would possibly trust a man who decided to bring an exceptionally dangerous beast to a planet with one trillion people?

The real estate lobby must have been overjoyed at all the space for development the Zilo Beast cleared.

 

[Hartzilla2007]

(The reason the upcoming Captain America movie has retconned the Nazis out of its WWII setting in favor of HYDRA is that the toy company doesn't want to sell toy tanks and motorcycles with swastikas on them.)

Spoiler: Captain America

Actually I believe at least two Nazis will be in the film as it was mentioned that Red Skull (before he gets the bald red head look) vaporizes two Nazis in that film for trying to repo his stuff.

 

[Christopher]

That's the thing that gets me - a droid army stops you from having to use your own people as cannon fodder, so isn't it a good thing? Why are the bad guys the ones with the droids, then? The moral issue with droids may be that they make war sanitized for the side that uses them (assuming both sides aren't using them) but that point hasn't been part of the story so far.

Nor will it be, certainly not in this series which is aimed at a relatively young audience. They're pushing the envelope enough by getting to depict violent death on Cartoon Network in the first place; they sure as heck aren't going to have the heroes blowing away sentient organic beings on a regular basis.

But your missing the real point, which is that if Lucas disapproves of the Bush Administration's use of torture, why is he continuing to portray the Jedi's use of the clone army as noble, heroic and good?

Well, seeing as how the clone army turned on the Jedi and murdered them all in ROTS, I don't think he was. As far as the movies were concerned, I think Lucas saw the clones as being little different from the droids -- programmed cannon fodder. The portrayal of the clones as individuals is more a product of the current TV series. TCW is in kind of an awkward position, because they have a lot of moral ambiguity in their premise -- their main "hero" Anakin being a murderer and future genocidal monster, their "heroic" clone troopers being a ticking time bomb whose very creation is ethically questionable -- but they can't really address it within the format of an adventure cartoon about heroes versus villains. They're stuck with what Lucas gave them, and they have to make the best of it, even if that means having to gloss over certain questions and contradictions.

But I don't think "noble, heroic, and good" is really the right way to characterize what the Republic is doing in this show. The series acknowledges that war is about expediency, about doing what you must to survive. It's acknowledged that there are a lot of gray areas, and from time to time -- including this past week -- it's challenged the assumption that the Republic is unambiguously on the "good" side. That's one of the ways in which TCW is often more sophisticated than the movies that spawned it.

 

[DarthPipes]

(The reason the upcoming Captain America movie has retconned the Nazis out of its WWII setting in favor of HYDRA is that the toy company doesn't want to sell toy tanks and motorcycles with swastikas on them.)

Spoiler: Captain America

Actually I believe at least two Nazis will be in the film as it was mentioned that Red Skull (before he gets the bald red head look) vaporizes two Nazis in that film for trying to repo his stuff.

I understand not wanting to sell toys with Nazi symbols on it but you have got to be kidding me that they have been replaced in the movie? Captain Lukewarm American is going to SUCK!!!

 

[JD]

As far as the movies were concerned, I think Lucas saw the clones as being little different from the droids -- programmed cannon fodder.

That's pretty much my thinking as well. They were pretty much just another way to use the sci-fi setting to try to keep from getting to disturbing to the kiddies. I think they figured that a bunch of genetically modified identical clones, wouldn't bother kids as much as individual human beings fighting.

The portrayal of the clones as individuals is more a product of the current TV series. TCW is in kind of an awkward position, because they have a lot of moral ambiguity in their premise -- their main "hero" Anakin being a murderer and future genocidal monster, their "heroic" clone troopers being a ticking time bomb whose very creation is ethically questionable -- but they can't really address it within the format of an adventure cartoon about heroes versus villains. They're stuck with what Lucas gave them, and they have to make the best of it, even if that means having to gloss over certain questions and contradictions.

But I don't think "noble, heroic, and good" is really the right way to characterize what the Republic is doing in this show. The series acknowledges that war is about expediency, about doing what you must to survive. It's acknowledged that there are a lot of gray areas, and from time to time -- including this past week -- it's challenged the assumption that the Republic is unambiguously on the "good" side. That's one of the ways in which TCW is often more sophisticated than the movies that spawned it.

I haven't read all of them yet, but I think they did get into alot of these issues you guys are bringing up in the pre-TV series books and comics. I know they definitely got into alot of stuff with clones wanting to be and eventually becoming free individuals. I think they might have even had some who resisted O66 and fought against the Empire. They definitely get into alot more of the moral issues involved in the war.

 

[Ritika1254]

I think it will be very cool with Chiss character....

 

[exodus]

(The reason the upcoming Captain America movie has retconned the Nazis out of its WWII setting in favor of HYDRA is that the toy company doesn't want to sell toy tanks and motorcycles with swastikas on them.)

Spoiler: Captain America

Actually I believe at least two Nazis will be in the film as it was mentioned that Red Skull (before he gets the bald red head look) vaporizes two Nazis in that film for trying to repo his stuff.

I understand not wanting to sell toys with Nazi symbols on it but you have got to be kidding me that they have been replaced in the movie? Captain Lukewarm American is going to SUCK!!!

I think they're going to be "Hydra" instead.

 

[Christopher]

As far as the movies were concerned, I think Lucas saw the clones as being little different from the droids -- programmed cannon fodder.

That's pretty much my thinking as well. They were pretty much just another way to use the sci-fi setting to try to keep from getting to disturbing to the kiddies. I think they figured that a bunch of genetically modified identical clones, wouldn't bother kids as much as individual human beings fighting.

Well, more to the point, Lucas had to use clones somehow because he'd used the term "Clone Wars" as a throwaway reference back in A New Hope. Now, I always figured it would be some kind of war over the ethics of cloning or something like that. But I think that when the time came along to do the prequels, Lucas had other issues that he was more interested in exploring, commentaries he wanted to make on the real world, and so the whole "clone" thing became something of an afterthought, a reference he was stuck with using somehow but wasn't really all that invested in. Or so I would speculate.

But you're probably right that dehumanizing the cannon fodder on both sides was a factor as well. And retroactively dehumanizing the Stormtroopers in the OT, since I gather it's now assumed that they're all Jango Fett clones as well. (Never mind that they had different voices and heights in the OT.)

 

[exodus]

As far as the movies were concerned, I think Lucas saw the clones as being little different from the droids -- programmed cannon fodder.

That's pretty much my thinking as well. They were pretty much just another way to use the sci-fi setting to try to keep from getting to disturbing to the kiddies. I think they figured that a bunch of genetically modified identical clones, wouldn't bother kids as much as individual human beings fighting.

Well, more to the point, Lucas had to use clones somehow because he'd used the term "Clone Wars" as a throwaway reference back in A New Hope. Now, I always figured it would be some kind of war over the ethics of cloning or something like that. But I think that when the time came along to do the prequels, Lucas had other issues that he was more interested in exploring, commentaries he wanted to make on the real world, and so the whole "clone" thing became something of an afterthought, a reference he was stuck with using somehow but wasn't really all that invested in. Or so I would speculate.

But you're probably right that dehumanizing the cannon fodder on both sides was a factor as well. And retroactively dehumanizing the Stormtroopers in the OT, since I gather it's now assumed that they're all Jango Fett clones as well. (Never mind that they had different voices and heights in the OT.)

I thought Lucas recognized the Empire Academy, where citizens loyal to the Empire were trained and/or cloned to become the next wave of Trooper, thus having them go fro the name "Clone" Trooper to Stormtroppers? I thought this because so when Lucas gave official stamp of approval to such stories as "Shadows of the Empire" & "Heir To the Empire".

 

[Xavier_Storma]

And if Palps weren't considered a disasterously incompetent old fool before, he certainly should be after that incident, getting who knows how many people killed! Why aren't the Jedi agitating for his removal? Maybe they don't like to meddle in politics, but Palps' apparent stupidity is simply beyond endurance. Everyone should be after him now.

Seriously, after the Zilo beast episode, how could anyone in ROTS be cheering when he announced that the Republic would be reorganized into the Empire? Who would possibly trust a man who decided to bring an exceptionally dangerous beast to a planet with one trillion people?

Oh, I am certain he would blame the Jedi afterwards! I mean come on... he is the guy who orchestrated just everything! Starting from the first murder he committed on the former senator of Naboo, to become Senator, to the declaration of the Empire. He is a genius! IMHO the most evil bad guy in history! Sauron, Voldemort et al. look like school kids compared to him!

A very interesting topic, thanks for starting it!!!

"Heroes on both sides" was a fantastic episode. I have been a TCW fan from the beginning (SW fan since I can think), but I agree with many of you, that season 3 lacked what made the first two so great: the "Wars" and "Clones" in it's stories. Now with the latest episode both did return, and although we did not see a physical battlefield, we saw an interesting political sight.
I liked how they expanded the Seperatists! No other EU book or comic did that. Before last Friday, the Seperatists were an evil crowd of traitors, droids and cyborgs... now they are people. People like the Republic citizen who want to live in peace! That's exploring new territories, expanding the films - unlike Ashoka teaching some random kids on a random Neutral planet . I can almost forget the boring first half of season 3, if they continue with this style. They have so many characters now... turn that whole thing into a continuing story arc, and this show will become a true winner!

 

[Christopher]

According to the episode guide:

With the start of this arc, which continues in "Pursuit of Peace" and concludes in Season Two's "Senate Murders," the Clone Wars storyline advances to its furthest point in the timeline, and subsequent episodes should continue going forward without as much jumping back and forth.

"Pursuit of Peace" is next week's episode, so the story's not over, I guess.

 

[DarKush]

Actually XS,

There have been some attempts to add depth to the Separtists before last week's episode.

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Star_Wars_The_Clone_Wars:_Hero_of_the_Confederacy