GT'S CLONE WARS (continued) AND THE CLONE WARS EPISODES 216/116

WATCH REPORT FOR: February 12, 2022

WATCHED: Genndy Tartakovsky's Clone Wars Series 3 Episode 21 and The Clone Wars "Cat and Mouse" and "Hidden Enemy"

SUMMARY: A division of ARC Troopers rescue Jedi Masters Ki Adi Mundi, Shaak Ti and Aayla Secura from General Grievous. The Jedi Council debates promoting Anakin Skywalker to the rank of Knight of the Republic. Anakin and Padme carry on their clandestine ove affair, interrupted by Anakin's summoning to his rank ceremony and dispatch to the front lines of the war.

Obi-Wan and Anakin arrive at the planet Christophsis, where Senator Bail Organa leads a small resistance cell against the Separatist Army. A formidable Harch named Admiral Trench leads the blockade of the planet, but by using a prototype cloaking starship Anakin is able to both destroy Trench's command ship and deliver needed relief supplies to Bail.

Obi-Wan and Anakin continue to battle the droid army on the surface of Christophsis, but become convinced by the droid's advanced knowledge that a traitor in their midst is providing crucial intelligence to the Separatists. Two clone troopers are assigned to uncover the turncoat while Obi-Wan and Anakin willingly enter the trap being laid for them. The two Jedi discover and duel Asajj Ventress, while the troopers trace clues back to a squadron and eventually discover its sergeant, Slick, is the traitor, but not before Slick sabotages much of the Republic's weapons depot.

A NOTE ON BLOG PROCESS AND FORMAT: (aka the Pompidou section) It may seem ike there is a lot of jumping around going on here, but there is a method to our madness. Donovan was actually the one who pointed out to me that, although all of the 2-D Clone Wars shorts came out first, the last few episodes (22 through 25) take place much closer to the end of the Clone Wars story and Revenge of the Sith. But Anakin is a knight for the entirety of the computer animated Clone Wars series, so it makes sense to at least watch episode 21 where he receives his knighthood, before jumping ahead to 2008.

Having decided on that, we then turn to a Lucasfilm-approved source for the chronological watch order of The Clone Wars: the StarWars.com official sequential order. I haven't done the research to know for sure, so there may or may not be a good reason for the scheduling of the flashbacks, but whereas the Clone Wars theatrical movie which kicks off the narrative of the series takes place during the Battle of Christophis, they did an episode which takes place immediately before the battle towards the end of season 1 and another episode which takes place immediately before that during season 2. Hence, we watched season 2 episode 16 and then season 1 episode 16, all setting the table for the movie next time.

Meanwhile, I want to note that we are now entering the phase of this project where I will be watching things for the very first time. Love the movies, super into them, but as I've copped to before, I've never made the time to watch the television properties in all their multiple-seasons, hundreds-of-episodes glory. Therefore it doesn't make sense for this stretch of the project for me to refer to "something I never noticed before". Instead, that feature will be replaced by "How many times does Anakin hang up on Obi-Wan?" which definitely feels like something we will get a lot of mileage out of.

OVERALL REVIEW: Starting with the 2-D installment, it's another solid outing under Tartakovsky's eye. I do, however, have a nit to pick with General Grievous's introduction. In Clone Wars, he's a mysterious figure with insanely unbeatable hand-to-hand combat techniques which make him more than a match for not just multiple Jedi Knights but multiple Jedi Masters. And he fights with multiple light sabers, including (in a way that doesn't look as goofy as it could because it's a stylized cartoon) standing on one leg with a lightsaber held in one foot and two more lightsabers, one in each hand.

However, the number of lightsabers really shouldn't make that much of a difference. In the same 2-D series we already saw Asajj Ventress fight with a lightsaber in each hand, and she was a near-equal match to Anakin in all of his Chosen One, strongest-Force-wielder-ever glory. So what's the real deal with General Grievous?

If I may, a quick aside about the original Star Wars tabletop roleplaying game, which I had the briefest of encounters with back in my college days. It's not explicitly canon, but some of the rules within the game did always feel to me like they made sense of the galaxy. For example, the game allowed some characters to be built on a template which was "Force sensitive" (basically the potential to be a Jedi but without the formal training), and others with different emphasis. But only a Force-sensitive character could wield a lightsaber. They were the powerful weapon of choice for Jedi (or really Jedi/Sith) and only Jedi, because a non-Jedi could barely control the lightsaber and stood a good chance of accidentally lopping off one of their own limbs. Only the Force granted the capacity for lightsaber mastery, so no, you were not allowed to play a smuggler who just happened to have a lightsaber at the ready when fights broke out. And that rang true to me, both in terms of balanced gameplay and Star Wars lore.

Therefore when I first saw General Grievous it begged the question: is he Force-sensitive? A rogue Jedi? Surely not a full Sith, since he uses blue and green Jedi lightsabers, not Sith red. Curious. And the question goes unanswered for now, but we'll return to this when Grievous returns later.

Moving over to the computer-animated series, these shows have a reputation for being better than the prequels and I think that's fair. There's nothing spectacular in the plotting of the two episodes we started with; the first one is very much a WWII submarine story dressed up in sci-fi tropes, and the second is a classic whodunnit. I did totally dig the alien design of Admiral Trench, and Donovan was kind enough to inform me that despite his apparent demise via exploding flagship, we will see him again. Sweet. The investigation to root out the traitor clone trooper did get into some interesting philosophical arguments. On the one hand, how much worse would a betrayal feel coming from a clone who was, for all intents and purposes, not just your figurative brother, not even your literal flesh and blood, but genetically identical to you? On the other hand, what are the ethical ramifications of cloning and accelerated again, producing soldiers as a resource and sending them across the galaxy to fight and die for a so-called Republic that gives them no representation? Deeper stuff than I was expecting, but welcome all the same.

How do we know that these two epsidoes take place before the theatrical release and the rest of the series? No Asohka Tano! Which is a shame, because she's great, but we'll meet her soon enough ... HOW MANY TIMES DOES ANAKIN HANG UP ON OBI-WAN? Twice. Both in "Cat and Mouse"! There isn't an opportunity in "Hidden Enemy" because former master and pupil spend the whole ep fighting side by side. But "Cat and Mouse" gives Anakin lots of opportunities to disobey direct orders and he doesn't squander them.