THE CLONE WARS EPISODES 105/106/107

WATCH REPORT FOR: March 19, 2022

WATCHED: The Clone Wars "Rookies", "Downfall of a Droid" and "Duel of the Droids"

SUMMARY: Domino Squadron, assigned to a listening outpost monitoring for Separatist incursions, is attacked by elite commando droids in advance of an invasion force commanded by General Grievous. The survivors of the initial attack band together with Rex and Cody, conducting a routine inspection, to defeat the commando droids, alert the Republic leadership, and foil Grievous's plot.

Later, during a space battle, Anakin leads a squadron of fighters and is nearly shot down. Anakin is rescued but his fighter is abandoned, along with R2-D2. Anakin attempts to retrieve the droid but is too late, then follows the trail to a Trandoshan scrapper ship, along with Ahsoka and a new astromech, R3-S6. Anakin and Ahsoka battle assassin droids but fail to locate R2.

Eventually R2 is delivered to a Separatist spy station and taken apart to extract Republic military secrets. Anakin, Ahsoka and a team of troopers infiltrate the base to rescue R2. Ahsoka duels General Grievous and learns that R3 is a Separatist droid who has been sabotaging their missions. R2 battles R3 and sends the enemy astromech plummeting off the station, then escapes with the Jedi.

OVERALL REVIEW: My mind was slightly blown by "Rookies", partly as a byproduct of the narrative-reordering of episode viewing we're undertaking. I imagine someone watching The Clone Wars in broadcast order would have found it somewhat poignant, after watching the first couple of seasons, for season 3 to open with a flashback to the cadet days of some characters from all the way back in the fifth episode ever. But via our chronological progress, I just saw these guys graduate a couple of weeks ago, and now I see them on their first, fairly boring assignment, until it takes a hard left turn into grimdark and Cut-up gets eaten by a frigging space eel! After that it's a pretty standard story about a bad-guy victory and how the resourceful good guys turn the tide and save the day, admittedly by blowing up the whole station to interrupt the "all-clear" default broadcast signal, which requires a clone trooper to sacrifice himself to detonate the explosives. Grimdarkness abounds!

Nothing wrong with having a storyline center R2-D2 in my book, although it's really a story about Anakin and "attachment". It's never stated out loud, but I'm convinced there's subtext that Anakin really sees R2 as a symbol of his love for Padme (R2 was originally an astromech on her royal Naboo cruiser, and if R2 s the legal property of anyone, it's her) but again I'm not sure The Clone Wars, or any of Star Wars, is really adept at examining the implications of the Jedi creed and how impossible it is to mesh those tents with Anakin's personality and desires.

One good thing I will say about these episodes is that I love the way the animators handle the physicality of movement. A lot of the faces are cartoonish and hyper-stylized and lack nuanced expressions, but the body work is on point. The mechanical way that the droids move feels physically real, and the battle droids have a different cadence to their steps than the magnodroids. Meanwhile the Jedi have different fighting styles, too: Anakin uses a lot of wrist to swivel his lightsaber and deflect laser blasts, while Ahsoka (who at this point still only has the one green lightsaber) takes much bigger swings, putting her whole arm into it and batting away bolts. It's a nice touch.

HOW MANY TIMES DOES ANAKIN HANG UP ON OBI-WAN? None. In "Rookies" they're in the same place the whole time, though there is a bit of catty banter back and forth about how Anakin frequently disobeys direct orders from his master. The "Droid" duology is literally all about Anakin disobeying Obi-Wan to rescue R2, but Anakin never disconnects any of Obi-Wan's calls. In fact, at one point Obi-Wan gives an order and he hangs up on Anakin before his former padawan can respond. How much longer can I keep this conceit going without a hit?