previously:
episode 67
The aquatic war for Mon Calamari continues in
episode 68 of Star Wars: The Clone Wars. We open with a meeting between Gran Bruce, the Quarren leader, and Dooku. Dooku informs them that they must find the escaped prince Lee-Char immediately, as he could potentially serve as a symbol of hope for his defeated subjects to rally around…despite being in charge for like a week at best and accomplishing precisely nothing other than civil war. Truly, Lee-Char is Dr. King reincarnated as a talking fish alien. Anyway, because Dooku is evil, he informs the Quarren leader that the prisoners are to be sent to internment camps, including the women and children. Meanwhile, the Republic survivors are unable to transmit a clear message to the Jedi Council, so rather than wait for reinforcements that may never come, they resolve to attempt escape on their ship. Because clearly nobody would have noticed the big, conspicuous vessel hovering above the ocean yet, especially not the Separatists.
Kit Fisto (hehe) offers his services as a meatshield because, as his creepy smile establishes, he’s out of his damn mind. He frees several of the clones to help create a distraction and steals an underwater jet ski to send down to the remaining survivors, who use it to boost up to the surface. Gran Bruce has predicted this rather obvious course of action and rigged the Republic ship to explode, but here’s the kicker: he doesn’t detonate it while anyone is inside. He detonates it before the survivors enter so that they can…just watch it explode, I guess. Then like three swimming droids appear, and they’re all, uh, fearsome and stuff. I dunno, this is really stupid. Everyone grabs onto some ship debris and rides it back to the bottom, where they decide to split up, with Ahsoka, Kit Fisto (hehe), some freed clones, and Lee-Char in one group and Anakin, Padme, Ackar, and some random senator in another.
A brief scene on Coruscant establishes that outfitting clones with their sweet underwater gear was a time-consuming process, so if reinforcements are to be sent to Mon Calamari, they must come from elsewhere.
Lucas Obi-Wan offers one crowd-pleasing suggestion: gungans. Star Wars fans love gungans, right? Then we see the gungan capital, where Jar Jar is having a conversation with each of his multiple personalities. Just kidding, all the other members of the gungan council are different characters, they just all LOOK like Jar Jar dressed up in different clothes. Back on Mon Calamari, the prince’s group gathers in a cave and witnesses a horde of prisoners being transported.
Anakin decides that, on the off chance reinforcements are on the way, it would be best to knock out the Separatist radar tower so they won’t see them coming. He uses the Force to destroy the tower’s support beams, which brings the whole thing tumbling down. Gran Bruce, like any halfway intelligent person, assumes that this means an attack is imminent and scrambles the troops before he heads off to locate the prince. Meanwhile, Lee-Char is sick of watching prisoners swim away. He pulls a giant shell from his ass that acts like a horn, which he blows on to get everyone’s attention. Then he gives some half-assed speech that boils down to this: “Have hope. We’ll save you eventually.” Not verbatim, of course, but you’d be surprised how close that is. Inexplicably, the Mon Calamari prisoners start cheering for the prince. The Quarren guards start shooting at the prince.
This is exactly the time the gungans show up. They’re for some reason able to take on those jellyfish things with no effort whatsoever, and the battle for Mon Calamari begins anew. Gran Bruce deduces that the prince must be with the Jedi group freeing the prisoners and sends the reinforcements he was given offscreen to attack. These reinforcements come in the form of massive squid-like machines that rotate in order to generate whirlpools beneath them. The prisoners and the Republic forces are caught within the whirlpools; Ahsoka tells the prince to stay in the center if he can because there is less turbulence. Then Gran Bruce conveniently emerges from a squid machine just above the prince’s head and attacks him. Ahsoka rescues him for about a minute before Gran Bruce drags him away again, when he is rescued by Kit Fisto (hehe.) Ahsoka manages to escape with the prince, but Fisto (hehe) is captured. After a squid machine is sent to the other group, Anakin and the others are captured as well.
I was dreading this episode, but thankfully the gungans have a relatively small role despite being in the title. The real problem comes from the fact that this going to be a three parter, and it's rather obviously being stretched. The entire first 10 minutes of this episode accomplish nothing whatsoever. Furthermore, it tries to push this idea that leaders can inspire their people, but the prince has done nothing inspirational. His ascension to the throne is the cause of the civil war. The Mon Calamari lost under his leadership. Newsflash for whoever the hell wrote this: people don't look up to their leaders just because they're put in the position to lead. Leaders have to actually do something. Meanwhile, the gimmick of underwater battles has completely lost its appeal and the handful of good action scenes are all that saves this from an even lower grade. Clone Wars writers really need to stop trying to convey messages like this because it's getting embarrassing. It's not as bad as the episode where they tried to show that any common citizen can make a difference when the plot revolved around one character's family ties to the duchess, but still.
Grade: C
