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Toonami |Oct14| A Place for Manly Souls

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D

Doctor Decimate

Member
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In the first part of Clone Wars: The Movie (not the official title, but you get the point), things start out like you’d expect an episode to. We’re thrown right in the middle of things as the narrator explains some nonsense about Separatists seizing hyperspace lanes and the Outer Rim in a monologue that feels way more complicated than it needs to be for a children’s movie. Buried deep within the wall of text that the script has given this man, he explains that Jabba the Hutt’s son has been kidnapped. Jabba does what any responsible parent would do: call the police. So he sends out an interstellar hologram to the Jedi Council and requests aid. Sheev Palpatine and Mace Windu (played by a very bored Samuel L. Jackson for the movie) explain to the audience that Jabba controls the space lanes in the Outer Rim, so it would be in their best interest to get on his good side. Sheev suggests sending as many Jedi as possible to go find the kid, but because there’s, you know, war and stuff, there’s only one man bearded enough and Space British enough for the job. And Anakin, too, I guess. So, you wanna know how this entire scene and opening narration can be rewritten to not confuse and bore even the movie’s adult audience?

Narrator: “Jabba’s son has been taken!”
Jabba: “Someone took my son!”
Palpatine: “Jabba could be a powerful ally in the war, we should help him.”

I’ll take my Oscar now.

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After a brief scene where the Admiral (the character obviously voiced by the narrator) talks to Yoda and Mace Windu to establish that Obi-Wan and Anakin’s communications are down, we cut to a repetitive battle on the planet Christophsis against some droids and giant tripods. There’s nothing particularly notable about it; the scale isn’t impressive, the framing is nothing to speak of, and most of the action is stuff you’ve seen before. There is one supremely idiotic scene where the clones just up and charge the droids for no reason, though. The fight goes on for a bit until the general of the opposing forces, a Scottish ant-eater whose name is the Warcraft-sounding Whorm Loathsom, eventually decides to retreat due to the damage the Republic cannons are inflicting on his troops. A Republic ship arrives, which Obi-Wan and Anakin believe to be carrying the reinforcements they badly need, as well as a new Padawan for Obi-Wan. Inside is only a single person: everyone’s favorite orange-ish teenager, Ahsoka! After some grumbling, they manage to relay a message through the newly-arrived ship that they need assistance, and it’s revealed that Ahsoka is actually assigned to Anakin, who really does not like this idea.

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A brief scene at an abandoned monastery establishes that Ventress has kidnapped Jabba Jr. to somehow put the Jedi into conflict with the Hutts. Then we cut back to Christophsis and meet Rex, the bald clone captain. He and Anakin refer to Ahsoka as a “youngling”, which she whines about and then acts all smug about apparently being rather young for Padawan status. Anakin says that she’s being “snippy” (though it’s emphasized more like “SNIPPY” in case you didn’t get the point), and Ahsoka calls him “Skyguy” because we’re not supposed to like her as a character at all. Oh wait, we are? Well shit. Then she digs her grave even further by making tactical suggestions to Rex despite having never set foot on a battlefield before and then saying that she technically outranks him. Rex says that experience outranks everything, and he doesn’t sound even slightly annoyed when he says it for some reason. Off in the distance, they see a red bubble, which turns out to be an energy shield surrounding Whorm’s returning troops.

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After a meeting that takes entirely too long to establish the fact that Anakin and Ahsoka need to take out the shield generator, we get a scene where some clone scouts come to the monastery where Jabba Jr. is, having apparently followed some bounty hunters hired to find the kid. Yoda says that he will go to Christophsis. Then we cut back to witness the makings of the stupidest plan ever. Anakin and Ahsoka decide to do their best Solid Snake impressions and hide in a box as the tanks and the droids pass right by. The droids do not check the box that is in their way, they sidestep it. And once a single group has passed, Anakin and Ahsoka start moving while still hidden beneath the box AND STILL AREN’T NOTICED. Eventually they ditch the box and immediately run into one of those stray rolling droids, which they use teamwork to dispose of as the fight begins on Obi-Wan’s front and proceeds much the same dull way it did 15 minutes ago.

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Eventually, Obi-Wan concedes the battle to Whorm and proceeds to enact what is basically a Looney Tunes skit as he invites him to sit down and drink as they negotiate the terms of his surrender. Anakin and Ahsoka reach the shield generator, where Ahsoka bumps a metal rod sticking out the ground that summons a number of droids. Anakin fights the droids while she sets the charges. And after Ahsoka finishes doing this, she uses the Force to pull down an extremely convenient wall with a hole in it behind Anakin. The hole leaves Anakin unharmed, but the wall destroys all of the droids around him. Meanwhile, Whorm has lost his patience with Bugs Bunny and orders Obi-Wan at gunpoint to call off his troops just in time for the charges on the shield generator to explode and the Republic cannons to destroy the droids. Obi-Wan holds Whorm in a hostage hug as Yoda, accompanied by reinforcements, arrives on Christophsis shortly afterward to make the whole thing feel completely pointless. Anakin and Ahsoka share a bonding moment.

It hasn’t surprised me to learn that the Clone Wars movie was initially planned to be the first few episodes of the show, because it really shows. It’s broken up into three distinct segments that could make up three or four episodes, and the result is exhausting. There’s no traditional structure here, only a bunch of mediocre episodes stuck end to end with all the pacing issues that entails. But as far as what I’ve discussed so far, it results in some significant storytelling problems. As its own episode, this would serve as a decent introduction to Ahsoka (even if she is fucking insufferable) and her dynamic with Anakin. But in the greater scheme of a movie, it feels superfluous. The “getting to know my Padawan” story is something that doesn’t need its own tedious battle to be told, it can happen throughout the course of the film. But here we have a boring 25 minute segment to get that out of the way. There’s little that’s as outrageously bad as Bombad Jedi or The Academy (though the two stupid plans from Anakin and Obi-Wan come close), but it’s still something that feels like a chore to get through.
 
R

Raxus

Member
It is amazing how rough early Clone Wars looked.

While Star Wars Rebels is similar in that aspect at least it started out on better footing than Clone Wars.
 
D

Doctor Decimate

Member
Raxus said:
It is amazing how rough early Clone Wars looked.

While Star Wars Rebels is similar in that aspect at least it started out on better footing than Clone Wars.
Click to expand...

you have to remember that since i've reduced the size of these pics they actually look better, too.

the movie is weird, because it has random moments where the lightning is actually on the level of about season 3, but there are other moments where it looks almost unfinished. plus the amount of derp faces are fun, especially from Obi-Wan.
 
Z

Zonic

Gives all the fucks
GMN said:
i think the worst One Piece flashback is the Skypiea one, and even then that's only because it's poorly placed. it's great otherwise.
Click to expand...
Yup, I didn't mind it, but it really should've happened later in the arc instead of RIGHT IN THE MIDDLE WHEN THINGS WERE ABOUT TO HAPPEN.
 
B

BatDan

Bane? Get them on board, I'll call it in.
You can tell how dated this episode is when MySpace was the place to go for women (and lewdness).
 
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