DEATH WATCH IS BACK!
Pre Vizla, Bo-Katan and the rest of Death Watch is back for TCW Season Five.
Clone Wars Supervising Director Dave Filoni made some comments regarding the Mandalorian story arc in Season Five on his Facebook page a while back:
Q: Pavel Klimeš
Hi Dave, I would like to ask if we are to see a revolution on Mandalore. The Essential Atlas mentioned AWOL ARC trooper Alpha-02 "Spar" being the one who returns the Mandalorians to their warrior ways. Are we going to see this event AND more importantly Satine's faction fate? Yes or no will do ( :-) ) Thanks for answering.
A: What you saw in Season 4 with the Death Watch was just a small taste of what is to come. I think the Madalorians are involved in one of the best story arcs next season. A great deal is at stake and big things happen. As far as Spar, the clones and the Mandalorians go, you have to understand that in the film saga, and the TV series, clones don’t really identify with Mandalorians. The vast majority of clones never met Jango Fett, and the series has focused more on the clones having their own culture, rather than adopting a culture that they never really came in contact with. Satine will be returning and I promise you she will have bigger problems than tainted Moogan Tea this time.
Based on Dave's comments what can we assume about the Mandalorians and Death Watch in TCW Season Five?
1) The Mandalorians/Death Watch will be getting an entire story arc, not just a stand-alone episode like Season Four's "Friends and Enemies."
2) There will be a lot of breaking with established Mandalorian continuity and lots of RETCONs to come. Of course we already knew this.
3) In addition to Death Watch returning, Obi-Wan's ex-girlfriend and Duchess of Mandalore, Satine Karzi will be returning and having a very rough story arc.
4) The return of both Death Watch and Satine and her New Mandalorians would imply that both are involved in the same story arc, which logically involves Death Watch returning to Mandalorian space.
To me it is clear that Death Watch is going to be targeting Karzi. The question is how? Is it simply another assassination attempt? Is it a kidnapping attempt? Or is it all out Civil War and regime change?
Season Five trailer images with further analysis:
In the Teaser trailer we see three Death Watch Kom'rk class fighters. These fighters could easily accommodate up to four passengers each (according to the Wook) and are vessels we previously saw in TCW in the Season Two Mandalore arc.
We also have a scene with Pre Vizla giving a speech that is evocative of Hitler's large public speeches in Germany. In his speech Vizla says:
Vizla is speaking to what looks like a very, very large group of Death Watch. This looks like an army, and not like the small band of Death Watch we have seen previously.
This large group of warriors doesn't seem to fit with what we are seeing with three small fighters above. Is this a large scale invasion or a smaller surgical strike?
Lets look at some of the other images:
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| We have Vizla wielding the Darksaber in what looks to either be a cave or underground location. |
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| Looks like Vizla using his flamethrower in battle. |
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| Bo-Katan leads helmetless Death Watch into battle on what looks like Mandalore given the windows. |
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| Vizla, Bo-Katan, and another possible Death Watch Lieutenant in the Duchess' Throne room, notice the orange lights in the back ground. They are also on either side of Duchess' throne. |
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| Duchess on her thrown surrounded by guards |
My theory on this part of the story is that the three ships we see landing on Mandalore are full of Vizla and his small commando team. The team attempts to access the palace by means of a subterranean or sewer system incursion. Along the way running into some resistance in the lower levels. The survivors of the team then storm the throne room. From here the story could go into a number of directions, but if Satine survives, I think at best she is forced to flee Mandalore quickly.
In addition to these fairly straight forward images we have a few rather curious ones involving Death Watch.
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| 1) Three Death Watch commandos led by what looks like Bo-Katan shooting off their rockets at an unknown location. |
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| 2) Death Watch using their jet packs at a volcanic location. What you are suppose to think is Mustafar, but I suspect it is actually Tracyn. |
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| 3) I have no clue who these aliens are, the head looks like a helmet, each carriers a blaster on their hip and the hands clearly mark them as non-human. |
What are we to make of the three images above?
1) The image involving the rocket firing Death Watch could be set on the planet in the Mandalorian system Kalevala, which is primarily composed of toxic deserts. This is Satine's home world and would make sense that she might flee their with Death Watch in pursuit. The yellowish-greenish mist suggests a certain toxicity in this image.
2) Is this the planet volcanic planet Tracyn, third in orbit around the Mandalore system's primary star? Description from the Wookieepedia entry on Tracyn.
Tracyn was a planet in the Outer Rim Territories' Mandalore sector. Located within the Mandalore system, Tracyn occupied the third orbit around the system's star, Mandalore, between the orbits of Akaan and Kalevala. A world of significant volcanic activity, a total of four moons surrounded Tracyn. After the Taung forces of Mandalore the First journeyed from Roon to conquer the uninhabited planet that became Mandalore, the newly renamed Mandalorians spread out to conquer the worlds of the surrounding system, including Tracyn. The planet's name came from the Mando'a word tracyn, meaning "fire."
The appearance of a volcanic planet it the Mandalorian system would certainly make more sense then the inclusion of Mustafar making an appearance in a Mandalorian story arc. But what would Death Watch be doing on this planet? Is it a base? A source of resources? A recruiting stop?
3) This is probably my wildest speculation and the least likely to be correct. I have been scouring my brain and the wookieepedia trying to figure out who these aliens are. I cannot find an obvious existing species that they fit, so either they are a completely new species or a drastically different interpretation of an existing minor species.
Delving into Mandalorian history, the people that we now know as Mandalorian's where not the original Mandalorians. The culture began with the alien Taung species. Now the Taung species has been interpreted a few different ways in the drawings that I have seen. One commanality is that the Taungs appear relatively similar to the masked version of the Predator species from the Predator and Alien vs. Predator franchises. If Lucas did see the species in comic form it is possible that he would want to alter the look of the species to make it feel more original. If you look at the claws/hands in the claws would fit with the aliens that we see in the Season Five trailer. The head/helmet is the issue. If the alien in the trailer is wearing a helmet than it could simply be that over the millennium the Taungs developed a different helmet style than the Mandalorians or made an intentional alteration to hide their identity. The Taungs were largely believed to be extinct at the end of the Mandalorian Wars, but what if a small group survived and settled on the inhospitable planet of Tracyn. The Death Watch in their effort to recruit go to Tracyn and find the Taungs and convince them to join forces against the pacifist New Mandalorians.
Conclusion:
I expect that we will see a full scale assault on the Duchess Satine and her government and that in Season Five the Mandalorian Civil War will kick off. I think that the Death Watch will gain the upper hand, but that Satine will flee into exile and that her supporters will still pose a threat as Death Watch fights to establish control over the system. Hopefully at some point we get to hear Dha Werda Verda being sung on the show.
That is my best speculation at this point for how the Mandalorian story will develop in TCW Season Five, what do you think?
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