A funny thing happened on the way to re-watching this past week's episode of The Clone Wars. A pop-up from Starwars.com, partnering with iperceptions, the official site is soliciting feedback on the design and content of the website.
This is the first time I have seen this survey when visiting the site and I am not sure how long this has been going on, but be alert Star Wars fans. There are a bunch of text boxes mixed into the survey for you to tell them what you like and what you dislike about the re-design.
I put in my 2 cents, I want more content, particularly in the Encyclopedia and TCW episode
guides. I also want a return of Dave Filoni's Episode Commentaries, among other things. Now it's your turn to let them know what you like and dislike about the new site design.
Much like the Republic's aid to Kiros, this review is a little late. Was it worth the wait? No promises.
After much deliberation I have come to the conclusion that Anakin, Obi-Wan, Ahsoka and Rex make the worst undercover agents ever. Of course three Jedi and a single Clone against an entire planet of crumb bum Slavers wasn't the most well thought out idea in the first place.
I really dug this episode. To start of with the Zygerrian ship looks to me stylistically similar to the Jawa Sandcrawler. This flying Sandcrawler was pretty cool looking.
It is interesting to see where the episode converges with it's comic predecssor and where it diverges. Overall the story is a pretty direct adaptation. There are some interesting changes. Not only to the Zygerrian characters appearances, but to Anakin's disguise (he had an eye patch in the comic), Ahsoka's slave outfit (much more To Catch a Predator in the comic), and some dialogue and scene changes.
It's pretty clear Anakin is willing to skirt questionable moral decisions whether it be flirting with Queen, allowing a Slave to jump to her death, and potentially allying himself with the Queen to protect his friends, once again showing his problem with attachment.
There are some obvious parallels between this episode and Return of the Jedi. Between storing the lightsabers in R2, Anakin's dialogue and wave we see that father and son have a lot in common.
I'm not sure why but Obi-Wan's attempted to free Governor Roshti, had me thinking about Han Solo and the enslavement and liberation of Chewbacca. Could you get two more different characters then Obi-Wan Kenobi and Han Solo? Yet these two very different men both recognized the inherent evil of the institution of slavery and took action in spite of the risk it posed to themselves. I like to think that Obi-Wan could see beyond Han's scruffy exterior and recognize the character of the man beneath the surface. I would like to think that this made Obi-Wan's decision to sacrifice himself easier, knowing that Luke had found a friend that he would be able to trust and watch his back.
It was fun to see Ahsoka patiently waiting in her cage and almost Force pushing the Zygerrian off of the building. You get the sense that Ahsoka has become immensly powerful in the Force and is simply biding her time.
My favorite parts of the episode where the interaction between Anakin and Queen Miraj Scintal. Scintal offers a striking departure from the life that Anakin lives, a life of secrets, half truths, and stolen moments with his wife. Scintal represents all Anakin hates in terms of slavery, but also all he wishes he could be in openness and honesty. She has the same overflowing confidence that Anakin possesses and the same cruelty that Anakin can flash in his darkest of moments. I would love to see the Queen's attempted seduction of Anakin be brought to the forefront a little more but that may be a bit much for the shows demographics.
Rating: Slaves gets 8.0 electric-whips. While I really enjoyed this episode and thought it was visually stunning, I would almost have loved it more if the emphasized the Queen's attempted seduction of Anakin, and played up the darkness within Anakin that would have felt drawn to the Queen's dark bargain.
We are in for a bit of a Winter break from The Clone Wars. It looks like we will be getting at least the full Umbara arc replayed before we see the concluding episode of this current arc. Friday the 16th The General will be replayed, Friday the 23rd Plan of Dissent will be replayed, and it is safe to assume on the 30th we will see Carnage of Krell. That means at the earliest we are looking at January 6th as the earliest date we will see Escape from Kadavo.
I've got four lit and I am so ready for the 10th novel in the X-Wing series, this time in glorious Hardcover edition.
Artist Mike Bryan really brought the feel of space dog-fighting action to this piece art.
The cover also has a very Cold War feel to it, with the ship being pursued by the X-Wing immediately reminding me of a camouflaged Soviet MiG fighter jet.
I am really curious as to what type of ship this is. It looks to have the cockpit and fuselage of an X-Wing. I am sure some more avid fan that I can identify this ship readily.
I also love the intersection of space and atmosphere in this piece of art.
Starwars.com has a publisher's summary to go along with the cover art:
Outcasts and misfits, spies and warriors, pilots and troublemakers — they’re Wraith Squadron. Founded decades ago by ace pilot Wedge Antilles, this elite intelligence unit, disbanded at the end of a catastrophic civil war, is reunited by former leader Face Loran to find out whether one of the galaxy’s most powerful military officers is a traitor… and whether anyone can stop him if he is. To succeed in their mission, the Wraiths must become thieves, pirates, imposters, forgers, and liars, staying just one step ahead of their enemies and the law!
Mercy Kill is due out August 7, 2012. I know what I am asking for as a Birthday present.
I usually say that a Star Wars novel, even a mediocre one is better then just about any other book out there. The reason I feel this way in large part is because of the Expanded Universe that has been created by Lucasfilm and it's licensees. Even a story that I dislike adds to the tapestry of the Star Wars universe lending additional depth, new characters, and shifting the reader's point of view on events previously established.
That being said, I recently read Star Wars: Shadow Games by Michael Reaves and Maya Kaathryn Bohnhoff. With all due respect to the authors, this is a novel that I haven't really been looking forward to. The idea to resurrect the Dash Rendar character for a standalone novel, and to set the premise around a galactic celebrity in the person of Holostar Javul Charn, left me wondering what the heck the editors at Lucasbooks and Del Rey were thinking in approving this book. I kept picturing The Bodyguard with Kevin Costner and Whitney Houston, except with aliens and droids.
There was some trepidation on my part based on continuity issues from Mr. Reaves last series, Coruscant Nights. Though I will say, I am a fan of some of Mr. Reaves Star Wars works. The penultimate scene in Darth Maul: Shadow Hunter, in which the lead character Lorn Pavan escapes the clutches of Darth Maul long enough to "safely" entrust a Sith Holocron to Senator Palpatine, is one of my favorite scenes in the Expanded Universe. I will also say that Reaves' Medstar Duology starring Barriss Offee is a very underrated and off-beat (MASH in Space) set of Star Wars books.
Enough of my ramblings, you want to hear about Shadow Games. I was pleasantly surprised by this book. I am a fan of the mystery genre, as child I grew up watching a lot of television and movies. Some of my favorite re-runs included Scooby-Doo and Murder She Wrote. I also enjoyed a heavy dose of the Hardy Boys series of children's mystery novels. In Shadow Games there are multiple hidden agendas and multiple mysteries at work, there is a strong who done it element combined with a slow reveal to the reader and the main character about what is truly going on.
The main character of the story and the primary point of view character is Dash Rendar. We basically follow Dash through the story except for a few minor detours. We also get a heavy dose of Leebo (Dash's Droid), Javul Charn (the holostar), Han Solo, Eaden Vrill (Dash's partner and Teras Kasi practioner), and Yanus Melikan (Charn's tour cargo master).
In addition to these characters we also have a number of Imperial and Black Sun characters, and even an assasin, that come in and out of the story and act the foils to our heroes.
I enjoyed the portrayals of both Dash Rendar and Javul Charn in the story, Javul in particular was a much better developed character then I was expecting going in. It is also interesting in the way that they portrayed Rendar and used Han Solo to contrast and compare the two characters. Long time fans will be familiar with criticism of Shadows of the Empire, that Rendar was created to be a basic carbon copy of Han because Han was unavailable for use in the story because of that unfortunate business on Cloud City. Well the portrayal of Han that we get in this book is like Han in the beginning of Episode IV except even more militant in terms of his independence and staying away from causes and women. I liked the winks in this book to the Han Solo Trilogy by A.C. Crispin and the way that Han's Bria Tharen causes him to look at women and at the Rebellion.
The key to the Dash Rendar in this story is his attachments. He is a character motivated by bonds of friendship and love, be that to his smuggling partner, his droid, or his would be paramour. In many ways it's this soft heart combined with the gruff exterior that makes Han Solo such an endearing character and why Dash grew on me in this book. There a few funny scenes that show the rivalry between these two characters that are so similar. If they weren't so busy one uping each other, then they might just get along pretty well.
There are some minor quibbles that I have with the book, the biggest thing that stuck out to me was a continuity issue that arises from a throw away line. One of Javul Charn's hangers on is a fashion designer, who according to the book previously worked for Lando Calrissian, the Baron-Administrator of Cloud City. When I read this, I couldn't tell why, but something struck me as off about this so I raced to the Wookieepedia to confirm my hunch. According to the Wook:
A year after the Battle of Yavin, Cloud City was run by Baron Administrator Lando Calrissian, who had won administration of the city from Baron Administrator Dominic Raynor in a Sabacc tournament. Not much later Raynor hired the bounty hunter Bossk to get revenge on Calrissian. Bossk and his group of mercenaries ambushed the new administrator in one Maintenance Level, but were unsuccessful.
It is a very minor line that doesn't factor into the outcome of the novel, but it is this kind of little continuity hiccup that drives the more continuity obsessed fans bonkers.
There was also the labeling of an Imperial Interdictor ship as an "Interceptor Class," vessel. You understood what they were getting at, but I don't recall ever reading those vessels referred to in that way.
We do get an addition to the ever growing list of in-universe profanity, with the phrase; "womp rat's ass."
There are two pretty big hanging threads that the authors leave open to interpretation or future clarification. I don't want to give too much away, but lets just stay Reaves an Bohnhoff give us another potential version of events leading up to A New Hope with a nifty potential retcon to solve some preexisting continuity issues.
They also leave this reader wondering about the identity of a certain character, who I think we saw heavily in the Bantam era EU under a different identity.
I enjoyed the say the end of the book dovetailed nicely into A New Hope, but it did so in such a way that there is wiggle room in the timeline. It is almost like Reaves and Bohnhoff purposefully set certain portions of this story in the sand instead of in stone to avoid continuity issues.
All in all, Shadow Games is an interesting change of genre for a Star Wars novel, a bit more mystery then we are used to seeing and an engaging enough tale to keep my attention all the way through.
It is a solidly average book in terms of the Star Wars publishing line. Worth a read, but I am not sure how many re-reads it will end up getting on my bookshelf.
To learn more about Star Wars: Shadow Games, you can visit Random House.com.
To learn more about the process behind this book visit, Ms. Bohnhoff's blog.
"Slavery, a great tool it is for the rise of the Sith." ~ Grand Master Yoda on the Zygerrian Resurgence
Despite dealing with the despicable institution of slavery, this week's episode saw a return of humor and our main Jedi characters in a bit of a palate cleanser after the intense dark drama of Umbara.
"Where we are going always reflects where we came from." Zygerrian slavers are behind the sudden disappearance of an entire colony of people on the planet Kiros. As Anakin and Ahsoka rush to defuse a series of bombs planted by the slavers, Obi-Wan must fight with their imposing leader.
It was nice to see Obi-Wan, Anakin, and Ahsoka return and star in an episode after the Clone-centric arc of Umbara. You will be hard pressed to find a bigger fan of the Clones then myself, but TCW has a large cast of characters and it is important that we don't go too long without seeing some of the main characters in action. It was also great to see that at least Clone Trooper Boil is still alive, even though his buddy Waxer didn't make it through the last story arc.
This episode saw some pretty interesting character development for Ahsoka, but not in the way that we traditionally get character development. We saw Ahsoka's physical maturation and growth of martial skills in this episode. While she has always been able to hold her own in a fight, this episode saw Ahsoka kicking some major butt. Her Force augmented leaping, combined with a fluidity of motion when she threw the detonators into the Droid Tank was very impressive and something I don't think Season 1 or Season 2 Ahsoka would have really been able to do. We also see a flash at the end of the episode as she is quickly able to subdue and capture Darts D'Nar, otherwise known as the guy who was using Obi-Wan as a punching bag. Ahsoka is becoming a very formidable warrior in her own right.
There are interesting parallels between the weaponless Togruta on Kiros and the weaponless world of Alderaan. In this episode we see an entire planets population pressed into slavery because they choose the path of neutral pacifism. The episode specifically calls out the fact that the society doesn't have any weapons. This echos the pleas of Princess Leia when she is aboard the Death Star.
Princess Leia: No! Alderaan is peaceful! We have no weapons, you can't possibly... Governor Tarkin: [impatiently] You would prefer another target, a military target? Then name the system! I grow tired of asking this so it will be the last time: *Where* is the rebel base? Princess Leia: ...Dantooine. They're on Dantooine. Governor Tarkin: There. You see, Lord Vader, she can be reasonable. Continue with the operation; you may fire when ready. Princess Leia: WHAT? Governor Tarkin: You're far too trusting. Dantooine is too remote to make an effective demonstration - but don't worry; we will deal with your rebel friends soon enough. ~IMBD
On Alderaan we see an entire planet destroyed by the Death Star, on Kiros we see see the planet left intact but the population totally enslaved by the Separatists and their Battle Droid army. Alderaan's pacifism combined with it's political agitation against Emperor Palpatine's New Order sealed it's fate. What planet would be better to test the weapon on then one that cannot fight back and doesn't risk damage tot he battle station on it's test run?
One of the big differences between the situations on Kiros and Alderaan is the state of the galaxy. While the population of Kiros is under duress, the Jedi Order is lining up to come to their aide. The Order has it's faults and it's moral blind spots, but the presence of the Order and it's opposition to slavery gives the people of Kiros hope of salvation. In contrast there is no Jedi Order to protect Alderaan and possibly prevent the planet's destruction.
The moral of both tales is similar. It is all well and good to hold to idealist sentiments, but one must recognize the reality of the world or galaxy around you. There are bad people out there and if you are unable to protect yourself, then you will always be at their mercy. This rugged individualism is a good lesson for younger viewers of the show to be exposed too.
Perhaps this episode was sponsored by the GBA, the Galactic Blaster Association, a political action committee lobbying for fewer restrictions on blasters in the galaxy far, far away.
Obi-Wan Kenobi, now that is a name I haven't head in a long time on The Clone Wars. Obi-Wan is one of greatest Jedi Masters during the Clone Wars. Obi-Wan's strength as a Jedi is his ability to be above average across a broad category of Jedi abilities. This episode shows us one of his greatest strength and that is the ability to take a beating like a champ. Rocky Balboa and Hulk Hogan have nothing on Obi-Wan. In order to give Anakin and Ahsoka time to diffuse Darts D'Nar network of bombs, Obi-Wan takes a pretty brutal hand to hand beat down.
I really enjoyed how quickly Obi-Wan was able to take control of the situation as soon as the battle droid transmission revealed that all the bombs had been deactivated. Seizing and crushing the droids quickly and retrieving his lightsaber.
"I had a dream I was a Jedi. I came back here and freed all the slaves. Have you come to free us?" ~Anakin Skywalker to Qui-Gon Jinn
One of my favorite scenes in the episode begins with Anakin's reaction to Dart D'Nar's request to discuss surrender terms with Obi-Wan. The flash of pure unadulterated rage that we see from Anakin, was very dark and shows just how deeply scarred he is by his past. That powerlessness of being a slave is one of the central factors I believe in Anakin's search for power, control and order which helps lead him down the dark path.
It is particularly curious how Obi-Wan reacts to Anakin's seizing of the hologram and his outburst. This is very un-Jedi like and would seem to be particularly egregious behavior in front of a Padawan and in front of Clone Troopers. Not very becoming for a General to behave like this.
"I will come back and free you, Mom. I promise." Anakin to Shmi
The scene then flows into a conversation between Obi-Wan and Ahsoka. This same scene occurs in the comic from which this story arc is being adapted. I just love this part of the scene because it is the revelation to Ahsoka about Anakin's past as a slave. This revelation will undoubtedly answer some questions for Ahsoka about her Master, and also put her on guard to try to help him through these issues.
Because of the war and the speculation about Anakin's being the Chosen One, I believe the Jedi Order was more lenient with Anakin then they would have been with the average Padawan or Knight. In any other situation I believe Anakin would have been forced to confront his past as a slave and deal with those internal issues before he was elevated to Knighthood or given a Padawan. This fact combined with the flaw of attachment within Obi-Wan which caused him to be too forgiving and too trusting that Anakin would eventually find the peace within himself that always eluded him.
It would be interesting to see what lessons are learned by Anakin, Ahsoka and the Jedi from this arc. If the Jedi are able to rescue the enslaved people of Kiros, will this surrogate emancipation provide Anakin some comfort over his failures to free his Mother from slavery and ultimately his own feelings of guilt over her death. Perhaps Obi-Wan and Ahsoka will believe the events of this arc will end up helping Anakin work through his issues and presume that they are no longer a problem.
I particularly liked Yoda's quote in the High Council at the end of the episode, Slavery is a great tool for the Sith because it creates the emotions that the Sith feed off of. It also has the material benefit of free labor to use as laborers or warriors that Sith Empires have used to build on in the past. But like many things the wise sage of the Jedi says, there is yet another layer of meaning to this line. Because the new Sith Empire that is soon to emerge on the galaxy will be built on the back of a single slave in Anakin Skywalker, who in his moment of choosing picks the Dark over the Light, the Sith over the Jedi.
There are some very interesting similarities and differences between the story arc as it appears between the Dark Horse Comics TPB and in the TV show. The biggest difference is in how they approached the Droid Commander on Kiros. In the comic, he is a four-armed creature, it appears to be a Besalisk. We just had four episodes co-staring a new Besalisk character, to follow that up with another Besalisk villian might be a bit much, so I think this editorial decision makes sense. It also appears that they are combining two characters form the comics into one for the TV show. In the comics, Anakin, Ahoska, Obi-Wan and Rex stumble upon a Zygerrian Slaver ship in space and board the vessel looking for information on the missing colony. That ship has a Zygerrian captain who the Jedi subdue and capture the vessel. It appears that in the TV show they are combining the Separatist Commander and the Zygerrian Captain into the same person in the role of Darts D'Nar. This change makes sense for another reason besides Besalisk fatigue, it allows them to cut out what is basically a generic episode that would involve them searching an asteroid field and having a running fight aboard a ship. It allows them to get the story to Zygerria quicker. In effect this three episode arc will have episode one on Kiros, episode two on Zygeria and episode three on Kadavo.
Rating: This enjoyable episode gets 7.5 exploding droids. The humor from the battle droids and Obi-Wan always amuses me, and there were some important revelations like Obi-Wan detailing Anakin's history to Ahsoka. On the whole it was a very fun episode but lacked the mature tone and drama of the previous story arc. It worked for me, but if handled properly I think next week's middle episode in the arc will be the best one of the three, there is some very interesting exchanges between Anakin and the Zygerrian Queen.
"Those who enslave others inevitably become slaves themselves." To locate the missing colonists, Anakin, Obi-Wan and Ahsoka go undercover to infiltrate the slavers on Zygerria. Anakin struggles with his emotions as a wily Zygerrian queen forces him to take questionable actions in order to carry out his mission.
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