Clone Wars Sixth Series Thoughts
Mar. 20th, 2014 06:24 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
krpalmerWhen the last episodes of the fifth season of Clone Wars gave an answer to the question "so what happens to Ahsoka?" that had been lurking built into the series since its theatrical premiere, I still wasn't quite dwelling on the first rumours it might be reduced to one more untidy problem springing from the sale of Lucasfilm. The news the show was being brought to a sudden end battered me too, even if I had the obvious cautionary example of what happens to Star Wars "fans" who spend all their time dwelling on self-identified slights. Aware even so of how some promised episodes had been pushed back and back through the fifth season until all of a sudden they were more collateral damage, though, I still reacted to the talk of production continuing for some more "bonus content" first with happy surprise, then with the creeping worry nobody in my own market would actually get to see it, and at last with the resolve to sign up for Netflix. I wasn't as fast as some people watching through them, aware that when they were done that would be it, but at last I was finished, a little sad there were no more but still heartened by the experience.
Although I noticed some other people talking about their own starting points, I just led off with the episodes at the top of Netflix's list, the "Order 66 arc." They picked up with a dose of familiar rousing military adventure and the surprising return (with cybernetic repairs) of the enemy leader Trench, who'd made an impression on me in his single appearance before. Something about him had reminded me of the "I know what you're thinking" cleverness that now seems to me the best reason some people are so obsessed with the character Thrawn, but relieved of the perhaps too "clever" idea that "learning about art" reduced all alien species (save Thrawn's own) to boxes with obscure buttons to hit to outwit them and all the other baggage now loaded onto the novels he appeared in. Another, smaller point stood out when I noticed Anakin wearing a more elaborate "space suit" than in an episode where he'd just added a bubble helmet to his older, more "armoured" costume. Things got more ominous as Fives stepped onto a solitary path, though. A comment already overheard had left me thinking he'd realise the best thing to do would be to escape on his own to some open-ended fate, which made what really happened that much more shocking. I then realised the comment must have been about Rex, but there I had to face the thought he no longer "had" to overcome a shared fate through some personal exercise of will so that Ahsoka could get away herself.
The next "plot arc" was the one everyone else had been talking about for quite a while, the one where Clovis turned out to have escaped another episode that had impressed me to cause more problems for Padme and Anakin. It was quite clear to me Padme continued to face no uncertainty of attraction, but in jumping to conclusions Anakin began to show an unsettling resemblance to the "anger management issues Anakin" of the old "drawn animation" series, always being goaded into blind rages, which had wound up ringing false to me even supposing Attack of the Clones the sole inspiration. It was a subtler and more acceptable criticism for me to see all the clutter in his room and think of the more recent raising of "attachment issues." However, perhaps seeking to make the best of everything, I began to wonder just a little if the episodes hadn't been held back because some hypothetical difference of opinion about "mushy stuff," but in just as hypothetical fact through some unexpressed sense of things not seeming right. In any case, I did take note of this last appearance of Ian Abercrombie's Palpatine and Yoda before his haircut, and wondered a little about old speculation that Palpatine had brought Anakin and Padme together in Attack of the Clones just with the thought of sparking tension between them. With these episodes, I could wonder if he still didn't know the whole story, and remembered how I'm more interested in thinking him "quick to react" than him being the perpetual puppetmaster.
The short "plot arc" that followed was a good change of pace anyway, one I'd in fact known would be coming from looking at the "pop-up previews" on Netflix. In the face of the gloom floating around that the end of Clone Wars was just another example of years of Star Wars being shoved into the corners to try and play to a noisy and sometimes noisome group of self-proclaimed tastemakers, these "wrapup" episodes were getting in one more big poke in the eye by bringing back Jar Jar; learning he had a significant other (if one outside his own species) still managed to surprise me when I saw it, though. His teaming up with Mace Windu might only further unsettle those who jumped past visceral negative reactions to the proclamation of offence, but maybe they'd be just as likely to freak out over resonances to Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. It might also be that these episodes had just been "in the pipeline," but that just might reflect on the streak of accident and chaos in Jar Jar himself.
For the last "plot arc" of all, things did seem to be organised to a high and concluding pitch. It opened with a sort of prologue, answering a question that's long seemed more important to some other people than me; I could still imagine it supporting my own thought that the person named mattered less than his name being used. There was also, of course, a further reduction of the time left for Anakin to "double his powers" in. Then, as things really got under way, Liam Neeson returned for more voice work, perhaps a further attempt to make up for him not being available for Revenge of the Sith (as much as I've been inclined to think the timing of the appearance roughed out for him didn't feel quite right in the rush of the movie's story), and it was once more implied Artoo knows things in the old movies he isn't letting anyone else in on; in the accumulation of those implications, though, they might not seem quite so much something I just have to try and deal with as they once did. I had the odd feeling there was something "cute" about Yoda in a medical bed, his eyes shut; perhaps the little starfighter he goes on his quest in was more meant that way. His quest did very much remind me of the "Mortis arc" (and we even learn the events of that weren't kept a secret) without giving the sense of rehashing it, and one encounter along the way very much got my attention just for how much Yoda's "personal dark side" had me thinking of Gollum. However, in the face of the wearying adulation of that particular computer-animated character and the extent to which some critics seem to draw the line between all those characters being contemptible and sublime just for Andy Serkis providing the "motion capture," I could imagine a bit of glee in the creation of the encounter. The show even managed to fill a bit of the "Ahsoka-shaped void" I'd been starting to sense in the final episodes, but I might not have quite "got" Mark Hamill's appearance until I noticed his name in the end credits. I suppose I've been willing even before Revenge of the Sith to accept whatever difference there may be between Yoda's philosophy in The Empire Strikes Back and the new movies as a simple product of his having failed to defeat the Emperor, and this "plot arc" might therefore seem a bit less "necessary" to me than to others. However, I was sort of interested in the intimations of "survival after death" being a rare necessity, a further step away from wondering whether everyone else in the galaxy might resent the Jedi for getting something they don't.
Clone Wars had more of an chance to make at least a few final statements than it had once seemed to. Looking ahead, though, I'm stuck trying to balance the thought I shouldn't resent "Rebels" ahead of any actual experience with being not that interested in advance comments that seem to amount to "it's got stormtroopers! And TIE fighters!" I'm also wondering whether to keep paying for Netflix; I've noticed other programs on it I'd be interested watching, but there is the little problem I hadn't lacked for things to watch beforehand. It also makes me conscious of "data used" in a way that hadn't quite bothered me before, no matter how profligate I'd been with other services.
Although I noticed some other people talking about their own starting points, I just led off with the episodes at the top of Netflix's list, the "Order 66 arc." They picked up with a dose of familiar rousing military adventure and the surprising return (with cybernetic repairs) of the enemy leader Trench, who'd made an impression on me in his single appearance before. Something about him had reminded me of the "I know what you're thinking" cleverness that now seems to me the best reason some people are so obsessed with the character Thrawn, but relieved of the perhaps too "clever" idea that "learning about art" reduced all alien species (save Thrawn's own) to boxes with obscure buttons to hit to outwit them and all the other baggage now loaded onto the novels he appeared in. Another, smaller point stood out when I noticed Anakin wearing a more elaborate "space suit" than in an episode where he'd just added a bubble helmet to his older, more "armoured" costume. Things got more ominous as Fives stepped onto a solitary path, though. A comment already overheard had left me thinking he'd realise the best thing to do would be to escape on his own to some open-ended fate, which made what really happened that much more shocking. I then realised the comment must have been about Rex, but there I had to face the thought he no longer "had" to overcome a shared fate through some personal exercise of will so that Ahsoka could get away herself.
The next "plot arc" was the one everyone else had been talking about for quite a while, the one where Clovis turned out to have escaped another episode that had impressed me to cause more problems for Padme and Anakin. It was quite clear to me Padme continued to face no uncertainty of attraction, but in jumping to conclusions Anakin began to show an unsettling resemblance to the "anger management issues Anakin" of the old "drawn animation" series, always being goaded into blind rages, which had wound up ringing false to me even supposing Attack of the Clones the sole inspiration. It was a subtler and more acceptable criticism for me to see all the clutter in his room and think of the more recent raising of "attachment issues." However, perhaps seeking to make the best of everything, I began to wonder just a little if the episodes hadn't been held back because some hypothetical difference of opinion about "mushy stuff," but in just as hypothetical fact through some unexpressed sense of things not seeming right. In any case, I did take note of this last appearance of Ian Abercrombie's Palpatine and Yoda before his haircut, and wondered a little about old speculation that Palpatine had brought Anakin and Padme together in Attack of the Clones just with the thought of sparking tension between them. With these episodes, I could wonder if he still didn't know the whole story, and remembered how I'm more interested in thinking him "quick to react" than him being the perpetual puppetmaster.
The short "plot arc" that followed was a good change of pace anyway, one I'd in fact known would be coming from looking at the "pop-up previews" on Netflix. In the face of the gloom floating around that the end of Clone Wars was just another example of years of Star Wars being shoved into the corners to try and play to a noisy and sometimes noisome group of self-proclaimed tastemakers, these "wrapup" episodes were getting in one more big poke in the eye by bringing back Jar Jar; learning he had a significant other (if one outside his own species) still managed to surprise me when I saw it, though. His teaming up with Mace Windu might only further unsettle those who jumped past visceral negative reactions to the proclamation of offence, but maybe they'd be just as likely to freak out over resonances to Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. It might also be that these episodes had just been "in the pipeline," but that just might reflect on the streak of accident and chaos in Jar Jar himself.
For the last "plot arc" of all, things did seem to be organised to a high and concluding pitch. It opened with a sort of prologue, answering a question that's long seemed more important to some other people than me; I could still imagine it supporting my own thought that the person named mattered less than his name being used. There was also, of course, a further reduction of the time left for Anakin to "double his powers" in. Then, as things really got under way, Liam Neeson returned for more voice work, perhaps a further attempt to make up for him not being available for Revenge of the Sith (as much as I've been inclined to think the timing of the appearance roughed out for him didn't feel quite right in the rush of the movie's story), and it was once more implied Artoo knows things in the old movies he isn't letting anyone else in on; in the accumulation of those implications, though, they might not seem quite so much something I just have to try and deal with as they once did. I had the odd feeling there was something "cute" about Yoda in a medical bed, his eyes shut; perhaps the little starfighter he goes on his quest in was more meant that way. His quest did very much remind me of the "Mortis arc" (and we even learn the events of that weren't kept a secret) without giving the sense of rehashing it, and one encounter along the way very much got my attention just for how much Yoda's "personal dark side" had me thinking of Gollum. However, in the face of the wearying adulation of that particular computer-animated character and the extent to which some critics seem to draw the line between all those characters being contemptible and sublime just for Andy Serkis providing the "motion capture," I could imagine a bit of glee in the creation of the encounter. The show even managed to fill a bit of the "Ahsoka-shaped void" I'd been starting to sense in the final episodes, but I might not have quite "got" Mark Hamill's appearance until I noticed his name in the end credits. I suppose I've been willing even before Revenge of the Sith to accept whatever difference there may be between Yoda's philosophy in The Empire Strikes Back and the new movies as a simple product of his having failed to defeat the Emperor, and this "plot arc" might therefore seem a bit less "necessary" to me than to others. However, I was sort of interested in the intimations of "survival after death" being a rare necessity, a further step away from wondering whether everyone else in the galaxy might resent the Jedi for getting something they don't.
Clone Wars had more of an chance to make at least a few final statements than it had once seemed to. Looking ahead, though, I'm stuck trying to balance the thought I shouldn't resent "Rebels" ahead of any actual experience with being not that interested in advance comments that seem to amount to "it's got stormtroopers! And TIE fighters!" I'm also wondering whether to keep paying for Netflix; I've noticed other programs on it I'd be interested watching, but there is the little problem I hadn't lacked for things to watch beforehand. It also makes me conscious of "data used" in a way that hadn't quite bothered me before, no matter how profligate I'd been with other services.