Keith Palmer's Multi-Purpose Journal

After managing to put some thoughts together at the close of the second season of Clone Wars, the thought of doing that again has been something I've been thinking about for a while. I suppose that if I was to try and sum up the third season in just a few words, they would be "changes of pace." Along with the different kinds of stories that each new "plot arc" seemed to bring, the series kept up its experiments in "non-linear" episode order, but in such a way that it seemed more interesting than "too clever" to me. Partway through the season, though, in addition to the new looks for Padme turned out on what seemed a regular basis, the designs for Anakin, Ahsoka, and Obi-Wan were updated to give a sense of moving closer to Revenge of the Sith; that does make me wonder a bit about whether we'll see as many flashbacks for a while so long as they're going to be "obvious" that way.
( A few more closing thoughts )

When it turned out that the latest episode of Clone Wars wasn't shown on TV up here when I was expecting it to, I fell back to waiting until the next morning and getting a copy through file sharing. In the process, I did meditate somewhat on the "fansub dilemma" in anime, where fans turn out speedy translations of episodes just aired in Japan but in the process perhaps condition other fans not to buy "official" releases, which maybe holds things somewhat underground over here and might even lead to a "watch it right away, forget about it, and move on to the next ephemeral product" mentality. I've told myself there's no such thing as a "right to anime," but in wanting to see the latest Clone Wars episode right away I seem to have forfeited any "right to the high ground" myself. Still, as with some other episodes that didn't air promptly up here, I might have wanted to see it because I was concerned how it would turn out...
( Balance is found in the one who faces his guilt. )

It turned out that Teletoon has now fallen behind Cartoon Network in showing new Clone Wars episodes, and where last season I just sort of shrugged that off and waited, this time around I resorted to underhanded means to see "Heroes on Both Sides." I suppose part of my motivation may have been the news of the new main character designs, but I may have also wandered off to some pretty involved speculation over one little bit of description. In the end, there were indeed things to think about in this episode...
( Fear is a great motivator. )

Aware that the start of the third season of Clone Wars is getting closer, and that one of these days I'll get the second season DVD set (if, perhaps, as a Christmas present), I've been trying to keep moving through the first season. I may have been slowed down, though, by making a post after seeing each episode, and I'm aware that I first started posting after watching the first of the little documentaries that go along with each episode and having the ambiguous feeling that the creators were trying hard to link their work to the old Star Wars movies and just letting connections to the new ones speak for themselves. In just the last little while, however, I may have started to wonder if that feeling has started to fade, and that's left me wondering in turn if I might run out of things to say... but not this time, and for positive reasons no less.

The little documentary for "Lair of Grievous" starts with a look at the general himself, with Dave Filoni saying the letters "EU" instead of just "a comic" when explaining how a tale had already been told of how Grievous was caught in an accident arranged by the Count and turned into that loveable cyborg. He added, though, that this didn't quite seem to be adequate character motivation, and how the creators had asked George Lucas's opinion, which was that Grievous, frustrated that he couldn't use the Force, turned himself into a cyborg to hunt down the Jedi he couldn't become part of. It was, I suppose, the bit about Lucas's opinion being asked that caught my attention; it does seem at least a bit useful against hypothetical complaints that he walks in with changes to what "everybody knows" just because he can. It did occur to me that this motivation is a somehow "personal" one, but going back to Star Wars itself motivations do seem "personal"; too, the thought's occurred to me that while Grievous can be seen as a precursor to Darth Vader, it's interesting to me for there to be some differences between them too. Of course, I can mention this here because the creators decided to keep things ambiguous.

There was also some discussion of Kit Fisto, one of the "five second wonders" of the saga; I was surprised to realise that his appearance changed quite a bit between Attack of the Clones and and Revenge of the Sith (becoming somewhat more like a "flying saucer alien," to my own eyes)... if I hadn't realised it before now, though, it seems to be something "they got away with." It also sort of struck my attention that the creators were impressed with Atsushi Takeuchi directing the episode without mentioning what else he'd worked on, but in a way the sort of casual touch to that interests me too.

Again, it's been a while since I last watched one of the episodes out of the Clone Wars DVD set. I suppose, though, that this time around I was taking my time getting around to the next episode in line because, again, I was wondering about how I'd react to the little documentary from the show's creators... along with, I suppose, dealing once more with mixed feelings running back to when the new Star Wars movies started.

The hard thought's come to me a few times that the consuming vortex of negativity and outright hatred might have first swirled into life and gained special strength around the computer-generated figure of Jar Jar Binks. Goofy comedy relief characters don't have an easy time of it from many fans, of course, and when the critics could pontificate about George Lucas being offensive... and yet, it just seems that I'm wired to feel sympathetic for fictional characters who attract dislike. I know it's just as pointless as disliking them, and yet it happens to me. From that sympathy, though, I can make a quite good effort at telling myself Binks might well be mortified at what keeps happening to him but can't do anything about it, and that may also add to the feeling I've developed that some people may have generated their bad feelings, not just come by them as "obvious"... In any case, it's possible to see Binks's steadily diminished role as the new movies went on as somehow "necessary" but also as nevertheless feeding certainties both smug and angry, and bringing him back in the Clone Wars as making a small effort to reclaim him from being the punchline of unpleasant and unfunny "jokes."

I suppose that when it came to the little documentary, I already knew the creators made an effort to say George Lucas had pushed them into bringing Binks back, and yet knowing that made it easy enough to accept their best efforts at seeming to make a subtle play to a certain subset of their audience. I did, though, take note of how a bit of byplay with the Jedi robe computer-animated in this episode was called an homage to Star Wars itself... and how that seemed just a bit of a surprise for Dave Filoni himself as well.

As if having to pay back a heavy balance for a few episodes of Clone Wars airing up here a week ahead of when they first appeared on Cartoon Network, there was a long wait before I was able to see the final episodes of the second season. I suppose I could have made more of an effort and plumbed into devious areas to track them down, but for some reason wasn't quite compelled to do so. (Whatever the reason was, it doesn't seem to have been standing on principles, what with all the anime "fansubs" I was piling up while waiting for the final Clone Wars episodes...) Nevertheless, the season ended well for me, and now I've got the chance to set down some general reflections I've been mulling over for a while.

There might even have been a little concern on my part as the second season approached. For all I know, this is just an unfortunate byproduct of never quite keeping up very well with "domestic" television, but I seem to have formed the impression that the first season of a show captivates an enthusiastic fandom, but then, as the differences between what those fans convinced themselves the show was "really" all about and what the creators are actually getting on screen begin to pile up, things can sour quite fast... With that in mind, then, I might have picked up on an official comment or two and been a little concerned that all of a sudden, some switch would be flipped and I would start getting the same somehow wrong impression from Anakin as I wound up getting with the initial "drawn animation" "micro-series," that every effort was being made to show him as "dangerous" and just plain unpleasant... (This, I suppose, leads to irritation on my part whenever someone dismisses the computer-animated series and holds up the "drawn" series in the next breath, with an equal lack of specifics.) I might be able to wonder why I'm such a stickler on this point beyond, perhaps, it seeming one facet of a general hostility I set myself against. As soon as we were past the opening episodes, though, and some specific last worries evaporated with the triumphant showing of "Senate Spy" (at the very least one of my favourite episodes of the season), I was feeling fine. However, it does seem at least some people who had taken whatever Karen Traviss had written about the Mandalorians to heart wound up finding a reason to sour... Still, I have wondered myself if one day I'll have to admit the whole thing was "conditionally canonical" for me.

Much was made about "bounty hunters" as the season got under way (and, of course, it wrapped up with them too), but for me a defining feature of the season may have been "movie homages." Of course, they often had to be pointed out to me, but even so I still managed to find them amusing. It might be possible, though, that some of them and some other developments gave a sense of building episodes around one-of-a-kind, never-before-experienced novelties, something I do tend to associate with certain other science fiction series... However, the characters do seem to remain themselves even in the midst of that sort of thing, and that helps a good bit for me. With the second season of Clone Wars wrapped up, I'm wondering what the third will hold, but also aware I might be better able to get back to watching the episodes of the first season.

Although it's been a while since the last time I managed it, I did get around to rewatching another episode from the first season Clone Wars DVD set. I do have to admit that by this point, I perhaps wasn't thinking so much about the episode "Rookies" as contemplating just how the little documentary attached to it would have the show's creators trying to claim links to the old movies for it (perhaps I was imagining them saying something about the design of the base)... but there was a surprise for me this time around when there was just a little mention that they might be repurposing props, particularly this early on in the series, but "the old movies" did that too. (I use that term too out of the thought that it's a little unexpected, so perhaps that helped it get my attention.)

Of course, perhaps the surprise left me wondering just how to build a little statement on what I'd seen. However, I think I can say that I remembered only while watching this episode that the characters weren't just fighting for their own lives, but trying to get a warning out to protect where they came from. Whether this means that the larger plot of the episode was something of "the MacGuffin" might be the next question.

Still working my way through the Clone Wars DVD set, I made it to "Shadow of Malevolence." It might be that by this time around, in anticipating this episode's little documentary emphasising connections to the old movies I was able to imagine accepting that. After all, this was "the episode with Y-wings in it"...
( And yet, a different connection and beyond... )

As I'd asked for, I received the first season DVD set of the Clone Wars series as a Christmas present. I got around to opening it and started at the beginning with "Ambush," somehow struck that there were moments in it I didn't quite seem to remember from before, but also thinking in an idle sort of way that Yoda laughing seemed a perfect soundalike callback to The Empire Strikes Back...

Then, I decided to watch that episode's little documentary to follow up, and all of a sudden I was feeling ambiguous that the creators were bringing up the point I had been thinking before, but pointing out that they were getting back to Yoda having a "whimsical" edge just like in TESB, and he looked different from than in the new movies... All I can really say is that had I had the impression as the series got under way that the creators were thinking in terms of the "prequels" being a series of inexplicable omissions to be addressed, I would have been a lot more concerned about it. Then, I started thinking that Yoda would seem "whimsical" to people because of the way he was introduced in TESB, and that could easily be interpreted as him trying to test Luke, after which he becomes more serious... and then, somewhat later, I remembered him teaching the "younglings" in Attack of the Clones. I suppose it's just possible someone was worried bringing that up would dredge up accusations that the scene involved coming to a "too-obvious" conclusion, but at times that almost seems the point.

When I got my DVD of the Clone Wars movie, I was a little curious in seeing the hard numbers on my DVD player's time display for how it was put together. I'm willing to consider that at least some critics found a reason to be annoyed and at least some people found a reason to stay home because they saw the movie as having been "put together from TV episodes." That thought didn't bother me, although I was perhaps surprised just a little by how the Clone Wars TV series started with new episodes... In any case, after jotting down chapter stop numbers, I found myself wondering if the movie could be indeed be divided into neat quarters, or if its production was just a little more complicated than that would seem to indicate.

The "first part" of the movie, obviously enough, is set on its first world and involves Ahsoka establishing herself as Anakin's padawan, but it's a few minutes longer than the twenty-two minutes a "half-hour" television episode runs nowadays once you've taken out the commercials and the end credits. I thought of the "middle half" of the movie not so much one extended chunk as two parts itself, the first including the "vertical battle" as its set-piece and the second involving Ventress's counter-assault on our heroes, but even there I can guess at dividing points to make it a little less than half the movie's length and the first part of it shorter than the second. The last part of the movie, of course, is set on Tatooine and is just a shade longer than a television episode would be. All of this, of course, probably means next to nothing in the end, but it's a little interesting to play with numbers all the same.