General Star Wars Animated Series

100% in agreement with this. Umbara's front-line drama was great, its villain was perfect, and its central themes surrounding the complexity of what to do when given orders one cannot abide were very interesting and well explored from multiple angles.

I was actually hoping that the general from that arc was going to turn out to not be working with the Separatists. Like, he could have just hated clones and been happy when they died, but still been loyal to the Republic. It would show that even people on the good guys side can be evil. Would the clones have been justified getting rid of the guy if he was a loyal buy racist dude? But they jumped off the slippery slope and made him an outright traitor.

That's probably my only - and I mean only - complaint about that arc. Instead of Krell going all "I have forseen the Sith will win, so I shall become the Dark Lord's new apprentice, muhuhuhahaha!" the whole thing would've worked perfectly if he had grown dark just from being Jedi who became more and more of a warmonger and a brutal monster with no regard for casualties, in favor of victory, over the course of the war, who hated clones for being lesser life forms, and who ultimately set up their deaths because they were beginning to show dissent and he demanded control.

It would've lend much better to the overall theme of the corruption of war if Krell was simply the result of himself, rather than Sith influence.

Edited by KnownUnknown on Aug 11th 2018 at 8:36:34 AM

It could be how he fell. I imagine him starting out genuinely loyal, but over the course of the war deciding that the Sith were going to win and deciding to switch sides.

All I'm going to say about it Satine is that it could have been handled better, yes, but her death was inevitable because the woman was downright suicidally pacifistic.

This is the woman who was literally going to let a bomber standing five feet away from her blow up the ship she was on, killing her and everyone on it, because she was that uppity about not using violence and Obi-Wan was letting his feelings for her interfere with his judgement thanks to her bringing up their past relationship at a really inopportune moment. Kenobi probably could have just force pulled trigger away and called it a day, but instead Anakin had to come up and shank the dude from behind.

That's all moot, because she wasn't killed because she was a pacifist. The strengths or flaws in her ideals had nothing to do with why she died: she was killed because Obi-Wan was in love with her, and so killing her made him sad.

Maul blatantly uses Death Watch's grudge with her as an excuse to get in position to kill her, but once they attack Mandalore in the first place that entire plotline gets the head cut off of it. Maul doesn't give a crap about it, and the plot isn't affected by it.

As mentioned earlier, if her death had something to do with her political situation or her ideology, that would have made the whole thing a lot better. But as it was, her death was only inevitable because she happened to know Obi-Wan.

Edited by KnownUnknown on Aug 11th 2018 at 10:58:49 AM

I can agree that Krell would have been better if he was just a ruthless general. I wouldn't even necessarily say he needs to hate clones, so much as simply callously disregard their lives. He's initially painted as a war "hero" who's won many great victories by chucking clones into a meat grinder and drowning the enemy in a sea of corpses.

That characterization probably could have served well enough for his villainy.

In the first couple episodes, I was actually expecting the arc to end with Krell going off on one of his berserk rages about the clones daring to accomplish a victory by not doing it his way, and then Rex shooting him in the back.

• Clone Trooper on Radio What happened?
• Rex: (looks the other soldier with Krell in the eyes; other guy nods) Enemy sniper got the general. It's being taken care of. Carry on with your plan.

Edited by TobiasDrake on Aug 11th 2018 at 12:50:11 PM

Is there an actual official combat style that involves the use of two double-bladed lightsabers?

Edited by slimcoder on Aug 11th 2018 at 11:59:11 AM

It would be an interesting thing to explore. Like, there are so many different kinds of alien species in the Star Wars universe (even though most of them are more traditionally humanoid), that it would be fun to have there be certain styles invented for and only useable by certain species, like the style Krell uses being a Lemelisk style.

Reminds me of this video I found.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dSYynpTHct0

"The Most Unique and Unorthodox Lightsaber Duelists"

One of them fights just by wielding the sabers with the Force.

Edited by slimcoder on Aug 11th 2018 at 1:59:36 AM

Probably not. If it does exist I imagine it's not very popular since it would require at least four arms with good strength and dexterity.

I have mixed feelings about the first three story arcs of season five. All three were good, but none of them really focused on the main protagonists of the series (apart from Asokha), and as a result they feel somewhat... peripheral, if I can use that word. Less than essential. Four episodes of droids and a little green guy we've never seen before might have been a bit much....

But, this latest episode "Revival" (and I'm watching these on DVD, but it looks like they aired in a different order originally) finally gets back to Obi-Wan Kenobi and Darth Maul (which is where last season ended, and where I was hoping this one would pick up) so maybe things will feel more relevant.

I will say, more Hondo is always good. :D

Edited by andersonh1 on Aug 13th 2018 at 6:28:09 AM

The DVD seems to have them in a different order than Netflix does. I'm watching them on Netflix and season 5 opened with "Revival" there.

Revival aired on Cartoon Network as the season premiere, to capitalize on Maul’s return at the end of season 4. Its proper placement is later in the season with the rest of the Maul arc. The home release reflects this, although I’m surprised that Netflix doesn’t.

Personally, I prefer it at the start of the season. It feels like a continuation of Brothers/Revenge, and gives a sense of time to the opening of Eminence where Maul and Savage are found by Death Watch.

Edited by BadWolf21 on Aug 13th 2018 at 8:56:35 AM

I wish there was a way to watch the show in chronological order on Netflix. I'm in the middle of a rewatch and jumping back and forth between seasons is pretty annoying.

Huh. That explains something that's been bugging me. Specifically, having Revival at the beginning of the season makes it feel like it's just straight-up continuing from where the season finale left off.

Which is awkward, because it suggests that Ventress spontaneously polymorphed into that recurring Jedi lady.

Placing it later in the season creates more of a sense that time has passed between then and now, making Ventress's disappearance feel less abrupt.

I still want to know what happened when she and Obi-Wan parted ways, though. Like, to be a fly on that wall when she was like, "We cool?" and he was like, "We cool. Peace out, scary Sith lady who I was not aware was no longer our enemy but will ask no further questions about."

Edited by TobiasDrake on Aug 13th 2018 at 9:56:50 AM

I agree, I think I'd have preferred seeing it as the first episode of the season.

Edited by andersonh1 on Aug 13th 2018 at 9:42:54 AM

So question. I've only seen TFA and a couple bits of the Clone Wars show and Rebels. I've heard good things about both shows but which would you recommend for someone whose only knowledge of the franchise are things that pretty much everyone knows (Luke being Vader's son, Luke and Leia being siblings, etc.) and TFA?

Both are decent imo if you have little experience with the franchise, but between the two Rebels is definitely the far more accessible: all you really need to know going in is that they Empire is bad - the show explains what a Jedi and all its related concepts are to the audience in a similar way to the first movie and while it has characters from the films and other shows it’s always from a oneshot/cameo format - the main characters and settings are all new.

TCW will also teach you what you need to know about the conflict and such in time, but it will take longer (as it is essentially In Medias Res if you haven’t seen the movies) and there definitely is the presupposition that you already know who all these characters are.

Edited by KnownUnknown on Aug 13th 2018 at 11:02:10 AM

TCW definitely expects you to be at least passingly familiar with the prequel trilogy. It's basically Star Wars Episode 2.5, with all the "have seen the other films" expectations that entails.

Also the 2D Clone Wars cause Ventress is in it & like everyone else she receives no introduction.

She’s introduced perfectly well in Ambush. Dooku says “this is my protege” or something to that effect. Boom. Done.

That she is the third Sith in the Rule of Two succession line is pretty confusing.

Always two, there are. The Master, the Apprentice, and the Apprentice's Apprentice who the Master is cool with for some reason.

...two. That adds to two, right?

Edited by TobiasDrake on Aug 13th 2018 at 1:39:06 PM

Yeah, but the Rule of Two barely ever comes up anyway, so you're unlikely to run into that point of confusion for a while. By which point you're at the Nightsisters arc and Ventress leaves Dooku anyway.

To expand on this though, the Apprentice almost always has their own apprentice on the side, before they kill the Master, as is the Sith way. Ventress is Dooku's secret Sith apprentice, but officially she is simply a Dark Jedi who works for him.

Palpatine is not as strict about this rule as some other Sith Lords either, since he is reasonably certain none of his apprentices could beat him, and he plans to force Dooku to kill her eventually anyway.

Amusingly Sidious does quote the rule against Maul though this highlights what a hypocrite he is cause he is the last person who should be telling people what the rule is.

Which leads to the funny thing in that if you consider the Plagueis novel canon he only ever had one Apprentice & he assumed Maul was just an attack dog for the two.