#//sorry that this arc has been super uneventful btw

[kayesdreamteam]

ALFORNADA TRIP TODAY 🔥🔥🔥🔥❗️❗️❗️❗️

[zenosanalytic]

THE SACRED TEXTS!!! EPISODE 3

I just finished the 3rd season of Clone Wars(2008) and I have Thoughts!

s3 is typically where I’ve seen ppl saying Clone Wars gets gud but, for the first half of the season, I was pretty skeptical. Until ~ e11 the season’s dedicated to filling in holes from the earlier seasons which, frankly, didn’t really need to be filled? Like: I’m not really sure WHO, in the audience, would be sitting around wondering “gee, I wonder what’s going on with Mandalore’s trade-policy during all of this?”?? Or “was a Republic Army sent to help Ryloth when it was first invaded, and what happened to it?”??? And most of this not only felt pretty unnecessary, but was also pretty Meh (:T There were good bits! Like, I didnt ACTL mind the Ryloth ep, and it acts as a declaration of sorts that it’s now both open-season on Jedi(yeah, technically Kit Fisto’s ex-padawan Vebb died in Lair of Grievous, but he was very much An Outlier), and more broadly open-season on named&faced humanoid characters.

To give an example: not ONLY does Domino Squad from Rookies in s1 get a fleshing-out backstory(which is... very Pat and derivative and convenient, but the characterization is ok given they’ve only got one 22min ep to do it in. & I liked 99′s whole role as basically surrogate dad to all the other clones), but pretty much ALL of them, I think, end up getting killed off during the season? Like I said it’s a clear statement they want to break with the past while building on the “hey fans: CLONES ARE PEOPLE! THEIR SITUATION IN THIS WAR IS MONSTROUS!!” message the series has been soft-peddling from the beginning, but I feel like they didnt really commit to it enough. Like: IF they had stuck with the Domino survivors throughout the season, if we’d gotten to see them in episode after episode, gotten to know them better alongside the other members of Rex’s ARC battalion, gotten to see them face dangers and survive them, only to watch, agonized, as they, and the rest of the Battalion vets, slowly get picked off in the increasingly dangerous missions of the second half of the season, then that would have made the message MUCH more effective, AND made the Citadel and Padawan Lost arcs much more tense.

And really all of the impactful deaths of the season sort of feel like that. Like: we get one episode to know Mina Bonteri(a human, of course) and her family before she’s killed off(though i did Dig how unceremonious and unsentimental it was; that really got across the stakes involved and the sorts of scumbags Amidala, and the audience, are dealing with). We get even less time with the Jedi killed by Oppress; a few seconds at most(and btw it’s kind of HILARIOUS how he just... bulls in there and wrecks em like it’s nothing, after two seasons of ep after ep of uneventful cat-and-mouse. Of course that’s undermined by him&Ventriss, then, utterly failing to be successful against Dooku, purely because the plot demands it |:T) Same with Master Piell. Ziro we know much better, but he was also a fairly annoying caricature and his final eps went out of their way to use him to introduce EVEN MORE annoying caricatures so, while his getting gunned down is successful in showing violence and violent death as sudden, unsentimental, and pathetic rather than heroic and worthy, we dont really care. And that’s further undercut, pretty seriously, by his being a caricature; pathos is hard to pull off with an object of laughter/scorn as it risks just making their suffering funny to the audience(which... is the OPPOSITE of what you want to accomplish). This isnt helped by having the Jedi who find him basically shrugging at his death before racing into a Cool Fight. The “Force Wielders” in the Mortis arc suffer from the same problems(and also: Force Dualism&”The Chosen One” Talk: BLEAGH!). The only one of these they manage to get right, to me, is Kalifa’s death in Padawan Lost which, due to us getting more time to see her sitch and hear her&the other younglings talk about it, genuinely ends up having an emotional impact(if still feeling super-convenient and a bit improbable)((also I love the inclusion of a predator ep, even if they’re cheap dime-story predators)).

The same goes for all the non-death falls and endangerments. The corruption of the Mandalorian Prime Minister falls flat because we barely know him, and he’s never been portrayed as sympathetic or, for that matter, as anything other than a factotum. The only Pantoran we know in Sphere of Influence is Senator Chuchi, and more than half the episode is dedicated to the Prime Minister, his Son, and his(interchangeable) daughters(and we never see any of these characters again in the season); the ep comes off as nothing more than an excuse to reference Greedo(and Im annoyed by him speaking common all of a sudden. Who watching CW would have a problem with subtitles?).

BUT! They’re trying!! They’re moving in the right direction!!! I’m happy about this ^v^ And the later half of the season, while I have my problems with certain episodes, and the continued non-human stereotypes, and the convenient writing, and the not-great(tho getting better!) dialogue, is actually kind of entertaining, and attention-bearing. Arc Troopers, the 2nd ep of the season, is Solid! The Mortis arc is good, overall! The Citadel and Padawan Lost arcs are Compelling!! I like the Witches of Dathomiir, even if their Arc is “Meh” because the series IMMEDIATELY undercuts their cool concept(aside from the laser-bows which are LEGITIMATELY Stupid. I’m sorry; I will not argue over this they’re Dum) by having their plans, and all the implication towards deep plots&cunning manipulation, turn out to be empty and fruitless(ie, Dooku totally should have been terribly wounded by all this, which would have also been cool re: Sidious, as it’d imply THAT WAS HIS PLAN ALL ALONG! TO WEAKEN THE GROWING POWER OF HIS APPRENTICE AND DRAG THE WAR OUT EVEN LONGER!!) Also: the Witches, rather than being “magic users” drawing from the “unique power” of their ~evil planet~(a swamp, of course, following long-established Magic the Gathering tradition u_u) should have just totally been a non-Sith(possibly Pre-Jedi) sect of Dark Side Force Users. I really like the idea of Non-Jedi/Non-Sith(since they’re literally just two sides of the SAME tradition; the Sith are literally Jedi Heretics) Force Traditions being out there in the galaxy, and this was a good chance to build on that which I felt they didnt do enough with, and hope they WILL do more with in future(I especially like the ideas of force-attuned poison? Like what if they could “poison” or “curse” people THROUGH the Force? That would be sweet as hell :3).

Another improvement is in the action in this season. It’s not at a level I’d call “thrilling” or anything, but it feels much less like stiff, rote, weightless FLUFF than it has in the two previous seasons. Frankly I think a lot of this is just their engine and how ppls joints just sort of SNAP into position during fights, and also the excessive acrobatics of the prequel-style, both of which makes it feel unnatural, predetermined, and performative rather than deadly and vital(like excessively practiced and robotically acted choreography, basically). But, having said that, you see ppl make mistakes, you see consequences FOR those mistakes, and thus there is SOME sense of danger and weight to it that makes it more compelling than it has been in the past, and this should be praised uwu

And I like that the Politics are a lot clearer and more forefronted in this season than previously! While the Corruption Arc on Mandalore did feel rather hollow, rushed, and After-School-Specially(and, I DEEPLY resent its peddling of offensive and baseless anti-Ophidian tropes >:( ), it’s core message abt the dangers of profiteering and the corrupting influence of profit-seeking(ie Capitalism) on politics and society is a good one and clearly delivered. The Amidala episodes in this season Knock it out of the park consistently, and especially on their messaging ^v^ ^v^ Also, I DIDNT MIND the very fillery C3PO and R2 ep! Yes: it was essentially a waste of an episode since Bane was working for the Hutts to spring Ziro in s1′s Hostage Crisis & there’s basically NO WAY they wouldnt have been able to provide him with a set of plans for the Senate building(and the prison, for that matter), but WHATEVER: it was Kind Of Fun and I like seeing those two be an old bickering married couple and C3PO freak out over getting praised; IT WAS FINE!

So, while there werent any standout ep that I REALLY ENJOYED like Trespass in s1 and R2 Come Home in s2, and I very much didn’t like the 1st half of the season, I think I do have to concede that s3 is An Improvement, overall. I’m actually a bit excited over moving on to s4, given the upward trajectory this season ends on quality-wise owo

Oh: and the Ahsoka redesign? Neat uwu uwu(if untentionally Hilarious since they havent been changing her model over time so she just... grows three feet and bulks out in, like, a single night, presumably. Togruta Puberty must be HELL :p :p :p)