Tag: Clone Wars

The Great Prequel Re-Read, part seven

Hey everybody,
We’re very much getting towards the end now with the Star Wars Prequel Re-Read, and today I have a pair of graphic novels to update you all with!

Clone Wars

Let’s start with Volume 7: When They Were Brothers. It’s basically the five-part Obsession storyline that was touted as the comics’ lead-in to episode III. Obi-Wan is convinced Asajj Ventress still lives, something that Anakin takes issue with since he electrocuted her and tossed her body down a chasm on Coruscant during the finale of Dreadnoughts of Rendili. However, Obi-Wan drags his former padawan away from his leave on Naboo on a hunt across the galaxy to find her. We meet up again with Durge, General Grievous makes an appearance, and we get some first-looks at some of the ships from Revenge of the Sith. While the book ostensibly deals with Ventress, and wraps up her story before the final prequel movie, it primarily seems to exist to show Anakin and Obi-Wan “as brothers”, but after so many stories having missed that opportunity within the run, it does feel a little late to try and establish this relationship. I’ve talked about this elsewhere, but I honestly think the whole prequel series pays a great disservice to this dynamic, and we’re left with a long series of stories where the principal motivation is to show how Anakin can become Darth Vader. As such, he’s rarely allowed to be a nice guy, and his relationship with Obi-Wan suffers greatly for it.

Let’s move on!

Volume 8: The Last Siege, The Final Truth, continues to draw story threads to a close, with two distinct arcs from the Republic run. To start with, we have Trackdown, a two-parter where Tholme heads to Anzat to speak with an old friend about the existence of Anzati-trained Nikto Morgukai assassins. I can remember reading this coming when it came out, and being really struck by just how many story-threads it manages to pull together from just those two things – reaching back into the earlier days of the Republic series, such as Darkness and Rite of Passage. Tholme learns that they are being trained on Saleucami, so heads there and is ambushed by Sora Bulq. Tholme heads into the catacombs of the planet, and the Jedi Council mobilises for war!

The next arc, The Siege of Saleucami, deals with the Jedi offensive as they attempt to overcome the Separatist facilities there. Turns out, they’re cloning Nikto in a very quick-and-dirty way, not breeding soldiers like the Republic “because Count Dooku doesn’t need them to last long”. It’s kinda creepy, and you have to wonder why on earth the Separatists hadn’t tried their hand at it before – Dexter Jettster’s comments about Kaminoans being “damn good cloners” does seem to suggest there are other groups in the galaxy (Spaarti?) who perhaps aren’t as good, after all! The Jedi offensive is led by Oppo Rancisis, who has always been very much a background Jedi for the entire run up to this point, but always with reference to the fact he is excellent at battle meditation. He is co-ordinating the Jedi and clones as they attack the Separatists, and while the Republic forces aren’t making much headway, they are at least continually able to repel the Separatists. Sora Bulq therefore assassinates him to give the Separatists the upper hand, but a showdown in the caverns with Quinlan Vos ultimately turns the tide in the Republic’s favour, as Quinlan finally is able to proclaim the fact that he is a Jedi.

I’ve said it before, but it’s been incredible to follow this arc throughout the larger clone wars, as in many respects Quinlan’s storyline is more interesting than Anakin’s, which is a foregone conclusion, and mostly consists of foreshadowing his fall to the dark side. Quinlan definitely flip-flops between whether he is a Jedi or not – did he ever go over to the dark side, for reals? The story ends with his redeployment to Boz Pity, which of course is mentioned during Episode III, after which he intends to leave the Jedi Order, as Khaleen is pregnant with their child. It’s all feeling very much like it’s being set up for tragedy, but next we’re back to a novel, with another of my favourites: Labyrinth of Evil! I wonder what Mr Bookstooge will think of this one!!

Star Wars: Yoda – Dark Rendezvous

Hey everybody,
We’re getting close to the end of the Great Prequel Re-Read 2022 now – I’ve got to be honest, I thought I’d have finished this by now, but this is the way it goes, I guess! There isn’t much left, in fairness, but I think it surprises me because in the past I’ve been able to read the bulk of my Prequel plans in just the month of December! Just a couple of graphic novels, and a couple of novels left though!

Yoda: Dark Rendezvous was the last of the original Clone Wars Multimedia Project novels to be published, prior to the release of Revenge of the Sith. As such, it is able to reference things like General Grievous, although we don’t get to meet the cyborg general during the course of the book. There are plenty of references to the wider conflict at this point, as well, which is quite a nice way of dating the book – a lot is made of the recent devastation of Honoghr, which was dealt with during the one-shot Armor storyline. The battle of Omwat is referenced as well, without further elaboration – but it’s worth mentioning that Tarkin was involved in that conflict, where he eventually abducted a number of Omwati children to work on his superweapons, as later detailed in the Jedi Academy trilogy. Quite an impressive reference, I think, even if it’s all Legends so it doesn’t matter any more!

The premise of the novel is that Count Dooku wants peace with the Jedi, and sends a message that he will meet only with Yoda. The Grand Master of the Jedi agrees, and travels incognito with Jai Maruk and Maks Leem, and their respective padawans, Scout and Whie, to Vjun. Along the way, however, they are ambushed by Asajj Ventress, who thinks killing Yoda will land her in Dooku’s good graces and he will make her his apprentice. She kills the Jedi Knights, but Yoda is able to escape with the padawans, and they travel on to Vjun, a planet strong in the dark side and, unbeknownst to him initially, Whie’s homeworld. With the loss of the Jedi Knights, Mace Windu dispatches Anakin and Obi-Wan to help out, because of course he does. Yoda and Dooku meet, but Anakin’s intervention causes the meeting to go sour, and Dooku escapes from the planet.

I’ve only read this once previously, and I can remember loving it back in the day. The writing was somehow just incredible, the way Sean Stewart is able to use sounds in the narrative to drive forth the story is really quite something. You really get the sense of foreboding from the click of Asajj’s heels, or the incessant tapping of the rain on the windows of Dooku’s lair. The atmosphere of the book is also just stupendous – Vjun is a planet steeped in the dark side, first mentioned way back in Dark Empire, and Dooku has holed himself up in the mansion of a nobleman who went mad and killed his staff and family. It’s got overtones of a gothic horror novel about it, which of course is just perfect for the aristocratic Dooku, and it works tremendously well.

The story, as well, is beautifully told. Dooku and Yoda have history, of course – Yoda trained Dooku as his own padawan, not merely as a youngling, and that sense of shared history comes out really strongly during the initial overtures each of them makes, when trying to broker this peace negotiation. It’s interesting, because we never really know if peace is Dooku’s intention – is he fooling himself when he says it was almost on a whim, or is it actually a more deep-seated desire? Is he genuinely feeling as though he has gone too far with the war? It’s a fascinating character study into Count Dooku the man. Interestingly, throughout the whole prequel era, we hardly ever know him as Darth Tyranus, and Dooku’s Sith Lord status is intentionally kept murky, in part I suppose because he needs to be the suave, urbane leader of the alternative to the Republic. Does Dooku want to end the war, and therefore go against his Master, Darth Sidious? How strong is his loyalty to the Sith Lord, given he has spent decades of his life as a Jedi, regardless of how far in opposition to the Council he placed himself.

The book leads up to his interview with Yoda, and after their meeting on Geonosis, I remember being intensely curious as to how this was going to play out. In the end, it’s mostly a conversation – Yoda asks Dooku to turn him to the dark side, in an effort to make Dooku see how useless the dark side really is. It’s only when the Count catches sight of Anakin on one of the security cams, fuelling the older man’s jealousy of the so-called “chosen one”, that any possibility of détente is ended. We’re left wondering just whether Dooku would have come back into the light.

Yoda, for his part, is complex in another way. The book places him front and centre – the title was even changed during development to include him. However, this is mainly because of his presence throughout the book – we don’t really get to learn anything new about him, it’s all stuff that we already knew. For the majority of the book, he is very much in adorable/annoying scamp mode, much like we first meet in Empire Strikes Back. At times, the author doesn’t quite get his speech right, either, making it more backwards than it usually is. (There’s a pretty funny part where the two padawans are fixing a ship and talking to each other like Yoda, as well, which you just know most of the Jedi have done at some point during their youth). There are, however, some moments where the incredible wisdom of the little guy comes out, and his showdown with Dooku is a really amazing piece of intellectual sparring.

Naturally, Anakin and Obi-Wan appear, because what is a clone wars novel without them? Considering they’re meant to be saving the galaxy every five minutes, it’s incredibly annoying to see them show up quite literally everywhere. Their presence here, and in Outbound Flight, and in plenty of other places, is completely unnecessary – I kinda get the fact they’re in Outbound Flight, as otherwise that book has almost zero connection to the films, but this book has Yoda in it, there’s no need for the daring duo to be shoehorned in yet again. If they really needed to send Jedi after Yoda, and I’m hardly convinced that Yoda needs an escort, then why couldn’t it have been another pair of new characters, to raise the stakes as they too might fall victim to Dooku or Ventress? Or why not Ki-Adi-Mundi, or Plo Koon, or Agen Kolar, or literally anybody else who has appeared as set-dressing in Attack of the Clones? Bah! I suppose you could say that Anakin being on Vjun, a planet which amplifies the dark side in a Jedi, is another way to foreshadow his fall; but seriously, Star Wars stories that only exist to foreshadow existing events or situations from the movies are just the worst.

The best parts of the novel are those that involve Dooku. Unfortunately, however, there’s a lot of this book that deals with the Jedi on their journey, and as much as we’re supposed to like the padawans, I did find these parts of the story a bit boring. There’s a Padawan Tournament that takes up a couple of chapters near the start, where we are introduced to them, but it’s just in the way, somehow. It also annoys me, a bit, because it plays into what is becoming a familiar whine from me recently – “this is meant to be a Clone Wars novel, but it’s not!” Now, this book does tenuously walk that line as it is predominantly a character drama, and even involving as it does the leader of the Separatists and the Grand Master of the Jedi Order, the fact that there is a war going on across the galaxy is barely touched upon.

In many ways, it’s quite an introspective look at things, though. We get to see the effect of events such as the Battle of Geonosis, where so many Jedi were killed, on the padawans who were left behind, for instance. Whie is a padawan tormented by prophetic dreams, including a vision of his own death at the hands of a Jedi (he is actually seen among the holorecordings Obi-Wan flits through following Order 66, where he is killed alongside Cin Drallig). It makes for a very introspective character. Dooku is very thoughtful about where he currently stands in life, as I’ve already mentioned. To this extent, then, it kinda makes sense that the book wouldn’t focus on the massive conflict at large, but even so, this series of books really does feel like a missed opportunity to show us the actual Clone Wars conflict. It continually bemuses me how nobody seemed to plot out how the war would be told – instead, it seems to be a continual series of vignettes or worse, where we’re told that the war really is raging, just not on this particular corner.

As it stands, we have no clear idea of what the clone wars are about, really. The Separatists are trying to break planets away from the Republic, and the Republic is trying to keep them in the fold – why does that need millions of clones? Why has diplomacy failed? Why is it a military conflict? Well, reading these novels won’t make that clear, despite “a Clone Wars novel” being emblazoned on the cover. It all boils down to – there’s a conflict going on called the Clone Wars, and this is a book set during that time, but telling a different kind of story.

But all of this is criticism that is more properly levelled at the overarching publishing programme, and not the book in and of itself. It’s actually really good, if a little slow at times. The atmosphere of the book is all-pervasive, and while the climax is a little stunted, it is nevertheless gripping as Yoda and Dooku face each other once more.

Up next, we have a couple of graphic novels, where we get to see what Asajj Ventress does next, and we catch up with Quinlan Vos and the tangled web in which he has found himself!

The Great Prequel Re-Read, part six

Continuing the Prequel re-read today, let’s start with Hero of Cartao. It’s a short novella from the pen of Timothy Zahn no less, and deals with the Separatist invasion of the planet Cartao. The planet has an industrial facility called Spaarti Creations, which is notable for the alien species who work there, who are able to make pretty much anything to order. They’re pressed into service by Kinman Doriana to make cloning tanks to help bolster the clone troopers, because apparently Kamino’s process is taking too long. Whether the Trade Federation actually got wind of this or not is unclear, but they soon arrive on-world as well and take over the plant. A lot of fighting ensues, but both sides don’t want to damage the plant itself. However, a Republic cruiser is eventually sent to help the beleaguered Republic fighters, and crashes straight into the factory.

This story basically exists to explain why the Emperor had Spaarti cloning tanks in his facility on Wayland, after the revelation that the clones were good, and made in Kamino. I’ve mentioned this briefly before, but when Tim Zahn was writing his original Thrawn trilogy, it was theorized that the Clone Wars pitted evil clonemasters against the Republic, and Palpatine was able to capitalize upon this to ensure his election to Supreme Chancellor. With the reversal that the clones we see are actually fighting on the side of the Republic, some retconning was required!

That said, the story isn’t bad in and of itself, it just seems a bit by the numbers at times. It’s fascinating to see Kinman Doriana again, of course, as he thinks he is playing both sides by serving both Sidious and Palpatine, without knowing they’re the same person. There’s an element here that suggests he thinks he’s pulling the wool over Palpatine’s eyes, which is kinda interesting. A significant part of the story deals with the droid siege of the factory complex, and the atmosphere of an occupied planet is really well-written, I think.

It’s by no means an important story, even when taken as the explanation for the Spaarti cylinders. I suppose it’s nice to have, but it wasn’t a huge burning question that I had, that is now answered!

From Cartao, let’s now head to Praesitlyn. Yes, we must!

Jedi Trial is the fifth novel in the original Clone Wars multimedia project, which began with Shatterpoint. In case you didn’t read my earlier blog on that book, between 2002-2005, Del Rey aimed to tell the story of the clone wars in real time, publishing these books while Revenge of the Sith was filming. Written by real-life veterans of war, it tells the story of Anakin’s progression from padawan to Jedi Knight, during a mission to the strategic comms centre of Praesitlyn. With Obi-Wan off doing other stuff, Anakin is cooling his heels at the temple when Nejaa Halcyon asks for him to join him on his mission. Nejaa, himself something of a rogue Jedi, is of course the Jedi grandfather of Corran Horn, who was one of the great stalwarts of the old expanded universe, and star of any book written by Michael Stackpole. Nejaa and Anakin both have secret wives, and they bond over their shared transgressions against the Jedi Code.

The leader of the droids on this instance is Pors Tonith, of the Intergalactic Banking Clan. The ground forces on Praesitlyn take up the main chunk of the story, however, which is probably because of the authors’ experience in similar fields. We get to go through military strategy where it actually makes sense (even if the situation doesn’t), and the exhaustive detail over stuff like military supply is, well, exhausting.

When you read this as a military sci-fi novel with Star Wars characters, it’s kinda fascinating. When you read it as a Star Wars novel that promises to show Anakin front and centre, possibly facing off against Asajj Ventress given how prominent she is on the cover, you’re going to be disappointed to the point where it’s just criminal. Before or since, we’ve never had a Star Wars novel tell us how important the quartermaster is to the army. The level of detail, which I keep banging on about, is off the charts impressive. But this isn’t what Star Wars is about. At least, not for me.

Nejaa and Anakin arrive to relieve the Praesitlyn Defense Force, and find barely anybody left. Anakin is in his element during combat, and performs exceptionally in both rescuing some hostages and capturing Pors Tonith. In the later space battle, his Force-aided skills allow him to cheat death, and the Council has no choice but to agree that his actions are worthy of becoming a Jedi Knight.

Somewhere in here there is a good idea for a story, which showcases Anakin’s ability when he is unfettered from Obi-Wan’s caution. Indeed, I don’t think there has been a story where I’ve actually liked Anakin Skywalker as a character, because authors are forever trying to foreshadow his turn into Darth Vader. But Anakin here is actually a pretty competent military commander, and his command of the Force is almost instinctive, as though he really is some kinda living prophecy. There’s a lot of derring-do, of course, but I don’t think it has ever been explained so clearly before that Anakin behaves like this because he knows he can do it. It might seem like suicide for him to lead a charge on the Separatists’ position, but he knows he will be successful, so of course he does it. It’s an interesting take on Anakin, and reminds me somewhat of how Horus Lupercal is portrayed in Horus Rising – no effort to foreshadow the monster he will become, instead we have a genuinely likeable guy.

Unfortunately, the story ignores Anakin for about half of the page count. Instead, we get Odie and Erk, the unlikely romance plotline that I really, really wish had been stripped out of the book. We also barely get any Asajj Ventress, only when Pors Tonith reports in to her. Why is she featured so prominently on the cover? Grr.

Overall, the book is just bad. I’ve read it three times now, and each time it has been, well, a trial to get through. I remember one Christmas-time, reading only the interesting bits and skipping over the other stuff – I basically read it in half a day, because the bad far outweighed the good. Like I said, somewhere in here there is a good story, but for a book that deals with Anakin’s Jedi trials, I was expecting far more Jedi stuff as we got to learn all about how the Council decides who is ready to graduate from Jedi school. The fact that the Prequels have been institutionalising the Jedi to make us believe the Trials are basically a formal test, it turns out that it’s actually much closer to what Luke has to do in Return of the Jedi, and it amounts to basically doing really well as a Jedi without supervision.

Every time I think about this book, I want to like it, because I want it to be good. And every time, bloody Odie and Erk drag me down and infuriate me over everything that’s bad about it. While it’s arguably a better Star Wars book than Shatterpoint, because it gives us more of the actual war and so on, I think the Clone Wars novels series in general is just a bit of a let-down. In Shatterpoint, we learnt that there haven’t really been any major offensives in the conflict, but instead we’ve had a lot of shadow operations as Jedi have attempted to negotiate planetary governments staying in the Republic, or destabilising those who have joined the Separatists. However, given that this is a galactic conflict, we should imagine that there are massive theatres of contested space. Instead, we get these kinds of stories where major characters are sent to tiny backwater worlds where the book stays on one world for the most part. It’s a complaint that I’ve made before, I know, but we just don’t get that kind of galactic sweep that we have in stuff like Zahn’s books – or, for that matter, in the movies themselves.

Anyway, I think I’ve talked this one to death. Anyone else notice how I spend far too much time talking about the books I don’t like?! Up next is Yoda: Dark Rendezvous, and I seem to remember that I do like this one!

The Great Prequel Re-Read, part five

We’re deep into the heart of the Clone Wars now, and we’ve got some of my favourite issues from the Republic ongoing series contained within these pages. Let’s get cracking!

Star Wars: Clone Wars

Volume Four: Light and Dark presents the story of Quinlan Vos’ defection to the Confederacy. We start off with Double Blind (though it isn’t defined as such in the trade paperback), which sees Agen Kolar attempt to bring Quinlan in for questioning, as he has been found selling Republic holocomm codes to the Separatists. It’s all a ruse, as Tholme’s plan was to send Kolar as proof of the fact Quinlan has gone rogue. The Jedi do capture Khaleen, however, who Tholme later releases from prison to act as a go-between for Quinlan to get any Separatist intel back to the Jedi.

Jedi: Aayla Secura is the third of these one-shots, and personally my favourite. We have the main story of Aayla, Tholme, Kit Fisto, T’ra Saa and the Dark Woman (whose name we finally learn) sent undercover to Devaron to learn who has been betraying the government to the Separatists, layered onto that is the ongoing story of Aurra Sing and her vendetta against the Dark Woman, layered over which is Aayla’s anguish over Quinlan’s defection and her determination to bring him back. It’s a truly cracking story, and serves to move the storyline on in so many ways!

Jedi: Dooku was a surprise back in the day – I thought we’d get a different Jedi, but throughout the Clone Wars, Dooku is the suave public face of the Confederacy, of course, and so naturally he never “comes out” as Darth Tyranus. The one-shot serves really as a focal point for Quinlan Vos, however, who is forced to finally choose a side and, when Dooku takes him to Kiffu and confronts Sheyf Tinté about her rise to power, we learn that she basically killed Quin’s parents by giving their lives in payment for Anzati assassins clearing the way for her to become Sheyf. Quinlan kills his aunt, and it seems that he has truly fallen to the Dark Side.

The book ends with Striking from the Shadows, where Quinlan is given the task of assassinating a Republic dignitary who Dooku hints is the Sith Lord he told Obi-Wan about, and the art hints that he is indeed given Palpatine as a target, though it ends up being Senator Viento. K’kruhk fights Quinlan but is unable to stop the murder, and so the Whiphid reports back to the Council, hammering another nail in. For his part, however, Quinlan tells himself that he’s only deeper in the shadows.

The whole book is just excellent, and has got some of the best storytelling from this era. For comic book stories, they are actually quite intense, and that Dooku one-shot in particular is really quite harrowing as we see Quinlan torturing the truth from Tinté. Definitely some awesome storytelling, for sure!

Star Wars: Clone Wars

I’m skipping volume five, which continues the Obi-Wan and Asajj Ventress storyline from the Jabiim volume, and moving straight on to volume six, On the Fields of Battle. There are two main story arcs in here, plus a one-shot that are worth talking about. We start with Show of Force, which is a two-part story about Mace confronting the Crimson Nova chapter of the Bounty Hunters Guild, for having accepted bounty postings on Jedi. Mace confronts the chapter with Agen Kolar, Saesee Tiin, and Kit Fisto, which kinda foreshadows his later confrontation with the Chancellor in episode three. The Jedi basically dismantle the chapter, and learn that Kh’ariss Fenn is the one behind the postings. However, he has used money that had been given to him by Count Dooku for the Separatists plans for Ryloth, so Dooku sends Quinlan Vos to kill him. Mace and the others arrive to find the corpse and a holo-recording, which troubles Mace even further. Tholme, feeling anguish for basically setting it all in motion, tells Aayla the truth about Quin’s defection being intended at first to be a ruse.

Show of Force was written to replace a planned one-shot Jedi issue featuring Barriss Offee, which is partly why the story begins with Barriss and T’ra Saa being attacked by bounty hunters.

The one-shot Armor is told from the perspective of Commander Bly as he observes his general, Aayla Secura, in the field. The devastation of Honoghr is the backdrop for the tale, something I thought was a bit unnecessary really, given that the story that we were told in Dark Force Rising seemed to indicate a different scenario. There is also the description of Rakata temples on the planet, which was weird. Aayla faces off against Quin, anyway, and is able to make him see sense, at least partially, and while they duel, he stops short of actually harming her.

The book ends with Dreadnoughts of Rendili, a truly sprawling epic in three parts. While Obi-Wan investigates a wrecked zoological ship, he finds Quinlan Vos fighting for his life against attack droids. It becomes clear that Asajj Ventress has been sent to bring him in after Quinlan has gone rogue from Dooku’s camp, but he and Obi-Wan manage to escape. They join Saesee Tiin’s battleforce at Rendili, where the Separatists have convinced the planet to leave the Republic. We meet up again with Jace Dallin from The Stark Hyperspace War, and are introduced to Jan Dodonna as a member of the Republic navy. The Rendili mutiny is defeated when Obi-Wan and Quinlan are able to help Plo Koon overcome the ringleaders and bring Rendili back over to the Republic, then Quinlan is taken to Coruscant for questioning. He explains his actions, and Obi-Wan vouches for him with some very common sense – if Tholme’s plan was for Quinlan to act like a renegade to earn Dooku’s trust, then why is anyone surprised that he has acted like a renegade?! His welcome is undercut by Anakin fighting Ventress high above Coruscant’s industrial sector, where he binds her in electrical cables and Force-pushes her off the top of a building, after she gives him that scar over his eye. The book ends with Quinlan getting a message to Khaleen – “tell Dooku that his plan is working”…

These two volumes are two of my favourites from the whole Dark Horse run. True, we do get that kind of ugly leer on Quin’s face that Jan Duursema seems to have become fond of – she would use it time and again on the face of Cade Skywalker during the Legacy series, as well. But the way the story of Quinlan Vos unfolds in these books is just spectacular. There are wheels within wheels, and it’s really awesome that we get this sort of spy/thriller storyline going on for the clone wars, as it tells a fascinating tale beyond the usual ground or space battles. Of course, Dreadnoughts of Rendili shows that space battles are not forgotten, and despite only being told across three issues, there is so much story in that one. With so many callbacks and references, it provides the reader with some really incredible payoffs for having stuck with the ongoing series since Prelude to Rebellion!

One of the things that I love about these comic books is the way in which the stories are able to reach back across the whole of the Republic run, to pluck characters like Dark Woman back from much earlier in the series and continue her storyline, weaving those elements into the clone war narrative alongside the “main” story of Quinlan Vos. When Kh’ariss Fenn was revealed to be behind the bounty postings, it was a mystery reveal that didn’t make the galaxy feel small, but rather made sense given what happened in Rite of Passage.

Having this large cast from which to draw really helps to make the stories flow, and feel part of a much larger story without making the galaxy too narrow in focus. Something that I often berate the Clone Wars cartoon series over was how much Anakin and Obi-Wan feature, with too small a supporting cast that makes the series as a whole feel very small. It really needed to feature the dynamic duo only 2-3 times a season, and use recurring characters to tell some of the stories to help achieve the galactic scope. By using characters like Jiesel, K’kruhk and T’ra Saa as recurring every so often, the comics achieved that sense of scale. Aayla is used for some of the big moments, but otherwise we have Quinlan doing one very specific, very linear thing, and it just works so much better.

We’re not done yet, of course, but next we have some very peculiar, very brilliant stories to come. Next up, then, it’s Hero of Cartao!

Star Wars: Shatterpoint

Well folks, I finally made it through the first official Clone Wars novel, Shatterpoint. What a book!

Star Wars: The Clone Wars

Mace Windu heads to his homeworld of Haruun Kal on a rescue mission with a difference. His former padawan and fellow Council member Depa Billaba appears to have “gone native” with the local partisan groups trying to eradicate the off world prospectors, and Mace fears that she may have fallen to the Dark Side. He teams up with Nick Rostu as he is led through the jungle to Depa and the Koruun natives, led by the powerful, untrained Force user Kar Vastor. All Koruunai are able to feel the Force, but Kar embodies the natural power of the jungle itself, and he does not want Mace to take Depa from them. When the offworlders, backed by the Separatists, lead a massive attack against the natives, Mace is forced to work alongside Kar and the others; however, when the Koruunai and Depa turn the tables and use the Separatist droids to annihilate the offworlder settlements, Mace is forced to switch sides in his attempt to stop the fighting.

This book has been well-publicised as the Star Wars equivalent to Heart of Darkness and Apocalypse Now, and the depictions of war as a living nightmare are particularly graphic, to say the least. There are descriptions of wounds and displaced persons, the fallout of battles and the legacy of generational racism that all serve to underscore the serious tone of the novel. Some of this is counterbalanced by Nick and his sometimes forced levity, though it doesn’t take a genius to see how it’s perhaps a coping mechanism for the life he has led.

We definitely get the gritty, realistic feel of a war story here. It’s interesting because it’s not really Star Wars, that kind of tone, is it? A story that essentially tells the harrowing aftermath of a warzone that has almost been forgotten by the overall conflict, and left to let the natives carry on their eternal struggle is quite bleak, to say the least. The sounds and smells are described at length, and Haruun Kal is definitely not going to be high on anyone’s list of destinations to visit. A very interesting moment occurs as Mace arrives on-world and is the target of mistrust based on his race, which is a very different way of portraying the legendary Jedi Master.

One of the things I like a lot about this book comes from just two pages near the start, where we get an update on the galactic war position. We learn what has happened since Geonosis, how the Separatists have castled up in their “Forge of the Confederacy” heartlands, while the Jedi, under the guidance of Yoda, have primarily been engaged in destabilising the governments on those worlds, trying to bring systems back into the Republic or, at the very least, trying to cause a chaos that will prevent the Separatists from making use of the fact that they were prepared for the war to begin. All of this is happening while the Republic war machine attempts to catch up with the Separatists droid factories. With so few clones to rely on, the Republic needs to call on local peacekeepers and volunteers, meaning that there are very few actual engagements in the early months of the clone wars, merely skirmishes and an extension of the kind of border disputes Dooku took advantage of in the first place. It’s so satisfying to see a bigger picture here, as it’s something that we usually lack in these stories, as they seek to tell the story of a one-on-one fight without widening the focus to the larger brawl. Context is key – something that Star Wars writers have increasingly failed to understand, especially in the sequel trilogy!!

Much later on, there is also a very interesting comment from Depa Billaba as regards the war destroying the Jedi. Of course, in hindsight, given what we as readers know of the overall Star Wars plot, this is very true. The war was engineered to destroy as many Jedi as possible. But it’s interesting to see Depa comment how, no matter which side wins, the Jedi will lose, and she’s kinda dismissed by Mace as her jungle madness, or whatever.

However, this isn’t really one of my favourite Star Wars novels. The message is driven home pretty hard, and we end up with a fairly heavy-going book that kinda isn’t fun, for the most part. The interesting thing, to me, is how a lot of the prequel stuff, and especially the Clone Wars stuff, was written during the second Iraq War, which didn’t really click for me at the time, but looking at this now, it does come through.

For all the branding of being “a Clone Wars novel”, and being the first book in a publishing program that intended to tell the Clone Wars story in real time between 2002-05, the book is predominantly the story of the Koruunai partisans vs the offworld prospectors. Yes, the Separatists backed the offworlders, and yes, we get clones and droid star fighters at the climax, but in the main, this doesn’t feel like it’s telling a Clone Wars story. It sometimes doesn’t even feel like a Star Wars story…

I know a lot of people love this book, but for me, it’s probably going to be another 20 years before I think of picking it up again…

The Great Prequel Re-Read, part four

Hey everybody,
I’m finally back to reading Star Wars once more, after a bit of a hiatus in the latter half of last month. The Clone Wars have firmly begun, and I’m starting with some comics as we catch up with the galaxy at war.

Star Wars: The Clone Wars

The Defense of Kamino is the first trade paperback in the original Clone Wars run, which collects predominantly the Republic comics that were released in the realtime break between episodes II and III. I think there were nine volumes in total, and volume one collects issues 49 and 50, plus the Jedi: Mace Windu one-shot. Dark Horse published a few of these Jedi one-shots across their tenure, and they were all united by both showcasing a single Jedi, while also continuing the storyline that kicks off in Republic 49.

When we left Quinlan Vos, he was going to roam the galaxy, following the whims of the Force. Well, in the two years since the Separatist Crisis really kicked off, he and Tholme have been developing a network of secret agents, trying to foil the Separatists. However, given the perceived failure to anticipate the attack at Geonosis, Quinlan feels like this needs to be stepped up. When his agent Khaleen is able to gain knowledge about an attack on the clone world of Kamino, the Jedi feel this is the break they needed to gain the upper hand in the war. Quin, with Aayla Secura, hatches a plan to copy the intel and return it to the Separatists, making them think that the information is safe. However, it turns out that Dooku was hoping for the Jedi to do this, though ultimately the reason is unclear.

The next issue in the Republic series was issue 50, so was a bumper double-length issue, telling three separate stories about the Separatists’ attack on Kamino. There’s a nice story to start about Obi-Wan feeling like Anakin is growing distant so tries to gain his trust by allowing him to fly in the aerial defence of the planet, where it is addressed how Obi-Wan never chose Anakin as his padawan, but rather took him on as a promise to Qui-Gon. It goes some way to explain why they are forever butting heads, though Obi-Wan’s attempt at reconciliation shows he does actually want to try his best for Anakin. The next story introduces the ARC troopers to the mix, who work with Shaak Ti to defend the next generation of clones from a droid attack. ARC troopers are a less-docile version of Jango Fett, and have a lot more of his independence of thought. The final story features a group of Mon Calamari Separatists who are leading the attack on Tipoca City, and introduces the idea that there are actually brilliant military strategists on both sides of this conflict, and even the Separatists have their own version of heroes.

Jedi: Mace Windu is a fairly important piece of the lore, as we have our first introduction to Asajj Ventress here. Of course, this is the Legends continuity so there will be revelations made here that ultimately don’t hold true of the current Canon, but it’ll be interesting to see this develop, I hope! The story involves a group of Jedi who have turned away from the Order following the massacre at Geonosis, a group nominally led by the Weequay Sora Bulq (who was one of those background Jedi on-screen during the arena battle). Dooku uses Ventress to attack these Jedi, during which she claims to have been sent by Mace Windu, so when the Jedi Master arrives to try to bring them back into the fold, they are distrustful, to say the least! However, it soon becomes clear that it was a ruse, hatched by Dooku and Sora Bulq, who has now turned to the Dark Side as one of Dooku’s Dark Acolytes.

This is one of my favourite storylines in the Clone Wars, and I’ve said it countless times before – the story of Quinlan Vos is almost superior to that of Anakin Skywalker, and I could quite happily just re-read these comics for the rest of my days. Not only is it fairly beautifully told, but the artwork is really quite beautiful as well.

Victories and Sacrifices is the second volume in the Clone Wars trade paperback series, and includes three separate stories, one of which is a two-parter. The New Face of War sees a return of Asajj Ventress, and the introduction of the Jedi-killer Durge, an ancient cyborg bounty hunter who has been re-awakened by the Confederacy. We don’t get much more about his back story here, but he’s a character that was designed specifically to menace the Jedi, and reappeared across several media at the time, including the original Clone Wars cartoon. In the comic, Durge has released a chemical gas on one of the moons around Naboo, wiping out a Gungan settlement. When the Jedi investigate, they are initially overwhelmed, but are able to repel Durge and Ventress and prevent them from launching their chemical attack on Naboo.

Obi-Wan, who led the mission to the moon, was nevertheless greatly affected by the toxin, and after some time to heal he went on a mission to find the antidote to the poison, teaming up with four Jedi wanderers who have all arrived at a Techno Union base where the weapon is being developed. Another fight with Durge and Ventress ensues, and the four Jedi are picked off until only Obi-Wan survives to escape with the antidote.

Finally, we have the next in the Jedi series, this time focusing on Shaak Ti. She is on Brentaal IV with Agen Kolar and Plo Koon, pushing back the forces of the Separatist Commander Shogar Tok in order to land reinforcements. Shaak Ti infiltrates the prison fortress Tok from where Tok is commanding his army, using some of the inmates to help (including none other than Quinlan Vos, along with Sagoro Autem, who had previously featured in Honor & Duty, a three-issue arc that I have actually missed out from my re-read!). Despite treachery along the way, she is able to defeat Tok and complete the mission, and Brentaal IV remains within the Republic – but given that the majority of the planet’s population had actually been in support of Tok, this rests uneasy with Shaak Ti.

I can remember eagerly picking these comics up every month in the wake of Attack of the Clones, desperate for more clone wars action, and I can remember being fairly disappointed by the stories overall. I think I had expected some kind of major storyline from the off, with the Republic mobilising against the droid armies and so on. Instead, we get this tiny story of, well, nothing really. It wasn’t until we got to the next arc, which featured the Battle of Jabiim, that it actually felt like a major offensive. I think the way that the story of the clone wars is told, with these small vignettes that always end in stalemates and villains dashing off “until we meet again!” (minus the moustache twirl) grew really boring in a short time. Nothing ever really happens in the stories – it’s just a series of bush fires the Jedi (that is, Anakin and Obi-Wan, because there are very few other Jedi on the payroll, it seems) continually put out. Count Dooku or his agents fan the flames, get a planet to declare its intention to leave the Republic, the Jedi come in and force it to stay in the Republic, and all is well again.

At least we do get to see the cracks in the whole idea of the Republic though, and a lot of these stories do begin to scratch at that itch. The Republic is corrupt and the majority of planets joining the Separatists are doing so because of that. It’s a legitimate complaint that they were not getting their voices heard, and so the Republic responds with overwhelming force and their Jedi to force these planets to tow the line. It’s a wonder why the Jedi didn’t splinter off from the Republic, really. I mean, it’s all well and good Mace Windu saying that the ideals of the Republic are still valid, but if nobody currently in charge is acting according to those ideals, then surely any sensible adult would think it’s time to affect change? A sensible adult who is as powerful as Mace should surely take matters into his own hands? Hm. I know the story needs to lead into the rise of the Empire, but I can’t help thinking that a lot of characters are very stupid, and there is some really lazy writing going on.

The saving grace of the clone wars is the story of Quinlan Vos, for me. As the storyline begins to fall more into the subterfuge of Quinlan infiltrating Dooku’s camp, things definitely take a turn for the better. I’ve said before that this storyline is so much better than the main arc of Anakin’s downfall. That’s in part because nothing feels natural about Anakin, whereas we get a lot of build-up from the earlier Republic comics that allow for us to see how Quinlan’s trajectory is completely understandable.

I’m not going to re-read the third volume, the Battle of Jabiim, but the storyline is notable for seeing Obi-Wan go missing in action, and Anakin leading the Republic troops in a fighting retreat from the world, causing Jabiim natives to curse the name of Skywalker in years to come. Next up, it’s volume four, Light and Dark!

Star Wars: Clone Wars – The Lost Missions

Hey everybody,
Well, I made it! It’s been a long slog over the past few years, as I’ve made my way through all of the Clone Wars animated TV series, but I’ve finally made it through all five-and-a-half series!

Star Wars Clone Wars

The Lost Missions is a thirteen-episode miniseries that brings us four story arcs, the final remaining episodes that were finished when the decision had been made to cancel the show in 2013. The episodes were polished off for airing on German network Super RTL the following year, and made their way to Netflix soon after. Writers had made significant inroads into a seventh season before the show was cancelled, and while these episodes are the last that were properly finished, there is the Legacy project that comprises some animated storyboards, comics and novels that I’ll cover as part of a separate blog. Of course, there has also been the announcement that the show is coming back to Disney+ early next year – but I’ll get to that in another blog!

We begin with a clone storyline, which involves an exploration of the Order 66 command. One of the clones shoots his Jedi general, saying that he is “following orders”, and so is taken back to Kamino for investigation. It is suggested that the Separatists have finally been able to create a virus that affects the clones, but upon examination a “chip” is found in the brain. Shaak Ti, who is the Jedi permanently stationed on Kamino to guard against Separatist attack (nice callback to some Legends stories, there) doesn’t believe the “chip” is anything other than a behavioural inhibitor, but travels back to Coruscant for the Jedi to examine it further. The Chancellor steps in, and Palpatine manages to dispose of the evidence by feigning an assassination attempt by the clone trooper in question.

Urgh. First of all, I hated the way they kept referring to it as a chip. I mean, I get why they did, but still – the idea of Order 66 was always supposed to have been part of the flash-learning process that all clones are subjected to, and not a “chip” that can be implanted or extracted at will. It does allow for the writers to “save” certain clone characters for later, of course, but it’s just so irritating to see concepts reduced like this.

Furthermore, I get that there is the idea of the Dark Side clouding the Jedi’s judgement, as Mace Windu himself expresses the notion in Revenge of the Sith, but characters in this episode arc seemed to just willfully ignore the fact that some serious allegations are being leveled by the clone troopers. Wouldn’t you at least be curious to see what was going on? Hm.

The next arc sees the return of Clovis, in episodes originally intended for season five (as seen by the fact Ian Abercrombie is still the voice of Chancellor Palpatine). Clovis is put forward to lead the Banking Clan out of its current crisis, in a three-part arc that makes little sense and just gets worse. I think it mainly suffers from the Padme-problem, whereby virtually nobody has any idea of what to do with the character outside of the films (and even then, it’s debatable). Padme supports Clovis, causing Anakin to bridle with jealousy, and the whole thing turns into a Separatist plot, with Count Dooku manipulating Clovis into his eventual death. There’s talk of interest rates going up for the Republic, and the arc ends with the Senators all chanting “long live the banks!” while Palpatine takes personal control of the InterGalactic Banking Clan, in a move that surprised me, as I thought they were firmly in the Separatist camp.

However, if you thought that three episodes about banks was drivel, just wait for the Jar Jar two-parter, which sees our intrepid Gungan on a diplomatic mission to Bardotta, at the express request of the world’s Queen. Who apparently wants to get him into bed. Erm… Basically, there is a nefarious plot to capture the people of the planet, who are all Force sensitive to some degree, to drain their Force essence. Turns out Mother Talzin is behind it, and she’s attempting to become more powerful than anybody by using these Force batteries.

The whole idea is just awful, reducing the Force to something that you can “get more of”. I don’t know if this idea dates back to Mara Jade gaining strength under Luke’s guidance during the Bantam era, as she goes from being not very good while operating with Talon Karrde, to becoming a Jedi Master using the Force with ease by the time of the Legacy of the Force novel series. But anyway, it annoys me, and the inclusion of Jar Jar is just the icing on the turd, really.

Finally, we have a four-part Yoda arc that serves almost as the season highlight, and in some ways does form a fitting conclusion to the cartoon series. Plo Koon discovers Master Sifo-Dyas’ lightsaber, prompting an investigation into the Jedi Master’s death some ten years ago. The mission that led to his death was classified by order of the Supreme Chancellor, which allows for the return of Finis Valorum to the story!

The Yoda arc is a bit troubling for me, because I so wanted to like it, but in the end it just fell so flat. We have something of an exploration of Sifo-Dyas, the Living Force, and all that business with coming back as a Force ghost. It should have been terrific, but it just felt like run-of-the-mill stuff. There is an attempt to make the Force mystical once again, and to try and retcon the midi-chlorian stuff with the spirituality stuff, but it didn’t really come over well. The series has tried to do the spiritual stuff before, most noticeably with the Mortis trilogy, but even then, what sounds decent enough on paper end up being just weird and silly, and quite frustrating for fans of Star Wars in general.

Good retcons will take account of everything, and work it into a fairly neat parcel. Here, we have several instances where important stuff is just ignored or omitted, most annoyingly calling the Sith homeworld Moraband, as opposed to the traditional Korriban. Apparently, this change was done at the behest of George Lucas, who preferred the name. Hm. There isn’t a great deal of lore on Sifo-Dyas, considering the importance of that plot element during Attack of the Clones, but I suppose that is a subject for another blog. However, it had been established that Dooku was a close friend, and was tasked with his murder by Sidious in order to cement his commitment to the Sith cause. That is now thrown out of the window, as we instead get this jumble of hearsay about the Jedi Master’s eventual fate.

Yoda visits Dagobah and communes with the spirit of Qui-Gon Jinn, who instructs him to visit the Force Priestesses at the Wellspring of Life. There, he undergoes a series of challenges (including his visit to the Sith home planet) before they notify him that he will train with Qui-Gon to learn how to retain his consciousness after death.

It’s a four-episode arc that I really wanted to like, but ultimately it really didn’t shed a great deal of light on anything. Sure, there is a case that can be made where the Force should be kept as a great mystery, but if you’re going to spend this long on a story, it would be nice if it went somewhere, you know? The arc ends with the Council asking Yoda for details of his travels, but he is unwilling to share the scope of his knowledge. Hm.

One of the major issues, for me, with the Clone Wars as a series has been the over-exposure of Anakin and Obi-Wan, something that I’ve talked to death before now, but I want to touch on again now that I’m summing-up the whole thing. In more than a hundred episodes, which span maybe 60 distinct storylines, we see Anakin and Obi-Wan show up in probably 80-90 of those episodes. The problem with this, for me, is that the conflict spans around three years, in-universe, and crosses the entire galaxy in its breadth. How the hell are these two supposed to have been able to accomplish this? There are thousands of Jedi, and the TV series had a real opportunity to develop several new ones who could have become series regulars, but that was neglected in favour of episode after episode that shows the derring-do of Anakin, his erstwhile master, or his annoying padawan. Sure, that’s probably what people want – the show is aimed at the younger audience, after all, who will likely want to see their favourite on-screen Jedi. But this just leads to such ridiculous feats of continuity that irritate me far more than perhaps they should!

I’ve talked plenty about Ahsoka and how much I hate her as a character, so I’ll leave that for now.

The annoying thing in all of this is that, for me, the series does have a lot of interest, and there are moments where I feel the show could have come across so much better, had it not been pitched at the younger end of the market. A great example of this, I think, is the relationship between Obi-Wan and Asajj Ventress, which we see as something dark and twisted in the first season, but is then left unexplored – indeed, the character seems to have been forgotten about for a long time. It’s a shame, because it could have become something so much more interesting. Other storylines, such as Darth Maul’s formation of the Shadow Collective was handled fairly well, and we see some pretty decent lore being developed for it overall. The Pyke Syndicate is definitely one of the best things to come out of late seasons – in fact, in The Lost Missions, when we see the spice den during the Yoda arc, it’s surprising at how adult the material comes across. The Pykes were later used in Solo, as the cartel in charge of the spice mines of Kessel.

But for all of the points that could be enumerated for the series, there are just so many more that really pull it down. So much exists that is flashy and there for show, it just infuriates me when I think how much this show could have given us! But then I remember that it’s a cartoon show, and I control myself…!

I wish the Clone Wars had tried to tie themselves more strongly into the narrative of the movies, as opposed to trying to become its own thing. By this, I mean there rarely seems to be a clear trajectory for the series, despite Revenge of the Sith having come out years prior to the first episode being aired. This ties once again into the over-exposure of Anakin and Obi-Wan. Aside from seemingly being the only Jedi required to win the war (with a healthy dose of a precocious adolescent), using these two as much as the series does really seems to make what should be a huge galaxy so much smaller. How does Anakin have the off-time to continually save Padme if he’s literally fighting battles across the entire galaxy?

To my mind, a three year conflict will contain a finite number of battles. Of those, there will be a percentage of decisive battles, which turn the tide one way or another. We’ll see set-piece action, we’ll see numerous fronts, and then we’ll get to the capture of the Chancellor and things will dovetail nicely into the opening of Episode III. If I were in charge of this endeavour, then, I would have sat down at the beginning and come up with a timeline that shows how we get from the arena at Geonosis to the battle for Coruscant. I’d draw up the plan for exploring the battlefronts that I want, put together an idea of who will be there, and then just set about making that. It’s a simple scheme that can afford to then be peppered with off-stories that deal with bounty hunters and banking clans, without losing that sense of scale.

And that is precisely what the Clone Wars multimedia project set out to do, back in 2002. We had a handful of novels, the ongoing comic series, as well as the Clone Wars shorts cartoon series. The comic series was a real gem in this period, as it followed the adventures of Quinlan Vos as an undercover operative, with a focus on Anakin and Obi-Wan much more sparingly. Other Jedi were featured along the way (and we did get an exploration of Sifo-Dyas at one point, as well), giving a sense of scale to events. It set out the stall that this was the Clone Wars, being told in real time as Revenge of the Sith was being filmed.

As it is, we have Anakin and Obi-Wan jumping around the galaxy, winning battles in a matter of minutes, and destroying any sense of the realism that Star Wars has always tried to maintain. Sure, it’s a space fantasy, but the key tenets of the original trilogy were of the lived-in universe, keeping things real within its own internal logic and rules. For the sake of the spectacle, we now have this. And it’s canon. And in February 2020, we’re getting yet more of it.

Urgh.

Star Wars: Clone Wars season five

Hey everybody,
So it’s been almost three years since I last watched The Clone Wars, but I’ve finally managed to make my way to the last season, so I’m on the home stretch now!

Star Wars Clone Wars

The fifth season ran between September 2012 and March 2013, and consists of 20 episodes organised across five major arcs. This is a bit of a departure for the show, as there were no single-story episodes at all.

The series begins with the Battle of Onderon, a planet from deep in the distant past of Star Wars, and the Tales of the Jedi series. The Jedi are asked to intervene on behalf of the locals, following the Separatist invasion, but instead of leading a task force of clones, Anakin and Ahsoka are dispatched to help train the locals to fight for themselves. It’s pretty Ahsoka heavy, and as the five episodes progress, Ahsoka takes a pretty major role in staying behind to help the locals in their fight against the droids. Somewhere in here, there is a half-decent story, and there was a small part of me that was intrigued by seeing the Beast Riders still active in the more modern galaxy, but as usual I found myself just unable to get on board with the fact that Ahsoka is treated like such a special case, considering she is still supposed to be a padawan learner, and is portrayed as an early teenager.

Clone Wars Onderon

The arc is actually fairly noteworthy for the inclusion of Saw Gerrera, seen gesturing forward in the picture above. One of the leaders of the Onderanian rebellion, he of course goes on to transition to the big screen in Rogue One.

From Onderon, we next have another Ahsoka-heavy arc, featuring the trials and tribulations of a group of younglings getting their lightsaber crystals. Apparently, this arc was intended as a possible jumping-off point for a new series of young Jedi during the Wars, though thankfully that didn’t come to pass. The whole arc is trope-heavy, as the group of Jedi hopefuls embodies the usual mix of American high school teens. What was most alarming, for me, was that one of these younglings is voiced by Jeff Fischer, who I am most aware of through American Dad.

Clone Wars younglings

Once they have their crystals, the younglings then get attacked by Hondo Ohnaka, seeking profit as ever, and there is an interesting sequence when the pirates board the Jedi ship that is reminiscent of Han being boarded in The Force Awakens, which was of course still in development at this time. Ahsoka is kidnapped by the pirates, and the younglings are able to rescue her, more’s the pity.

The next arc is centred around droids, and an infiltration mission to obtain a Separatist encryption key. The whole four-episode arc is goofy as hell, following the diminutive Colonel Gascon as he leads a group of astromech droids and a mouthy pit droid onto the Separatist ship. Along the way, they crash-land on a distant planet and discover a clone trooper with amnesia, or somesuch nonsense. Probably a crowd-pleaser for the young ‘uns, but let’s just move on… At least it didn’t involve Ahsoka…

Clone Wars Eminence

Next up is the Eminence arc, which returns to the storyline that began at the end of last season. Darth Maul and his brother Savage Oppress are set on taking their revenge against the Jedi and the Republic, by establishing a criminal empire. It sounds goofy, and I do still kinda think the idea is a bit silly, but the execution is actually not that bad, and we get to visit the criminal underworld as we see Maul first attempt to take over Hondo Ohnaka’s organisation, only to be foiled by Obi-Wan. The brothers flee, to be rescued by the Mandalorian Death Watch under Pre Viszla.

Together with the Mandalorians, Maul and his brother take over Black Sun, the Pyke Consortium, and the Hutt cartels, as they gather the resources to wrest control of Mandalore from the Duchess Satine. In order to consolidate his position, Maul challenges Pre Viszla to single combat and kills him, only for Darth Sidious to hear of the uprising and travel to the planet to see what his former apprentice has been up to. Sidious kills Oppress, but saves Maul, promising a future use for him.

Clone Wars Sidious

Within the context of this being a cartoon, I was quite impressed by the scope of this three-episode arc, as we get to see a lot more than merely the Jedi and clones fighting droids. Sure, the cartoon series has explored a lot over the course of its five seasons, but this time it did feel kinda exciting to see – though I do admit that this is possibly due to the fact we’re seeing the foundation of the Crimson Dawn, and establishing how Maul gets from falling down that reactor shaft to leading the criminal empire in Solo. It’s definitely one of the more interesting storylines, and I think for its wider ramifications within the canon universe, it does need to be watched.

And finally, we have the last arc of the season, which is firmly on Ahsoka’s shoulders. An explosion at the Jedi temple leads Anakin and Ahsoka to investigate who could be responsible. When they find the culprit, however, Ahsoka is framed for her death, and flees into the underbelly of Coruscant. She teams up with none other than Asajj Ventress in an attempt to keep the clones off her back while she seeks to clear her name, but it is up to Anakin to discover that it was actually Barriss Offee who framed her, owing to her own dissatisfaction with the way the war has gone. Or something. It was all a bit weird, if you ask me, the only good part of the story being that Ahsoka leaves the Jedi Order as a result.

Clone Wars Ahsoka Asajj

I get that Ahsoka Tano is meant to be a strong female character for girls to identify with, and broaden the target audience of the show, but there is a whole essay waiting to be written on the ways that she derails the integrity of the series through being such a blatant Mary Sue character. It is for this reason that I just cannot bear her as a character. She could have been so much better, but she becomes so bloody annoying that watching through these later seasons has been the drudgery that it turned into. If it wasn’t for the fact that I’ve now got my baby daughter to look after, and so have found myself awake at all hours of the day and night while being unable to do much beyond watch TV, I doubt I would have made it to the final season so soon.

Putting her in positions where she is seen as an equal of the Jedi around her is faintly ridiculous, especially seeing as how those Jedi are most often Anakin and Obi-Wan. Remember, Obi-Wan is a Jedi Master, and yet he is often upstaged by Ahsoka, either in terms of battle tactics or just common sense. Her life experience far outweighs her supposed age, and her abilities are such that she is frequently the lynchpin of a storyline. There is a difference between writing a strong female character for a younger demographic to engage with, and writing her as being brilliant to the point where she could win the war single-handed.

Ahsoka is a blight over the whole Clone Wars cartoon, which is a shame because there are some intriguing stories being told here. There is a lot that goes against established lore, even before the Disney take-over, and for that I feel like I need to take a stand against it as a show, but nevertheless, I have found myself looking back on some of the episodes and thinking vaguely positively about them.

The cartoon series does suffer from an over-exposure of Anakin and Obi-Wan, who hop around the galaxy like it’s the size of a modest kitchen, and not, well, a galaxy. They crop up almost everywhere, an issue that gets worse as the series goes on. I’m sure that was in response to consumer feedback, wanting to see more of them, but I do often hark back to the earlier series, where we had episodes focusing on Kit Fisto, Aayla Secura, and Plo Koon. I think it would have been a bigger benefit if we had seen more of this, exploring other Jedi both from the movies but also original creations that were more fair-game for the show. Of course, that’s the perspective of me as a Star Wars nerd – I’m sure, again, that consumer feedback would have been overwhelming in the desire to see more of Anakin and Obi-Wan, leading to them having a major part (if not pivotal roles) in almost every battle of the Clone Wars. It feels a little bit like the rest of the Jedi Order, to say nothing of the civilians like Wulff Yularen, could have happily sat out the War, leaving it up to the dynamic duo and Mary Sue.

I’ve been listing my top three episodes from each season each time I’ve done these blogs, but for this season, the quality has been so low that the only three I can single out are those of the Eminence storyline, so:
1. Eminence
2. Shades of Reason
3. The Lawless

Even these are not without their flaws, of course, but it was quite a decent look at the criminal underworld, and I thought it was particularly interesting as backstory to Solo, a film that I do actually enjoy.

So there we are! The last full season of the Clone Wars has been watched, at long last. Up next, there are still The Lost Missions, a half-season’s worth of episodes, as well as some of the comics and at least one novel that is spun out of scripts that had already been developed for the show. So I’ll try to get round to these and bundle them all up together at some point, hopefully before the end of the year. Though with Rise of the Skywalker less than a month away, I might well be finding my reading absorbed by a different portion of the timeline…

Star Wars: Clone Wars season four

Hey everybody,
It’s been a while since my last foray into the Clone Wars cartoon series, so it’s time I finally get round to finishing off my look into this stuff!

Star Wars Clone Wars

Season Four, subtitled Battle Lines, ran between September 2011 and March 2012, and feels a bit to me like it has a much narrower focus than previous seasons. I think it comes from the fact that there are some longer stories that cover more episodes. After last season’s delve into the lore and seeing things other than the war, there are a lot more stories that take us back to the front lines this time around, starting off with a three-part story taking place on Mon Calamari.

Star Wars Clone Wars General Grievous

We get far too much Gungan nonsense going on this time around, along with quite a bit of disappointing droids hijinks on a variety of planets as they attempt to reunite with the Jedi. Some of these just feel so profoundly out-of-place in a Star Wars story, I just despair. But anyway.

There’s a fairly long arc set during the Battle of Umbara – the planet from whence Palpatine’s aide Sly Moore hails – which is just kinda weird, if I’m honest. We get to meet the overbearing Besalisk Jedi Master, Pong Krell, whose leadership style is rather different from that of Anakin, Obi-Wan, or any of the others we’ve met so far in the war. He treats the clones more like droids – some bizarre treatment when you consider how he treats established leaders like Rex. The story continues, and we learn that Krell has actually foreseen the end of the war, and the triumph of the Dark Side, so has thrown his lot in with Dooku. He attempts to wipe out the clones on Umbara, but Rex and the others manage to prevail.

Krell is a very strange chap, and I think it’s a bit too obvious at times that he is, in fact, a wrong ‘un, but still. The whole storyline takes place over four episodes, which is a bit of a breakout for the series overall, which hasn’t really seen story arcs take more than three episodes so far.

Star Wars Clone Wars Krell

Speaking of three-parters, we get to see the Zygerrian slave-trade as Anakin and Obi-Wan go under cover in order to discover the whereabouts of some Togruta colonists Dooku has sold into slavery. There should be a lot here, between the fact that Ahsoka is a Togruta herself, and Anakin’s child enslavement, yet we really only get some bloody annoying “just in the nick of time” convenience, along with Ahsoka generally being her annoying perfect self. Oh, and Anakin’s flattery of the Zygerrian queen is nothing short of embarrassing. But this is kinda what we’re led to expect from the series at this point, I suppose…

Zygerrian slavers have a long history in the lore of Star Wars, dating back to the West End Games RPG in 1987, and I’m pleased to say that the feel of the species in this cartoon is perhaps one of the most faithful re-uses of existing lore I’ve yet seen. So there is that positive element to all of this!

Star Wars Clone Wars Zygerria

We have another four-episode arc up next, that sees the return of Cad Bane to the series. A sniper kills Obi-Wan, and is subsequently caught and imprisoned. Only, the sniper is actually Obi-Wan, who undergoes some weird genetic enhancement to have the facial features of the sniper, a chap named Rako Hardeen. Why? Well, because Hardeen is part of an upcoming Separatist plot to kidnap Palpatine. In prison, Obi-Wan makes contact with another part of the plot, the hilariously-named Moralo Eval, who along with his cell-mate, Cad Bane, plots to break out of prison. When a gratuitous appearance by Boba Fett (again voiced by Daniel Logan) provides the diversion they need, Eval, Bane and Obi-Wan break out of prison by pretending to be corpses. They cross the galaxy to Nal Hutta for reasons, then continue on their journey to Count Dooku on Serenno. Meanwhile, the Jedi Council let Anakin in on the secret that Obi-Wan is actually still alive, lest he cock up their overly-elaborate plans.

On Serenno, Dooku has already assembled a team of a dozen or so bounty hunters, who go through some insane Hunger Games style elimination process in order to go on the job to kidnap the Chancellor. The whole episode is just highly unnecessary, but I nevertheless found myself enjoying the total unnecessary-ness of it all after a while. On Naboo, Palpatine arrives to preside over the Festival of Light, and the kidnap attempt is thwarted, with Bane discovering he has been duped by Obi-Wan and vowing to have revenge. There is a very interesting part of the finale to this arc where Anakin rails against the Jedi Council for keeping things from him, and while I actively dislike Anakin as a character, I thought it was nevertheless interesting to see this sort of thing as it later helps inform his arc in Revenge of the Sith.

Star Wars Clone Wars Cad Bane

The final few episodes of the season also form something of a loose collective, as we once again return to the Dathomiri storyline from last season. First up, we have Asajj Ventress and Mother Talzin defending Dathomir from a vengeful Dooku, in an episode that involves zombie Nightsisters. Why? Who the hell knows why. When Talzin and the old leader of the Nightsisters, Old Daka, are both taken out of the fight, said zombie Nightsisters are decimated, as are the normal sisters, leaving Asajj as the sole survivor, it seems. With her life in ruins, we next see her teaming up with the recently-escaped-from-prison Boba Fett, and none other than Dengar! Erm… It’s a bit of a pointless episode, though towards the end we do see Asajj actually begin to re-evaluate her place in the galaxy, and I think it’s an important thing to note, because it turns out that she’s one of the very few Star Wars characters who have genuine character development – something we have seen previously in the Legends universe, of course…

Star Wars Clone Wars Darth Maul

Savage Oppress has been searching for his brother in the Outer Rim, and he finally tracks him down to the junk planet of Lotho Minor. Maul, it seems, has lost his mind in the years since Obi-Wan cut him in half – understandable, as I’m sure anyone who has been cut in half can attest. He’s also running around on some hilarious metal spider-legs. Oppress brings Maul (who is voiced by Sam Witwer, incidentally, who has previously voiced The Son in the Mortis trilogy, and also portrayed the Secret Apprentice back in The Force Unleashed) back to Mother Talzin who, with her weird Nightsister magic, manages to bring back some sanity and reduce his weird Drider-like conveyance to a simple pair of legs, and with that clarity comes the cold determination to wreak his vengeance on Obi-Wan.

The Jedi learn of Maul’s re-emergence onto the galactic playing field, and Obi-Wan pursues him “to correct his mistake” – because it’s now a mistake to kill Sith Lords, apparently. Meanwhile, Asajj learns of a bounty on Savage Oppress, and tracks the brothers as they capture Obi-Wan. The Jedi and the former dark acolyte team up to defeat Maul and Oppress, and there’s a really nice feel to their relationship here that echoes their earlier dialogue in season one on Crystophsis.

Needless to say, Obi-Wan and Asajj escape them, though Maul is convinced that they will meet again…

So there we have it! Season four in a fairly hefty nutshell. And nuts are, I think, highly appropriate in this situation. I finished watching season four at the weekend, but if I’m honest, I still don’t really know what I thought of it. I mean, some of it had some really interesting ideas, while some of it was also really quite awful, with the overall feeling being one of mediocrity. I thought it was an interesting development that the arcs were getting longer, and things like the last four episodes, while they contained two distinct storylines, nevertheless fed into not only each other, but also reached back into season three in quite a nice and cohesive way. In this respect, I think the season is actually really quite interesting, and almost transcends the cartoon genre, you know?

Time for my top three, though… urgh, this is a difficult decision, but:
1. Crisis on Naboo
2. Revenge
3. Darkness on Umbara

Honestly, that third-best slot could have gone so many different ways, as there are a lot of episodes that are on a similar par. Crisis on Naboo is actually really interesting, not just because Naboo is one of my favourite locations, but because of the culmination of the plot to abduct the Chancellor. And Revenge was just great to see Obi-Wan and Asajj working together on something. There’s definitely a tension between the two of them, and it’s probably the thing I’ve most enjoy seeing from this entire four-season foray into the cartoon so far!

So there we are, four down, one (and a half) to go! Stay tuned for season five, which I hope will be coming much sooner than seven months down the road!

Star Wars: Clone Wars season three

Hey everybody,
Over the past month, I’ve watched my way through the twenty-two episodes of the third season of Clone Wars, the first one that’s “new” to me since I hadn’t gotten round to watching any of them despite owning the boxset for almost four years… In my round-up of the second season, I called that one a bit of a let down; season three has been just weird in comparison! Let me explain…

Star Wars Clone Wars

There are a lot of arcs in this season, to the extent that it actually feels like a more homogeneous whole for the first time. Seasons one and two have episodes that take place all over the timeline, and while three does have a similar feel to it, some of the stories and arcs do feel like they follow one another much more closely than in the earlier seasons.

Alongside a couple of really important arcs for the overall Star Wars lore, we do get a lot of tangential episodes in this season. Bounty hunters and assassins still play an important part, and in fact the actual Clone Wars almost take a back seat. Cad Bane is back again, though unfortunately in an arc that sees him helping the annoying Ziro the Hutt – who apparently has a romantic interest with Sy Snootles. Now there’s an image I’m not sure we needed to ever see…

The subtitle for the season was “Secrets Revealed”, and there is a definite sense of delving more into the lore of the universe than merely showing white-armoured clones shooting at a variety of droids. Of course, we still get that, but there is a lot more side-track style episodes this time around.

Star Wars Clone Wars Baron Papanoida

Along with the weird, there are also some more left-field episodes, including one devoted to Baron Papanoida (George Lucas himself) that feels a lot like fan-service meets butt-kissing. We see that the character created by George in Revenge of the Sith is a badass warrior-type that feels more at odds with the guy standing outside the Coruscant Opera. The episode, Sphere of Influence, was kinda fun, though. I also really enjoyed Heroes on Both Sides, which shows Padme trying to negotiate an end to the war with her friend Mina Bonteri, who is now a high-ranking Separatist. It was an interesting look at the war and, if I’m honest, dealt with the politics of the galaxy in a lot better way than previous episodes have. Definitely worth watching, I have to say.

As with the last season, there are a couple of truly stand-out arcs that I want to single out here to talk about: the storyline involving Asajj Ventress, and the Force stuff that went down in the Mortis trilogy.

Star Wars Clone Wars Mother Talzin Savage Oppress

Asajj Ventress is one of the characters created for the Clone Wars multimedia crossover event that occurred between 2002 and 2005, telling the story of the war in effective real-time between the releases of Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith. Her first appearance was in the comic Jedi: Mace Windu, which is now part of the Legends stuff, but over the course of the Republic series, and its various tie-ins, we grew to understand a lot of her history as an orphan from Rattatak who was trained by a Jedi who had been stranded there, Ky Narec, but gave in to her anger when her mentor was killed. Dooku found her and trained her to be his personal assassin and dark acolyte, though she was always one of many such tools employed by the Count. Most of this has been expunged from history by the episodes in season three, which tells us that Asajj is in fact one of the Nightsisters from Dathomir.

In this new history, we see Asajj abandoned by Dooku during a battle above Sullust, leading her to take revenge with the help of her Nightsister brethren. She and several assassins break into Dooku’s palace and, while he survives the assassination attempt, he is led to believe the Jedi were behind the attempt on his life, so requests a new bodyguard from the Nightsister matriarch Mother Talzin, who first gave him Asajj. The storyline then progresses to the male side of Dathomir, where we meet a young contender for the position, Savage Oppress. After a series of gruelling trials, Savage is deemed worthy to serve as the bodyguard, and goes through a mystical transformation that beefs him up for the role. However, in his first real test, Asajj and Savage go up against Dooku and fail, leading Savage to abandon his position as Dooku’s guard. Back on Dathomir, Talzin tells Savage he must go to the Outer Rim to find his brother…

Star Wars Clone Wars Darth Maul

This three-part story arc tramples over so much of the established Star Wars lore, hearing about it at the time sent me somewhat over the edge as regards to giving the show any kind of interest or respect. Maul has been established as a Zabrak from Iridonia, and that had been in place since 1999. Furthermore, Darth Maul was shown cut in half specifically to preclude his further appearance in the franchise following his death. Now, we learn that he’s actually the male version of a Nightsister, and somehow managed to survive being sliced in half and falling down a reactor shaft. Hm. It really annoyed me at the time, and still rankles a little now, if I’m honest, the way the story writers played fast and loose with what fans had come to understand as the history of the universe they were reading about and watching.

Of course, in the post-Story Group world, I’m a bit mellower. Clone Wars is established canon, and none of the other stuff is real. So I’ve let a lot of that go, I think! Anyway…

Star Wars Clone Wars Ghosts of Mortis

The Mortis trilogy was something of an event back in the day, with an article published on starwars.com explaining how the storyline basically supported George Lucas’ vision for the Force from the very beginning. I wasn’t particularly convinced, but it’s a nice article that I can still recommend reading. The trilogy features Anakin, Obi-Wan and Ahsoka following a Jedi distress signal in the Chrelythiumn system out in Wild Space, where they come upon The Ones – three exceptionally powerful Force users called simply The Father, The Son and The Daughter. The Father has drawn them to the system to test if Anakin really is the Chosen One, as he seeks someone to keep the Balance of the Force between his Daughter, an exceptionally strong Light Side Force user, and his Son, extremely strong in the Dark Side. I thought it was really cool that we got both Sam Witwer and Adrienne Wilkinson as the Son and Daughter – actors who formerly worked on The Force Unleashed as the Secret Apprentice and Maris Brood, respectively. Really adds to that sense of importance, you know?

The trilogy is a bit trippy for the most part, as we see a lot of stuff that is primarily Force visions and the like. Obi-Wan meets the ghost of Qui-Gon Jinn, and Anakin once more sees his mother Shmi (both of the original actors of these roles returned to do the voice work, which was really cool and a mark of how important the episodes were seen). Ahsoka however sees herself as an adult, who warns her against following Anakin as her master will eventually corrupt her, also.

As it turns out, Ahsoka is corrupted by the planet, and Anakin is basically convinced by the Son to turn to the Dark Side in order to prevent the future from happening – a future in which Anakin becomes Darth Vader, no less. However, at a climactic confrontation, the Father wipes Anakin’s mind of this possible future, and seeing no end to his Son’s evil, kills himself, giving Anakin the time needed to kill the Son, who had already killed his sister. It’s an extremely weird and convoluted story arc, and actually ends with the three Jedi “waking up” in their ship, almost as if none of this had actually happened.

It’s weird, but there is a lot of important stuff about the Force, and the nature of the Jedi at this time, that kinda makes it something of a required viewing, really. There are some odd moments, and Ahsoka continues to annoy the bejeesus out of me, but yeah, worthwhile to give it a try once.

The other episodes of the season are a curious bunch, although most of them don’t seem to leave a lasting impression. We get a lot more of how Ahsoka is so brilliantly amazing for a ten-year-old (or whatever she is), she should basically be galactic queen right now, and there are some more embarrassing hijinks with Jar Jar on Toydaria, where he goes on a diplomatic mission with Bail Organa. I’m a huge supporter of getting more Bail Organa, but I think a cartoon aimed at kids is probably not the best outlet for that. We need a good political novel, like Cloak of Deception, that features all of the politicking on Coruscant and stuff!

Before I wrap this up (I know I’ve already rambled fairly extensively here), I just want to mention the final five episodes of the season, which starts with The Citadel three-parter, and ends with an awful Ahsoka-centric storyline that brings back yet another movie character. The Citadel is a prison designed to hold Jedi, and Anakin leads a rescue mission to recover Even Piell and his officers. One of these officers is none other than Captain (eventual Grand Moff) Tarkin!

Star Wars Clone Wars Tarkin

I’ve never been a fan of gratuitous appearances like this, but as it turns out, Tarkin does have a part to play in the Clone Wars, so I’m actually perfectly okay with this. Possibly because I’m writing this blog while in the middle of reading James Luceno’s novel, but that’s a subject for another time. Tarkin and Piell both have one half each of some vital information that needs to find its way to the Republic, so they both need to make it out. During the course of the escape, the party is split, and Even Piell is killed. With his dying breath, he tells Ahsoka his half of the information (oh yeah, Ahsoka is along for the ride, because Ahsoka). I feel like this is a really important turning point in the series as, while Even Piell is hardly what you’d think of as a front-line Jedi, he was on the Jedi Council in both Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones, so there is something to be said for that.

Along the way, Tarkin criticises the Jedi involvement in the war, and has quite a bit to say about having the child padawan leading clone troopers on the front lines. Thank you, Wilhuff! He tells Anakin he doesn’t think warrior monks who refuse to do what is necessary to win the war should be leading the troops, and Anakin is in total agreement – though more because he thinks the Jedi should do more, not because he thinks they shouldn’t be there at all. While a lot of media tends to browbeat the idea of Tarkin as a “might means right” kinda guy, I still thought this was a nice touch, and can’t pass up the opportunity to see more of the guy.

The last two episodes of the season follow Ahsoka as she once again shows just how much of a loose cannon she is on the battlefield. There’s a couple of remarks made how Anakin criticises her for not following orders, yet Anakin himself often disobeys direct orders too. The difference of course, is that Anakin is often fairly effective, but Ahsoka just isn’t. But there is a definite case to be made that Anakin is just a bad teacher in this respect. At any rate, Ahsoka gets herself kidnapped by a group of Trandoshans, who release her into the wilds of a hunting reserve. Along the way, she eventually meets up with other captives on the reserve, one of whom is none other than Chewbacca, and of course Ahsoka can perfectly understand Shyriiwook. Chewbacca manages to salvage enough parts to send a signal to his homeworld, and eventually a bunch of Wookiees shows up to save them.

There is so much that annoys me about this, but I think the fact that Chewbacca is pretty much the preeminent Wookiee in the galaxy is getting annoying now. I had some hopes after meeting the whole planet in Revenge of the Sith, but time and again it seems we’re only allowed to meet the one. Bah!

Given all of this, it’s been fairly difficult to pick my top three episodes from this season! But here goes:
1. Citadel Rescue
2. Overlords
3. Heroes on Both Sides

There you have it, folks! Stay tuned for a look at season four, just as soon as I get round to watching it!