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StarTopic Star Wars |ST| SW fans cannot help what they are. Their passion leaves a trail. The enthusiasm for Star Wars is like an itch. They cannot help it.

Reader mode
browneyes84 said:
I don't think it's an unpopular opinion at all, I think the majority of hardcore fans love it when people are force sensitive, but aren't there enough force users in Star Wars? It feels like everyone is a Jedi these days. I still can't understand the decision to make Finn force sensitive, though to be honest, I kind of wish "force sensitivity" was never a thing like it was from the prequels onwards. That's probably the unpopular opinion.
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Between the title characters of Mandalorian and Andor not being Force users and no major Force users in Bad Batch (so far), I feel like post-Episode-IX Star Wars have been about as un-Jedi-heavy as it's been since... maybe the early 90s novels, before they started finding/breeding a bunch more Jedi. I know there's still plenty of Jedi stuff going on with High Republic, but it's less High Profile.
 
JoshuaJSlone said:
Between the title characters of Mandalorian and Andor not being Force users and no major Force users in Bad Batch (so far), I feel like post-Episode-IX Star Wars have been about as un-Jedi-heavy as it's been since... maybe the early 90s novels, before they started finding/breeding a bunch more Jedi. I know there's still plenty of Jedi stuff going on with High Republic, but it's less High Profile.
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The 2 or 3 years after Ep IX sure, but recently?

Ahsoka, The Acolyte, Kenobi, The High Republic, Tales of the Jedi, Young Jedi Adventures, Star Wars Jedi games, New Jedi Order film, Dawn of the Jedi film etc

I think the decision to make Sabine a Jedi is what did it for me. That and spoiler from Fallen Order being revealed as a Jedi.
 
the-acolyte-teaser-poster_506fd466.jpeg



StarWars.com said:
The Acolyte is set during the High Republic era and the prime of the Jedi Order. But based on today’s new teaser image, trouble is brewing for the guardians of peace and justice in the galaxy.

In a surprise release, Lucasfilm dropped a haunting poster for the upcoming Disney+ series; it features a lightsaber on the ground — blood spilled just above — and reveals the June 4 premiere date. Check it out below!



The Acolyte Teaser Poster



It was also announced that tomorrow will see the debut the official trailer for the series. So don your gilded Jedi robes and be sure to come back to StarWars.com.

In The Acolyte, an investigation into a shocking crime spree pits a respected Jedi Master (Lee Jung-jae) against a dangerous warrior from his past (Amandla Stenberg). As more clues emerge, they travel down a dark path where sinister forces reveal all is not what it seems….

The series stars Amandla Stenberg, Lee Jung-jae, Manny Jacinto, Dafne Keen, Charlie Barnett, Jodie Turner-Smith, Rebecca Henderson, Dean-Charles Chapman, Joonas Suotamo, and Carrie-Anne Moss.

The Acolyte comes from creator and showrunner Leslye Headland (Russian Doll), who also serves as executive producer alongside Kathleen Kennedy, Simon Emanuel, Jeff F. King, and Jason Micallef. Charmaine DeGraté and Kor Adana are the co-executive producers; Rayne Roberts, Damian Anderson, Rob Bredow, and Eileen Shim are producing.
I've been holding out hope for this one. June 4th release. Trailer tomorrow.
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Has anyone else seen the newest episode of The Bad Batch?

I loved the way it looked. Such good animation with a good color palette.
 
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Thunder84 said:
Finally committed to getting back into Star Wars, going chronologically for the most part. Really excited to get into the new stuff that I never watched (fell off around 2017 or so, IX was the last thing I watched before now). Currently about halfway through Season 4 of the Clone Wars, figured I should probably chronicle some of my general thoughts as I go along.

  • The Phantom Menace was...not that bad? I'm not gonna delude myself into thinking it's anything special, outside of some hilariously bad CGI, but it was nowhere near as grueling as I was anticipating. The plot is pretty inconsequential but it's harmless, so no major issues there. Jar Jar is obnoxious as expected, but everyone else was tolerable for the most part. Qui-Gon was easily the star of the movie though, hope he's part of the next Tales of the Jedi season. It's a fun movie carried by the fact that it's Star Wars, which is fine in my book. Oh, and Duel of the Fates is amazing, naturally.
Liking The Phantom Menace more than expected raised my expectations a bit for Attack of the Clones, and my goodness was that a bad idea. This movie is terrible, one of the worst movies I've watched in years. Child Anakin was a goober, but it was at least endearing. He's so off-putting in Attack of the Clones, it's genuinely unsettling. Everything surrounding him and Padmé is unsettling, and they devote nearly half of the damn movie to it. How did Padmé fall for this guy? And while the conspiracy side of the movie with Obi-Wan is honestly pretty fun, it goes nowhere once he leaves Kamino. The Geonosis portion of the movie is devoid of any substance, it's just aimless fighting against some droids an old guy that the movie does nothing to build up as a threat. The clones offer nothing of note either, thank god the Clone Wars salvaged that "plot twist" into something really cool. Overall though, it's a movie that's 1/3 uncomfortable to watch, 1/3 light fun, and 1/3 of nothing. Can't believe I'm saying this, but what a downgrade from The Phantom Menace. And The Phantom Menace wasn't even that good!
Now we're really getting into nostalgia territory for me. The Clone Wars was huge for me as a kid, and it all started with the movie. And it isn't very good. Ahsoka is annoying for the better part of the movie, a lot of the dialogue is stilted and unnatural, the final act is blatant about how this movie is just a few TV episodes stitched together, and the animation is really gross at times. The growing pains are on clear display here, but the fact that it takes Attack of the Clones and builds it into something watchable at all is impressive in its own right. Anakin and Padmé talk are normal ass people this time around, what a concept. The soundtrack is really cool too, very unique for Star Wars. Not a good movie, but it accomplishes the most important thing it needed to do: be better than Attack of the Clones.
Thankfully, The Clone Wars only gets better from here. Season 1 is still pretty mid all things considered, but it's got some cool moments and justifies its existence a lot better than the movie did. It does feel like they're going through the motions a bit with how many Jedi they cycle through, like they wanted to hit a quota to make sure every Jedi in the movie gets their mandated episode. Not necessarily a bad thing, but it is pretty formulaic with how they do so. Not much substance in general across the board, lots of basic saturday morning cartoon type stuff that ranges from decent fun at best to annoying at worst.
  • The standouts here are definitely episodes 105 and 120, mostly for the clones. This is where they really start to come into their own as characters, and these two episodes exemplify that very well. Especially with how important some of these clones are to the franchise as a whole, makes Order 66 and some other events hurt a hell of a lot more. Credit to episodes 101, 110, 113, 114, and 119 as well.
  • The low point of the season is easily the droid arc. Episode 106 in particular is astonishingly bad: Ahsoka is insufferable, and the animation is noticeably terrible at times. Did not care much for episode 112 either, have no idea why Anakin and Obi-Wan wanted to escape with Dooku when they could've just waited for the Republic. The only reason they give for why they want to escape is to save themselves from the embarrassment of being found captured, but is that really worth letting the leader of the Separatists get away? At least their dynamic is funny.
The general consensus I've seen online is that Season 2 is where things start to pick up, but not quite where The Clone Wars really comes into its own, which checks out for me. It's an improvement across the board, but it ultimately lacks the memorability and weight of the later seasons. Lots of cool foreshadowing and character appearances, conflicts are much more creative and interesting, and the lighter stuff is a lot more fun this time around. Much better directed too, there's some great stuff with musical cues and camera work here.
  • Picking out my favorite episodes was a lot more difficult this time, given how everything in this season is much more uniform in its quality. I'll give the nod to episodes 205, 208, 212, and 220 though. 205 is just a brilliantly directed episode; the Saving Private Ryan influence is blatant, but it still makes for one of if not the coolest action sequences in the entire franchise. 208's premise is so ridiculous it's hard not to appreciate based off that alone, but the added character development for Ahsoka and Anakin elevates it even higher. The Mandalore arc as a whole is probably the strong point of the season, but it's not connected particularly well, so 212 stuck out the most for actually being on Mandalore and bringing in the Mandalorians. Satine and Obi-Wan's chemisty is hysterical too, which helps a lot. And 220 does more for Boba Fett than the movies ever did, really strong core conflict for him here. The rest of the arc kinda falls off a bit, but 220 does an excellent job of kicking it off.
  • Similarly, there isn't really any episode here that I'd consider bad, which makes it tough to pick out my least favorites. I guess it'd be 209 and 215, but even then both are better than quite a few episodes from Season 1. Just not a whole lot to chew on with both of them.
I knew going in that Season 3 was where things really kicked into gear, but I forgot just how slow this season starts. The entire first half is dedicated to prequel or sequel episodes for various episodes in the first two seasons. Who thought that was a good idea? It's really difficult to track exactly when anything is happening, especially when they blend arcs together: episode 307 is a sequel to 222, while also being a soft prequel to 308, which itself is a prequel to 122, which is then followed by 309? How did they expect anyone to make heads or tails of that? It's made even more baffling when compared to the second half of the season, which rightfully carries the whole thing. What a huge shift from a bunch of nothing into some of the most memorable arcs across the entire show. It really is where everything starts falling into place, but damn does this season make it a chore to get there.
  • Listing out the best episodes at this point is a bit pointless, given how so many of them combine into bigger, complete arcs. I'll still pick out a couple, but the obvious highlights here are The Nightsisters, Mortis, and The Citadel. God, these arcs are so damn cool. The final Ahsoka arc is also strong, but it just doesn't compare to these three. I also need to give a shoutout to episode 301; while I don't like the first half of this season, 301 is an amazing episode that stands just as tall as the second half of the season. Domino Squad will forever be my favorite band of clones, alongside the 501st.
    • Nightsisters is my favorite of the bunch; Ventress is finally a character beyond "I'm evil", Savage Oppress is a monster, Mother Talzin is fucking weird as hell, and there's no filler anywhere. 314 is my pick for the best one, mostly for the final fight. Dooku, Ventress, and Oppress all fighting, transitioning into Oppress vs. Anakin and Obi-Wan while Dooku and Ventress continue fighting, goddamn it's awesome. Great fight choreography. And the Darth Maul teaser at the end is hype as fuck.
    • Mortis is the arc I remembered the most vividly, and it's easy to see why. Another arc where the premise is so weird that it's hard not to like it just off of that alone. And while I do think it's a bit messy in its execution, it's a fantastic character piece for Anakin. Qui-Gon finally made another appearance, which immediately makes this arc peak regardless. And the musical cues are awesome; the Imperial March leitmotif when Anakin initially chooses to leave Mortis and the Anakin vs. Obi-Wan leitmotif right before Anakin turns to the Dark Side really stuck with me. Once again, I think the finale of the arc was the strongest, so 317 is my pick.
    • The Citadel definitely has the least substance to it, but damn is it intense regardless. I love prison break stories, and this one is awesome, with the various deaths feeling appropriately brutal. Piell doesn't really offer much of note beyond just being pretty cool, I wish he got more, but the star of the show is undoubtedly Tarkin. My goodness, is he insufferable, and I couldn't be happier. And speaking of music cues, the soundtrack immediately transitioning into the Imperial March when Tarkin and Anakin shake hands is sick. Makes his ultimate fate even more satisfying. It was also rad as hell to see Echo and Fives return; Echo was my favorite clone when I was a kid, so seeing his death hurt a lot. I gaslit myself into thinking he survived somehow to cope with it and he actually did lmao, how the hell did that happen. I dunno if I have a particular favorite episode here, so I'll go with 318 just for introducing the Citadel so well.
  • Unfortunately, for as cool as the second half of the season (plus the first episode) falls a fair bit lower than the lows of Season 2. Episodes 304, 305, and 311 are pretty heavy in the "why should I care about any of this" department, but episode 308 takes the cake for worst episode here. What a pointless waste of time, did we really need backstory on how Cad Bane got into the Senate? It's sad how pretty much every droid-focused episode in The Clone Wars ends up being a low point.
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Was gonna do everything at once, but I had a lot more to say about Season 4 than I expected, so that's all I got for now. I've watched through everything up to Revenge of the Sith and Season 7, though. I'll get to those later.

For whatever reason, Season 4 never really stuck out to me all that much in my memories. Yeah, it had great stuff like Umbara and The Box, but overall my nostalgia was linked a lot more heavily to Season 3 and Season 5. It's fairly understandable, given that both of those seasons had more immediately memorable moments (especially for a preteen kid like me) while a lot of Season 4's best stuff is a bit more nuanced. Not overly so, I'm not gonna pretend that there's anything overly deep here, but a lot of the more subtle stuff is easier to gloss over when you're a kid. Now that I'm older and can appreciate that stuff more though, I can pretty safely say that Season 4 is my favorite Clone Wars season, and I don't see myself moving off of that opinion.

The only major weakness I can poke at is the opening of the season, which is unfortunately a pretty significant one. There's a good argument that Season 4 has the weakest opening of any Clone Wars season, at least when judging by the first 6 episodes (fairly arbitrary, I know, but it'd be weird to include only part of the Umbara arc).
  • Mon Cala is alright, but it's very rushed and doesn't really live up to its potential. Feels like the inspiration behind the episode started at "we want water battles" and never went anywhere meaningful beyond that. The Separatist shark guy is easily the highlight, dude was a great antagonist for an arc like this, but everything else...ehhhh. It's weird to say this about an arc I'm not particularly passionate about, but one more episode that emphasized the politics before the war broke out would've gone a long way; it's hard to get invested in this conflict when it just kinda starts out of nowhere. They'd have to cut an episode for that though, and, well...
  • Here's a great candidate for that. Shadow Warrior might be the most pointless episode across the whole show, and good lord is it aggravating. The Gungans styling on Grievous like they did is hilarious, but Anakin's reckless stupidity and the Republic immediately giving Grievous up like they did is beyond frustrating. Anakin's obviously very important, but Star Wars can't shut up about how important capturing Grievous is, and the moment they have him they immediately hand him back over. Great. Sorry Tarpals, your valiant sacrifice didn't mean shit.
  • The droid two-parter is...uh...yeah. Nomad Droids is the weirdest episode in the show, and that's saying a lot.
It's unfortunate that the opening 6 episodes are so weak, especially since it was avoidable: cut the Gungan episode in favor of fleshing out Mon Cala, and trade the droid two-parter for literally anything, and it's a solid opening. Instead, it's the weakest across the show. At least Seasons 1 and 3 had some cool stuff with Toydaria and the Domino Squad. Speaking of which...
  • Time for the coldest Star Wars take you're ever gonna hear: the Umbara arc fucking rules. Holy shit, what an upgrade over the first six episodes. The clone-focused episodes are the best in the show, and Umbara has a good case for being the cream of the crop (not mine though, more on that later). It's really impressive how the 501st was fleshed out so well in such a short timespan: Fives, Jesse, and Hardcase finally get character development beyond just being kinda cool, Tup and Dogma are great additions that fit well with the story, and Rex gets a character arc devoted entirely to himself, without playing second fiddle to the leading Jedi. Pong Krell is deliciously evil and unsympathetic without being a caricature, something the show has been lacking in its antagonists up to this point. The setting is amazing (Umbara is a really cool backdrop, and it's cool to finally be fighting a Separatist aligned planet that doesn't flip to the Republic halfway through), the pacing is amazing, the core conflict does an excellent job of portraying the Clones' struggle with the war and their own identity, god it's just so good. Whenever people are hyping up the Clone Wars, this is the stuff they're talking about. An incredible set of episodes that has rightfully gone down as some of the best media in Star Wars, and the best arc yet in the Clone Wars by a good margin.
    • The only nitpick I have isn't even really the fault of Umbara, but rather The Citadel in Season 3: Echo should've been in this. He was basically the poster boy for "clones should follow orders", Umbara would've been perfect for him and would've provided both him and Fives with a really strong internal conflict, especially if Echo sides with Krell to start and they're at odds with each other. Hell, I love Hardcase's sacrifice, but imagine how hard it would've hit if Fives convinces Echo to disobey Krell and go on the bombing mission, and he's the one that sacrifices himself. Could've elevated Umbara even higher, but alas, it wasn't meant to be.
  • My memories of Season 4 pretty much stopped at Umbara and jumped straight to the Bounty Hunter arc, so I had more or less completely blanked out the Zygerria arc, and I have absolutely no idea why. The first episode isn't really noteworthy, but the second and third are brutal. Like, "how the hell did this get approved for a children's show level" type of brutal. Good argument that these two episodes are the most intense across the show: a slave committing suicide rather than returning to the mines, a slave auction, multiple slaves being dropped into a pit just as a show of strength, a whole-ass sequence about how the Zygerrians plan to break Obi-Wan's will and psyche by enslaving him and leveraging the safety of other slaves to keep him in line, Ahsoka nearly being sold off as a sex slave, the queen trying to keep Anakin as her own personal sex slave and slowly falling in love with him, it's just...what? How the hell did these episodes happen? It's not even 10 episodes after the Mon Cala arc, which had the lighest interpretation possible of prisoners of war and slavery. It's a great arc, easily my biggest surprise of Season 4, but again...what???
  • The Lux Bonteri episode should be the beacon for all one-off Clone Wars episodes, just really strong all around. It's the perfect amount of content for its runtime while also being meaningful: a quick check-in on multiple unresolved threads from previous seasons, while also propelling them forward in a meaningful way. Not much to say here otherwise, besides the whole "burn down a village and enslaving the women" thing. I know Clone Wars was already fairly dark for a kids show before this, but good lord Season 4 is on another level with this stuff.
  • The Bounty Hunter arc definitely has the coolest premise of the season. Obi-Wan going undercover and working with Cad Bane of all people is awesome on paper, and it delivers on that premise about as well as you could hope for. Bane's distrust of Obi-Wan transforming into misplaced trust, while Eval's trust morphs into jealousy, is a really cool dynamic, and it's fun to see it all come crashing down on them. And of course, The Box is another candidate for weirdest Clone Wars episode; the idea that Dooku built a whole ass cube thing just to weed out some bounty hunters to partake in a relatively simple kidnapping mission is really funny when you stop to think about it for more than 5 seconds. Up through the first half of the final episode, it's just a really fun and well written arc...but what I didn't remember and wasn't expecting was some brilliant foreshadowing towards Anakin's eventual distrust of Obi-Wan and the Jedi. His anger towards Obi-Wan and the council for not telling him about the plan and letting him believe Obi-Wan had died is incredibly justified, and seeing that plan nearly fail in protecting the chancellor anyway only reinforces that. I'd go so far to argue that this episode might be the best at foreshadowing Anakin's turn to the dark side, minus the obvious stuff in the Mortis arc in Season 3. I guess there's one other candidate for that, but that's not until Season 6. Really good stuff, arguably the start of what will quickly become a running theme of the Jedi tripping over themselves in every way possible on route to their inevitable demise.
  • A solid two-parter next; it's nice to check back in with Ventress and the Nightsisters; their massacre by Grievous is really well portrayed and might be the most imposing Grievous has ever been in the show (which is kinda undercut by him losing to fucking Jar Jar earlier in the season, but whatever), and following Ventress's journey to find a new purpose is compelling. It's nice to check in with Boba and Bossk again, and it's neat seeing some other new/old bounty hunters like Dengar show up. It's another fun episode, although the reveal of the cargo being a kidnapped woman wasn't particularly surprsing (oh my god Season 4 you gotta stop with this stuff lol).
  • Of course, the season ending with Darth Maul was the highlight for a lot of people, and...yeah, it's pretty damn cool. The episode of Savage finding Maul is a bit drawn out, but it's still a good one. Spider-Maul is incredibly weird, like what the fuck was the gameplan behind this type of weird, and I like it. Maul regaining his senses and going on a rampage to kill Obi-Wan though, that's the good shit. Obi-Wan and Ventress teaming up to fight Savage and Maul is cool as hell, but it's a lot shorter than I'd like. The whole episode feels a bit rushed, unfortunately; could've condensed the Savage episode more to give this one more breathing room. Also, Maul burning down and slaughtering a village just to get Obi-Wan's attention is appropriately brutal, but I think the moment is forever ruined for me now that I've looked back on Season 4 as a whole. This is the 6th time this season we've seen innocent people get their village destroyed or be forced into slavery, and that's not counting the weird shit that happens in Nomad Droids. You gotta stop at some point Filoni, this is just too much lol
As I said before, Season 4 is my favorite one across the whole show. It's not perfect, it's got some low lows at the start, but it's also got the highest highs yet and...the weirdest weirds yet too. It takes a while to kick into gear, but once it does, Season 4 is nonstop stream of bangers.
 
You know Filoni is in charge of a project, when a series called "Tales of the Empire" is about apprentices, nightsisters and Baris Ofee. facepalm

And there was me seeing the title, thinking it could be about something fitting, like say the story of a lone TIE pilot, or a superlaser technician, or something new like that.

Thunder84 said:
And here I was, thinking I’d be done with the Clone Wars side of things once Bad Batch wrapped up lol
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Sadly, we'll never be done with the Clone Wars if Filoni has anything to do with it.
 
browneyes84 said:
You know Filoni is in charge of a project, when a series called "Tales of the Empire" is about apprentices, nightsisters and Baris Ofee. facepalm

And there was me seeing the title, thinking it could be about something fitting, like say the story of a lone TIE pilot, or a superlaser technician, or something new like that.
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Ultimately, this is still Tales of the Jedi Season 2. Just under a new name. It was never gonna be about anyone else.

Bariss makes a ton of sense for this though, she was one of the biggest remaining hanging threads from the Clone Wars.
 
Thunder84 said:
Ultimately, this is still Tales of the Jedi Season 2. Just under a new name. It was never gonna be about anyone else.

Bariss makes a ton of sense for this though, she was one of the biggest remaining hanging threads from the Clone Wars.
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Fair enough. I'm happy people are excited for this, but personally I'm just kind of over Filoni's brand of Star Wars at this point. No surprise given I've never really been a prequel/Clone Wars fan.
 
browneyes84 said:
Fair enough. I'm happy people are excited for this, but personally I'm just kind of over Filoni's brand of Star Wars at this point. No surprise given I've never really been a prequel/Clone Wars fan.
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I love the prequels. I hope Qui-Gon Jinn returns in a season 2 of Tales of the Jedi.
 
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I'm really a sucker for SW... I can't help it, aside Ep. VII and IX I pretty much liked evrything SW related. For animated series I really liked Clone Wars (somehow I missed the movie, I'll watch it sooner or later) even tho there are too much episodes imo, Season 7 is just peak fiction, Rebels is as good as it gets (w/ almost 0 fillers), Visions Vol. 1 & 2 are incredible, Tales of the Jedi is a nice touch and recently I watch Bad Batch S1 and I think it's fenomenal, still have to found the time to watch S2 and then S3.
Tales of the Empire looks amazing btw and I am looking forward for The Acolyte (the poster was FIRE)

For books, I read Darth Bane (the first one) and I almost finished Thrawn (the canon "new" one). While I liked Darth Bane, Thrawn is just one of my favorite SW characters and the book is really well written and engaging, I need to finish it asap

So yeah give me a SW product and chances are high I will like it lol
 
With Bad Batch ending soon, have there been any clues as to what Star Wars animation might do next? Beyond these short anthologies like Visions and Tales? There was that Droids movie announced long ago, but apparently it hasn't even been mentioned in 3 years so maybe dead.
 
JoshuaJSlone said:
With Bad Batch ending soon, have there been any clues as to what Star Wars animation might do next? Beyond these short anthologies like Visions and Tales? There was that Droids movie announced long ago, but apparently it hasn't even been mentioned in 3 years so maybe dead.
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With Tales of the Filoni Empire not featuring Ventress, the smart money is on a show about her. She's cool but it's yet more Clone Wars era story-telling so a bit zzzz for me.

Bad Batch was announced over 6 months after Resistance aired it's final episode so could be a little while to wait still?

I imagine A Droid Story is probably still a thing, could be taking a while to animate or they're waiting for a good break in the calendar to release it.

As for Bad Batch I'm really hoping the last episode is double or triple the length like the series opener. Feels like a lot to do in just 3 eps.
 
Thunder84 said:
Was gonna do everything at once, but I had a lot more to say about Season 4 than I expected, so that's all I got for now. I've watched through everything up to Revenge of the Sith and Season 7, though. I'll get to those later.

For whatever reason, Season 4 never really stuck out to me all that much in my memories. Yeah, it had great stuff like Umbara and The Box, but overall my nostalgia was linked a lot more heavily to Season 3 and Season 5. It's fairly understandable, given that both of those seasons had more immediately memorable moments (especially for a preteen kid like me) while a lot of Season 4's best stuff is a bit more nuanced. Not overly so, I'm not gonna pretend that there's anything overly deep here, but a lot of the more subtle stuff is easier to gloss over when you're a kid. Now that I'm older and can appreciate that stuff more though, I can pretty safely say that Season 4 is my favorite Clone Wars season, and I don't see myself moving off of that opinion.

The only major weakness I can poke at is the opening of the season, which is unfortunately a pretty significant one. There's a good argument that Season 4 has the weakest opening of any Clone Wars season, at least when judging by the first 6 episodes (fairly arbitrary, I know, but it'd be weird to include only part of the Umbara arc).
  • Mon Cala is alright, but it's very rushed and doesn't really live up to its potential. Feels like the inspiration behind the episode started at "we want water battles" and never went anywhere meaningful beyond that. The Separatist shark guy is easily the highlight, dude was a great antagonist for an arc like this, but everything else...ehhhh. It's weird to say this about an arc I'm not particularly passionate about, but one more episode that emphasized the politics before the war broke out would've gone a long way; it's hard to get invested in this conflict when it just kinda starts out of nowhere. They'd have to cut an episode for that though, and, well...
  • Here's a great candidate for that. Shadow Warrior might be the most pointless episode across the whole show, and good lord is it aggravating. The Gungans styling on Grievous like they did is hilarious, but Anakin's reckless stupidity and the Republic immediately giving Grievous up like they did is beyond frustrating. Anakin's obviously very important, but Star Wars can't shut up about how important capturing Grievous is, and the moment they have him they immediately hand him back over. Great. Sorry Tarpals, your valiant sacrifice didn't mean shit.
  • The droid two-parter is...uh...yeah. Nomad Droids is the weirdest episode in the show, and that's saying a lot.
It's unfortunate that the opening 6 episodes are so weak, especially since it was avoidable: cut the Gungan episode in favor of fleshing out Mon Cala, and trade the droid two-parter for literally anything, and it's a solid opening. Instead, it's the weakest across the show. At least Seasons 1 and 3 had some cool stuff with Toydaria and the Domino Squad. Speaking of which...
  • Time for the coldest Star Wars take you're ever gonna hear: the Umbara arc fucking rules. Holy shit, what an upgrade over the first six episodes. The clone-focused episodes are the best in the show, and Umbara has a good case for being the cream of the crop (not mine though, more on that later). It's really impressive how the 501st was fleshed out so well in such a short timespan: Fives, Jesse, and Hardcase finally get character development beyond just being kinda cool, Tup and Dogma are great additions that fit well with the story, and Rex gets a character arc devoted entirely to himself, without playing second fiddle to the leading Jedi. Pong Krell is deliciously evil and unsympathetic without being a caricature, something the show has been lacking in its antagonists up to this point. The setting is amazing (Umbara is a really cool backdrop, and it's cool to finally be fighting a Separatist aligned planet that doesn't flip to the Republic halfway through), the pacing is amazing, the core conflict does an excellent job of portraying the Clones' struggle with the war and their own identity, god it's just so good. Whenever people are hyping up the Clone Wars, this is the stuff they're talking about. An incredible set of episodes that has rightfully gone down as some of the best media in Star Wars, and the best arc yet in the Clone Wars by a good margin.
    • The only nitpick I have isn't even really the fault of Umbara, but rather The Citadel in Season 3: Echo should've been in this. He was basically the poster boy for "clones should follow orders", Umbara would've been perfect for him and would've provided both him and Fives with a really strong internal conflict, especially if Echo sides with Krell to start and they're at odds with each other. Hell, I love Hardcase's sacrifice, but imagine how hard it would've hit if Fives convinces Echo to disobey Krell and go on the bombing mission, and he's the one that sacrifices himself. Could've elevated Umbara even higher, but alas, it wasn't meant to be.
  • My memories of Season 4 pretty much stopped at Umbara and jumped straight to the Bounty Hunter arc, so I had more or less completely blanked out the Zygerria arc, and I have absolutely no idea why. The first episode isn't really noteworthy, but the second and third are brutal. Like, "how the hell did this get approved for a children's show level" type of brutal. Good argument that these two episodes are the most intense across the show: a slave committing suicide rather than returning to the mines, a slave auction, multiple slaves being dropped into a pit just as a show of strength, a whole-ass sequence about how the Zygerrians plan to break Obi-Wan's will and psyche by enslaving him and leveraging the safety of other slaves to keep him in line, Ahsoka nearly being sold off as a sex slave, the queen trying to keep Anakin as her own personal sex slave and slowly falling in love with him, it's just...what? How the hell did these episodes happen? It's not even 10 episodes after the Mon Cala arc, which had the lighest interpretation possible of prisoners of war and slavery. It's a great arc, easily my biggest surprise of Season 4, but again...what???
  • The Lux Bonteri episode should be the beacon for all one-off Clone Wars episodes, just really strong all around. It's the perfect amount of content for its runtime while also being meaningful: a quick check-in on multiple unresolved threads from previous seasons, while also propelling them forward in a meaningful way. Not much to say here otherwise, besides the whole "burn down a village and enslaving the women" thing. I know Clone Wars was already fairly dark for a kids show before this, but good lord Season 4 is on another level with this stuff.
  • The Bounty Hunter arc definitely has the coolest premise of the season. Obi-Wan going undercover and working with Cad Bane of all people is awesome on paper, and it delivers on that premise about as well as you could hope for. Bane's distrust of Obi-Wan transforming into misplaced trust, while Eval's trust morphs into jealousy, is a really cool dynamic, and it's fun to see it all come crashing down on them. And of course, The Box is another candidate for weirdest Clone Wars episode; the idea that Dooku built a whole ass cube thing just to weed out some bounty hunters to partake in a relatively simple kidnapping mission is really funny when you stop to think about it for more than 5 seconds. Up through the first half of the final episode, it's just a really fun and well written arc...but what I didn't remember and wasn't expecting was some brilliant foreshadowing towards Anakin's eventual distrust of Obi-Wan and the Jedi. His anger towards Obi-Wan and the council for not telling him about the plan and letting him believe Obi-Wan had died is incredibly justified, and seeing that plan nearly fail in protecting the chancellor anyway only reinforces that. I'd go so far to argue that this episode might be the best at foreshadowing Anakin's turn to the dark side, minus the obvious stuff in the Mortis arc in Season 3. I guess there's one other candidate for that, but that's not until Season 6. Really good stuff, arguably the start of what will quickly become a running theme of the Jedi tripping over themselves in every way possible on route to their inevitable demise.
  • A solid two-parter next; it's nice to check back in with Ventress and the Nightsisters; their massacre by Grievous is really well portrayed and might be the most imposing Grievous has ever been in the show (which is kinda undercut by him losing to fucking Jar Jar earlier in the season, but whatever), and following Ventress's journey to find a new purpose is compelling. It's nice to check in with Boba and Bossk again, and it's neat seeing some other new/old bounty hunters like Dengar show up. It's another fun episode, although the reveal of the cargo being a kidnapped woman wasn't particularly surprsing (oh my god Season 4 you gotta stop with this stuff lol).
  • Of course, the season ending with Darth Maul was the highlight for a lot of people, and...yeah, it's pretty damn cool. The episode of Savage finding Maul is a bit drawn out, but it's still a good one. Spider-Maul is incredibly weird, like what the fuck was the gameplan behind this type of weird, and I like it. Maul regaining his senses and going on a rampage to kill Obi-Wan though, that's the good shit. Obi-Wan and Ventress teaming up to fight Savage and Maul is cool as hell, but it's a lot shorter than I'd like. The whole episode feels a bit rushed, unfortunately; could've condensed the Savage episode more to give this one more breathing room. Also, Maul burning down and slaughtering a village just to get Obi-Wan's attention is appropriately brutal, but I think the moment is forever ruined for me now that I've looked back on Season 4 as a whole. This is the 6th time this season we've seen innocent people get their village destroyed or be forced into slavery, and that's not counting the weird shit that happens in Nomad Droids. You gotta stop at some point Filoni, this is just too much lol
As I said before, Season 4 is my favorite one across the whole show. It's not perfect, it's got some low lows at the start, but it's also got the highest highs yet and...the weirdest weirds yet too. It takes a while to kick into gear, but once it does, Season 4 is nonstop stream of bangers.
Click to expand...
Doing myself a favor and restricting how much I write, that Season 4 writeup was way too excessive.

A slight step back from Season 4, which is a bit surprising given that this ended up being the de facto final season for quite a while. It's still very good, don't get me wrong, but the first 12 episodes don't hit the same highs that Season 4 did. They feel a bit tamer for the most part, going back to the lighter side of Clone Wars. Not a bad thing, but after the expectations that Season 4 set, it's definitely a bit noticeable in retrospect.

The positive here is that none of the arcs or episodes are outright terrible. Yes, even the droid arc. It's far from perfect, but the second episode is so sufficiently weird that it helps carry everything else. A bit odd that the supposed R2-D2 arc barely involves him at all in favor of the most generic looking alien I've ever seen and a pit droid, but Sunny Day in the Void is just so goddamn strange that I don't really mind. Onderon and the Youngling arcs are both great, just not standouts in the grand scheme of things. It's cool to see the origins of Saw Gerrera, and all of the younglings are strong characters in their own right, but there just isn't a whole lot to sink your teeth into with these arcs.

The big ones though are obviously Mandalore and the Jedi Bombing, and they certainly live up to the hype...for the most part. I do think both of these share the same weakness in that their endings are both rushed, which stands out compared to how well paced the start of each arc is. Considering that Season 5 was only 20 episodes, it does make me wish they had stretched them both out to 5 episodes and fully filled out the season, but alas. What we have is certainly good enough. A few notes from each:
  • Maul was already cool as a character in Season 4, but he really takes off here. Great vocal performance, and it's fun to watch him take over the underworld, even if I wasn't really rooting for him. His slow takeover of Death Watch was really interesting.
  • The Sidious fight was the coolest shit I've seen yet. That whole episode has some killer combat direction (the shot of Obi-Wan at the blast door is so damn cool) but seeing Sidious let loose and have "fun" was sick. Kinda cathartic too, considering the shit that Maul and Savage did throughout the arc.
  • Minor note, but opening with a Maul episode like they did was kinda odd. I get why, it's a strong hook for the season, but there wasn't really any reason for it to canonically come after the following episodes. It's a bit jarring seeing Adi Gallia get impaled by Savage, only to show up immediately in the next episode. Same with Hondo and his pirate organization being in tatters.
  • The conflict between Ahsoka and Anakin was really compelling. Seeing Anakin fight for his belief in the Jedi council, knowing his ultimate decision, adds a lot of weight to this arc. Especially since Ahsoka's fear is justified, and Anakin knows it.
  • Great spot to bring Ventress back, she fits in really well. Fun dynamic with Ahsoka, too.
  • Unfortunately, as I said before, both of these episodes feel rushed near the end. Satine's death and Bariss's turn to the dark side just kinda pop up out of nowhere, and don't get a satisfying resolution. Obi-Wan's pain at Satine's death is moving, as is his decision to move past it and continue on his path, but once it's over he's back to his old self in no time. And, considering Bariss is built up to be Ahsoka's best friend (which by itself is odd, considering we haven't seen her since Season 2), she seems pretty unmoved that Bariss set her up. I do like that Luminara was absent entirely from the trial, though; very fitting, considering the dynamic she had with Bariss.
One final note: the amount of Hondo in this season is hysterical. They just could not get enough of him for the first 9 episodes. Cracked up when he showed up in the Onderon arc, and lost it when he showed up in the Youngling arc. Big fan of the Oops, All Hondo approach. Wish they applied it more often.

Ultimately, Season 5's main strength is it's lack of any serious downtime. The worst episode here is still a big step up from the worst episodes of the previous seasons. But the lack of weight to three of it's main arcs plus the rushed conclusion to it's heavier ones result in a season that doesn't hit as hard as Season 4, despite overall being stronger for the most part. It's still my second favorite season, just a bit disappointing after how insane the previous season was.

The biggest thing I appreciate about Season 6 is it's overall direction. They've touched on it before, but this season is where they really start hammering how badly the Jedi fuck up their chances at avoiding Order 66, and their overall failings along the way. So much of this season is just depressing, whether it's nearly uncovering Order 66 early or Anakin's toxic relationship with Padme souring even more. It makes for a compelling forward momentum that previous seasons lacked due to the disjointed nature of Clone Wars episodes, so props for that. Really impressive considering that this was essentially just half a season cobbled together.

As for the episodes themselves, they're also really good! There's one arc in particular I'll get to in a bit, but I wanna touch on the rest first. The Clovis arc was a surprising hit: Anakin's descent to the dark side is hinted at stronger than ever, and the general hopelessness pervading everything fits right into the tone of the season. It's obvious that Clovis is being set up, and it's a slow burn of everything falling apart. Nobody won here (besides Palpatine lol), which sucks but makes for some compelling TV. On the opposite side of the spectrum, the Yoda arc is surprisingly hopeful given what came before it, which I like. For as dire as most of Season 6 is, it's nice to end on a victory for the good guys. Not a big one, but a nice one nonetheless. Yoda's visit to Dagobah was beautiful, and while the following episodes weren't quite as strong, they maintain that early momentum and end the season on a positive note given what's to come.

Both of those arcs are nothing compared to the Inhibitor Chip arc though, which might very well be my favorite arc across the entire series. Beating out Umbara and a certain Season 7 arc that tops just about everyone's list. The mistreatment of the clones, Fives' desperation to save Tup after losing Echo, the hope that Order 66 might be thwarted early, and the crushing realization that there's no escape for Fives from the get-go adds up to an arc that feels shitty in the best way possible. There's no saving Fives, which makes his desperate struggle and inevitable failure to save so many lives from Order 66 all the more heartbreaking. Especially given that Domino Squad was essentially the first clones the show actually gave a reason to care about, even before Rex. Obviously we know now that Domino Squad's story doesn't end here, but at the time, it was one hell of a final flourish. From rookies to saving the galaxy and clones alike from Order 66, Echo and Fives had one heck of a journey.

Unfortunately, the short runtime of Season 6 works against it. Only 11 episodes, essentially half the length of every other season. And while the 11 episodes here are all strong, that can only go so far. Doesn't help that Ahsoka's out of the picture and Obi-Wan is barely present at all. Great stuff overall, but it definitely could've used some more meat. Third best season so far, between 3 and 5.

As an addendum, while I was watching Season 6, I had a really weird dream that Jar Jar Binks and Mace Windu teamed up to chase a cult led by Darth Maul's mom because they kidnapped Jar Jar's love interest in hopes of taking over the universe. Thankfully, a premise like that is just too surreal, even for Star Wars standards. Can't imagine what that would look like if it was made into a, say, two episode arc that was placed right in the middle of the season. Right?

...Right?
 
Another great episode of Bad Batch. Only 2 left 😭

The show is not a continuation of the Clone Wars at all tbh, maybe a handful of episodes relate to it, but Bad Batch is very much its own thing, and that's why I adore it.
 
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