The Clone Wars: Season 4 -- speculation/discussion/spoilers

[DigiFluid]

Well in dosed's defense (even though I'm not sure I agree), his statement makes sense. If the Umbarans are natively, say, methane breathers and an environmental disaster came along that converted their atmosphere to oxygen/nitrogen, that would be your explanation. The natives can no longer breathe on their planet, but their disaster makes it habitable to other races.

[mandogater]

I was actually quite surprised to find that some of them had had appearances before now. The pilot, Hawk, was in Season 1's The Hidden Enemy (the episode that was a prequel to the movie). Hardcase, Jessie, and Kix all appeared in Season 2's The Deserter. And of course Cody, Rex, and Fives who we're all familiar with by now.

That's one of the things that I really dig about this show; the clones aren't just nameless fodder. Well, SOME are but I mean they do a pretty nice job of differentiating clones and making them into individuals rather than just faces in the crowd. That's really nice. I think the armour customization goes a long way with this too, which is doubly neat because it looks cool too.



Actually--and note that this is me speculating, I don't know any spoilers--after seeing this week's episode and seeing some of the titles to come in the next couple weeks, I'm very very curious to see if Krell might find himself getting fragged for the good of the troops.

That's one of the biggest things I like about the show, they really go out of the way to make the clones individuals. I really need to watch The Deserter again, I completely forgot Hardcase was in that one.

Your idea for Krell has me intrigued. But what would happen to the clone that fragged him? Would he even get a trial or would he just get cut down by another Jedi?

[Cold Fuzz]

I just watched the little clip on The Clone Wars website, pretty cool. Reminds me of the D-Day drop in the second episode of Band of Brothers.

I was thinking that same thing when I saw the episode tonight, especially when the gunships were getting repeatedly hit.

[DigiFluid]

That's one of the biggest things I like about the show, they really go out of the way to make the clones individuals. I really need to watch The Deserter again, I completely forgot Hardcase was in that one.

I was surprised by the number of returning clones too, to be honest. Throughout the episode I kind of had that feeling of finding a number of them vaguely familiar but being unable to place them. So after it aired I hopped on Wookieepedia to have a look, and I was still surprised that that many of them were clones we'd seen before. That's a nice bit of series continuity.

Your idea for Krell has me intrigued. But what would happen to the clone that fragged him? Would he even get a trial or would he just get cut down by another Jedi?

That's a good question. I can't imagine a Jedi cutting a soldier down in cold blood, but then these guys are essentially (and in fact) a slave army and unlikely to be protected by the laws that they're fighting to protect. It'd definitely be interesting to see it happen. Who knows if it will, but it'd be neat to see.

I was thinking that same thing when I saw the episode tonight, especially when the gunships were getting repeatedly hit.

Yep, that's exactly the scene that is/was the preview clip on the website. Great minds, right?




Incidentally, there's a preview clip up for the next episode on the show's site

[mandogater]

This just hit me. All of the clones were wearing Phase II armor weren't they?

[DigiFluid]

I think Rex was still wearing his old helmet (on which the visor looks custom anyway), but yeah the rest of them were wearing the Phase II armour. Observant one, you are

It's a nice touch. Later in the series, presumably later in the war so the armour has been rolled out more than just the prototype suits the ARCs had before. It looks great.


And as I'm writing this post I realized another thing I loved so much about the episode: its moral ambiguity!

Spoiler:

This hasn't been like episodes in the past where they're saving a Republic world from CIS invasion, or even chasing down Seps onto neutral worlds. This is a hostile invasion of a planet that's decided they don't want anything more to do with the Republic. The Umbarans aren't sending out soldiers to conquer Republic worlds, they're only out there to defend their world from an invading army.

Republic boots are on the ground to tell them by force that no, your planet does not have the sovereign right to self-determination. And if you don't like it, meet the business end of our blasters.

It was something I couldn't quite place my finger on while watching it, but it just hit me while writing this

[mandogater]

I think Rex was still wearing his old helmet (on which the visor looks custom anyway), but yeah the rest of them were wearing the Phase II armour. Observant one, you are

It's a nice touch. Later in the series, presumably later in the war so the armour has been rolled out more than just the prototype suits the ARCs had before. It looks great.


And as I'm writing this post I realized another thing I loved so much about the episode: its moral ambiguity!

Spoiler:

This hasn't been like episodes in the past where they're saving a Republic world from CIS invasion, or even chasing down Seps onto neutral worlds. This is a hostile invasion of a planet that's decided they don't want anything more to do with the Republic. The Umbarans aren't sending out soldiers to conquer Republic worlds, they're only out there to defend their world from an invading army.

Republic boots are on the ground to tell them by force that no, your planet does not have the sovereign right to self-determination. And if you don't like it, meet the business end of our blasters.

It was something I couldn't quite place my finger on while watching it, but it just hit me while writing this

Good, I was wondering if my bad cold was making me see things.

Moral ambiguity is almost as much of a constant in warfare as death, IMHO. It's just a matter of how much and how big of an issue it's going to be for the people doing the fighting or sending them to fight.

[DigiFluid]

Oh certainly, without a doubt. But the show has generally been pretty loathe to paint the Republic in any kind of a questionable light. I enjoyed how this dispensed with that and dove right into 'hmm, is this right?' territory.

[mandogater]

Oh certainly, without a doubt. But the show has generally been pretty loathe to paint the Republic in any kind of a questionable light. I enjoyed how this dispensed with that and dove right into 'hmm, is this right?' territory.

Makes me curious what the rest of this arc and season will be like.

[Teddybrown]

Finally caught this episode.
Nice bit of action and also a nice cliffhanger ending for next week.
The new Generals a bit of an ass to the clones but some Jedi will have different thoughts on the clones than others, I think he saw the clones more as troops than friends as Anakin sees them. When he was like go forward, no retreat (cant quite remember the quote) felt like he was saying push forward and no retreat even if your going to lose, kinda seeing them as just soldiers to command to their death for the objective.
The new clones were nice to see, didnt realise some of them had been in episodes before.

Cant wait for next week.

[mandogater]

Finally caught this episode.
Nice bit of action and also a nice cliffhanger ending for next week.
The new Generals a bit of an ass to the clones but some Jedi will have different thoughts on the clones than others, I think he saw the clones more as troops than friends as Anakin sees them. When he was like go forward, no retreat (cant quite remember the quote) felt like he was saying push forward and no retreat even if your going to lose, kinda seeing them as just soldiers to command to their death for the objective.
The new clones were nice to see, didnt realise some of them had been in episodes before.

Cant wait for next week.

My biggest problem with the bolded part is even if you just see the clones as cannon fodder, you're still going to lose men you don't need to. Especially if a better alternative has been presented, like's Anakin's plan which was more like infiltrate and exploit, if I remember correctly.

[Cold Fuzz]

Oh certainly, without a doubt. But the show has generally been pretty loathe to paint the Republic in any kind of a questionable light. I enjoyed how this dispensed with that and dove right into 'hmm, is this right?' territory.

As the plots get closer and closer to the events of Revenge of the Sith, I'm expecting the moral ambiguity with the Republic to get dredged up more and more. I suppose the producers could be playing it off as shades of the coming Empire?

[DigiFluid]

I hope so. It seems like that's what they've kind of started to push now, what with Anakin agreeing with Tarkin in the Citadel trilogy last season that the Jedi way isn't enough to win the war, and now this.

[Sp!der]

Ill get Season one through three hopefully for christmas! I tried the first couple of episodes of season one but was to childish for me but now knowing its getting darker, Im eager to try this! And "The Tale of a Jedi" Graphic Novels..

[DigiFluid]

now knowing its getting darker

It's been doing that fairly steadily throughout the show's run, but I think it became particularly apparent around the end of Season 2 and then just on from there