Star Wars: The Clone Wars follows a signal through harrowing highs and lackluster lows
TV Reviews Recap
Rex is, understandably, distraught after learning that Echo may be alive. It’s a pretty shocking reveal, and his emotional connection to that information leaves everyone around him worried that he may be too impassioned to make clear-eyed, focused decisions, especially considering this information may not be true. “A Distant Echo” mostly keeps the the question of whether Echo is alive or not vague, up until the conversation Admiral Trench has with Wat Tambor, and the one Wat has with the clones when they’re close to breaching his sanctum. (Both Trench and Wat were in previous episodes of The Clone Wars, which I can’t remember too much about so I’ll let all you commenters break that down). The episode could have kept things simple by focusing on the conflicted Rex, and how that butts up against the more no-nonsense, more skeptical members of the Bad Batch, but it also brings along Anakin for a more intimate and personal layer to how Rex handles all of this.
The Clone Wars has done admirable job of really humanizing and exploring Anakin. He’s the hotshot, unorthodox character he was in the prequel trilogy, but the show works to add layers to him, particularly with his relationships Rex, Ahsoka, and, my favorite ship, R2-D2. Here, they give him an honest moment with a pregnant Padme, and even though the Anakin and Padme relationship kind of feels like the weakest one (which is more the fault of the prequel trilogy than the show), there’s a direct honesty on display here that makes it worthwhile. Whatever you may say about it and how it develops, it’s clear that the two love and support each other and share a connection, with Padme encouraging Anakin to support and watch out for Rex, even if he doubts Echo’s still alive. What Rex needs more than confirmation of Echo’s survival is a comrade. The scene is plays well, but it’s also given a comedic kick with the presence of Obi-Wan, whose clumsy back-and-forth with Rex is amusing enough, only for the rug to be pulled right out from him and Anakin when Obi-Wan clearly knew his apprentice and Padme just spoke supposedly in secret. Humor has always be a tricky part of the show (and of the franchise in general), but that’s a solid gag.
Rex, Anakin, and the Bad Batch head off to Skako Minor, where the signal of Echo’s voice seem to have originated from. When they arrive, they have a run-in with the local natives, an example of one of The Clone Wars’s more glaring weaknesses. Some story arcs struggle to pad for “stuff” to fill its runtime, so some episodes often skirt into unnecessary, out-of-nowhere conflicts, and this is no exception. The native race is hostile until it isn’t, and we learn nothing about them or their purpose (it’s clear they’ll be useful later in the arc, but at this point they just feel like a superfluous obstacle). It does provide a chance for Hunter, the leader of this Bad Batch, to do some crazy stuff, hitching a ride on one of those winged beasts by dangling off a grappling hook while chasing down a captured Anakin. But Tech’s translation work just isn’t believable enough to convince the audience that this native populace would have such a quick change of heart.
There’s a lot of melodramatic tension over whether the signal voice is Echo or whether it’s just a trap. It’s all played well enough, with the requisite scuffle that occurs between Crosshair/Wrecker and Rex, and the more honest, down-to-earth conversation that occurs between Anakin and Rex. The vibe of the episode leans towards the fact that Echo is alive, so that tension never really grows into much unfortunately. Also, the dynamic camera movements, which worked really well in “The Bad Batch,” are more of a distraction here, mainly because there are clear and obvious moments that the Clankers are absolutely not firing at our protagonists for no reason. The action feels more video-game-y here, as if the droids were placed on easy mode or something. Yet even though Echo’s survival is predictable, the state of his body is horrifying: when Tech opens the stasis chamber, we see the clone with robot parts where his legs and right arm should be, his brain strapped to a bunch of wires, his eyes seizing out as this “machine” rips data straight from Echo’s brain. With the entire team pinned down outside, and Rex emotionally stunned in seeing his friend in such monstrous shape, the question remains: how in the galaxy can they escape this predicament?
Stray observations
- “The Techno-Union has corporate neutrality.” The Clone Wars does a decent job of complicating the layers and positions of the various factions that exist beyond the “Republic vs. separatist” conflict. More details like that would have gone a long way to salvage the Rose/Fin subplot in The Last Jedi. I personally was okay with it, but I spent a lot of time thinking this film had more television elements than filmic ones.
- Wrecker being scared of heights is the kind of goofy detail that provides this supposedly “Bad Batch” of clones a more humanizing, fun element.
- Wat Tambor’s lab/sanctum, with its sudden 1920's Art Deco look and design, was such a great visual switch-up, which allowed Echo’s reveal to be much more surreal and harrowing.
- Echo’s physical state is grotesque, but honestly I was expecting much worse. Like… I was just expecting to see his head. I love it when any aspect of Star Wars dabble in the iconography of other genres though.
34 Comments
Glad to see The Clone Wars getting some appreciation. As much as the feature-length opener got panned, I found the subsequent serialisations did a solid job of rehabilitating the prequel franchise.
It really demonstrated just what a missed opportunity the prequels and Clone Wars setting was, and this animation would’ve been a superlative series if it wasn’t for the movies being a huge drag-factor on the story-telling; and for the Genndy-Tartovsky version knocking-it-out-of-the-park.
The G-T version just has (nearly, Ahsoka is brilliant) all the best bits of this reboot, but condensed and with far fewer of the boring and formulaic plot-points. It truly elevated the prequel-setting to the same level as the original trilogy, whereas this reboot just falls short (and, as it got way better as it went on, probably could’ve closed that ground in the “Ahsoka adventures”).
Rebels really benefited from the ground this series laid out, though.
Wow, I disagree with just about everything you said besides your view on the movie/pilot. I think Rebels felt like a watered down version of Clone Wars up until it’s final few episodes. Then again, I could be biased because we watched Clone Wars as my kids grew up and to them that was Star Wars. It brought us closer together and introduced them to some themes that I don’t think they would have had from other children/teen entertainment.
Yup. I think Clone Wars got better and better over time. Not quite as good as the 2003 series, true, but there’s a ton of great stuff here. Rebels tried to split the difference between adult and child-friendly entertainment, and largely missed the mark (until the final season-and-a-half).
hmm, I love Genndy’s Clone Wars with all my heart but for my money Season 5 of Filoni’s just eclipses it. visually, Genndy has the win by a landslide, but it’s not insignificant that Filoni had years of character development and buildup under his belt, which when he finally paid it off in the Maul/Mandalore and Ahsoka arcs, became as powerful as any payoff we’ve ever seen in Star Wars
Agreed. Tartakovsky’s is tighter, but that’s because it’s about 3 hours long. The best of the 2008 series is some of the best SW content out there, in any medium.
I would say straight up the best, if we’re talking about Ahsoka’s arc in S5, or Maul on Mandalore, or even the Umbara arc in S4. but I don’t like many of the Star Wars movies so I guess my opinion comes with an optional hefty grain of salt. the shows, mainly Clone Wars but The Mandalorian as well, pretty much entirely filled the niche that I’ve always wanted from this franchise, which is exploring some of the less central characters and worlds while dipping into some other genres at the same time
I like A New Hope and Empire a lot, and the last third of Rogue One. Other than that, I don’t really care for the movies either. I’d say Umbara from Season 4, Ashoka and Maul’s arcs in Season 5, and the Order 66 and Yoda plots from Season 6 are the strongest arcs in the show, and are better than anything from Rebels except for Fire Across the Galaxy, The Siege of Lothal, Twilight of the Apprentice, Trials of the Darksaber, and the final stretch of Season 4.
two of your picks pretty much align with mine; I agree Empire is great, and I honestly enjoy the majority of Rogue One – I can see why the last act is what grabs people, but the whole thing is well-made and fun. I also gotta say, I have a real spot for The Phantom Menace. maybe because it’s the first one I remember watching, but despite all that movie’s bullshit there’s something absolutely thrilling about the action scenesAhsoka’s arc in S5 is my favourite thing in the entirety of this franchise – it’s heartfelt, surprising, bold, terrifying and oddly beautiful all at once. I really wouldn’t change or cut a second of it, which isn’t something I can say about those Rebels arcs or even some of the other great Clone Wars ones. my problem with Rebels is that everything before S4 really just feels so rushed and hyper-compressed; so that even a terrific two-parter like Twilight of the Apprentice just doesn’t really have room to breathe, or let us see the characters reacting to anything (what I would give for a four-parter Sith Temple arc…). I actually tend to like the single episodes better – Trials of the Darksaber is a great pick, also Voices and Visions and Twin Suns from that same season – because at least there the compression feels like a feature and not a bug.
I like A New Hope and Empire a lot, and the last third of Rogue One. Other than that, I don’t really care for the movies either. I’d say Umbara from Season 4, Ashoka and Maul’s arcs in Season 5, and the Order 66 and Yoda plots from Season 6 are the strongest arcs in the show, and are better than anything from Rebels except for Fire Across the Galaxy, The Siege of Lothal, Twilight of the Apprentice, Trials of the Darksaber, and the final stretch of Season 4.
Weird that you disagree with everything I said, and then posted specifically about Rebels – the final line of my post being the only time I mentioned it – only to say that it felt like it was “watered down Clone Wars”, despite my comment about Rebels being that it benefited from the ground Clone Wars laid down.
Don’t see how that is mutually exclusive.
However, I’d say most Rebels episodes were better than any given early “planet has some lame contrived threat from the separatists that is entirely unconvincing in terms of warfare, but lays out plot elements that can be resolved neatly over the course of one brief episode” plotline from Clone Wars.CW had far more forgettable filler than Rebels did, even if Rebels did bank heavily on the goodwill CW generated regarding Ahsoka (pretty much the only reason I cared about Rebels).
I gave Rebels more chances than it deserved. I really wanted it to get better and there were a few good episodes but they were wholly reliant on cameos from Vader, Ahsoka and Maul.If Disney had committed to just making a Star Wars kids’ show out of Rebels, I would’ve been fine with it but they tried to have their cake and eat it, too and fails on both accounts.It never felt like there were any stakes. Ezra and the Ghost crew manged to beat the Galactic Empire at every turn with relative ease, making the entire Empire a galactic joke rather than an oppressive force spreading fear throughout the galaxy. All the villains were laughably ineffectual, even Thrawn became a laughing stock only to be whisked away by goofy space whales by the end.None of the characters besides Hera and Kanan really resonate but they’re mostly sidelined in favor of the annoying Ezra and Sabine, the walking poster for Hot Topic, as one reviewer put it. Nothing that happens in the series matters much as it doesn’t have any far-reaching impact in broader chain of events. Sure Kanan dies at the end but as often mentors go, it was pretty much expected.
Tonally it’s a mess where we have Chopper bonking a stormtrooper over the head for kiddie, comedic hijinks and then next moment, Kana and Ezra are slaughtering troopers en-mass via hot plasma evisceration. All in the same scene, let alone the same episode. TCW’s had it’s light episodes but they were consistent throughout the entire episode.At least with Resistance, it was more confident of what it wanted to be, primarily a show for kids. I’m fine with this. I watched the first few episodes and decided that there was really nothing for me here to bother going forward. That’s fine. It has a distinct target audience. It didn’t try to rope me in with carry-over appearances from a better show.
yeah, frustratingly they never figured out what to do with the core cast of Rebels until season 4. up until then they were walking character sheets with a set amount of traits to cycle between, and the ability to constantly defeat Thrawn via plot armour/luck/Tom Baker-voiced deus ex machinas.the episodes of that show people rave about are the ones that are essentially wrapping up unfinished business from The Clone Wars. sure the Sith Temple finale is magnificent, and sure Ezra and Kanan are present, but Maul is the one driving that story and the emotional climax comes from Ahsoka confronting Vader (for my money, one of the greatest Star Wars moments of all time). same with every time Maul rocks up in the following season – they go back to Dathomir, they go to Tatooine, it’s always Maul and his history with Obi-Wan/the Sith driving the story and Ezra just kind of gets roped in again and again.it’s a frustrating show because it has so much potential and you can feel that jarring up against the kid-friendly series Disney clearly gave them the go-ahead to make. as you said, if it was just one or the other it would be fine but it’s borderline ridiculous having it be both. if Clone Wars had been allowed to run its natural course and then Rebels had been created, entirely its own thing without any obligations to be a sequel, both shows would be held in ever higher esteem than they are now, I think
Ahsoka’s confrontation with Vader still gives me chills. Not just a great Star Wars moment, a great storytelling moment for all genres.
“I won’t leave you… not this time” with the music kicking in… god damn. the entire show was worth it for that scene
Eh, Rebels required far less work to appreciate than Clone Wars. I suspect the rose-tinted goggles are present on the AVClub readership precisely because the worst episodes of CW were simply forgettable – and thus expunged from your memories – whereas the poorer Rebels episodes were memorable enough for you all to find jarring.
For me, the forgettable episodes (I really don’t care about Yoda finding the unique qualities in a squad of disposable clone-troopers; nor some silly contest to win a planet’s military support) in CW dragged on and on and on and required far more forbearance than anything in Rebels.
But it’s weird that my post basically mentioned Rebels in one tangential concluding line that said nothing of its relative quality, and yet that’s the element everyone seems to think requires the most criticism.
Granted TCW struggled to find its stride in the first season but even then, the overall production quality was miles above Rebels as well as direction.Rebels was mostly static shots of either over the shoulder or two heads facing each other. The action sequences were rather dull with little weight to them. The textures and animation looked like something out from back in 2003.
I go on about Rebels, not because it was more memorable than TCW but because a far superior program had to die prematurely for Rebels to get made.
Granted TCW struggled to find its stride in the first season but even then, the overall production quality was miles above Rebels as well as direction.Rebels was mostly static shots of either over the shoulder or two heads facing each other. The action sequences were rather dull with little weight to them. The textures and animation looked like something out from back in 2003.
I go on about Rebels, not because it was more memorable than TCW but because a far superior program had to die prematurely for Rebels to get made.
Agreed. Clone Wars 2003 had better animation and storytelling than TCW. TCW has improved from the mess that was the pilot movie, which has been great to see. Rebels was a stronger story overall than TCW but you’ll never get the fanboys to admit it.
I do not understand all the love for rebells when it’s gratingly cliche and lol disney prince at worst. The Aladdin intro made me nope out hard.
Natives: “We don’t want your war on our planet…OK, fine. We’ll give you scouts to help you fight your war.”
Gets them off the planet quicker. Kind of obvious common sense..
Story niggles aside, I can’t get past how fantastic the show looks this season. The textures, the lighting and shadows, everything is just so gorgeous. Real upgrades since season 1, yet remaining true to the style.One could say it’s impressive. Most impressive.
In Revenge of the Sith, Padme tells Anakin she’s pregnant on Coruscant after he rescues Palpatine, and he doesn’t leave the planet again until the Order 66 shit has hit the fan and he’s become Vader. This makes it seems like they’re changing that timeline a little. She’s clearly pregnant when they’re talking by hologram, or at least she’s conspicuously holding her belly, and it seems to me like he is aware of it. Also Obi-Wan’s reference to her makes it seem like he knows about them already, when again he didn’t find out about them until RotS.
I didn’t get the impression he knew. *She* knows, but she hasn’t told him yet.It’s been a minute since I saw III so correct me if I’m wrong, but doesn’t Obi-Wan “finding out” just consist of him saying “Anakin is the father, isn’t he?” Even that sort of implies he already knew about their relationship.
Anakin also acts like he’s first meeting Grevious in RotS when they fought a lot on the show.
Anakin and Grievous’s forces have clashed but the two have never come face to face on the show.
Seriously? I’ll take your word on that but I’m really surprised. My bad.
Anakin can be kinda dim sometimes, he even straight up said to Dooku “I am a slow learner”. Also he was talking to Padme about other stuff as opposed to checking out her full figure and chatting about Rex. He can be “myopic” to say it more charitably. Anyway, it was a good scene that replaced the scene in the Story Reel versions of this story (put up on star wars dot com years ago and on youtube now) where it was a whole scene of Anakin getting angry at the Bad Batch having a Sexy Padme nose art. No, really! (Unfortunately the guy who uploaded that bit had a whole rant about Disney Feminist Agenda or whatever but that’s the scene originally)
Honestly, I think it would have been cooler if Echo was a traitor, especially considering how straitlaced he was. The clones have no real incentive to support the Republic besides their loyalty programming, and exploring what happens when that’s removed would have been interesting. Off-topic, but there must have been a ton of ex-Separatists in the Rebel Alliance right? I feel like they would have been pretty smug about the whole “we told you the Republic was an oppressive regime” thing.
I was also expecting to see just Echo’s head. Was there an explanation for the Bad Batch not being clones of Jango Fett? I expected them to look different, but other than maybe Wrecker, they don’t look like Jango mutants. Tech and the sniper look like white guys. Hunter might be a Jango. Honestly, having a single clone line never seemed like a great idea.I hate the prequels, they literally burned away my love for Star Wars, so I didn’t watch Clone Wars. The Mandalorian was so damn good I had to go back and see more, so I watched all of Clone Wars in the last few weeks, and it is a really good show, despite being forced to adhere to the prequels. I wish someone with the vision and love for the material that Filoni has, or Favreu, was in charge of the prequels and sequels.
They’re all Jango clones. They have the same eyes and voice actor. TCW just has an unfortunate tendency to make the clones seem awfully pale.
The Bad Batch *are* all clones of Jango – they are still voiced by Dee Bradley Baker, who voices all of the clones. But they were “unsuccessful” clones in that they did not come out of the cloning process as identical to Jango. So there were genetic abnormalities in these clones which made them look and act different from all the other clones – hence, the “bad” batch.
its Good to have Clone Wars back, if only for a final season. I’m perhaps a bit too anxious to see Asokha back in the mix and am getting a little frustrated with the Echo search. I barely remember Echo’s loss. I wanna see what our favorite Padawan has been up to!
Man that’s 2/2! This season came back with a bang!