Entry tags:
(no subject)
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
genarti: The thing is the Clone Wars just sounds like it's really depressing all the time.ME: It's not ALWAYS depressing! Sometimes the episodes standing alone are perfectly upbeat! It's just in broader CONTEXT they're depressing!
genarti: [deeply unconvinced expression]ME: Okay, I'm going to prove it to you. We're going to sit down and watch this episode about ADORABLE BABY JEDI and I dare you to find it depressing.
genarti, 20 minutes later: That admittedly was very cute. ME: Now just don't think about what's going to happen to have happened to all those cute baby Jedi by the end of Revenge of the Sith!
In other news, I want it on the record that the baby Jedi episodes comprise the show's best arc to date.
1. Revival
Obi-wan is still fighting Darth Maul and Savage Oppress in this episode, but I care a little bit less because he's not teaming up with Ventress for it. He DOES team up with Smug Pirate Hondo Ohnaka, which starts a run of reluctant Hondo team-up episodes that are pretty good as an arc for Hondo as one character but even funnier in context of that tumblr post about endless clone Hondos.
2. A War On Two Fronts
ANAKIN: If we can't officially fight everywhere we want to fight, why don't we try secretly training rebels in guerrilla warfare tactics? :D
THE COUNCIL: The Jedi do not employ terrorism!
ANAKIN: Well, we're losing this war, so ... maybe we should?
DEBI: Anakin, you're going to be so sorry you said that in about two years when you're Darth Vader and you realize you accidentally kicked off the entire Resistance strategy.
I was somewhat spoiled for this arc in advance because mumble I needed to research it for clone OC fic mumble, which meant I got the fun of knowing in advance that this was Saw Gerrera As Seen In Rogue One and waiting for
innerbrat to catch on. However, joke's on me, because I don't care about Ahsoka's Royal Ex Lux Bonteri at all and as a result it took me like an entire episode to realize the random British kid running around with Saw Gerrera and his sister Steela was someone we were supposed to have seen before. 3. Front Runners
Anakin and Obi-wan just leave Ahsoka behind on Onderon to support the entire guerrilla operation by herself, which seems a little harsh for me for a ... fourteen-year-old? Fifteen-year-old? How old is Ahsoka supposed to be these days?
Meanwhile, the show attempts to make a love triangle between Ahsoka, Lux and Steela happen, which confuses me because my impression thus far has been that Steela is a grown adult with no reason to be into a moderately dull British teenager? But the heart what it wants, I guess.
On the other hand, it makes perfect sense that everyone has a crush on Steela, because she's a smart, competent leader with great hair.
4. The Soft War
The rightful-but-deposed king of Onderon is sentenced to execution! (Could someone explain to me why every planet in the Galactic Republic appears to be a hereditary monarchy?)
Saw Gerrera comes up with a half-baked rescue plan and then trips over his own feet trying to accomplish it, while everyone else is like "I don't know what we expected".
Ahsoka spends half a minute trying to keep a low profile and then is like 'eh what are you going to do' and just force slams a whole bunch of droids in an incredibly public fashion while Anakin and Obi-wan several planets away are like "I don't know what we expected."
Meanwhile, Steela Gerrera makes sensible tactical decisions and overall does a great job leading her terrorist resistance cell! Four for you, Steela Gerrera.
5. Tipping Points
...so of course Steela dies in the course of assuring Onderonian rebel victory, because we don't get to have nice things. :( Meanwhile, this arc ends up with Lux Bonteri as the new Senator of Onderon, despite just having shown up there like two months ago, because ... his mother was a senator for some planet or other and political skill is genetic? Or something? Insert the obligatory commentary about accomplishments of a woman of color getting taken over by a mediocre white man here.
We also get another cameo by Hondo, who gets recruited to secretly smuggle weapons to the rebels because this whole arc is really about how the Jedi are just the CIA now. (I'm PRETTY sure this should be read as a troubling comparison.)
6. The Gathering
I forgot the baby Jedi arc comes IMMEDIATELY after the Onderon arc and I can only assume that the Jedi Council looked at Ahsoka's last several month's worth of guerrilla warfare and were like "this kid needs a break, LET'S GET HER THE CUTEST JOB WE CAN FIND."
As a result, Ahsoka is now responsible for shepherding six tiny Jedi on their quest to find their first lightsaber crystals and learning Important Lessons along the way and it is, indeed, incredibly cute. Just look at this lineup! SNAGGLETOOTHED MINI WOOKIE. BABY NAUTILAN WITH TINY TENTACLES.
7. A Test of Strength
En route home from their Adventures, the baby Jedi are busy trying to learn how to make lightsabers when they run into ... more adventures! In the person of Hondo! BABIES VS. PIRATES.
AHSOKA: Hondo we literally just teamed up TWO EPISODES ago, why are you now trying to ruin all that goodwill by murdering a bunch of baby Jedi?
HONDO: [cheerful shrug]
Anyway the babies mostly defeat the pirates, but Ahsoka ends up as their prisoner, and we ended the episode under the assumption that Anakin was about to have some more feelings about slavery...
8. Bound For Rescue
...but in fact everyone else is very busy so instead what we get is BABIES VS. PIRATES, PART 2 ... in which the babies employ a CUNNING RUSE!
This is the best thing to ever happen on this show full stop.
9. A Necessary Bond
At least until the last episode of this arc, in which the babies TEAM UP with the pirates to fight the Separatists! Who cares about the actual clone wars, why do I not have an entire show that's just this.
Special mention goes to the surprise mentorship bond that develops between Hondo and the shyest baby Jedi - he encourages her to build her lightsaber! she jumps on the back of his motorcycle and is like "I'LL PROTECT YOU!" SHE APPEALS TO HIS SENSE OF HONOR TO SAVE AHSOKA AND HE LISTENS. I'm now deeply invested in this relationship, I'm going to assume that when Order 66 happens Baby Katooni is totally fine because she already ran off to her terrible pirate dad.
10. Secret Weapons
And now, an arc all about droids! Which should be good, but, unfortunately, is not.
no subject
Also, Katooni running away to join Hondo's gang to avoid Order 66 is A++ - I also choose to believe that's what happened.
no subject
STEELA LIVES AU WOULD CHANGE A LOT ABOUT THE ENTIRETY OF STAR WARS AND I'M HERE FOR IT.
I am pleased to report that there are at least three fics on AO3 about Katooni running away to hang out with Hondo! I haven't read any of them yet but I'm so pleased to discuver they exist.
no subject
*Interestingly, they list Anakin's birth year as 41 BBY, so there's only a five year gap between them? I always thought it was six (I thought she was 14 and he was 20 when she's assigned to him, but I guess it could be 14-19 instead?)
Anyway! The timeline is best not examined too closely. But I'm so glad to hear that there are stories about Katooni joining the pirates. And I'm sure I've read a good Steela Lives AU, though details are fuzzy.
no subject
no subject
no subject
no subject
no subject
no subject
I love the baby Jedi and yeah, Lux is one of those characters that is not as interesting as the writers think he is.
no subject
The frustrating thing about Lux is that it WOULD be really good to have a character to provide a sympathetic face for the Separatist point of view and mistrust of the Republic, but Lux does ... such a bad job ..... of representing that ......
no subject
And Lux is from Onderon? His mother was the senator from Onderon. I did eventually what the show in an order, okay.
And I think the Jedi arc here is probably my favorite in the show! At least from what I ... remember. Aside from maybe the one of the clones ones. But for me it also underscores why, unpopular opinion, I hate Hondo.
no subject
I'm entertained by Hondo, but the clone Hondo theory makes a lot more sense of his wild flip-flop from 'sure I'll smuggle for the Jedi' to 'I'm gonna kill a bunch of baby Jedi' to 'actually I love kids and would hate to see them get hurt!' over the course of like five episodes.
no subject
yeeeeah, well, clone Hondo would make more sense! But as it is I resent the screentime he gets as a wildly inconsistently written character, and that the narrative is so often asking me to accept that the guy who tortured Obi-Wan and Anakin, a lot, for no real reason, was super cool with letting Jedi babies die and also in this arc basically told Ahsoka he was going to sell her off to some buyer who would probably sexually assault her, no this guy is actually kind of okay and even noble, uh. No narrative, do not want.
no subject
I mean, all of these things are absolutely true and fair, and most of Hondo's heel-face-heel turns make no narrative sense whatsoever, BUT ALSO, you can pry the delicious cheese of the well-worn trope "terrible adult is forcibly reformed by accidental adoption of a righteous small child" out of my cold dead hands.
no subject
Also, theory about Katooni ACCEPTED, NO TAKEBACKS.
no subject
no subject
(put the lightsaber away, kid, I think I've got them fooled!)
in other news Steela should not have died and I like to imagine her not dying and popping up in Rebels to judge Saw.
no subject
I saw a thing later (on Wookiepedia maybe?) where even the makers of the show were like "...yeah we have definite regrets about killing off Steela, that was our bad."
no subject
Anyway, his pirates also collect valuable crystals inside of lightsabers. It's a hobby.
no subject
no subject
no subject
IT WAS ADORABLE. If... doomed... although I am all on board with your headcanon, obviously. That's one (1) adorable baby Jedi saved!!
In my defense, all the episodes I had previously seen had, in fact, been super depressing! And so had many of the ones you talked about! The counterargument that I asked to see those episodes for reference and that counterargument is, indeed, a reasonable one. >.>
no subject
I did TRY to talk you into watching the wacky one where Anakin and Padme do Die Hard but you said you wanted complex politics! >.>
no subject
no subject