skygiants | (no subject)

My clone feelings may be time delayed but absolutely cannot be stopped!

innerbrat and I finally finished watching season seven yesterday morning and I spent much of the rest of the day telling poor

ep_birdsall how much I cared about Rex and Ahsoka whenever we were in the same room for an extended period of time. I'M SORRY THAT ENDING WAS JUST REALLY GOOD.

My brother, who had never seen any Clone Wars before this year, somehow managed to watch all of it plus S7 before me and then spent a lot of time telling me that he thought the last four episodes were the best Star Wars media created since 1983. I think he's probably right but it did make it a little difficult to focus on the first eight episodes of the season; nonetheless, worth watching, I think!

The first arc is a bit difficult because it was so clearly originally planned for Fives and Echo, and instead they've just shoved Rex into Fives' role now that Fives is dead and it doesn't work -- Rex's personality is different, his level of engagement is different, trying to shoehorn him into the lead role here just doesn't land right. Also, the Bad Batch spend too much time parodying the wrong kind of war movie to engage any of my clone feelings at all, which is really too bad because I was ALL ready to care about them then it just didn't deliver.

That said, Rex reluctantly covering for Anakin while Anakin talks to Padme is probably the most I laughed throughout the whole season, so good on them for that.

Then there was the Ahsoka's Underworld Adventures arc, which is a perfectly fine mildly gay Ahsoka adventure and I have no particular beef with it. After much discussion of the dynamics with Nice Teen Pilot with Jedi Issues and her Shady Older Sister we decided that Ahsoka and the Nice Teen Pilot were going to date for a month and have an amiable breakup, but Ahsoka and the Shady Older Sister were still going to be flamboyantly rescuing each other for the sake of one-upsmanship for decades to come while Ahsoka's actual ex was like "guys ... I'm over it ....."

Well,

innerbrat and I decided this.

jothra was like, "I hate to break it to you guys, but she's never going to see these people again." Counterpoint, Jo: this is Star Wars and recurring characters have unlikely coincidental meetings all the time! It's only the people you really care about that you don't get to see for decades. Speaking of:

AHSOKA AND REX. AHSOKA AND REX!!!! Those last two episodes rang all the pathos out of the clone chips arc that I could possibly have wanted, my GOD, I knew Rex was going to get de-chipped and survive somehow but I did not realize Ahsoka was going to LITERALLY KIDNAP HIM AND PERFORM MINOR SURGERY WHILE BEING HUNTED THROUGHOUT THE SHIP because she couldn't bear to leave him behind! Rex crying under his helmet while telling Ahsoka they were going to have to kill his brothers to survive and Ahsoka refusing to do it asjdf;dsj;lfk thank you for this misery, S7, I'm just so glad to feel like some actual Star Wars media properly cares about the weight of this tragedy as much as I do.

...I realize I skipped over the Anakin-Ahsoka reunion and also over Maul. Those things were also very good! We all cheered when Ahsoka released Maul and then cheerfully kicked him to the curb, thank you, next! Would I read some Ahsoka and Maul fic? Sure I would but what I'm really here to ask for is any good content about Ahsoka and Rex, any at all, I cannot believe they don't see each other again until Rebels, THAT'S TOO LONG, DISNEY! IT'S TOO LONG.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

ceitfianna

I didn't realize that Bad Batch was meant for Fives but that makes a lot more sense. There were lots of good moments in it but didn't hit the same way as the rest of the season. And yes, I love the idea of Ahsoka and the exes or kind of exes around the galaxy. Also ugh yes, all the Ahsoka and Rex feels, I really should finish the fic I started with him looking at the Rebellion and going they're so young.

Edited Date: 2020-11-03 03:59 am (UTC)

From:

skygiants

I don't know for sure that it was, but while we were watching we kept saying 'oh this would make sense with Fives' in a way that it just doesn't fully with Rex.

You should finish that fic!!!

From:

musesfool

I would have accepted Fives somehow miraculously being alive for the Bad Batch arc. IJS. It did have some nice Rex/Cody moments.

Ahsoka's underworld arc went on slightly longer than necessary, I thought, but hoo boy did they nail the ending.

From:

skygiants

I'm trying to figure out how badly it would have screwed up the timeline to just set it pre-the Fives arc ... I mean then we probably couldn't have gotten the extremely funny 'stall at the door, Rex!' scene but I would have traded it, I think.

Yeah, the first two episodes or so of that arc I was like 'hmm, I don't know about this' but I enjoyed the last episode quite a lot!! "I hate her but I have to rescue her or she'll never let me forget it" always makes for an incredible dynamic.

From:

holyschist

You are not the last, because I still haven't tackled TCW at all except for the movie!

From:

skygiants

It's really worth it, I think, if one is willing to invest in seven seasons of television! It's trying to say some interesting things about messy complicated topics and often it doesn't fully succeed in that imo (though this last arc, oh boy, that SUCCEEDED) but it's still satisfying to watch them try for it.

From:

cinaed

I enjoyed the Bad Batch mostly because Echo is one of my favorite clones but dang, it would have been a million times better with Fives instead of Rex.

And yeah, the last few episodes are so good. I am just consumed by clones feelings. The tragedy of the clones and the Jedi....

From:

skygiants

I DO love Echo and I AM probably going to be completely murdered by all the Echo stuff when I inevitably do a Domino Squad-focused rewatch but generally that set of episodes felt to me like fodder for some really good fanfic rather than inherently doing interesting things in the space of those four episodes.

I'M CONSUMED!!! Rex gasping out a warning about Fives before the chip takes over .... trying to rules-lawyer Ahsoka out of there but getting sabotaged by his own brain-sabotaged orders to the rest ...... THE HELMETS. THE VADER SHOT. sjad;lkfjdsl;kfjds;a

From:

shadaras

I still need to watch s7, somehow I keep... not doing that! ("somehow" I say, as if I didn't decide that I wanted to rewatch all of TCW before getting to s7 >.>)

I am very excited for when I do decide to watch s7, though, whether I skip ahead or not! :)

(I have zero problems with spoilers because I have been fascinated by s7 since it came out, but, y'know. everything hits different with context.)

From:

skygiants

I mean it also took me a VERY long time .... in my defense I was waiting until the stars aligned to be able to watch it virtually at the same time as the two separate people I'd said I would watch it with individually, but also, there was a lot going on! I fully support the long and leisurely road, though. :D

From:

starlady

You should watch RotS next, it interleaves with and echoes The Siege of Mandalore in a really great way. I liked it a lot, but I also thought the duel was the weakest in the whole show. It's one thing to mocap Ray Park and someone else who has a completely different fighting style than Ahsoka, but why couldn't they at least have sped it up to match the speed of every other animated duel?

Are you sure it was supposed to be Fives in The Bad Batch? It was intended to be the S7 premiere before the cancellation, and Fives died in the first half of S6. I actually thought it benefitted from the revisions, if you watch the story reels the plot is not as tight in the first version.

I get why they did the Ahsoka walkabout arc, but if these were the last 12 Clone Wars episodes ever I would much rather have seen the Return to the Temple or the Return to Mon Cala arcs. Still, I loved it and I'm so glad it came back.

From:

skygiants

The whole time I was wishing I'd rewatched RotS more recently so I could remember better how the timeline worked! From what I could remember I really loved how smoothly they slid these episodes into the interstitial spaces, it works so well.

I'm absolutely not sure it was supposed to be Fives in the Bad Batch, but all three of us watching felt like his dialogue and actions were much more in character for Fives -- like, there are a couple times when Rex references other members of Domino squad who died on literally the first day Rex met them, which would land perfectly for me coming from Fives, but from Rex, who has fought in this war for years and presumably lost many clones who were closer to him than Heavy ....

That said, it's been at least two years since I watched any other Clone Wars episodes so I could absolutely be mistaken about some of these vibes.

I'm SO glad it came back! It's been a week and I'm still rolling around in my clone feelings. just! that conversation between Rex and Ahsoka right before Order 66 activates! god!!!

Edited Date: 2020-11-06 01:22 pm (UTC)

From:

innerbrat

Hello here I come weeks later with my "Fives is my favourite clone" helmet on to explain my reasoning - which relies very heavily on how I see the relationship dynamics within the 501st.

- Cody shows up with Rex like "hello this is Captain Rex they're stealing his tactics" - as if Rex even NEEDS an introduction to the Jedi at this point. Rex coming up to the Jedi who know him like "this is ARC Trooper Fives they're stealing his tactics" makes more sense.

- Rex like "I came up with these tactics with Echo specificially" implies an offscreen relationship between Rex and Echo that he specifically didn't have with anyone else. Which is possible, but it fits the on screen relationship between Fives and Echo much better. Fives and Echo absolutly WOULD just come up with tactics for fun together. And Fives absoutely WOULD be like "this is Echo. No two ways about it."

- Rex keeps a picture of Fives and Echo and Cody and him in a locker, and then mourns Hevy - this isn't in keeping with Fives' relationship with Rex even through the Umbara and Fives' death arcs. As Becca pointed out, Rex knew Hevy for like 6 hours and wouldn't be mourning him to Cody, but also even after Echo's death Fives was much closer to people like Tup and Jesse and Kix than he was to Rex. Rex is talking about a relationship we just didn't see on screen.

- It makes no sense to send Anakin on a clone rescue mission. But Fives COULD persuade Rex to come along on a resuce mission in Anakin's narrative place.

- Rex' implied relationship with Echo in these episodes just doesn't gel with his implied relationship with Fives in the O66 arc. If he was close enough to Fives and Echo to have a picture in his locker he would have followed up more thoroughly. ("Find Fives" hit me in the FEELS but but only because it was more like Rex and Fives' actual relationship, not the forced closeness implied by the Bad Batch arc)

- Echo never once. Not once, not ever, asked Rex about Fives. If the storyline had been written for Rex and Echo, they would have to mention Fives - those two were closer than Waxer and Boil until Echo's death. He'd ask.

Those are my feelings.