The Clone Wars: season 5

[Mr. JabbaJohnL]

I'm looking at a few images from tomorrow morning's episode, and it appears there will be a little Wookiee as one of the Jedi younglings hunting their lightsaber crystals.

Huh, too bad nobody already pointed that out at the top of the page. This show has had Jedi of all different species even including Gungans (or at least a Force-sensitive infant), so I'm glad that Wookiees are allowed to be Jedi again.

I'm looking forward to this arc, and I'm sure they'll address some of your points, JT. I'm sure we'll also get some whiners complaining that Ilum looks different now than it did in the micro-series.

[Tycho]

I loved the new episode.

The only thing different about Illum really - was that the younglings didn't have visions like Anakin did when he was a kid when Obi-Wan took him there.

The "hauntings" of the caves showed Anakin "Darth Vader" in a manner of speaking - but he refused to speak of it to Obi-Wan.

Meanwhile, the room with all the crystals was very much like where Luminara took Barriss. The other younglings, except for the Rodian girl, did not go into that part of the temple.

Maybe it was destroyed by Count Dooku's droids, but that doesn't mean the Jedi didn't rebuild it and make it better. Or even in a different location Dooku didn't know about.

He would have only gone when he built his first saber, and when training Qui-Gon or any other padawan he also may have had. And based on at least one story, Qui-Gon didn't find him to be a very involved or interested master (which explains Qui-Gon's personality).

[Mr. JabbaJohnL]

I really liked this one a lot as well. The cave, and the fact that the younglings each had different visions and trials inside, reminded me of both Luke on Dagobah and Indiana Jones going to find the holy grail - there was an unknowable magical element to the quest. The kids were distinct, interesting, and even though the episode mainly focused on one character trait each, they seemed like actual kids (unlike, say, the junior detectives from "Corruption"). Ilum was absolutely beautiful in HD, and I'm glad that the designers mixed up the locations from what we've seen before. Seeing the younglings at the temple, and especially seeing Plo Koon finding Ahsoka as an infant, were great touches as well.

It was interesting to hear Yoda refer to the Jedi as "the Force made physical," as I like when this show is able to break from the battles and show the Jedi in their more mystical, rightful place - which seemed to be the concern of most of this episode, and it pulled it off very well.

I think the best part was the fact that they seemed to have used Lumpy's sound effects from the Holiday Special and incorporated them into Gungi's vocalizations.

[Tycho]

I like jabbaJohnL's post - both of them, but the 2nd one sounded like he was making the same points all over again

I'd forgotten some of the things that you (JabbaJohn) posted, like the infant Ahsoka, as I'd focused on the Jedi children's trials and found that most memorable.

One thing I didn't see was the younglings using the Force to help them.

Maybe some of them weren't great at telekenisis, but couldn't the Wookiee use the Force to move all the ice blocks together?

Could the girl of Adi Gallia's background *** use the Force to retreive her crystal instead of climbing all the way up that rocky slope?

*** Adi Gallia's original bio was she was Corellian. Her parents were abassadors from Corellia and she was one of the few Jedi who knew her birth parents and even worked with them before - early Malestare negotiations I think. That's why Adi went on the mission in the comic books some years later.

The thing with the jellyfish tentacles (it is some kind of creature - or was) was awarded to her for some kind of great service she did for some species that wore those. Maybe Stass Allie was her cousin and went on that mission too - and that's why she got one - but the youngling? Really? I suppose it made her more artistically interesting for a human girl who'd ordinarily just look like Sasha Obama without a cool jellyfish hat - but it's not part of their physiology since they're human. Or maybe only Adi Gallia and Stass Allie were human Corellians, and the youngling was not?

Or something got retconned again.

Anyway, eventually we saw the Jedi younglings using the Force to retrieve their crystals, so I guess that was part of the lessons being learned. But it would have been very impressive if they'd learned that lesson earlier, and better - and especially if the Wookiee youngling used the Force to link the ice!

[Bel-Cam Jos]

I was wondering if any of them would've been stuck inside, or died out of greed for their crystal. Did that happen? I won't spoil it for anyone who hasn't seen it yet. Somehow I expected the cystals to be larger in size.

[JediTricks]

So, I'm not trying to stir up controversy, and I didn't even want to post my opinions on this at all, but I can't hold my tongue any longer.

Last week's episode was dumb, it was generic, predictable kiddie fare set in the Star Wars universe with one-dimensional writing that missed opportunities like having Ahsoka actually interact with Yoda (or either of them do anything wise, aside from Yoda's zen response to how Jeff from American Dad broke the rules the right way), or officially charting a true path of a youngling, or having to deal with a youngling actually fail. Instead we get what could have been a browser-based pre-teen video game for how flatly it was written, it was a rehash of the Dagobah cave except minus any nuance, and magically the drab ice cave just happens to know exactly what each kid's character flaw is - a character flaw that SOLELY DEFINES each youngling, I might add. And having Plo Koon nab Ahsoka at the beginning flashback coupled with the voice over was creepy - "that they are your true family now" - it all looked like a cult that deserves to be hunted down by the Empire, there was no thought put into that at all. Nothing about these younglings suggested that they had passed any trials, that they were wizards in training, that they had any wisdom to go forward at all except that they solved a single simple task each by overcoming rather generic character flaws - they didn't come off as special whatsoever. And if this is the only place in the universe to find these crystals, why don't the Jedi just post guards so the Sith don't show up and take theirs?

The only reason I didn't outright hate this episode is that it didn't really have a significant impact, it didn't reach as high so it didn't have as far to fall, it wasn't horrible, it was just dull fluff - nobody gets riled up about couch stuffing.

I was wondering if any of them would've been stuck inside, or died out of greed for their crystal. Did that happen? I won't spoil it for anyone who hasn't seen it yet. Somehow I expected the cystals to be larger in size.

All excellent points, and I also expected the crystals to be about 25% bigger.

Huh, too bad nobody already pointed that out at the top of the page. This show has had Jedi of all different species even including Gungans (or at least a Force-sensitive infant), so I'm glad that Wookiees are allowed to be Jedi again.

I'm looking forward to this arc, and I'm sure they'll address some of your points, JT. I'm sure we'll also get some whiners complaining that Ilum looks different now than it did in the micro-series.

Yeah, like you read every one of MY posts. Ok, I actually didn't see it because I was in mourning, my grandfather having just passed away, but that's the bummer answer.

[Battle Droid]

I hated The Gathering, A Test of Strength was better.

[Tycho]

Hondo's back! He's a great character - has a pretty greedy, bad side to him that clearly showed today, too.

Our kid with Dark Side tendancies was quite resourceful with his lightsaber though.

I wonder if Hondo will try and sell Ahsoka to the slave market or to Count Dooku? I am suspecting the latter. But if he goes to Jabba, we can see facetime with the Sailbarge [marketing help for Hasbro?]

Yes, perhaps a big battle with Anakin taking a Jedi starfighter and Republic Gunships down on the Sailbarge to rescue his padawan?

That's right. I didn't watch "scenes from next week..." Hold on. I saved the recording. Be right back...

Hmmm. They didn't show anything about next week during or after the credits. Obviously the story will continue though.

I like the Wookiee Jedi by the way. His tooth that sticks out is like Rawlwraa's.

[Bel-Cam Jos]

I also liked this one better than last week's. The twist at the end as they were escaping from the pirates' ship wasn't far-fetched at all, but I still didn't expect it. The younglings worked well as a team and as individuals. Hondo is a good villain; flawed but effective in his schemes.

[Mad Slanted Powers]

I didn't realize that was David Tennant as the droid until I just noticed the story on this site. I'll have to pay attention to his voice in the next episode. The scene where he was trying to figure out what the Wookiee's lightsaber should be reminded me of when Harry Potter got his wand.