8.1/10. Let's get this out of the way -- this episode was really really on the nose. You couldn't have missed the message or the point of "The Last Battle" if you were merely making oatmeal for twenty minutes with the episode on in the background. It's message about Rex and the Supertactical Droid being Not So Different™ and The Empire being the really victor in The Clone Wars was so telegraphed so clearly and so loudly that the show basically gave up on subtlety entirely at some point.
Still, for a fan of The Clone Wars show, it was nice to tie a bow around that part of Star Wars history, and give us a delayed, shadow ending to the series as it would have been after the events of Revenge of the Sith. We get a lot of nods to the old series and that time period. For one thing, it was nice to see the garden variety battle droids again. They turned into slapstick machines rather than an actual threat along time ago, but the episode lampshades that and uses it for comedy (with the droids themselves responding in a mildly offended fashion to boot) in a very crowd-pleasing way.
There's also several meta nods to the formula and tropes of The Clone Wars, from the Tactical Droid noting that he referenced 132 incidents when preparing for battle (roughly corresponding to the number of episodes of the show + unfinished story reels + the movie), and other hints that this one was meant as a love letter to fans of TCW.
But as loudly as they were broadcasted, what makes this episode stand out are its themes. I doubt the show will pick up this strain of thought again, but I really appreciated that they showed Rex having PTSD, mistaking Kanan for Cody, and when surrounded by the visual reminders and symbols of The Clone Wars, reverting to his battle-tested days. Again, the parallel wasn't subtle at all, but the connection they drew between Rex and the Supertactical Droid, in how both of them were stuck in the old days, and hadn't been able to make peace with what happened, was a strong one.
And yes, Ezra's little speech being the key is silly as all get out, but I also appreciated the realization that that the Clones and the Droids were the victims, not the enemies, in the Clone Wars. We learn a little more about what happened after RotS here (we already knew that the Clones were decommissioned and that the Jedi were wiped out, but now we see that the droids were given a shutdown order), and that part of the mythos gains power from two emblems of the old conflict realizing that they were, if not pawns, than at least not truly one another's enemies, but rather tools of a fight they were programmed into, destined for neither side to be able to win. That's a powerful and horrifying idea, even when it's cushioned by having a precocious teenage kid lay it all out for them.
So seeing the most prominent Clone Commander and the droid army work together to defeat the Empire is cathartic (even if the whole "we need to shoot at you, and you'll deflect the blaster bolts for better accuracy" idea doesn't make much sense), and the detente between Rex and the Droid, who is as full of probability calculations as ever, is encouraging rather than cheesy. The whole episode is a nice tip of the cap to the Clone Wars days and offers an epilogue to the war-focused elements of the series in an impressive and meaningful, albeit particularly blunt fashion.
Review by Andrew BloomVIP 9BlockedParent2016-12-07T21:56:43Z
8.1/10. Let's get this out of the way -- this episode was really really on the nose. You couldn't have missed the message or the point of "The Last Battle" if you were merely making oatmeal for twenty minutes with the episode on in the background. It's message about Rex and the Supertactical Droid being Not So Different™ and The Empire being the really victor in The Clone Wars was so telegraphed so clearly and so loudly that the show basically gave up on subtlety entirely at some point.
Still, for a fan of The Clone Wars show, it was nice to tie a bow around that part of Star Wars history, and give us a delayed, shadow ending to the series as it would have been after the events of Revenge of the Sith. We get a lot of nods to the old series and that time period. For one thing, it was nice to see the garden variety battle droids again. They turned into slapstick machines rather than an actual threat along time ago, but the episode lampshades that and uses it for comedy (with the droids themselves responding in a mildly offended fashion to boot) in a very crowd-pleasing way.
There's also several meta nods to the formula and tropes of The Clone Wars, from the Tactical Droid noting that he referenced 132 incidents when preparing for battle (roughly corresponding to the number of episodes of the show + unfinished story reels + the movie), and other hints that this one was meant as a love letter to fans of TCW.
But as loudly as they were broadcasted, what makes this episode stand out are its themes. I doubt the show will pick up this strain of thought again, but I really appreciated that they showed Rex having PTSD, mistaking Kanan for Cody, and when surrounded by the visual reminders and symbols of The Clone Wars, reverting to his battle-tested days. Again, the parallel wasn't subtle at all, but the connection they drew between Rex and the Supertactical Droid, in how both of them were stuck in the old days, and hadn't been able to make peace with what happened, was a strong one.
And yes, Ezra's little speech being the key is silly as all get out, but I also appreciated the realization that that the Clones and the Droids were the victims, not the enemies, in the Clone Wars. We learn a little more about what happened after RotS here (we already knew that the Clones were decommissioned and that the Jedi were wiped out, but now we see that the droids were given a shutdown order), and that part of the mythos gains power from two emblems of the old conflict realizing that they were, if not pawns, than at least not truly one another's enemies, but rather tools of a fight they were programmed into, destined for neither side to be able to win. That's a powerful and horrifying idea, even when it's cushioned by having a precocious teenage kid lay it all out for them.
So seeing the most prominent Clone Commander and the droid army work together to defeat the Empire is cathartic (even if the whole "we need to shoot at you, and you'll deflect the blaster bolts for better accuracy" idea doesn't make much sense), and the detente between Rex and the Droid, who is as full of probability calculations as ever, is encouraging rather than cheesy. The whole episode is a nice tip of the cap to the Clone Wars days and offers an epilogue to the war-focused elements of the series in an impressive and meaningful, albeit particularly blunt fashion.