[8.0/10] I am not going to sit here and pretend that “The Great Heep” is one of the outstanding Star Wars stories out there. But by Droids standards, it’s a freaking masterpiece. Thrills! Emotional connections! Legitimate villains! A community in peril! Artistry and excitement! Even some decent comedy! This one-hour special is basically everything the series should have been and everything it was lacking. (Maybe they should have let legendary sound designer Ben Burtt write more episodes?)
I’ll admit, I didn’t realize this was a prequel to the Mungo arc rather than a sequel at first, but it doesn’t really matter. It works as a standalone thing, even if you don’t know about Mungo’s family history or Admiral Screed as a recurring baddie.
And hey, for a show called Droids, I appreciate that this episode is mainly focused on, ahem, droids. The Great Heep, the titular Big Bad, is an appropriately frightening giant droid who effectively eats other droids to stay alive. His imposing size, menacing tone, and cannibalistic bent make him a good choice to be the “final boss” of this series.
The setup is also good. A humble farming planet, on the verge of hitting it big thanks to fuel deposits, finds itself subjugated by a giant droid in league with the Empire. We see the simple lives and friendliness of the local, reflected in their convivial attachment to Mungo, which makes it seem extra terrible when The Great Heep takes over their planet and sells it out to villainous interests.
Watching poor Threepio labor on the unfortunately named “lube crew” while secretly trying to save Mungo and the others makes you sympathize with the prissy droid-turned-laborer. There’s humor in seeing Artoo live it up in a swanky droid spa, matched with a sense of forboding when we find out it’s essentially a posh holding pen for The Great Heep’s lunch. Even the brief Transformers parody droids, or maitre’d droids, or rolling wheel droids have a certain panache to them that puts the focus in the right place. (Though Heep’s attacking goon droids seem off-brand for the Star Wars aesthetic.)
Best of all though is the connections between the characters. Threepio wants to rescue his master. So does the local kid and his tunnel-digging alien dog (who gets a pretty cute design). Their efforts to protect one another from Heep and Screed, particularly Mungo straining to save the kid and his dog from the gigantic droid’s rampage, adds a sense of stakes and attachment to this grand adventure. Likewise, it’s pretty silly that Artoo meets a pink droid girlfriend in the spa, but his sadness and disorientation when he finds her having been consumed by The Great Heep has a surprising amount of pathos, and the other R2 units joining together to revive her is uplifting.
None of it holds a candle to Threepio’s reaction to Artoo’s apparent death though. The foundation of this show is that particular droid duo. And while since Star Wars began, the two have bickered only to ultimately reveal that they care very deeply for one another, this takes top prize in that department. Threepio’s efforts to rescue Artoo when he finds out about the Great Heep’s diet are standard stuff, but still endearing. But when he thinks Artoo died thanks to a giant disk flung toward his ship by Heep, Threepio’s pain and anger are palpable. There’s a nice synergy in how Artoo kamikaze-ing the moisture-capture device leads to rain that looks like tears from Threepio. And the way the typically retiring droid is spoiling for a fight with The Great Heep afterward sells how big a deal it is to lose his companion like this.
Anthony Daniels does his best work in the series, and the animators hold up their end of the bargain too. Threepio’s reaction, of sadness, vengeance, grief at the loss of his friend, and the joy when Artoo turns up no worse for wear, conveys how close the two droids are and how much they care about one another, even if they tweak each other constantly. It’s a great vindication of the friendship at the core of the show.
Hell, I even appreciate how the writers set up Artoo escaping from the ship before it explodes thanks to his earlier use of a built-in parachute. It speaks to a soundness in the writing that's rare, if present at all, elsewhere in Droids. The characters’ motivations make sense across the board. The various schemes and plans, while a little convoluted, are clear enough to follow along. Even the infighting between Screed and Heep feels true to form.
This is also the most visually captivating episode of the show. The character designs are still a bit wonky. But elemental effects like fire and rain, silly comic routines with the R2 units, and the raging climax all come with an aesthetic virtuosity that's been rarely seen to this point. The factory escapades with Threepio and Artoo here do a better job than the similar sequence in Attack of the Clones. The closing set piece in particular, where The Great Heep rages and attacks in a thunderstorm, communicates a sense of danger, urgency, and unpredictability that can’t be matched in Droids.
On the whole, it’s a good thing to make your last episode your best one. If someone asked me what of Droids was worth watching, I’d offer them this and not much else. Fighting a massive enemy droid, scheming to get out from under its thread and save the kind locals from its occupation, and lamenting the loss of a dear friend all put this a cut above anything else the show had to offer.
Which is good, because otherwise, Droids is a big waste of time for all but the most devoted and completionist Star Wars fans. Sure, it’s fun to see Boba Fett and IG-88 in animation, and there’s the occasional neat design here and there. But for the most part, this show is riddled with the same dull tropes, the same weak comedy, the same bland characters, the same ugly designs, and the same boring stories over and over again. (They literally have to escape a villain stronghold in every episode except one.) The only reason to watch this is forensic, to see the roots of Star Wars in animation where you can eventually draw a line between Artoo and Threepio’s adventures her to their adventures in The Clone Wars and beyond. “The Great Heep” is a breath of fresh air, but only accounts for how devoid of oxygen the series was to this point.
Review by Andrew BloomVIP 9BlockedParentSpoilers2022-05-24T06:00:33Z
[8.0/10] I am not going to sit here and pretend that “The Great Heep” is one of the outstanding Star Wars stories out there. But by Droids standards, it’s a freaking masterpiece. Thrills! Emotional connections! Legitimate villains! A community in peril! Artistry and excitement! Even some decent comedy! This one-hour special is basically everything the series should have been and everything it was lacking. (Maybe they should have let legendary sound designer Ben Burtt write more episodes?)
I’ll admit, I didn’t realize this was a prequel to the Mungo arc rather than a sequel at first, but it doesn’t really matter. It works as a standalone thing, even if you don’t know about Mungo’s family history or Admiral Screed as a recurring baddie.
And hey, for a show called Droids, I appreciate that this episode is mainly focused on, ahem, droids. The Great Heep, the titular Big Bad, is an appropriately frightening giant droid who effectively eats other droids to stay alive. His imposing size, menacing tone, and cannibalistic bent make him a good choice to be the “final boss” of this series.
The setup is also good. A humble farming planet, on the verge of hitting it big thanks to fuel deposits, finds itself subjugated by a giant droid in league with the Empire. We see the simple lives and friendliness of the local, reflected in their convivial attachment to Mungo, which makes it seem extra terrible when The Great Heep takes over their planet and sells it out to villainous interests.
Watching poor Threepio labor on the unfortunately named “lube crew” while secretly trying to save Mungo and the others makes you sympathize with the prissy droid-turned-laborer. There’s humor in seeing Artoo live it up in a swanky droid spa, matched with a sense of forboding when we find out it’s essentially a posh holding pen for The Great Heep’s lunch. Even the brief Transformers parody droids, or maitre’d droids, or rolling wheel droids have a certain panache to them that puts the focus in the right place. (Though Heep’s attacking goon droids seem off-brand for the Star Wars aesthetic.)
Best of all though is the connections between the characters. Threepio wants to rescue his master. So does the local kid and his tunnel-digging alien dog (who gets a pretty cute design). Their efforts to protect one another from Heep and Screed, particularly Mungo straining to save the kid and his dog from the gigantic droid’s rampage, adds a sense of stakes and attachment to this grand adventure. Likewise, it’s pretty silly that Artoo meets a pink droid girlfriend in the spa, but his sadness and disorientation when he finds her having been consumed by The Great Heep has a surprising amount of pathos, and the other R2 units joining together to revive her is uplifting.
None of it holds a candle to Threepio’s reaction to Artoo’s apparent death though. The foundation of this show is that particular droid duo. And while since Star Wars began, the two have bickered only to ultimately reveal that they care very deeply for one another, this takes top prize in that department. Threepio’s efforts to rescue Artoo when he finds out about the Great Heep’s diet are standard stuff, but still endearing. But when he thinks Artoo died thanks to a giant disk flung toward his ship by Heep, Threepio’s pain and anger are palpable. There’s a nice synergy in how Artoo kamikaze-ing the moisture-capture device leads to rain that looks like tears from Threepio. And the way the typically retiring droid is spoiling for a fight with The Great Heep afterward sells how big a deal it is to lose his companion like this.
Anthony Daniels does his best work in the series, and the animators hold up their end of the bargain too. Threepio’s reaction, of sadness, vengeance, grief at the loss of his friend, and the joy when Artoo turns up no worse for wear, conveys how close the two droids are and how much they care about one another, even if they tweak each other constantly. It’s a great vindication of the friendship at the core of the show.
Hell, I even appreciate how the writers set up Artoo escaping from the ship before it explodes thanks to his earlier use of a built-in parachute. It speaks to a soundness in the writing that's rare, if present at all, elsewhere in Droids. The characters’ motivations make sense across the board. The various schemes and plans, while a little convoluted, are clear enough to follow along. Even the infighting between Screed and Heep feels true to form.
This is also the most visually captivating episode of the show. The character designs are still a bit wonky. But elemental effects like fire and rain, silly comic routines with the R2 units, and the raging climax all come with an aesthetic virtuosity that's been rarely seen to this point. The factory escapades with Threepio and Artoo here do a better job than the similar sequence in Attack of the Clones. The closing set piece in particular, where The Great Heep rages and attacks in a thunderstorm, communicates a sense of danger, urgency, and unpredictability that can’t be matched in Droids.
On the whole, it’s a good thing to make your last episode your best one. If someone asked me what of Droids was worth watching, I’d offer them this and not much else. Fighting a massive enemy droid, scheming to get out from under its thread and save the kind locals from its occupation, and lamenting the loss of a dear friend all put this a cut above anything else the show had to offer.
Which is good, because otherwise, Droids is a big waste of time for all but the most devoted and completionist Star Wars fans. Sure, it’s fun to see Boba Fett and IG-88 in animation, and there’s the occasional neat design here and there. But for the most part, this show is riddled with the same dull tropes, the same weak comedy, the same bland characters, the same ugly designs, and the same boring stories over and over again. (They literally have to escape a villain stronghold in every episode except one.) The only reason to watch this is forensic, to see the roots of Star Wars in animation where you can eventually draw a line between Artoo and Threepio’s adventures her to their adventures in The Clone Wars and beyond. “The Great Heep” is a breath of fresh air, but only accounts for how devoid of oxygen the series was to this point.