Watching in chronological order makes this the second episode of the series and continues the Christophsis story arc. It ends up feeling a bit like we've been thrown in at the deep end, however. This makes it our first real look at all the clone troopers and it really hits you that they are all identical - and yet all individual. I particularly like the way that they all make the effort to have their own quirks/hairstyles/tattoos/etc.
The betrayal by one of them for reasons of wanting freedom is a nice hint that the clones may not all be the same, and a little Order 66 foreshadowing.
A very jarring moment is the introduction of Ventress. Obi-Wan seems to know who she is, but we don't, and it's implied that they have a history. Watching in chronological order makes this all a bit confusing because we are suddenly confused by the appearance of another apparent Sith from nowhere.
This is the first episode I've seen so far to heavily feature clone troopers, and dang. I really, really wish they'd gotten an actual New Zealander to reprise Temuera Morrison's original role. Dee Bradley Baker is an excellent voice actor, but the task of both imitating Morrison's performance and his regional accent is too much, both for Baker and his voice director.
Our first prequel episode of the show, highlighting significant events prior to the events of the film, and it's a doozy. In fact in a lot of ways I like it more then the actual film itself (The Clone Wars film is mostly a slog) mainly due to it's focus on the clones - these are likable, fun characters and Dee Bradley Baker's ability to make them all unique and interesting is impressive voice acting work by any stretch of the imagination.
Plus I love a good mystery episode, and this one offers a fun angle of having the culprit be literally identical looking. This means it's going to come down to personality and motivation which makes it a character study even unintentionally, and this episode manages to really explore the clones' psychology. What does it mean to be a solider? Do the clones have free will? It's a fascinating discussion and while the show would do this better later on this is a good start. Solid episode!
Out of all the story types this series tells I find the clone stories the most engaging by far. I've had questions about the autonomy of clones niggling at my brain and I love how this ep approached them. Seeing how clones perceive themselves and their purpose and relate to each other was fascinating. More than their loyalty to the republic they have a loyalty to their brotherhood and seeing how that was realized for different clones was so interesting.
Another interesting tidbit was how frowned upon having droid war trophies was among clones. This suggest droids are seen as more than weapons but sentient beings whose corpses it would be horrific to loot as a soldier. Given how battle droids are often framed as meaningless fodder this deviation was fascinating. Could there be a clone who sees kinship with battle drois as a fellow mass produced weapon conscripted in a war without consent.
Also we got to see ventress be a baddie again which was fun.
.. the sequencing is bad, some episodes have no connection with each other; is hard to expect droid with AI so dumb; Obiwan have an completely infantile personality; and the serie at all have lack of connection with the movies big picture. I didn't finish the 1st season but it's hard to continue until the end.
Such a great episode! Loved how Rex and Cody were really able to shine in this episode, clone storyline was interesting and kept me hooked. I also like how the last two episodes have been about Obi-Wan and Anakin, they really do make a great duo despite some of the repetitive banter. the fight between them and Ventress was decent but not as long as I had hoped but it matched up with the mole storyline so it’s okay. These last two standalone episodes have also been really great departures from the normal 3 episode arcs.
Shout by Andrew BloomVIP 9BlockedParentSpoilers2015-08-20T19:47:45Z
(Still proceeding in chronological order.) Now this is more like it! There wasn't much to Anakin and Obi Wan's story, but seeing Ventress again and getting some exquisitely choreographed and animated light saber fights was pretty damn entertaining. The Clone Trooper mole story was much more interesting, both on a pure story level and on a thematic level. The blue and yellow clone troopers trying to solve the whodunnit and having to try to second-guess someone who thinks exactly the same way they do was an interesting conceit that led to some great story moments. On the thematic side, the mole questioning the morality of soldiers bred to obey the Jedi's commands was a little more depth than I expected from the show, and it's a compelling Star Trek-like twist to the clone troopers' story. Much better all around than the previous episode I watched (which is from S2).