This was a really great opening arc for season 6 but also one of the most stressful arcs!!! I think it's because you already know how everything is going to play out because like, Episode 3, which makes it so much more frustrating. Not only that but it's incredibly mind-boggling how so much stuff just slips past the Jedis' noses!
I love Star Wars, watching ANH was one of the defining moments of my youth. I spent more hours on watching anything Star Wars than I can recount. And I will do so in the future.
But I can't help but see a flaw in the story. Palpatine's plan is very well thought after. But like all plans in hinges on the fact that no one ever finds out a little piece of it before he can pull the cord. And here is the weak point - the Jedi are far to easily fooled. Even if one suspects something is wrong, they are swayed to look away with ease. If they are approached they act under the assumption that if it couldn't be, it can't be. They have fatal believe in their system. That's short sighted for self proclaimed enlightend beings.
I know it's beside the point and it never bothered me before. It won't affect what I feel for the franchise in any way. But I had to get this out.
Ugh You Don't Believe Me
8.6/10. I really enjoy the way this episode was framed as a paranoid thriller. Seeing Fives get injected with something by Nala Se to make him a little more unhinged, to where he could be set up and no one would believe him, created a sense of tragedy throughout the whole episode. The lone man trying to convince the world of a horrible, but hard-to-believe truth is a trope, but it's well-executed here for two big reasons. One, we know Fives. We've seen him since he was a cadet, and so we're invested in not only him speaking the truth but in him surviving to do it. Second (spoilers for Revenge of the Sith) we know that he fails. Order 66 gets executed, thus despite Fives efforts here, we know that whether or not he's killed or gets his mind-wiped or something else, he can't possibly succeed in his goals. That lends an air of tragedy to each moment.
But apart from the larger story, there's a lot of nice set pieces. The idea of a clone bar and seeing them relate to one another adds a little more texture to the world of Star Wars (as does the cab driver and the "your mother was a droid" insults). It's minor, but it helps to make the setting feel more real. And the pathos in the final moments, where Fives is so desperate to convince Rex and Anakin, and is eventually felled by his own brothers, is palpable. They go a little overboard in the near-death monologue, but it's still a meaningful end for the story and the character.
(As an aside, I'm coming around on Tim Curry as Palpatine. I miss Ian Abercrombie, and I think I was just used to his voice, but Curry did a good job here of showing the seemingly-friendly, but secretly malicious and manipulative side of the character that he hasn't really had a chance to show previously. It's encouraging.)
Shout by RaphMecVIP 3BlockedParentSpoilers2021-04-30T13:40:04Z
Ahh... Such a frustrating arc. So close, yet so far away. Made even worse because we know from the start Fives will fail because of what happens after. It brings up the sadness and anger of order 66 in RoTS.