A More Civilized Age: A Star Wars Podcast - 38: The Onderon Arc (Clone Wars 90-93)

Episode Date: July 20, 2022

After some time away, we're back to our old tricks. And hey, so are the Jedi, if by "up to their old tricks" we mean "refusing to help people in need because they prioritize an abstract code over lives." Watch as Anakin invents the Rebellion and the CIA in the same fell swoop. Cheer as a future revolutionary makes his (admittedly mixed) first appearance. Shrug as Ahsoka and Lux Bonteri continue to vaguely orbit one another. Clone Wars is back baby! NEXT TIME: Episodes 94 - 97 ("The Gathering, "A Test of Strength," "Bound for Rescue," "A Necessary Bond") You can support the show and gain access to a monthly Q&A cast by going to patreon.com/civilized Show Notes Rebel Deaths: Dono, Hutch, Steela Gerrera Shitty King Deaths: Sanjay Rash Kish (Saw's Voice Actor) - I Rhyme the World in 80 Days Hosted by Rob Zacny (@RobZacny) Featuring Alicia Acampora (@ali_west), Austin Walker (@austin_walker), and Natalie Watson (@nataliewatson) Produced by Austin Walker Music by Jack de Quidt (@notquitereal) Cover art by Xeecee (@xeeceevevo)  

Let us return once more to a more civilized age, Clone Wars podcast. I'm Rob Zakney, joined by Ali Akampora, Austin Walker, and Natalie Watson. We're back after a short hiatus, though, between our board game night in New York and our very important investigation into the Khyber Crystal situation, the cover-ups that our friend Keith Carberry is getting to the bottom of, the Patreon Q&A, it does feel like it hasn't been that long since we've tackled this, though obviously your mileage may vary. We are back to examine the Andron arc,

which is an ideologically and narratively wild ride through the Jedi Council's attempt to back an anti-separatist insurgency against a newly installed puppet regime somewhere in the Republic. Along the way, we're going to see what appear to be the first foundations laid for the future rebellion against the Galactic Empire. The Jedi reckon with the possibility that the morality of ends might actually be relevant to the morality of means. We'll see the Clone Wars attempt to understand revolutionary politics. And yes, we'll finally answer the question. The entire audience has been asking ever since a friend of need, where is Lux Buntary?

Oh, my God. These are dense episodes, so I'm going to paint in broadstroke. up front here before we go episode by episode. So start this out, the Jedi receive a request from rebels in the Anderon system who are fighting a sort of kisling government that joined the separatists. Because Anderan was formally neutral at the war's outset, the Jedi do not want to send in a republic task force to forcibly eject the separatists and bring Anderon into the republic. Instead, they adopt Anakin's suggestion to train, equip, and advise the rebels on how to fight the separatists.

Anakin, Obi-Wan, and Asoka go to Anderan to start the training. When they get there, they find the resistance is led by three major players. Luxman Terry is there. He is joined up as a kind of itinerant freedom fighter, serving with the rebels while fundamentally advocating for political settlement and diplomacy as a means to achieving victory and seeking to make the military strategy subordinate to their movement's political objectives. He is from Anderon.

We should say, I've, like, joked, but he is from there, technically. I needed him to say it. I'm glad he did at that one point in the episode, because I was like, what the fuck is going on right now? He's just the same planet where his mom had her little. He was on, he was on Raxus Prime because that's D.C. for the separatists. His mom has, like, a congressional townhouse. You know what I mean? Yeah.

And so that's where he grew up. He didn't grow up on Anderan. He's from Anderan. She's the senator from Andoran. He's like a diplomat kid. Exactly that. That's literally it. Anyway, continue your good summary.

So he is opposed by Saw Guerrera, who sees, yes, very excited. We're meeting Saw Guerrera. Yeah. Who sees direct military action and victory as the necessary precondition for any kind of political settlement in the rebels favor and advocates for an insurgency that treats the destruction of separatist forces as its chief aim. between them is Saw's sister, Steela, who believes the approaches have to be synthesized and that the first and foremost priority of the resistance is to make sure it just continues to exist and grow in strength and legitimacy. Ultimately, Stela is chosen as the leader of the movement just in time for the struggle

to reach its climax in a series of raids and street fights in Andron's capital city of ISIS. This was made before the Islamic State took root in, in Iraq and Syria. So if that name brings you up short, it is just a little historical misfortune that in a couple of years, ISIS would have very different connotations. Anyway, they're capital city.

But to be clear, this arc is 100% you'll get there. Yeah. Let me tell you, Americans are in this. It is not, the U.S. Army is in this. It is just not the rebels. As the insurgency gained strength, the puppet king Sanjay Rash moves to execute the previous king, Ramsey's Dendup, as he has become the figurehead of the resistance. Saug gets caught trying to rescue the king and is scheduled for execution alongside him.

Stealing the rest of the rebels launch a daring rescue during the public execution but are overwhelmed and then rescued by Anderan's loyalist military rising up against the separatists. With Rash and the separatist leadership on the planet at their mercy, The rebels retreat into the hills and move the conflict to a final conventional military phase. This proves a poor idea, as the separatists bring in gunships that completely massacre the rebels and their loyalist allies, as the situation unravels and with the Jedi unwilling to rescue them, Anakin conducts a black market arms deal. One could say a contra with Hondo to rush deliver an arsenal of basically Stinger missiles. They're Sinar anti-air missiles.

They turn the tide against the separatists, but in the final stages of the battle, through a comical series of misfortunes that reminds me of the death of Maud Flanders in The Simpsons. Stila is killed. In the end, the old king is restored, and Anderan joins the Republic as Lex Bonteri is sent to Coruscant as their new senator.

So... What an arc. What an arc. I just, wow. Wow is a wow, wow. Okay, but it does open with Anakin Skywalker inventing the rebellion. It's an incredible scene. I transcribed the whole thing because it's that important because of a thing we talked about before.

Months ago, I don't remember what the episode was, we talked about how when Anakin becomes Vader, part of the reason he is sort of so effective. at tracking down the rebels is that he taught them all their shit and he did that shit when he was a Jedi in the Clone Wars in terms of like you know the key example of the very beginning

when everyone is like well this is just a medical frigate why would Leah be on it Vader is like could we hide people on medical frigates that's what we do and it's a we because he's the one who like

green lit all this shit and kicked it all off which is like I love it I love that this is the moment he makes an impassioned plea that we could get local he like uh it's it's the best and the worst at the same time let's because yeah it starts out with the jetic counsel receiving this like a message from anderan with the i didn't even recognize lux by the way lux is in that hollow call

and he gives us a soka a little wink he gives her and we're like hey yo what's up how you i literally was like who the fuck is this me too i was like who is this rando Eventually, Osoca's like, Lux. And I was like, oh, okay, it's Lux. That fuck boy, right. That guy. Why the fuck does he matter? But okay.

So, yeah. Here's the... Yeah. So they call up and they're asking for help. Right. And the answer is basically no. The answer is you're a separate estate. Like, you're in a separate estate.

We're not going to go like, your dude was not elected, but is the king. And the king decided to... We should be clear. The previous king... As we learned this later, I shouldn't spoil this. The current king decided, yo, I'm with the separatists. And that means, unlike on Ryloth, for example, where there was just an occupation and there was a scheming, shitty senator who was a republic senator. Yes?

Hang on. I think you're – I have a slightly different reading on this. Okay. So, Obi-Wan refers to the king had a neutrality policy. He did. Yes. That's the end up. That's the previous deposition. That's what I'm saying. He didn't, that's the thing I didn't want to spoil because that they kind of frame that

as like a revelation towards the end, but you're right. Does he just say it up top that he was neutral? He says it right at the front. This is why there's a bit of like, hey, they made their bet. They made their bet. Yeah, exactly. 100%. They weren't an actual republic place, so fuck him.

Anyway, they hang up the call basically. They're like, well, we can't do shit. And Anakin's like, whoa, wait a second. And he says, there are pockets of rebels on many of these planets that just need guidance with training and resources they could attack soft. targets while the Republic continues to engage them on the battlefield and Obi-Wan says that sounds

like terrorism Anakin and Anakin says I think of it as an insurgency to help realign these planets with the Republic again neutral planet not a planet that was with the Republic I mean it was a Republic planet that stayed neutral in the conflict right because all of the planets

are on the separatist side it's a separate movement so Anakin says why I think of it's insurgency to help realign the planets with Republic. Mace says, we can divide the separatist forces and press them on two fronts. Yoda says a means to an end. Fear cannot be. Stop those who spread terror. The Jedi must. All right, catch up, Yoda. You got to keep up the security. Yeah, what's the fuck are you talking about, Roby Watt says, indeed, what you're suggesting would open up dangerous possibilities.

We must not train terrorist. And he goes, uh, rebels. Obi-Wi Wyn says How we conduct war is what distinguishes us from others Funding rebels to overthrow a legitimate government puts innocent lives at risk And Anakin goes We can minimize collateral damage by using arms That mainly affect droids

Love mainly effect I know mainly affected so much work there Just completely Yes absolutely By the way these episodes Also written by the person who did Who wrote on the wire and Sons of Anarchy And it shows

And this is it It's these two arcs And then never again I know it's so sorry It is not all of the past arc It's the upcoming Mal Savage arc That that first episode was taken away from

There's a three-parter coming up So we still have one more set of episodes By this arcs writer coming Which is exciting Chris Collins Chris Collins yes correct So again we can minimize collateral damage Then May says the least we can do

Is help them defend themselves Test the tactic while we're at it Anakin says, this could be a great new weapon for us. And Yoda says, hmm, train and observe. Send advisors, we will. And it's just real CIA vibes. It's so delicious. What an asshole.

He's right, but what an asshole. Mace loves him some shatter points. Yes. Yeah. I feel like Anakin's operating from a place of like, I know how to sell this. Yes. I know how to say the right thing to get what I want, which is to, like, help people defend themselves

and to, you know, protect innocent people or whatever. So I'm going to say what I need to say in order to accomplish that. But, and everyone else just eats it up, like delicious jello. They're just like, yum, yum, yum. I love to do. I'm surprised Obi-Wan decided to go with it. But at the end, it is like we're trying to help people, and that's a good way to get a Jedi to agree with you.

Yeah. I suppose that's correct. Do you think they just, do you think Yoda and Obi-Wan just realized they didn't have the votes? Probably, yeah. I mean, especially with Mace being on Anakin's side here, being like, let's just test it out. It's like, so, that specific phrasing is like, oh,

what's going on here? This is an important thing, because I actually just remembered something from, I want to say it came up in Duku loss, but I only really looked it up after during something else, which is there are actually two, heads of the Jedi Order, of the High Council. There is what Yoda is, and there is what Mace Windew is. I think Yoda was also briefly master of the, so there's Master of the Order,

which is also known as Master of the Council, or Grandmaster of the High Council. And then also there is a second thing, which is like, I want to say it's like head of the temple or something like that. And they basically end up having equal power, but not, like, slightly different jurisdictions, basically. The point being that at this point, I believe Mace Windu is the head of the high council, and Yoda is like a separate head of things. So Mace saying he's down is a big vote. I want to just get introduced because it's like, we need somebody who doesn't live for a thousand years to also. have a boy that could be you know if it just feels less like a council these days am i the only one it feels like the jedi council feels more like yodas gang of friends like exactly i so the other thing

that i think comes across here too is that it's a small stakes thing it's also very easy for yoda and to sort of acquiesce too because ultimately what they've been handed is a viable insurgency on a plate, and all they have to do is, like, give it a little bit of investment to help maybe see what it can pull off. And so, like, it just seems like it's not worth the fight for Yoda to, like, put its foot down on this. I've remembered this wrong, and it's so much worse, and it says everything. There used to be two Master of the Order and Grand Master. Master of the Order was appointed by members of the High Council by unanimous vote.

Grandmaster was the leader of the entire order. So that means like there's a council leader and then there's an order leader. Which is bestowed upon the oldest and wisest Jedi. Does the oldest guy gets it? The fun?

He's the oldest and wisest. Once the war was heating up, Yoda got both positions. Before the war was hot. Like, through the beginning of the war, it was Mace as leader of the council and Yoda as Grandmaster. And then, like, by the time that we're at where we're at, it's all Yoda, baby. Yoda demand. That's it.

How did that come about? I wonder. Did someone have to pull Mace aside and be like, like, brough? Yeah, did Mace, like, step down? Was Mace like, I'm not going to, I'm not, this is not going to be able to my. I'm too busy whipping ass on the battle. I can't. Maybe.

That might have been it, right? That's wild. But he isn't on the field that much. Like what? Yeah, but like, he's mostly sitting in the council room. But what if every time he's not, he's doing, he's like launching those ultimates that we've seen where it's like, Mace just shows up and like wins a campaign and then goes back to like build meter back at base, basically. I think that that's probably right. Yeah.

I can't. I'm sorry. I can't, I cannot fulfill my duties. I'm building meter, master yoga. Meter you must build. So the other thing bugs me here, though, is that the Jedi are so, again, like, they don't see the politics of this war in this meeting. This is one of the few cases where, like, the argument for helping these people is basically ironclad. The separatists are behaving as an invading empire, and they're encountering resistance, and the Jedi, all they see is, well, the legitimate government of Anderan was, like, chill staying out of this war.

we have to honor that and also hidden run attacks and raids and such that's just terrorism and we don't do that it's like it really does see it really does showcase the degree to which the Jedi are ideologically and politically

at sea when it comes to understanding the war and like what it will take to win it because this is this is a path to winning it is you take the separatists all the bad blood the separat the separatists are sewing, and you start turned against them, and Yoda and Obi-Wan basically can't

see it as anything other than the tactics make us uncomfortable. We'd rather do something honorable, like send our slave armies into frontal assaults. Yeah. Uh-huh. Yep. That's it. So, they go there, right?

The rest of this episode is, like, training montage and try out, and you meet, you see some techniques on how to kill droids, you meet saw guerreras, stela, stela, stela, and, and you've already know Lux. There's a love triangle. That's happening weird, weird vibes. Oh, man, okay, I need to, okay, so the other thing is, it's just they can't stop giving

Lux bad vibes because during the training montage, one of the first things that happens, by the way, the writing on Saw, not there yet, we're looking to take in the fight to the scrap and droids. Also, the voice isn't, the actor. is, you know... This was made before Rogue One, right? It was made well before Rogue One. So they don't know.

It's... Yeah, they don't know it's going to be Forrest Whitaker. It is not a black actor. It is an Asian actor who was a rapper from Toronto. Hello? Who made a... Who made a song. Yeah, I know.

Oh, no. God, where did I put the... Where did I put it here? I've seemed to... Oh, here it is. It's Andrew Kishino. also known as Big Kish, formerly known as Kish, who made us who did a song. His claim to fame was called Rime the World in 80 Days, which is from 1991 and sounds like it's from 1988.

And it fully is like a fake version of Rob Bass and DJ Easy Rocks It Takes Two, like a house infused, early, late 80s, like, you know what I mean. I'm just going to link it to you You can listen to this yourself I'm not going to put that on my own time This is for you later And people at home can do the same If they'd like to My point being

And then he got into voice acting And I He's like doing like a Sometimes it's like a New York accent Where he's like hey commander How about helping me practice And it's like or like a Boston thing Maybe a little bit

And it's just wrong And he's Stala's brother And Staley just sounds like a black woman, like a black American woman, because that is who is voice acting her, and that is like how she has been directed to do it. They don't sound related. They don't sound like they grew up together. It's very weird.

It's also so weird that they really try and sell you on, are they in a relationship for a while before. Okay, I was asking about this too. Why is it a revelation when, when Staley's like, he's my brother? And everyone's like, oh. And I was like, why are you going, oh? It's so weird They like color picked They look like twins

Like it shouldn't be like a shock Right But okay so I thought that I was like oh maybe they're related I don't know But then they like keep selling Like saw getting jealous As like Stella is

Steela is like Like you know Like tending to Lux and shit And like he just hates Lux They're trying to sell I know this dude thinks Lux is a prissy punk and what they're selling instead is

or like get away from my sister but what they're really selling is him feeling like he why isn't anyone intending to me I need attention which he then gets from Asoka so for a little while

the bit where so they're learning how to droid the grenades throw the grenades under the droidicas shields and Stala just can't get it. Lux will help.

And he does the fucking like creep macking on a girl at a bowling alley or a mini golf. Yeah. Where it's like, I'll help you. Let me just mold my fucking body against you and have you go through the motions. And I'm like, and Lux does it in every scene, by the way. He's the touchiest motherfucker on the show. This is a show where people do not touch each other that often. Yeah, you're right.

And every scene is just like, hey, hey. And it's like, Lux, boundaries. Just boundaries. God, that's so funny. But, like, they want us to read it as, like, Asoka is getting jealous about the attention that Lux is showing stela, you know? Yeah, exactly. I do have to say while we're on this,

Asoka takes a massive L, the first conversation that they have, because she's like, hey, how are you? It's good to see you again. have you reconsider joining the Republic Senate within a minute of talking to him you sound like you're an occult like just say how are you last time I saw you we were escaping from Mandalorians

and then you like separated the ship Yeah you were about to get assassinated and then before that your mom got merged like below are you how you been are you all right? You good? Well like I guess it's interesting and important to say that Asoka begins this arc in the room where Anakin is pitching the insurgency.

She's watching it all. She's like, eyes open, this whole arc. I think she's in a different place by the end of this. I don't think her next conversation would be asking if someone was like ready to join the Republic. She quite readily at the end is like, well, good luck not being in the Republic. And Lux is like, but wait a second, what if we did join the Republic? And she's a little like, all right, I guess.

So. Was this the first time that Asoka has been called? called Commander Tano, because that felt significant to me, because they kept referring to... We had that episode where she was in charge and no one wanted to listen to her. Remember that one back in the season one or two? I feel like maybe we got it there at the end, but you don't hear it often at the very least to write. It felt like significant in this episode that they kept referring to her as Commander Tano, and I was like, damn, maybe she like moved up in ranks, I don't know, like went a while without killing some clubs. so got the promo got the promo yeah the um I want to shout out the base is kind of cool

you know they're the rebels yeah the Anderan Andorani rebels like are in the woods around some like an old ruin from like pre whatever the current moment is like you know on Anderon and they you know it's all jungly and it's very indoor rebels they very much clearly were working off of some you know, concept art from Return of the Jedi Rebellion and a small note that will come up in one of the clips I'll play today is their logo, which is like sort of stylized mountains, these kind of three red stylized mountains, was based on the kind of tip of that, you know,

the Rebel Alliance bird symbol or like the wings? Yeah, the last time is like a stylized almost like anchor types of like. It's interesting. So the very top of it, this is based on the very like the highest point of the rebel thing to indicate that there is direct lineage from this group to the eventual rebel alliance which I think is really neat so and also like speaking like connective tissue the way they're being fought is going to echo like the probe droid is deployed here from the from the capital they are aware of the ship entered atmosphere and touched down so they send probe droids out to figure out you know what what has happened here. And the probe droids find the camp. They see the training and they sort of

send a small task course out to wipe out these rebels. And they sort of interrupt right as Radistale's sort of having her a big character arc moment for her. She realizes that she's a sniper.

And she's not going to fuck with these grenades anymore. Rolling grenades is stupid. She hates it. You know what she's good at? Killing fools. from a kilometer away and so right as she demonstrates that she's their ace shot she's looking through the

sniper scope sees the like behind the droid target they're using sees like live droids moving through the trees and the assault gets underway and immediately Anakin's like we got to you know what let's pan out let's flank them

let's help and Obi-Wan walking the line We're going to see the Jedi walk this entire episode is like, fuck them. Fuck them kids. He says, we can't fight their war for them. All we in is like, by the time for them to escape, but we can't win this battle for them. We can only protect them. We can't fight this war for them.

What the fuck are you talking about? Anakin wants to make a move to, like, advance on the, on the droids or whatever. And Obi-1's like, stop. We cannot fight them. or whatever. And I'm just like, bro, you are being attacked. You are being attacked right now. Multiple people are getting shot right this minute.

And you're saying, like, we must retreat. We must. And I'm just like, you're in war. You're in war. Am I crazy? Like, what are we talking about here? You're going to just, like, self-restraint right now and not fuck up some droids. These are droids that would not be.

attacking you like yeah go fight them and do and literally do right they literally do get attacked yeah it's just goober gooberness goberino well it's this weird like that on some level

you know what it is it reminds me like the fucking naturalist aspect of Obi-Wan where it's like no no the rebels must get out of their Chrysalis under their own strength they will not be capable of flight if we help them we will actually make them unable to to exist in nature and it's like that's

how he's approaching this but it is this massively paternalistic like I actually just kind of want to see how they handle this and if that means watching from the tree line while they all get massacred just all interesting notes for the report yeah

it really does feel like Obi-Wan is I mean I guess Anakin did say this is a test let's see how this anti-droid technology goes and Obi-Wan's like an observation mission? Absolutely. And, like, just really takes that all the way for him until he gets ejected,

well, not ejected, but until he gets, he has to leave the planet, and then Asoka can do what needs to be done. But it is interesting, right? Part of it does wonder, like, is Obi-Wan's hope here that this fails miserably, and we can put an end to this whole thought, that we're not going to support other rebel cells on other planets because on one hand this is obviously like you know these people are trying to win their freedom blah blah blah blah but also like the the entire thing is does this work as a strategy are we adopting this strategy across hundreds of planets or something do you know what I

mean again Anakin when Anakin says at the beginning is not like oh this is a good opportunity for us to punch the separatists he says this could be a new weapon for us there are pockets of rebels on many of these planets that just need guidance and so it's like this is the test case. And then the next version of this is that like Kit Fisto is going to be going to do this on some planet. And, you know, every other minor Jedi we've ever seen is going to be out there doing this shit because this works. And so, and so like that is, in some ways, I do wonder, does Obi-Wan, like, want to scuff it? You know what I mean? Well, yeah, I think because, like, after this point when they start doing better,

he's like, like, proud father-esque about it. So I think you're right. You're right. him, like, he's the one who's like, oh, I have to babysit Anakin. I'm going with Anakin because I think he has a good idea, but I don't want him to fuck it up. And like, he says as much to Anakin when they leave, I think. Um, so I think for him, it's like maybe like a, well, me and Anakin aren't always going to be here. We do have to prove this thing while also being a little bit like, well, if I win a war, but I lose my idealism, will I win the war? And like, he just has to be the person who's like, dad mode, I guess. Yeah. you bring out a good point

there's a version of this word if it's just Anakin though Anakin does fight the entire battle for them he just goes fucking like yeah just goes like Super Sam 3 and then he goes Windy mode yeah

and then files the report and it's like the insurgents nailed it the strategy is totally viable we can reproduce this on every planet and what the report doesn't mention is as long as there's like an Anakin caliber Jedi on the planet like you get an S rank

pool on your on your squad you can do it yeah but for Unfortunately, so as Obi-Wan's like, you know what we're going to do is we're just going to pull this entire force out, the Jedi will cover. Steel is like, nope, absolutely not. What we're going to do, you came here to teachers to fight, we're going to show you what we learned. And the rebels sort of organically using the tools and tactics they've just been taught, like quickly win a victory. They wipe out the first wave, and then they assault a tank just as they were taught.

and the only place where it almost goes wrong is rather than drop the grenade into the commander's slot Lux tosses the grenade to the droids who begins monologuing while holding the grenade and Asoka comes along and snaps the lid shut so that the detonation doesn't collect lots

the droid was just in a silly goofy mood you know yeah I wanted to do a little comedy bit with the grenade yeah I will say I was very glad how quickly the Lux and Saw Guerrera stuff like moved past it like all right they got a little bit of like your water and on fire and so like we're going to have some natural heat again you know we're going to have some natural tension but it's just like it's done by the end of this episode they worked together in that tank they both love your like stela you know I love is probably right for both of them and and are unified by her presence and are generally like. like, realize what the other one has to offer and, like, working together by the end of this arc, or by the end of this episode, because I was, like, not, I was dreading four episodes of these two just sniping at each other and being insufferable, and they still have disagreements, but they're disagreements about strategy and about, like, where weight should go, and they don't

feel as, like, the very beginning of this episode, it really feels like they dislike each other, and they're, like, looking for an excuse to jab. Man, it occurs to me, like, it's, there's danger here. of Feloni stumbling into the Jet stuff from Avatar. Because, like, Saw is basically Jet, who was the charismatic and sexually threatening rebel leader in Avatar, who's like, guitar is like, ooh, a boy my own age, who like is trending towards bloodthirsty terrorism,

Devoid Strategy. She's like, sign me up. And like, but there's no, there's nothing to Jed. The reason, like, his arc is not particularly, it's not an episode that comes up a lot. is because that character who's just like, what if Peter Pan joined the Mujahideen? Like, that's not actually a compelling character.

Right. And so you need to do something else with it. Yeah, I'm glad they sort of put paid to this notion of like, Saw's just going to be there being like, I'm just so angry, I want to blow up some scrapheads. Now, do I think we're going to get that Sao Guerrera in the future? Yes, I do. I do.

my suspicions. I think we're going to get he's right but too much, Saw Guerrera by the time we were done this project. Oh, I mean, that's who he is in Rogue 1, right? A hundred percent. That's how they're framing him in Rogue 1. They're already framing him as that in this, by the time we get to, like, the election you know, point or whatever. So we'll get there. He does

make some bad decisions that we'll get to. Yeah. I did, did anyone else feel like the lighting in this episode was super off and weird? Like, Everything was so brightly lit this whole episode. There was a weird, for me, it was like sometimes shots look kind of weird and unfinished, like grainy. Almost like there's two sources that they scanned in for the show. Clone Wars looked this way to me before, too, where it's like one shot will look great,

and then the other looks really artifacted to shit. It looked like season one Clone Wars, honestly, outside of, you know, the models looking a bit better, but the lighting was, like, really flat and, like, very bright when we're, like, And, like, interiors and stuff like that. I don't know. It was enough to make me write it down. I was like, huh, this looks bizarreo. I think they're trying to go for something with, like, oh, the atmosphere in Anderan has this purple pink hue that, like, diffuses the light in a weird way.

And it just doesn't work. Mm-hmm. I think it looks alien. It doesn't look alien. It looks uncanny. It doesn't look like, ooh, I'm on a weird alien world. It looks like, like you said, kind of unfinished. I agree.

Well, and it seems like maybe they were at the limits of what they could produce for this, because like we're going to get to it, but every episode opens a within attack on the same market. We are going to see the same market used in every single episode, and we're actually about to meet it. So the next step is Obi-Wan and Anakin are now completely bought in. They're like, it's time to go on the offensive. Weirdly, they're like, let's move this insertion from the countryside into the city, which is like a real gear shift for, What Obi-Wan was saying earlier where it's like, I don't want to do terrorism. And now it's like, what if the most terrorism? What if we went to do like, what if we fully started just like bombing crowded markets, which is what they're going to do.

That's going to be their primary strategy. It's still wild. I mean, Anakin said, don't worry, we'll just hit soft targets. Exactly. Which is like, oh, okay, like specifically you're going to do things that are near civilians then. You're going to be hitting targets that regular folks can walk up to. You're not talking about, you know, in the past, we've really focused on hard targets. Because, like, that's what Jedi can do is, oh, I can, I'm only one person, but I can slip behind enemy lines and blow up the anti-aircraft, or I can take out the munitions facility or whatever.

The fact that Anakin, in the premise of this argument was, oh, we'll just hit soft targets is like, all right, like, you're really. This is an insurgency. You are talking about doing things that these people might feel is terrorism, including the people, the civilians nearby, because it'll be happening on their way to work. Yep. And so, yeah, I guess, yeah, we moved to the city. It was surprising that, like, neither Obi-Wan nor, well, primarily Obi-Wan, nobody, like, did, like, a homie check-in on Asoka throughout this of, like, hey, we see.

said not to do terrorism stuff and Assoc is just like doing things with the squad or whatever and nobody like calls her out on it. She ain't see it. I know but it's just like for how

much that was prefaced it's just surprising that like she they just do that they just do like she's all the way helping them like she's just fully in it and like yeah but what if it's like you're not allowed to do Jedi stuff.

Maybe that's the middle ground they came to. She does do Jedi stuff. By the end, she does Jedi stuff. Go ahead, Allie. Anakin checks in on her, like, three different times in these episodes, though. How about the Luxwich? Well, it keeps being like, are you focused? And, like, that is a wide question.

You know what I mean? Like, we didn't know what he met in that scene. We knew what the fuck he was talking about. I mean, I think the interesting part of the scenes is every time of us. lies to him um like we've watched a lot of clone wars and we know why she's doing that but like i was really happy to see all the attempts from annikin at least to be like there's a lot happening here do you want to talk about it no but for sure that that's fair that's fair if he does check in in that way but yeah i guess she just doesn't but it doesn't even feel like she's hiding

something you know what i mean like typically i feel like we'd feel like we'd feel like like, oh, she's hiding the truth of what's going on in Anderon from the Jedi Masters because she doesn't, because she knows that she's not supposed to be doing this. But it just felt like very nonchalant. Well, so I think that, I think there's a couple things. We'll get to it more where Asoka stands and all this. I think what ends up, she needs more check-in on is like, hey, the Jedi Council views this entire movement, your friends now, your comrades, as instruments.

uh of policy uh in their hands and meanwhile you're there seeing them as people uh and so like the other big part of this is they're telling her like you know how like the Jedi always like don't get too attached but in this case they mean really do not get too attached to these people because we will give this entire thing the hook the minute becomes inconvenient and they just don't check on how that's going to go down or where she how she feels about this this mission uh at all I think the Anakin check-ins, I think you're really beautiful because she and Anakin lie to each other, but both from like the exact same place of Anakin being like, I understand what it is to be like tempted by the idea of interests and lives outside the Jedi Order. But of course, you really should stay focused on the mission. And she's like, yeah, you're right, master, I should.

I'm okay. And he's like, great. Glad we had that talk. She even goes like, you do. You do understand that. He's like, yeah, of course. But I just stay focused. I just keep my head in the game.

I was like, oh, my, this fucking... Actually, he couldn't even hit it. From a certain point of view, he's the master of part mentalization. You're right. That's true. You know, that should have been his play. He reveals that, like, Padmae's pregnant and everything, and he's just like, hey, from a certain point of view, I've never been married when I'm doing business for the Jedi Council.

I have no attachments when I'm in the office. Nine to five, I'm the same Anakin you've always known. God. Go ahead. I was just going to say, I thought it was silly the way that Asoka was so shook by Anakin being like, I understand. She was like, really? I was like, bro, come on. Come on.

Keep up. You're spelling weak with his wife. You spent the time and enough time to see. what the fuck is going on like you know what the fuck is going on you don't need to do this what

I was just like come on it would have been funnier if it was like and so it was like oh master I've noticed I don't know

it would be just oh you mean like the Padme situation yeah yeah you and Padme you're like you live together you have the apartment together you all have parties

you invite people over all the time you get You'll fucking, yeah, which, by the way, that fruit shows up here. And the new evil king repeatedly, like, will take a bite of one bite of fruit and throw it away. I hate him. What's my fruit bit? He's like, it's, you know, a terrible hedonistic ruler who doesn't know the value of things.

And it's like, a real person would have eaten the entire fruit. But he's living in a lap of luxury and is willing to take one bite of fruit to satiate a little taste. and then not finish it, you know? I'll bite my pair once, and then I don't even need the rest of it. Well, I just think it's overdone to the point where it's like, I'm going to bring my fruit to the assassination. He does then bring it to the guillotine. Yeah, really quick. We go back to the Asoka thing of like, why does she help versus why does she stay active?

What does she report back? In the scene where, so first of all, it's weird that Obi-Wan and Anakin, I was surprised. they stuck around for the beginning of the second episode. They like go in with them into the city and set up the shop, set a base and all that. I was like, damn, I thought y'all would have bounced and like let them deal with that. But they do stay for that. And then they get ready

to leave and have their leaving behind who, Rex and DeSoka. And that's it. By the way, Rex is undercover in Rebel Gear and he looks sick. It's so good. I wish that they were like, I could watch these episodes that I could go to Star Wars.com and read Rex's

blog. I need to know. I would be so good. what was going through his head about all this. Yeah, totally. His, the symbol that he has on his head on his helmet normally is on his chest piece now. It's like a silhouette of an animal or something. I love that. Anyway, so, Obi-Wan is like, all right, Annick and I are leaving. They need us to go do other Jedi war shit.

But we think that y'all can do this. And so we're going to leave Asoka behind just to watch. You know, we're going to give you supplies. We're going to give you credits. You have to operate on your own. And that's what he tells Asoka. He's like, listen, we're going to keep resourcing them, but they have to learn how to operate on their own. Their survival depends on it.

And he walks away. And then Anakin crosses his arms and, like, leans forward and says, remember your purpose. And walks away. And Asoka, like, kind of, hmm, looks away. And this is a master of student thing where I think she is like, that's right. My purpose is to beat the separatists. My purpose is to advise, but to make sure. they win. And so I think that's part of why you get that. She's not really involved. She's not

out here with her lightsaber every day, but she's going to help put out the hollow generators. She's going to toss a grenade or two. You know what I mean? She's going to make sure people, she's going to help people up when they fall. That's just, that's what a good advisor does. She's demonstrating and they're learning from example. You know, like the Jedi told them how to roll those grenades. She's doing the same thing, just out on the streets. So I think it's a real letter of the law versus spirit of the law thing and she's learned how to find that loophole in her mind.

So, I think Anakin would approve. 100%. 100%. So at the end of the episode, they sneak into the city. By the way, I want to say a defense of the droids here. The droids aren't stupid. They've just been giving a very hard job. Everyone's like, the droids are too

dumb to, like, defend the city. The droids are actually actually in the right questions. They're like, hey, did you register this hunting expedition that you bring all the shit into the city? Like, do you have any documentation of this, like, existing and is just like all like all like overwhelmed uh like border forces eventually they're just like look there's a lot of people we need to get through here today i do not have time to solve every mystery of why like the droids are being surprisingly adept at like being a security

force it's just they've been handed impossible task but everyone's like droids are stupid yeah it really fucked me up that it was framed as as droids are stupid when what it was was droids act to social pressure? Like, there are, like, so many emotional cues and, like, manipulation here in terms of being, like, we got to get in there that the joys are like, fine, whatever. Okay, God. Like. I don't want to get in your fucking way, I guess.

You said the shop is closing or whatever. Fine, fine, fine, fine, fine. Go ahead. Yeah. Yeah. It's interesting. Yeah. Because what you're saying, really, is, like, the droids are, like, people.

The droids are people. That's what it is. It's not that they're dumb. It's that they have personalities. Yeah. And they're also just overwhelmed, like, squatties here given an impossible task that's like if you do it wrong by the way you might die in a terrorist bombing uh good luck and if you don't die in the terrorist bombing they'll just

deactivate you or mind wipe you and replace you so it's like it's lose lose for a droid out here oh 100 percent so they get into the city and they sneak into the market that we're going to see right at the start of the next episode uh which is that the insurgency now is underway uh it is it is it is doing insurgency stuff in the city we see them all doing their little special moments like Steelers sniping people saw is just like

running around getting headshots basically droids is bombed in the market we hear one of the droids sort of comment this is like attack number five of the day before they're... Droids are shook again droids are not they're not feeling good about it

the intro fills in a bit of context that the episode I don't think does a great job, but the intro, the narration says that in the absence of civilian, despite the absence of civilian casualties, public fear has ensued. Again, getting at this notion that this arch doesn't have the bandwidth for, which is that even a good insurgency scares people. This, I understand they're not going to make Battle of Algiers here for the Clone Wars. I get it. it. Yeah. I wish though. At the same time, they keep trying to be like, you know, the people are, if we don't do something to reassure the people, our movement will lose pocket with support. And then all we see are like absolutely bloodless, like flawless attacks on droids. And the thing, though, is, like, they are, like, jumping out in the middle of populated streets, shooting droids next to people. So, like, and you have to read this city. Isis is, first of all, visually,

is really interesting because it's sort of classical, you know, very clearly supposed to be Roman Greek or like Eastern Roman. It feels very Byzantine to me in some ways. That kind of blend of Mediterranean, really like truly Mediterranean, right? And the streets are filled with people, just like going about their days. And many of the opening attacks we see are bloodless. They're not showing civilians getting caught up in the crossfire. They are only using the EMP weapons and stuff, but it is straight up saw bouncing out of a fucking alley, like basically doing a kick flip over a person and then shooting a droid in front of them.

And it's like, bro, I'm on my way to the bank. This is not. And I think part of it is based on the way they show what this occupation looks like, it's not an occupation, right? There are, it is framed as if this is just the way things are now and people have reached somewhat of a equilibrium with the Fed. that there are dozens or hundreds of droids walking around their city, it can't be good, but they don't spend a lot of time showing people being distraught. But they do say it a lot. They do.

I do kind of wonder if there are a lot of like fence sitters here who are like, well, it was this or the Republic occupying us. So we're going to make do, I guess, you know. And I feel like there's a, they don't necessarily, I don't necessarily believe that at the beginning of this arc, and maybe a better way to have framed this, would have been the Andoranians are not necessarily for a rebellion because it seems risky and dangerous. And they would rather live their lives at a five out of ten where they're occupied or pseudo-occupied than risk lowering it to a three out of ten if they resist, right?

And instead, we just get fed the line that people are afraid and distraught. But, like, we don't ever see regular people in that way. Yeah, not quite. I mean, the one time where somebody's like, I feel like there's a. like a couple walking by and they're in like an alley or something and saw as like shh you know like yeah yeah yeah but by then it feels like they're on board you know what i mean they're like yeah we're rebellion looks good in the third episode we see a tweeluk kid be like they blew up droids in front of me but then ever but then she sees some propaganda and she's appropriately

radicalized and reassured yeah exactly so uh after these after the attacks in this market we get a brief interlude with King Rash, who is here on loan from Shrek. It's sort of a younger, a younger shitty king. And when he hears that the royal carriages was ambushed during one of these attacks, he wasn't in it, but he's convinced the rebels are now gunning for him. He demands to see the guy he deposed, King Dendup. And King Dendup basically puts the marker down where it's like, well, I couldn't possibly be involved in this

insurgency, since you've had me in isolation since you deposed me, who do you think I'm in contact with? This was the most ridiculous shit to me of this whole arc, was this whole like King nonsense.

Just him constantly being like, I know you are doing this. And he's like, I am literally in a fucking box. Not speaking to Jack anyone. And he was, I know.

And he's not. That's the thing. There is no late reveal. No. It's just actually not doing shit. And the other king is constantly like, I know you've been. It's just like, oh my God, this part like just, it just was, they wouldn't let it go. They just kept coming back to this.

And I hated it so much. Yeah. So we go back to a rebel council of war. and Obi-Wan and Asoka both sort of note that the insurgency is scaring the people and Saw being a schmuck is like, that just means we need to increase our intensity. And Stela and Lux both say, no, what we actually need to do here is something that accomplishes a bit of public outreach. And Lux and Stela us sort of collaboratively figure out that what they need is another major

attack, but it also needs to be the sort of attack that makes a statement that the rebels can actually win this fight. At this point, one could say the most pivotal moment of the insurgency, Obi-Wan and Anakin peace out.

Yeah. Anakin's like, hey, Snips, you want to stay here, or you want to just hang out with the, like, or you want to come back to Coruscant, your call. She votes to stay, and Obi-1 reiterates. This is the bit where she's, this is where just talked about, right?

Yeah. This is why I think she ends up sticking, like, actually doing shit, is because Obi-Wan says, don't do shit. And Anakin says, but remember why you're here. I like, I like that positioning that Anakin is secretly being, like, sort of winking and nodding to, like, we both know what's important here. I do want to shout out the rebel base that they have with, like, the peeling away wallpaper. It's like a mid-century unit, you know, I think probably it's a first floor unit,

so it's going to be a little bit cheaper because you have the street noise. The lighting isn't great, but there is some sort of weird skylight, like from a Ridley Scott movie. It doesn't make any sense. It seems like there shouldn't be a skylight because there seems like there's other floors on this building, but somehow there's a skylight. And lots of room to host. Everyone has drinks. You know, it feels like, you know, I bet it's a little bit of an investment, but it's worth it if you're going to have people over. So that's my review of this space. No, it is a terrific safe house.

Because if your safe house can also be a place to have a little cocktail party. Exactly. Now you can do, like, that's, you know, it's the, just as a rebel movement sort of has a saw and a locks at its extremes, a rebel hideout also has extremes that it has to sort of like synthesize here, which is that ammo boxes, where you can serve up, like hors d'oeuvres. That's really the goal. So they're going to hit the power station.

And the way Staley's sort of lays it out, so it will, this isn't going to turn off the droids, but slowly it will cause them to be unable to recharge, and eventually the droid army will just run out of juice, basically. I guess, yeah, which was an interesting element. I was like, at first I was like, yeah, people love it when they get their power knocked out. This is going to win hearts and minds, but they're like, oh, I guess the droids have to plug in and recharge. That makes sense.

We just don't ever see it happening, so, like, it didn't come to mind. But they only have, like, a 10-hour battery life? Like, that seems it efficient. I guess, yeah. Yeah, I feel like they could have come up with something, like a backup of some sort. I don't know. Maybe what if they were on a plug? What if they were on a planet with no outlets?

Right. What happens? Well, you're using the ship battery. Your ship battery. What if ship battery dies? Well, then everybody's fucked. Then your stuff on planet. Then you do what the separatists do and immediately send it more joints.

Like, we're like, I'm going to show you some batteries. It does imply a lot here about, like, wait, the droid army then would have some huge drawbacks, right? Like, you just got to always be dropping, like, huge things to jenny's, and, like, the droids have to rotate back to their big power strip to, like, plug back in. Maybe it's really quick. Maybe they supercharged quick, but you still got it to plug it in. You know what I? You need the power on. They have, like, USB, like, F. They're, like, way past USBC.

And I was before, because it's a long time ago. You get what I'm saying. And it's just supercharge as quick, but you still need the power. Got, I'm just imagining it. It would be so funny if you made like a tactics game or something where a balance thing is your droid armies slowly lose charge and also rechargeability, the longer they are out. So like you're better in droid now only holds charge for like a third of the turns that like the fresh blood does. The thing it actually makes me think about is like it inverts the way I think. about these units because if droids need to be recharged often, and that's like a drawback,

then they're actually probably really good at, better at defense than at assaults, right? Because in defense, you'll always be around power resupply, right? But that's not how we think about droids. We think about droids as, and they show droids as dropping from the sky to go fuck shit up, they're assaulting things, they're attacking all the time, versus, like, you know, dug in the rookies right where like the clones are trying to hold a place or whatever it feels like it's flipped from what this suggests to me so i don't know it's uh either way the the other part that they get at here is that they need to get intel and the intel lives in the droid's heads

so so it goes and just bodily rips a head off a droid and they crack it open and they get the they get the schematics and they figure out basically an IED lead like attack. Yeah. This literally is an excom mission. You have to use the skull jack to get the droid brain

and then analyze it back at base to find out where the next story mission is. We've done this, Rob. Yeah. And it unfolds like a really smooth tactics mission. I don't have a lot to say here except that they blow up a convertible. They use They use the sweetest ride on the planet to blow up a bunch of a bunch of droids. That lures out the tank that they need to breach the walls to the power station. You know, we steal.

It's like a GTA thing happening, right? Because they're like, oh, we have to get a five-star wanted level so we can get the tank so we can do this mission. Yeah. So let's blow up a car. It'll get the cops on us. Then we'll deal with the level three, which are the Dredecus. or whatever, the super droids that show up, and then we'll get the tank. Also, they use cheat codes, so it's more fun.

I will say, Allie, I know you were defending the droids before, and they were called dumb. I agree with you. However, if I were a platoon of droids and I just saw a random car parched sideways in the middle of the street, in the middle of a terrorist attacks, in the middle of terrorism season, I would not have just been like, We'll just like walk past it, around it a little bit. I would have taken a different road. Or I would have sent one dude up to be like, hey, is there anything in there? Because it's not, to be clear, that car does not have like a bomb stuck underneath it.

The back seat is filled with TNT, like cartoon dynamite sticks. Yeah. I feel like you could just peek in the window briefly. Do you not have like a droid to fly up and be like, oh, shit? they have fucking probe droids yeah just send a probe droid real quick

oh sure damn well they walk forward a lot you know what do you do also I can't stop being annoyed by the fact that the heavy droids the big like just the ones that are all

like look like medieval knights now they have a weak spot where you just shoot the big like red bullseye on there where a breastbone would be where people think the heart is that you can just do that now and they just drop dead that just continues to

like it is the way the characters get nerfed over time where it's like these things are now just basically like a different flavor of like useless droid and like it is cool like you know Steela can

ace an entire squad like in seconds but also it's like these things don't don't pose a problem Originally, like, yeah, they were supposed to be kind of a thing that the clones and the Jedi would have to figure out. Now it's like, fuck it. Not season five. Time to level up.

The, um, I do say, I do want to say saw has a sick maneuver here where he does like a running slide and drops a grenade underneath a bunch of their legs. That's very fun. Uh, stalin is the same thing to save. Uh, isn't that her? Yeah. Uh, she, she does the. Oh, that's a separate, that's the Doredeca one. Yeah.

Yes. That one's very cool also. Like, that is. Like, that's being shown on NFL films for, like, 30 years. You know, the, uh, the reach or something. Yes. You know, everyone remembers where they were when the reach happened. Uh, as she like hurls herself across the goal line, flips over midair, uh, puts a grenade under a Droidaca to, uh, to, to save Lux.

Um, Lux and Saw are still at odds a bit. Uh, also, Saw is a bit of, uh, a vain asshole he's like I'll drive the tank and we get a bit of hang on sweetie like this needs a woman's touch stela's one to figure out how the tank works hot wires it

and then they go and they blow up the power station oh man speaking of droids being nerfed also some of the commando droids come boiling out of the power station to defend it and suddenly Lux is just like absolutely dropping these things

like he and stela win hand-to-hand combat against the droids whose whole deal is to be like Jedi good at hand-to-hand combat it's yeah it's a you know they're they're really pushing this rebellion they really want us to know these are not this is not a fly-by-night operation they're here for real you know yeah if I get it I do uh but yeah and the minute the the the power is knocked out immediately all the people are so thrilled they're like Like, yay, long live the rebels. Clone Wars does not do good with crowdwork. Like, every time Clone Wars is trying to get a notion of, like,

the way a populated space sounds or, like, a city sounds, they can't do it. They're completely lost. It does not. There's some other good sound work here, and one of the two videos I've brought today is about sound work, but it's not. We're going to watch that later. We're towards the end of the fourth episode, because it's about some vehicles in that one, partially.

I do like their night vision goggles. They go Sam Fisher mode and use the dark to just, like, knock out a bunch of droids, I guess. Yeah. Yeah, it is Sam, they've got the three-eyed night vision goggles. Yeah. Which is weird because they don't have, why do they, why is it like that? What's the pitch on the Sam Fisher three-eyed goggles? Why is it that way?

Oh, like, why the night vision goggles have more, like so many eyes? All night vision goggles have three. Tons of them have, like, eight eyes. I believe because a lot of them are, like, they are gathering a ton of, like, light and info, and then they're projecting it on the interior displays. So I think it is partly that you can get more... That makes sense. You can get more visual data with, like, multiple lenses.

I see. Yeah. Yeah, wow, I'm looking at ones with, like, four lenses that look at all directions. This is wild. Okay, sure. I don't go here, so... Yeah. Also, it does, it does bother me.

The first time we see them busted out is Asoka putting them on to stare at the burning power station. It's like literally the thing not to do. She's the ones to blow these babies out. So it all goes smoothly. The people now see that the rebels are awesome. The rebels have another council of war back there, their sweet hideout. Rex says what everyone is thinking, which is that Stela is absolutely hand. Hands down, the best leader in this group.

Soka is jealous of Stala again, and Anakin is once again doing the homie check-in, but only the homie check-in about like, hey, so you're kind of hung up on this rando, huh? I was once the rando that someone way out of my league was hung up on, but it was all worked out. She said she was ready to die, and then we got married. I wish he'd come clean. Me too. I mean, maybe this is the setup, right? Like, maybe this is like the little crumby, crumb-crum that we get before we get something real. Maybe.

I don't know. Anagan spins the chair around, sits down backwards. Like, so I'm married. If that happens, I wouldn't put it past the show to do some shit. This thing is, like, they could do it. Right? It's possible that they could do it. Yeah.

And she just keeps the secret. I don't know. Maybe, I don't know, we got, what, two, three seasons left? Two seasons left. I guess most of this one, too. Yeah. Tons. Two and a half.

Plenty of time. It's possible. Well, those next two seasons are short, remember. Yeah. Yeah, they're only like 12 episodes or something. And one of them's probably about, so Anakin's Darth Vader now. So we'll see how it all lands. Season 6

Anakin reveals I'm a happily married man Season 7 My name is Darth Vader now I am the Joker So somebody

Like some rando who becomes Later the token Emotional sacrifice Is like Hey we should vote on a leader, I'm voting for

Steela. Anyone with me? And everyone's like yeah. Well, first, okay, first, for some reason both or all saw Lux and Steel are like, this is what I think we should do next. Like, unprompted. Just for some reason. They're just like, I'm going to make a speech about why I should be the fucking president of the Rebel Alliance.

And Saul is like, we should fight harder. We should do more violence. And then Lex is like, we should use our words and do more politicking. And then Steele is like, we should do both. And then someone's like, let's vote for Stela. Like, I'm with her. And. Don't do Steela like that.

I'm glad we're spared. what actually happens in revolutionary politics where stela has to have saw killed at a certain point where she's like rejoining the republic and he's like, what? No, I was fighting for a free honor and bam.

Sorry, we can't. Well, and actually, Anakin eludes to this. Anakin gives a really interesting speech to set up the election. He says, now you must rally the people. You will need their support. Your ability to influence them will determine your capacity to represent them. Not only

on the battlefield, but off of it, against your enemies and even within your own ranks. And like, it is maybe one of those trenchant things Anakin has said in this entire series about like, yeah, actually you're going, like, the ability to be like, have credible popular support is useful not just to win these things, but also to shut down rivals who might crop up in a revolutionary movement. And it's true. They're spare of the ugly. of what's going to ensue because, yeah, the rando who's going to be sacrificed later, sort of boozily stands up and is like, hey, am I the only one feeling staler right now? Everyone's like, yeah, we are.

Again, this is why it's so good to choose a good safe house because the vibes, that's how you get a leader by information. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And that's what they do the weird, like, what's going on with Saw and Steela, or at least Assoca is completely whiffed on the undercurrents there. Because he storms out. He's like, well, I guess nobody wants to, nobody supports my unhinged terrorism plan. And storms out into the night.

And Lux is like, eh, fuck him. And Stela says, no, I have to go after him. Soca's response is just, why? It's so mean. And she's like, because he's my brother. And like, it feels like a reveal. Like, it feels really hard. Like, Lux is jealous that Stila's, like, going after Saul.

Like, it feels like this, like, love fucking square thing where Asoka's pining after Lux and Lux's pining after Stila and Stila's finding after Saw. It's like a whole thing. And she's like, he's my brother. I was like, the fuck is going on, right? And then the next episode, Stela Guerrera is the leader of the rebels now, whatever. I'm just like, oh, my God. But it's just such a weird thing.

Why make it a secret? Like, who gives- I don't think it, I feel like I knew it was that they were siblings right away. Same. But it does feel like this was a reveal to- But the show is trying to, yes, the show is trying to, like, be like, it they you can't deny that it it feels like a reveal moment like I think that I just think that they're trying to hit that like he's my brother like I have to I have to make a hard decision I have to

go help him even though he's being an asshole we're close we're you know I feel that family family first that's the way I read it but then why have Asoka be like what she says it like she it's not Assoca's finest moment like I think we know I think the weird vibe around this or Asoka badly misread a situation and then we're all like why does the show think this was going on and the show doesn't but Asoka did it's like wow

Saw it's really moving in on Lux's girl but hey more for me and like it's just all it's all bad yeah it does end with like a weird close up on Asoka like really trying to piece together what just happened so maybe you're right maybe this is just like a

Luke and Leia reference like let's make this rhyme It's like when Han was like, I won't get in your way. I will, I'll let you and Luke be together. And so, yeah, it's like, you know, this happens in rebel movements where sometimes somebody is like, I will let you and your brother get married. And it's like, no, wait. Set them straight. But that's my brother.

Oh, my God. I feel like you're probably right and that makes this so much worse for me. I'm like 10 times more mad that this happens. thank God this episode this arc is made and it's a children's cartoon coming out when it does because prestige TV in like five years the tension would be that Stalin saw our thing once game with Thrones heads it's it's over true true true uh so we cut back so things have changed on the rebel side and we we check in on rash and things are also changing over there rash is like well I wouldn't be getting my ass kicked you sent me a better army I wouldn't take that

attack with ducu but there he goes and ducu is like fine I'll send you better troops and I'll send you this awesome tactical droid Kalani and yeah that droid's bad news that that droid

that droid's got like an eagle head and like fucked up markings and the name yeah yeah right yeah not a number not a number so you got to know interesting

If Duku is going to send you a droid with a name and a cape and all that, you're done. You've already fucked up. You just got on the-you-you-you-you-ha. You've got to get on the transport now and be like, I'm going to be the legitimate king in exile. Yep, yep. Bye-bye, Bozo. Let me know when this campaign is over. I'll do whatever you want.

I just, you know what? All done. Yeah. He's out. But he doesn't. He does not really cede to Kailani at all. Um, and continues to go up against, they go up against each other throughout the next two episodes. Um, I have to say, vibe, vibe check on the, on the Twilic child.

Poor. Oh, this initial attack? Yes. Poor. Poor. Terrible vibes from the Twilight Child. Like, uncanny valley. Yeah. Territory. I felt like what, they were just, the.

most unsettling character I've ever seen in Star Wars. It's the teeth? The teeth were well executed. Yeah. Yeah, I didn't like it. It's like, why's that baby got dentures? We'll probably like just have different teeth.

You know, it's a different situation. We'll fly like. Sure. Sure, sure, sure, sure. Yeah, it's also, it's just not great that like the only, like, how do we illustrate that the rebels are also

scaring people a little bit well we'll just bring in the Twilac because they are they are our shorthand for like pathetic like hapless occupied people even though this isn't their planet right like we've only seen them

like in we've seen them in two modes refugee mode because their planet's been taken over or like rebel mode where they're like fighting to reclaim their planet but the show has gotten this habit of like twilex more than any anyone else are like the subaltern in Clone Wars.

I actually wonder if, truly, if they don't have other children models of this age. And they're like, pull out the Twilac. What about the younglings? Baby Mando's. Yeah, they had all those kids. They're too young. They're too young. Sorry, they're too old.

Those are teenagers. This is a little baby who's being held by a hand who still has all her baby twilight teeth. We don't have, this is like a, this is like a four-year-old or a three-year-old. We've seen a lot of those in Twylex. We've not seen a lot of like humans at that age. That is a good point. But I think it, I mean...

It should have made a new one, but I suspect this is like, well, we have those twilight bodies. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. In the back, it's a pull them out. I do love that they, so yet again, they have another huge attack where they blow up a shitload of droids, one of the big, heavy droids. There's an explosion that is, like, the biggest grenade explosion I think we've ever seen in Clone Wars. There's probably, like, there's basically, like, a column of, like, 20 droids, and Steyl throws one grenade, and it wipes them out.

We've never seen anyone use a grenade this well. Like, perfect. She should be, they need to recruit her. She should be a general. They got to get her out of here. They need a metaclion test, because this is, like, Anakin blowing up the, like, command ship. by accident, like. Yeah.

But then, like, so it freaks people out, but all that is required is an inspiring speech. Stela's like, people of Anderon. She starts. And then the little projectors they've put all around this marketplace pop up. And they're, like, projecting battle mech-sized pictures of Stela as she delivers the speech. And that brings us. as that's unfolding, we go back

to Rasha's little council of war, and Kalani, Kalani's here to kill. Kalani's like, this is not a problem. We're going to wipe out everybody. And so, the more they come at us,

the more we're going to kill them. And this introduces a complication, which is that Anderan had a military. Before this, we meet General Tandon. Is that the guy's name? Yeah, Tandon, yeah. Tandon.

And there's tension between him and Kalani, because Kalani has argued that all of this feels like there's inside help, that Tandon and his Anderan forces are not reliable, and it permitted things to get this far. It offends Tandon. All of this convinces, though, rash that this is really all Dendom's doing. and he brings him out once again to this time tell him I don't care if you're in isolation I know it's you and that's why we're going to kill you

and we're going to publicly execute you and that word immediately goes to the rebels who are all kind of stunned by this announcement and need to figure out what to do saw doesn't need to figure out what to do rescue mission time

that's rescue mission time what are we doing just to make a rescue mission. But it seems like nobody else is in agreement with that. Everyone's like, well, he had a good run. But we got shit to do over here. I don't think it's like he didn't have a good run. He didn't do shit. But the king especially didn't do shit.

He literally didn't do shit. He was just fucking locked up. And then the rebels are like, well, fuck. Damn, sad to see him go. But, you know. And even Asoka's like, yeah, I got to agree with the homies on this one. And she's right?

I don't know. Is she, though? I mean, I've seen people. You have to take me into the house of someone from Anderan that has the picture up. You know what I mean? Of the old king. You know what I mean?

Like, that's what I needed to know because like, oh, do people care about the old king? Because I didn't see that they did until the end. Yeah, definitely not. That's the thing that really feels missing from this arc is that like I wish we had more contacts of like how the first power flip happened and like how this evil fruit guy

got into power and like if people if that's why like people are afraid to fight back or like if that created such like insecurity for people in the streets that they're not supporting the rebels and also in Steela's defense like she's not even like

we're not going to save him she's like let's go save him when they take him out of the palace instead of like going behind castle walls. We would get into the palace. We would get into the palace and kill the fucking evil king. Also later they showed they're not ready to kill an evil king because they're cowards or whatever.

But still, they would do it. If they could get in there safely, they would have done it by now. Yeah. Star Wars has a royalty problem. Like if Star Wars were a person, it is clearing out the magazine racks at every grocery store. Every time there's a Queen Elizabeth, her reign in pictures. And it's just like, hell yes.

Give me that. I love it. Oh, we're memorializing Prince Philip and just like throwing that shit in the bottom of the shopping cart. You got royalty in Star Wars. Star Wars wants to like restore them to power. Yeah, it's true. It's so wild because I, I mean, the context given is basically, like, Saw meets up with

him and it's like, we are. saving you and we are doing this rebel shit and we're gonna take back on around and you're the true king and he's like bro like i chose not to do anything um i was given a choice join the republic or join the separatist and i said neither and then i got usurped and a separatist became in charge and now we're with the separatist like that's what happened he really doesn't he's not like giving fighting words like you know what on or on's my fucking planet he calls him a medler he says you're one of the ones creating disorder yeah he's like stop it i'm like you're such a shitty king what the fuck the thing is like his so that whole exchange is interesting because yeah it's like first

saw gets in there really easily by the way that just is disconcerting yeah he's batman grappling hooks up there and that's it maybe he was right uh this wasn't bad there's it's a trap It's a trap. Sort of. I don't know, but imagine like 20 people up there with grappling hooks and guns. Yeah, exactly. But Dendup, yeah, is like, oh, I never wanted this whole insurgency. But yeah, his speech is, this was all my doing.

I opened the door. That's why the separatists are here. I was faced with a difficult choice to join the Republic or the Confederacy. Both are corrupt, but I had to pick aside before one was chosen for me, except I chose neither. And then what brings him around, this is. This part I do find interesting. Saw tells him that the Jedi are helping us, that the Jedi are back in this insurgency.

And Dendup is like, yes, I have waited for this. And so like, why is he so geeked on that, though, if he literally did it, he chose not to join the Republic. You could have just joined the Republic and the Jedi would. But what if he doesn't want to join the Republic, but does he want to join the Republic?

The Jedi military dictatorship. Yes. Like, if, like, I think there's a little part of him that here's this and, like, direct role from the Jedi Council, this I can get behind. I think he, okay, well, do you want to hear what Dave Filoni thinks? Yeah. Yeah. This is a very, this is a very, this is a very, it's a five-minute video. Okay.

It's not very goofy, but I think it's very insightful. for this episode and broader. I've never heard Faloni speak as directly about some of the things he speaks about here. This video used to be on Star Wars.com. It is not anymore. This video has 34 views.

It's on YouTube. It was put on YouTube by someone who also added Spanish subtitles to it. It's called Secrets of the Clone War Season 5 front runners. It is, I think, a video recording

of the video. So the sound quality is not great. It took me forever to find it. I was like, there has to be flowing talking about these episodes somewhere. And this is the only this is it. I cannot find this video anywhere else. Now, is it on the DVD features? Maybe. I don't have

the DVD features. I can't just go look at, you know, maybe that exists there somewhere, but it's not ripped anywhere else as far as I can tell. So I'm going to link this now. What did he say? It's not a story in Star Wars.com would like to tell.

I would like you just would like to tell it's not it's literally not and it used to again it used to be on starwors.com so okay are we ready yeah yeah right camera de los holochronis that's right love it you know it's for the people all right ready three two one go hey star wars fans my name's david collins and you're at star wars I'm with Supervising Director of the Clone Wars, Dave Filoni. We just took a look at the third episode of Season 5, The Front Runners. Dave, how are you doing? I'm really good, really good.

Good. Well, let's talk about And Dron. Let's talk about that planet and what the people are going through and sort of the what seems to be the beginning of a rebellion. Yeah, basically, when we were doing Anderan and George brought in the ideas of these rebels, the whole thing started with wanting to say that the Clone Army, the Army of the Republic, these, you know, troopers coming in everywhere, all looking at the same, very menacing. Even when they're trying to do good as the Jedi and the clones,

that some of the planets felt it was too aggressive, that it was too dangerous, that it was imperialism. You know, some planets felt that way. So he said the word. Lux von Terry, who's a friend of Socutano, obviously, it was his idea to say to the rebels, well, I know a Jedi, I think we need their help. This begins an idea where Anikin says, we can train these insurgent groups.

We can train up the local freedom fighters to fight for the Republic to get what we want out of this and we'll back them. Ultimately, this is now a group of rebels. If it's successful, they will do this on O'Dron. They'll do this on a bunch of planets throughout the galaxy. And when everything falls apart and the empire takes over, you still have these little structures out there of these militias that were created by the Jedi

and they say, whoa, whoa, whoa, what is this? I think so. These clones now, this is exactly what we were worried about because they were so militant. This is imperialism. This is an empire now. So they're not in favor of this. So you see that before the empire takes over,

we already had these little groups out there. And what they do is they need a way to come. come together and that's really where your bail organas and your mon mothmas come in they're the way that you can galvanize these rebels and you get a rebel alliance you look at the symbol of the androonian rebels they have like a piece else a rebel alliance logo as part of their logo their outfits are very inspired by early ralph mccory drawings i think some of the indoor troopers that we saw in return the Jedi we use. So there are just little ways that we start to say not only is this getting closer to the Sith, it's actually getting closer to, you know, the Star Wars of the 70s and

the 80s, the Civil War that's going to come and we're setting all these things up. This is also a civil war. We're doing it politically, we're doing strategically through the military, we're doing it through the emotions of the characters. And season five really catapults us, you know, pretty far in that direction. Where are the Jedi at in terms of the ideal of the Jedi order versus being put in the role of generals, which is, of course, a natural role for the Jedi to be in? How much of that has really corrupted the order? Is that just sort of a natural byproduct of having to lead this massive army? It's both. It's both. It's both. It's both. It's a natural byproduct, which is exactly what city is once. It's, uh, you know, they are, it splits their focus. It splits their focus. It compromises

their morals. They should not be fighting this war. They should not be. Because it makes them not peacekeepers. It makes them soldiers. And I'm not saying that that's a bad thing. And we make that clear in the episode. I mean, we've shown with the clones that they are truly brave soldiers doing great deeds and heroic deeds. But that doesn't mean that that's the role for everyone. And it's not, that's not the role for the Jedi. The Jedi were supposed to be the negotiators, the peacekeepers, the one that, you know, the ones that bring balance to arguments that make you put your weapons down, not ignite your weapons and rise up and fight.

Like a lightsaber. You know, they've compromised themselves. That was going to be a job for the clones. But once you understand that, you see how easy it was for them to let go of control of that military establishment for guys like Tarkin, guys like Yilarin, who came in at the front of it and said, okay, so you don't want to be the generals, will be the generals, will establish a hierarchy for the clones, we'll establish a military, a grand army of the republic. You can lead them and we'll follow your strategies for now.

But since you are peacekeepers, ultimately we'll take this over. So Tarkin, you know, we brought him in the series to know that ultimately this is his big move to really gain control for what he hopes is the coming empire. Well, it's fascinating. It's really interesting to watch and certainly it's been a great ride so far. We can't wait to see more out of season five of the Clone Wars and see where this goes. Thanks, nice.

Yeah, thanks so much, Dave. We've been with Dave Filoni, the supervisor director of Star Wars, the Clone Wars. Stay tuned here to Star Wars.com for more episodes and more behind the scenes. Nope. We'll see you next. You're going to erase this. Nope. You are.

You don't do a race, Dave Polone is saying that the Jedi have been corrupted. I'm like, how are we in season five and we're just now getting some real fucking, talking real shit from Dave Filoni? Real answers. Real answers. I do think the thing of him being like the Jedi didn't want to be generals, and that is part of how Yalarin and Tarkin and others slip in and become like kind of load-bearing support for what the military ends up being. It's really interesting when it comes to.

And we still have to get to what Order 66 looks like. But why doesn't the whole military fall apart when Order 66 happens? Because there are these other human generals ready to take up command. Right. Right. Right, right. Which is interesting. Yeah, I've never thought about how did they get there.

Yeah. But it makes total sense that in the absence of the Jedi and, yeah, I guess, yeah, I mean, you, it's fascinating that a clone doesn't, you know, there's no clone that assumes a higher position. No one gets promoted out of, out of the Jedi is getting murked. Like, it's. But that we've seen yet anyway. I can imagine we'll get a story like that, maybe? I wonder. I don't know.

I don't know what Badbatch is like about about. So. Yeah. But I do think it's interesting him talking about the, it's very funny to hear Dave Filotti say the word imperialism. To say that like, gesture at the fact that this king looks at the Republican says, seem kind of imperialistic to me. It's fascinating. It's so wild. It's like.

I mean, for over a year now, we've been like, do they know what they are, like, do we, do they know? Do they know what they're saying in this episode, in that episode? Like, do they know that this is what is coming across? And like, maybe they do, question mark? Like, I mean, this is pretty, pretty, you know, solid evidence that Filoni is thinking about these kinds of things. and it really begs the question of what the combination of like this material and it getting deleted like scrubbed off the internet is so fucking wild to me because I'm just like was that just something that was never supposed to be said but it's in there but it couldn't be I think it

probably just got purged but because there's also another another another thing that got there's another thing from the same arc that's missing that is literally just like behind the scenes like talking about Asoka at Asoka's position. Rob, you were like on the precipice of... Well, just, I think something interesting here is that

well, George is in the background also pushing the church and hard. Like, Faloni is alluding to the fact that this arc, he does know what the arc means and like where it's going, but also it's being pushed by George who's trying to establish a continuity

of events and a series of like this is very once you sort of know this like of course this is how Lucas likes to have these things sort of like nesting layers of irony in these things where it's like oh yeah the Jedi actually like plant the seas the turn into the rebellion

that Anakin is fighting as Vader but yeah that like this is not necessarily Faloni's arc or what he would have done with this but it is it is Lucas in the background being like no, so the fact that

the clone army is fighting on all these fronts of the behest of the Jedi is alarming the people and should be seen as an alarming movement. Mm-hmm. Two other things I'll note there, they call the third episode of the fifth season,

which isn't a thing because they're run order. That's why they pulled it. It changed. Oh. Because it isn't, oh, wait, no, sorry. Is this the third or is this the fourth? This is the fourth. Because the first, because it leads off.

This is the third episode of the Ark. You're right. The first episode is the Saw, uh, the Star, uh, the Darth, uh, the Brothers. Yeah. Uh, yeah. Also, why would you not want to start the season with this arc though? I know, bro. This arc is a movie.

I know. Do this one. It's good. Like, I have some, like, I don't know that it's like perfectly paste. And I think it looks kind of bad in certain places. But like, I think it's a solid. Yeah. We haven't like weighed in or what if we like it or not.

And I, you have some, again, I have some issues with it. But I'm both, basically, I'm like, Yeah, hell yeah. Like, we're seeing the foundations of the rebels. We're seeing, you know, Anakin going to CIA mode multiple times. He's about to do it again in the next episode. We get like, I don't like Lux Monterey. Like, I don't.

And this is his final arc. This is it. We're done with Lux Monterey. Oh, wow. The only other time Lux comes up is in the novelization, I think, of Battlefront 2, the video game as like a grandpa. That didn't have a plot. A great grandpa?

Oh yeah, it did. The second Battlefront, the second Battlefront, yeah, sorry, the second Battlefront, too, Rob. Yes, the Eden Verso that, that, that, from a few years ago. But he's done after this. But this arc is the arc we kind of wanted him to have last time. And we were like, show us Lux, go through some shit. Show us, Lux, grow as a person and, like, make some decisions and, like, try to do something. I still think he comes out like a herb, but, like, that's a character arc.

You know, he goes through something. era. So I don't understand why they don't open with this arc. I guess because people were hot off that mall, Savage stuff, but like to break that arc up and put that first episode of a later arc, which you're going to get to in weeks and weeks now, it's just like, yeah, I don't know. This might be the most I felt like that. You know how I am in terms of production order versus, you know, release order versus people wanting to watch in terms of chronology. I don't mind watching stuff out of chronological order. But this feels like a miss to me because this is such a cohesive.

There's a unity of effect here that's like, if we just rolled into season five like this, it would be great. Yeah. Agreed. I also do think, like, again, the fact that the king here is identifying that, like, hey, the Republic has nothing to recommend it. That, like, these are two corrupt forces in the galaxy that you're sort of being pressed to choose between.

is, is a, I kind of wish I'd, I kind of wish Asoka had heard of a version of that sentiment, though I think she's going to get, she's going to see it firsthand. She's going to get a taste of that corruption as this, as this arc unfolds. But, yeah, Saw goes to bat grappling hook out of the house arrest the king is under and the laser fencing is up and they can't make their escape. And so we see him, The word gets back to the rebels that he's been captured and he'll be sort of added to the execution lists. And then we see Kalani, well, just kind of torturing the shit out of a saw. And again, here's something else that kind of surprise me. Tendon speaks to Kalani like a person. Yeah. Like the militia leader, they have a conversation between two professionals. And there is no weird, like, he uses a word calculate, but it's, I think it, like, it goes here because he's trying to get at.

Kalani sees things as these like cold mathematical, like butcher's bills that we're going to pay. And he interrupts the interrogation and says, you can control the people of Anderon, but you won't sustain it against their will. What you are doing guarantees more will take his place. And Kalani basically replies once again with, yeah, and we'll kill them too. And Tannin's just sort of like sighs and says, you have strong tactics, but it is unfortunate you cannot calculate a different approach and leaves it there. But it's like also. Rob, this is my shit. You know this is my romance in the three kingdoms, is my legend of galactic hero shit.

I love it when two generals, two tacticians are like on the same side clearly disrespect each other and like are having it out in polite terms. It's so different from the interactions most people have with droids. Yeah, totally. I guess because Kalani is sort of given a name and the proper, like he occupies a position as a character in this, but Tan engages with him on that level.

And then he has sort of a moral debate with Saw in the interrogation room where they both kind of accuse each other of being traitors, but all Saw's shots. land, and none of Tandon's do. And so it sort of ends with Tandon protesting that, no, he remains free and an independent actor as he beats his head against the table next to his martini glass. Yeah.

I do think this was like one of the higher beats for me in this arc, because the worst thing that it could have done is not given Saw the development to have the win here and instead have the audience be like, well, I wish Lux was there with the right words. whatever like being able to have sob make this argument and like succeed in making this argument was like okay good yeah you did not fuck this up you could have really fumbled this and it makes sense because i don't think lux would impress this dude right like it makes sense for both of these characters that you know uh it is not just that uh this is a person from on duran who's making a claim about like the people needing to be free it's someone who has been out there getting his hands dirty doing the work of getting it done which is part of what appeals to like this version of the old soldier right like he can there's a real you can see that tandon sees himself and saw a little bit you know it's like one of those things happening um and he gets under his skin in the right way you know and that's that's good to me that's the stuff yeah i think um well locks would have been he would it would be poorly written

regardless because that's what they do with locks but uh The world is simple for Saw in a way that it's simple for this general. And sort of the direct, like, imperative of here's the situation. Of course, this is how you have to act. I think cuts through a lot of what's the fog that the tannin has been in. The execution sequence is pretty wild because they basically repeat it twice is kind of how it feels. Like, we have the lead up to the first execution, and then we're going to have a lead up to a second execution. execution.

Real quick, I just want to hit this lines. I have to double-check the exact thing. At the end of that exchange, the line that really, like, wins the case is, it's not when he says, I'm not a terrorist, I'm a patriot, and resistance is not terrorism. That bit, okay, like, I get it. We've seen the rest of the show. King Dendup chose his people instead of taking his side in the intergalactic war. Separatists have taken over Anderan because we let them.

And the reframing of what Dendip did as being about protecting his people instead of being about being a coward and being afraid to choose. And instead saying, we, it was then on us to step up and keep the separatists out and we didn't do it. And now we have to. It is like such an effective way to position how Saul sees the world to this general. I think that was like, they did it. They did the damn thing. They could have really fucked up Saul here. And they didn't.

So I'm very relieved with that. I dig their little laser guillotine Yeah, that shit's cool I'm sad it wasn't actually a guillotine though It was just like a Holding the Well So it's like you know

We should describe it Because for people who haven't seen it It is Imagine there's like a frame or like two You ever seen a liar Sure Yeah Like the instrument

and there are red laser beams that are going left to right from one of the kind of posts to the other post and it isn't that they cut things there's just energy there all the time and they demonstrate this by like hovering another piece of fruit in the middle of it they toss a piece of fruit into it it hovers in the guillotine

then they charge it with electro-sticks and when the charge hits it like activates the laser to become cutting lasers instead of just light lasers and it cuts the thing. So it's a weird, it's not like, when I say laser guillotine, you might think a guillotine, but instead of a blade, there's a laser beam. And it's not quite that. Right. But the theatrics are there.

They are. A hundred percent. Yes. Yes. I will say, the Colin Trevereaux script for the episode nine did have a real-ass laser guillotine in it, and there is concept art of it. And that one, if I remember right, is like a true-ass. laser guillotine so

y'all can just search for that it's you know I'll put it in the episode notes I'll put it in the show notes there we go so anyway the fact that the thing has to be stabbed with the two electrospeers is also very funny I love it yeah to work and then

speaking of like a bit of theatrics it's very important the rebels not attack to the last possible second yep at which point Lux fulfills his destiny of being on the cheer squir That's the base of the pyramid. He does it.

Yes. It 100% is a cheer squad maneuver. They pop stela up on their shoulders so that she can get the shot. But they do it in smooth choreography. You could set this to any pop song you want, and they won't hit the beat. Let's get ready to double. Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

Uh-huh. It would be great. Anyway, she does hit the shot. Uh, yeah, and the, the attack, uh, the attack goes well. They, uh, Lux tosses smoke bombs onto the, uh, onto the stairs. They overrun the droids who were there. Uh, but as they are about to escape with the king, the heavy droids show up and they kill the lady who was like, I vote. Stela as our, she just gets nailed, uh, as she's like, let's get out of here.

And so places please, we're redo. doing the execution, but now all the rebels are here, and we're going to execute all of them. So, so Rash wins. And Asoka is staying there being like,

okay, well, no, I'm not, this is not. I can't stand by for this one, and begins to move through the crowd, but Tandon is also up there in the palace looking down. And so just before Asoka can strike, Tandon interrupts the execution

with his I guess we'll call them now like the loyalist militia and basically takes them all into custody Kalani, the king, everybody and here is where I would just I would simply maybe win the war here I would win the war here it feels like if you just do this you win the war

do the damn thing yeah also how did none of those droids shoot anyone outside of the one person they killed there's a huge crowd of people they didn't miss and hit somebody yeah i don't know yeah like they don't give a fuck king doesn't give a fuck but yes they should have just killed the king rob this is what you're saying yeah yeah and the king i agree i agree all he's got i guess i guess the idea is once the king

and kalani were killed the droids would simply kill everybody um and so what tandon does is like you guys go and i will i'll all hold rash hostage until you've made your escape. And this is where Asoka intervenes, knocks the droids over with the force, and this is enough to discombobulate everybody enough for her to get tanned into safety, and now they all head for the hills as rash is like,

God, seize them! And once again, we get that great Clone Wars crowdwork. I'm like, no, we love the rebels! And the droids, to your point, Natalie, again, this seems like a moment where the droids just start bashing people aside and opening fire to get the fleeing rebels. And instead the big droids are like, well,

damn, I'm out of ideas. All these people are mad. They're mad at us. We can't do anything about it. Yeah, this feels like a moment where Kalani would have ordered them to just start shooting. A hundred percent. Right? 100%. But, alas.

Yeah. So that leads us to, by the way, the people turning on the droids. And rash that that's revisited at the start of the next episode with yet another market attack uh this time this time it's a new propaganda message from dendup endorsing stela and the rebels as the true sons of andron little like given the stela's woman i don't know like maybe we could have found a different word than sons but sure we'll go with it appeal those traditional value

sure uh i'm can dendip and i support this message people see this message, they're so like pissed at the droids that they start hitting them with more fruit. One gets his head stuck in melon. Leave the droids alone. They're, I mean.

Are they an Ivy Party Force? Yes. But they're just doing their jobs. But they're just, they're chilling. They're just like standing around being like beep boop, pop. And you're just going to get sticky. Like what do you do? Right. You're going to get shot is really the thing. Don't want that. You know what I mean?

like yeah if that giant if you want to sign up sign up like get go fight these guys like yeah don't like be like pew with your little fruit your bogan fruit or whatever it is again like we're spared a Boston

massacre type situation by the fact that a giant dinosaur is there that's true the dinosaur helped because if the giant dinosaur hadn't been there they just like shot those people comrade dinosaur was here to help to sit on the droids yeah So, also, yeah, the propaganda message was dropped off by Asoka, and Lux, the rebels have dragon, dragons now?

Yeah, this is the-teradactyls. They had them right away, because that's, um, uh, Saul shows up on one in the first episode. That's how he makes his big arrival. He like swoops in and hops off one of the seradactyls. And it's like, I'm Saul Guerrera, and I'm cool. his voice wasn't as good as mine there I don't think the voice actor is bad I just think he got bad direction here

and probably wasn't the right casting for this dude but they fly back to the rebel hideout which is now in like these craggy cany cany and this part bugs me stale is like we can't

everyone acknowledges this war might be in its final stages actually And Stato's like, we can't fight in the Capitol. If we fight house-to-house, there's too much damage. Tons of people get killed. We need to fight outside the city. And everyone's like absolutely dend up. Asoka, everybody is like, correct.

We need to fight a stand-up battle outside the city. And I feel like they're kind of asking for what happens to happen. Like, I don't know. You've done really well in the city. You did pretty good in the city. Yeah. Like we need to have is just a big, big old dust up. The people are with you there now, too.

And there's a lot of things that droids, it's a lot of things that the droid army has, so they can't really use in that situation. You get a lot of advantage from being the people inside of these houses. They got to use all the main thoroughfares. You can shoot down at them. They gave all that up. Yep. Yeah, weird choice.

Also, of an interesting. thing about the scene is that the former king and the former general both like well Steela whatever we're doing it's your decision like don't you all have like years of experience in the military you're just going to put this all on her so if it it fucks up it was like well it was Steela's plan it felt to me like the king was making a decision there to be like all right general your time is done it's stayless time now like you work for her as like a way of I don't know what his long-term plan was there, but I did sense a little bit of, not tension, but I don't know what the general agrees with that decision necessarily.

There's an undercurrent here of the king recognizes that the rebels are going to be an important political force, and Stela is going to be basically his prime minister while he's head of state. Oh, sure. You're right. And so I think that's the move here is to legitimize the force and also give Stela like a peer position to the king but first they got to win

this battle and that's not a given especially because Kalani his dumb we probably should have expected which is unleashed giant weapon that's going to absolutely own the rebels in a field battle. What he's got is one of the hunter killers from

Terminator but now it's working for him on this planet. It's a big old like flying saucer gunship that's like made of machine guns and it is a droid it's one of these situations where it is a droid

it has a big droid face it has these kind of like it talks the guns feel like they're coming out of its cheeks which is very funny to me and it has like infinite missiles it has like missiles the way like an ace combat game plane has missiles

just doesn't just constant I mean, it's like a gunship versus a plane, you know, and it just keeps shooting. That is the thing that I have sound behind the scenes on, if people want to hear how they make the sound for that weird thing. And also, there's another little, there's a little, there's a little falloty in here, too. I'll let you know the very beginning of, just a little nibble. the very beginning of this video the video kind of like freezes for a second

and so that's not your that's not the video being broken your internet being bad that's just the way I made it made it bad for a second this isn't the whole video this isn't the whole video it's just part of the video that I thought

was the funniest it goes on for like four more minutes and they get more serious after it but let me know when you're ready right three two one go Hey guys, I'm Matthew Wood, and this is David A-Cord. We're here at Skywarker Sound working on Clone Wars.

We're working on the sound part of it. Dave A-Cord is the re-recording mixer and sound designer of the show. I'm the supervising sound editor. And we thought we'd take you through some of the sound processes we did to create the Anderon arc for Clone Wars. This arc was really fun for us because it was the first time we get to see Andron had new creatures, new enemy ships, new droid processes. That's the kind of fun episode for us.

and we get to like add new things. Is that what they mean? Is that like what you call people? So new to the Star Wars franchise introduced in this Andron arc is the droid gun ship. There's sort of a flying droid that's armed to the teeth. It's got lasers. It's got rockets.

Now when you make spaceship noises, you don't want to just make the one engine and have it sort of Doppler by every time there's a ship passes by. It has a sort of devolve as it passes by. Good sound. Yeah. So in this particular shot here, the gunship's hovering over the fortress.

It's going to fly above us and attack the cave. At the root, we have the engine. Yeah, okay. Believe it or not, that used to be a buzz saw. We've pitched it down considerably, added sort of an oscillating filter on it to sort of give that sort of choppy feel to it. I'm also going to add in a diesel engine from a truck to give it a nice little beef, giving a nice little beefy rev. And then just a hint of a scream as it goes by, a human scream.

That's a pitched up human scream. And the end result is... Just a hit, just a dash of a human scream. And that is the gunship. That's cool. Another fun thing that we do in the show is Dave and I are actually actors as well, and so we do voices for the show, typically with a lot of the droids. Uh, hey!

Roger, Roger. Oh, we forgot that. It's coming from there. Saul rips off a second head in this art. Most of the characters we do don't have mouths that are animated, so it makes it really easy for us to drop in lines. If Dave Filoni wants to change a line at the very last minute, we can change those. So sometimes we take a little liberties with those.

Yeah, drink. There's a really serious scene in the first episode here. There's a droid that I've always loved. What do we call those bunny bots? Servant droids. Servant droids. And we went ahead and did our own take on that with Dave Acord as the bunny bot. One-born twist.

Here, quick. Love y'all. Will that for y'all? We'll give you strength. The syprits have very little compassion or patience for things that stand in their way. Oh, yeah, those things, you know, you have two weeks to do the show, so sometimes we throw those in there to make it fun and exciting for us. But yeah, we show that to the day following, we like to get a laugh for him. We usually don't even tell them until he gets to the mix and he sees them.

and seize them and I'd like to surprise I think. Can you imagine you're Dave Filoni and it kicks off and it's a serious interrogation slash debate scene between Saw and the old general and then the fucking join Start singing the imperial theme George leaning over, why do they keep doing this?

Why do they think this is funny? This is my life's work, Dave. Tell them to stop it. I bet George loves it. They're putting in jokes for their guys. They're putting in jokes to their guys. You're right. Because it is easy for them.

Like, here's the real one. It's so funny. Also, I double-checked. I went back like three times. I think what they serve. He's like, here's your orange whip, which I guess is like some sort of little orange whips, you know, shake drink. That sounds good to me.

That sounds delicious. I'm saying. I forgot to mention by the. way a little trouble in paradise remember the previous episode they're planning the raid on the execution yeah still was like i'm getting bad vibes from lux which indeed she was getting them bad vibes because he he was like man i'm so into this girl she's trying to describe how we're going to rescue her brother and the king from the executioner's axe and all i can think is like how pretty she's just staring her down and she's like can you not look at me like that you

You know what? Fuck off. Just go do something else. There's probably some rebel ship. But here at the end of the meeting where she is sort of appointed leader in waiting for Anderon, she does like do the Han Solo thing, just walks over there, plants one on Lux and is like just in case. And so, boy, it seems like things are really poised to go well for Lux after all this is over. Oh, for sure.

I've never seen one raise a death flag so high. I'm just ready to go, ready to just, about to retire. You know, this is it. Yep. Yep. Yep. Lux, what are you going to do after the war? Well, what are you going to do, Steylon? Oh, I just have so many plans. But the first thing I'm going to do is I'm going to, oh, man, I've been, I just want to go have a nice burger, a pteradactyl burger in a place.

I just been dreaming of that since the war started. Yep. Oh, I just remember there's another thing at the beginning of this episode that's worth saying that I didn't realize, which is during the voiceover for this, they explicitly say that Anderan is in the inner rim, which I did not realize, which changes a little bit. It's like, it's literally the guy goes like, war in the inner rim. It's like, oh, that's, it's wild to me that they let it get taken over by separatists or even stay neutral. I'm shocked the Republic didn't just land troops there for their own protection right away. You know, quote, unquote.

for their own protection. So, uh, anyway, there's a little extra detail that I think adds some color. So as you might expect, the initial rebel attack on the, uh, separatist advance goes really smoothly. They ambush the columns in the, in the, uh, narrow canyons in the forest and, uh, to start whipping ass. And then the gunship show up and immediately it all flips and turns into an outright massacre. And, uh, like,

They have nothing you can bring them down. Saw go so far as to ride one of those teradactyls, like on top of a gunship, drop a grenade onto it. No effect. And so as the rebels are retreating in disarray and being overrun, Asoka gets on the comms and begs OB-Wan and Anakin for help. And, man, Obi-Wan is at his absolute fucking coldest here. Yeah. Obi-1 is, first of all, just completely detached and ironic about the entire thing. So let me guess, you have Duku's full attention now.

But then exactly what he says, when Asoka is begging for help, he says, even Master Window would be wary at this point. The council will not engage or involve the republic in an internal affair. I am sorry, Asoka, they will have to find a way. Do not stay there if their failure is certain. and so yeah Asoka is basically just cut loose and is told like you're going to have to watch all your friends

get massacred here sorry just make sure you don't get killed in the middle of it and also back in the council chambers Anakin is also like having fits part of it is he calls out Obi-Wan quite justly on the fact that this whole non-involvent thing is bullshit

Like, this is a fig leaf. Why are we still, why are we still, like, making decisions about this? I don't think, Obi-Wan doesn't have a good answer. He's just, like, this is what the council wants. That's what the council is. He literally says,

I don't disagree with you here. But it would defeat our purpose because, I guess the argument is, this is the point. If they can't do it, then we can't adopt the strategy. If they need a republic government ships to come in and topple the,

to do the final win, then it's not worth it. And I think that that's, like, very short-sighted. The idea that if you could get rebellions up on multiple planets to where they're able to get things to this degree, that lifts so much of the weight off of your back. Why wouldn't you want that aid in pushing the separatists out on those planets? Why like seed the planet entirely? It doesn't make much sense, which is why he ends up giving up and letting Anakin Invan Operation Cyclone, the US CIA program wherein they just

gave arms to the Mujahideen during the war with the Soviet Union in the 80s. So, you know, Anakin two for two on CAAOPS in this arc. Not looking good for my boy. Well, and he's right. This is the thing that's so fucked up, right? And this is the way that, like, this is what's good about this arc to me. It's like, Anakin represents the, a secretive monastic order inside of a vass. Galactic Hegemon.

By controlling the arms trade, by controlling the access to resources, T is in a unique position to be a sort of kingmaker and to interfere in local politics. Also, these people need help. They need to kick the shitty king out of here and get their territory back, their, you know, planet back. And T comes up with a way to do it because the... government will not do it for him. And even if they did, you don't want the Republic.

You don't want to owe the Republic that they saved your ass here. I mean, with Lex Monterea is your eventual senator, it doesn't matter that this was back-channeled. He would have joined. He's such a schmuck anyway. But you don't want to end up in the pocket of this group that you wanted to stay neutral to. So, you know, this is the complex situation that Anakin finds a solution to. And that solution just happens to be the same solution that.

that American Hedermons came up with in order to extend control. The CIA, you know, operatives came up with, you know? What were you going to say? I was going to say, Hondo. I was like, I didn't know. Oh, the answer is Hondo. I mean, the answer is Hondo because that was, again, also the answer with Operation Cyclone, right?

It was like using third party smugglers to get arms. So specifically, I'm just going to, I should say it the way, Rob, what was that video that I linked the other day? Oh, it was the biggest Easter egg in the clone wars that we all missed. Oh, my God. And it's about how this arc is basically about the, or not about, but isn't it, you know, is an adaptation of the war between the Soviet-Afghanistan war in the 80s. It's very funny that it's called an Easter egg. But that, you know, Operation Cyclone was a system by which, in order to fight.

the USSR's Heinz, the helicopter gunships that completely overwhelmed the folks there were fighting in Afghanistan, the CIA provided Stinger missile launchers, which you've mentioned already, Rob.

And like, that's just what the rest of this episode is, except they tag in Hondo to be their delivery person. What was everyone's reaction to seeing Hondo? I was like, I was on my,

standing on my couch being like, go to the boy! I have two reactions, and that was my first one. And then, unfortunately, I had a second one of deep regret. Oh, no. Well, we'll talk about the good one first, right? Which is... Yeah.

They go to Hondo. They... Hondo has his arms crossed, and he's like, all right, what's up? And he's like, oh, business. Yeah, I understand business. We can do business. What's going on? And Anakin explains the situation.

It's like, you know, Hondo's very fun and poking at him. I was like, oh, why would the Jedi need me? Little old, you can't handle this? I love that. And I'm going to have to pay him enough so he doesn't ask any questions. That part's great. You know. Also, he does say, as long as you're not paying me Republic credits.

Yes, loved that bit, too. That part, that's good Honda, too. Oh, so you don't like it when your delivery man sexually harasses you? Is that what you're getting at, Austin? I do just want to say when he gets off the plane, he brings his whole ass ship to drop off two crates. Yoss that was abandoned there. It's the abandoned yacht. Yeah, uh-huh, 100%.

And the first thing he comes off, Staley goes over to pick up their missiles. And what Hondo says out loud, like as a pickup line to her is, oh, you could be my new favorite spice. Are you kidding? I thought he said spies. No, it's spice. He says spice?

Yes, S-P-I-C-E. Spice. Oh, shit. I watch with the subtitles on Y'all knew he was corny when you were cheering for him Don't be like, oh shit, I can't believe he says that This is so of a thing Which is like, you're in college, there's a dude you don't like, right?

Yeah And then you have two weeks or a weekend Where for whatever reason he ends up in your group And it turns out like, okay He's like, bro, Bob was cool Bob was cool the whole time I didn't realize We should have been kicking it with Bob for For time

Like we should have been You know what We gotta invite Bob out again And then the next time You bring Bob in and he says some gross shit And you're like Shit God damn it Bob

That's why you can't come out with us anymore You can't come out Bob gets you kicked out of the club Yeah Bob's like Start something at the club And he gets escorted out Yes And you're like well do we have to go with Bob now

Take him home We're going to keep staying at the club? Like, turn up. I don't know. Maybe Bob. I don't know. This is the thing. He's just like, you're a weed dude. That's the thing. You, like, fucked up and hung with your dealer. Yes, that he has a purpose. Yeah.

He has, there is a use. Stay with the purpose. Focus on the purpose. Keep, keep it there. I will say, but before he, sorry, but before he shows up also when Asoka breaks the news, the no help is coming, she's also very much like, well guess the Republic says fuck you and they're not going to do shit and like this is Asoka also taking

first step to like I don't like the people I work for yeah yeah yep that part's great and she's right loved that anyway they get these missile launchers they get the missile launchers the rebel Alamo situation

turns into a we're going to blow up all these gunships they're going down right and left but then via a comical series of misfortunes. It's unbelievable. There's a mousetrap situation that unfolds

with a gunship trying to kill the king. Stila protecting the king but also shooting down the gunship, the gunship crashing. No, Saul shoots the gunship. It's important that Saul shoots the gunship

because he blames himself. Gunship goes down. Stila is knocked to the edge of a cliff Lux is like I will save you and begins to scrabble down

the fractured boulder to try and reach her she's too far down he overbalances falls Asoka now runs over catches him with the force lifts him to safety I'll handle this is a job for me guys

I'll handle this just done it five seconds earlier before Lux put his foot in it the history of Andron is very different This is the great one, if of star. History of space is all different. Yeah. Stela being out there, leading on Duran, could have changed the whole war.

Friend of the Jedi has their own military. This is, you know? This is like Michael Collins doesn't die in a meaningless ambush somewhere. That's exactly it. It's all different. Yeah. This is basically the, yeah, uh-huh, yes. So, Luxmondary is the Devalera of Star Wars.

No, he kind of is, though. Um, so Lux is carried to safety and then Asoka's like And now I've got you And she begins to haul Stela up and see Stela's relief But then the droid that crashed

The Guncha Remember they're mean people Uh In its death throws Its eyes open And it's a little transformer And it's like from hell's heart I stab at thee

And thee in this case is Lux It like sort of shoots the rock near, no, Asoka. It shoots. No, it shoots Asoka. So, like, to be fair. I thought it just blasted like near. No, it hits her in the arm. She gets shot. She gets shot in the shoulder. By it, like a gunship. I don't know how

she lived. Yeah, and I figured it was just like splashed. She was like, ooh. Yeah, she gets hit the back left. Well, she gets walloped. Her concentration breaks. And Stela's dropped you know, 200 feet to her death.

And lands right by her brother. Who is alive, unlike her. Yikes. And so that is how things wrap up with the war. And the next thing we sort of see is the victory dedication of like the memorial and the start of the new regime as Andron joins the Republic under Dendup's leadership. Lux tells Asoka that he's going to go to Corson as the,

like, Senator for the planet. I can't believe that, like, no more Lux, though. All this trouble was setting up that he would now be on Corrassan near, like, Jedi HQ, and he's gone. He's done. Yep. Very weird. But, and Asoka is, like, not, you know,

Lux is like, I believe the Republic's the right side to be on. And Asoka's like, uh, uh, look, I may have ever sold the Republic. you weren't on all the calls I was on I was on oh yeah I do think it's pretty clever and I don't often like the show being clever but to immediately cut from the

conversation with Lux of being like I'm going to join the Republic and then the wide shot of the king being like we're finally free I was like damn okay true this is being laid on thick because that is not true yeah the only thing missing, we had that similar thing happened

with the Merecats forever ago. They weren't joining the thing, but the thing that they did have was the thing of being like, well, we're finally free, and then the Republic cruisers zipped in. Oh, yeah. It's like basically this freedom. This is freedom.

But it's the same vibe. You're 100%. That's exactly what's happening here. Yeah, I mean, naturally, now there will be like a clone base there, probably, right? Yep. Totally. There has to be. Have Rex Day.

Yeah. So, I mean, it sounds like, I mean, Austin, it sounds like you're pretty overall, like, taken with the dark, though. Yeah, it's fine. It's a good, it's a good, I think it does the, I think it's, it gets us a lot of the things that we are interested in, like the birth of the rebellion and seeing Jedi push up against the limits of what the Republic's financial and, you know, resource interests are. That stuff's, that's juicy to me. Um, I don't know that the beat by beat stuff is like, especially good. I don't like the fights are like really exciting. Yeah.

If it's going to be four episodes, I wish it would have gone a little bit more into what life was like on Anderon and like what things were going on instead of like another fight in the marketplace. Um, but I don't know. I think it was a good, solid two hour, four episode arc. Consumable. I'm pro. Yeah. agreed i think if if anything it is worthwhile for the for the redacted feloni zone we got out of it because wow wow wow wow wow and also i think it just being such a close analogy to you know real

american politics and stuff like that um like them really just doing that is interesting um even if it's you know the execution is what it is but at least i don't know maybe we're in the the the realm of star wars saying shit i don't know could be we're getting to the end of of things and i don't know maybe they'll just be like bolder now that they're like towards towards the end i don't know yeah i feel like if we keep seeing arcs with With this much focus, we're going to stop having some of the claims that we've really had. Like, when I said that it feels like a movie, I really felt like that because, like, the setup is very short and sweet, but we get it. And then there's the conflict and then you meet these characters and then you understand the dynamics between the characters and those dynamics grow.

We don't have the situation of like, oh, I wish there was another conversation between these two. Or like, oh, I wish Osoka, like, didn't have the same opinion that she had in the first episode of this arc. Like, we actually see that sort of development being developed alongside the ideas of, like, the actual war and things like that. So I was like, okay, Clone Wars, keep doing this. It does feel, I think that you're right about the movie thing with it feeling cohesive, right? Like, a joke about their repeat joke of the dude eating fruit and throwing it away unfinished. But, like, that's a repeating, they're doing the callback to that joke throughout the entire thing. And that's not a thing that would have shown up in season.

one through three at the very least because you would have arcs that were thematically or like locationally connected and there might be big plot things but they did not feel cohesive as if they were one story with one with a set of arcs narrative or narrative acts we're like okay here is the bit in which you know there's rising there's a rising build here that we're moving towards something across the entire story you know we're not just they're not just stuff contained episodes that are chronological, there's actually a larger through line that feels like a single story. I think here it does.

So, I think we got, again, it's been a slow push towards this, you know, it's, I'm not saying it didn't exist at all until season four, and that season five is not much more of a leap than four, but like, I do think if you go back and think about stuff in, even in, in season three, where you're getting stuff like the, um, the, uh, the original Savage or, arc. Those Savage episodes were there's chronological events happening in order, but each one was a completely standalone story in a way that felt like you could watch it, you know, not

not sequentially, but each one really stood alone. And here it feels like way more like one big story that they wanted to present. So I don't know, I suspect that that's the mode that we're going to be in going forward. I think like I wouldn't put it I think because of some execution issues, it fall short of like the umbara level umbara level like hits thematically but also every episode is like tour to force yes uh here because they're like shoestringing it in places like the same market popping up again and again uh but like the story they tell and the themes they draw out

are pretty good one last thing that i meant to bring up a couple times because this is so much about us like foreign policy something they do well here as well is hey actually when is it right to let a rebel movement twist versus intervene because this became like this This was the issue from like, well, it perennially it's an issue ever since you have the interventionist U.S. policy. But in particular, going back to the original decision not to intervene at the end of the first Persian Gulf war to intervene against the rebels on behalf of the rebels who were fighting Hussein. But then that happens again. Notably around the time this episode is coming out, you have the decision to go into Libya and provide rebel groups there with air support to help them topple a dictator. And then that proves to not go well.

Like the piece, the new political settlement that exists there is not a settlement at all. The entire country unravels in the wake of that, that it turns out we didn't really accomplish very much though it was positive. And then that is looming large as Syria unravels. And once again, the question is, do we intervene? Do we provide the rebels we like with air support and change the balance here? At that point, the answer is no. But I think what it gets at here is that, hey, the decision to withhold support from people you might otherwise, like, sympathize with and want to support is an ugly and painful one. But if you're always being like, you know, these people seem cool, let's just go.

It really is a issue of where it is then. This is not a slippery slope argument because it's about how you judge decisions that are really hard to actually see into the heart of and like the underlying reality. and I think this gets at that pretty well which is like from the first Anakin is like let's just go into everything right away and help these rebels

before they're really ready to win this final fight but then when Asoka's here and they're getting wiped out on the verge of having liberated their planet the Jedi Council's neutrality seems morally monstrous and it's like

no we're just going to let you die because of principles but looked at from different perspectives you can sort of see how there is a consistency there that's also worth considering. I mean, we should also say that, like, and you just gesture at this by talking about how things were going in Libya around when this came out.

This is not something that was only tied to wars in the, you know, the 2000s. This is our support of Saddam Hussein in the Iran-Iraq War. This is, has nothing beyond America. Totally. But even further back, right? This is like, okay, how much are the allies supporting the French resistance in a world 2 versus supporting resistance movements other places, versus spending those resources internally or using those resources internally, how do you know that a cell isn't going

to be wiped out and you're going to provide support for them and that support's going to be wasted? Like this, you know, the Soviets had this issue across the world when they were supporting various movements, especially in like decolonial movements, right, and anti-colonial movements. The question of Group A has a lot of power and resources to give, where do they use it? How do they use it best? There's a lot of drama in that and that it has a lot of resonance even outside of the American imperial mode. I think it resonates really well here because of how well this maps to the American imperial system, right? The fact that these people clearly have been deposed in their own country and potentially, the thing that I really love about this as like a tragic ending is, again, there's some qualms in the execution of it. But they get the glimpse of a world where they leave the monarchy behind, and they don't get that world, right? Stela could have become the prime minister. The entire system was about to fall over, and we already know that that king is going to roll over

for whoever the next powerful person is who comes knocking, because that's what he did last time, and he's going to keep doing it, because he was going to do that again, but for Stela this time, and he'd be happy that it was Stela and not the separatists, right? That would have been a good ending for him. He doesn't want to fucking lead in a big way anymore. But they don't get that. Stela loses or stela dies. The republic's going to come in and own this place.

The king is still a king. There is no, like, democracy has not arrived on Anderan. The, the, whatever the revolutionary energy of this rebellion is, is not going to stay for, I mean, I don't, I don't know literally in Star Wars. But the way this stuff happens historically, this is one of those moments, right? Where, like, all that possibility of the revolutionary core is going to be re-subsumed, by the state and then just diminished. I mean, and this is why I'm excited to see the next time we see Saul, right? Because

Saul's going to come out of this, knowing how to build revolutionary movements, and I'm excited to see, I'm excited to be mad at the show for when it ends up them going like, and he's too violent. Yeah, I know. I mean, they really were starting to hammer that in already.

Like, everything, his, like, almost every single line he had to say was like, we should be going harder, we should do more, action, more violence, da-da-da-da, like, when the people see us, like, defending, you know, uh, like killing droids, they are going to like applaud us. And it's like, and then everyone's like, no, they're going to be scared. They're going to be scared. And it's just a lot. But I am very curious, um, if Saw leaves here and like, does he go to another planet to free them?

Or, like, what is his path from here on out? Obviously, it doesn't seem like Anderon will have much for him at this point with a Republic occupation and a king. Like, he, even though he was so supportive of, like, like, it's interesting just getting this first, you know, introduction to this character that we come to know in Rogue One, at least that's my only, you know, knowledge of him in Rogue One, of being, like, this, like, super, you know, anti- anti-

establishment like anarchist essentially the way they paint him or whatever but the for him to just be such a like I want the king back like he's the true king and he should be

restored to power is just an interesting place for this character to come from yeah i think um i i hope i hope they do at least do some justice to the arc because it could go it could go a lot of interesting places from here um from what we know of him and and what the state of play is uh on on on d'ron at the end of all this uh and plus like you know it's it's sort of hard to avoid thinking about like you know the sands are running out of the hourglass uh at this point

in this story. We don't have that long before Order 66, really. I know. We're like, it feels like we're getting there. Yeah, so like, I think it might, I could see this actually being really explanatory as an origin story for Saw because he's going to see this whole thing turn upside down within like, what,

a year or two of the settlement. They can press time weirdly, but like it does not seem like there's going to be a long piece in Anderon before things are completely turned. And like his fear, you know, his fear was always that at the outset, basically he took a line

that once we achieve military victory, we dictate the terms of the political peace. And here he was in part because Stalo was gone and so like he didn't have her credibility. They are going to get subsumed by this like weak monarchy.

And that weak monarchy is not built for this moment. It is certainly not built for the moment. Palpatine declares his kind of like chancellorship for life. Yeah. But we'll see where it goes from here. I've completely lost track of what the next

arc is. We've got a little bit of a tease from one, Keith Jay Carberry, who was a guest on a little special episode. This next episode, or this next arc, I believe, is all about Asoka and lightsabers and younglings

and getting crystals. It's the Khyber Crystal Arc. I don't know what's actually called the Khyber Crystal Arc, but it's does I have an arc name? It must have an arc name. Let's see. This is called the Young Jedi Ark, according to the Clone Wars Wiki.

And it's the next four episodes. The Gathering, a test of strength, bound for rescue, and a necessary bond. I was getting field trip vibes. That's also what I get. Asoka the Explorer. Yeah. Well, it's like, why are we getting a two Asoka in a row?

Right. Yeah, that is interesting. And also for Asoka to be, like, talking to younglings about the Republic after this moment. Like, I'm wondering if they're going to, like, really let the baton get past between these arcs. I hope so. I hope that just comes out more in these next few seasons. Like, less arcs. I mean, yes, arcs, but more carrying over between arcs.

like just in terms of I want to feel like there is a there is a past there is like something that's happened and now we're in a different you know place from it but

that's my my one wish they got really far with the mosaic approach in some ways to like telling the story of like filling in the gaps between but it does feel like now it's satisfying to see these character beats like set things up

and pay off but also the ultimate fate of some of these like threads now, we do need to start tying them towards Order 66 and beyond. This is going to be the season of some stuff coming. That's all I'll say. I'm excited for basically, there's, I don't know anything about this arc. I don't know anything about the next arc. I mean, I know who's in the next, I know that we're coming up on a delicious droid arc

that I don't know anything about, but I think we're getting a whole droid arc soon. Yum, yum. I don't know what's going on in that one, but I do know about what comes after that, and that's like the rest of this season and I am excited about the back half of this season. I hope the droid arc is about an uprising as J-bo.

Just they check back in the planet and like J-bo's guts are just like strung across the landing pad and like this is a droid commune now. That'd be great. I don't know what the, I truly don't know what this arc

is going to, that next arc after this one is going to be. So I'm excited. We're excited to learn about. Apparently, the next arc after this one is called D-Squod. D-Squod. That sounds like a clone arc. Yeah, we'll see. Or, yeah, I guess, droid squad.

It's droid squad. Oh, wow, droid squad. So next time, the Young Jedi, the next four episodes, so that's six through nine of this season. All right, and that is in two weeks. Next week, Patreon backers will hear our Q&A on this arc, and we'll answer some other assorted questions. If you'd like to hear that

or just want to support the show, you can do so at patreon.com slash civilized. Until next time, please, rain, review us on your podcast platform of choice. And remember, make like a Jedi and stay plausibly deniable. I don't know. We're going to be.

I don't know. We're going to be. We're going to be. We're going to be able to be. I'm going to be. I'm going to be. We're going to be able to be.