A More Civilized Age: A Star Wars Podcast - 40: The D-Squad Arc (Clone Wars 98-101)

Episode Date: August 17, 2022

Close your eyes and imagine this: A Clone Wars arc about the intricacies of droid personhood and cultural hierarchy, partially taking place in an existentialist void, and crossing paths with a story about an amnesiac Clone who's escaped the war just to find himself another harsh master. Oh, and the best explosion in the series to date. Now open your eyes and face the cold hard reality: This is one of the worst arcs we've seen yet. Hope yet lives, though. Why? Because we've made it through 100 episodes of the show. Oh, and because in the time since recording this episode, we've all watched the next arc. And wow is the group chat buzzing... NEXT TIME: Episodes 102 - 104 (""Eminence," "Shades of Reason," and "The Lawless"") You can support the show and gain access to a monthly Q&A cast by going to patreon.com/civilized Show Notes Astromech Deaths: M5-BZ Clone Deaths: Gregor (but probably not, thanks Dave) Star Wars The Clone Wars Season Five: A Sunny Day In The Void Featurette 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, a Clone Wars podcast. I'm Rob Zakney, joined by Alia Acompora, Austin Walker, and Natalie Watson. Hi. Did you all know? I wanted to do that for so long. Like, every episode, whenever you say all of our names, I want to say hi, and I never do hi to any, I never do it a single time. Hi, Natalie. I just want to say hi to you guys and to everyone out there. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hey, everybody. Hey. Hey. So,

you all know this is a show about a children's cartoon? I learned it. Mm-hmm. Because, yeah, if you didn't know now, boy, uh, four episodes. Four. Four. Because we only do big arcs now. We only do, oh, can you imagine if we had tried to cut this in the two episodes Brough I livid End of the podcast Ending the

Ending the Patreon Whatever happened to a more civilized age But they never finished that one arc They had to come back We got to see if they got Off that void planet

Yeah Real void So listen I just think we should be We should have higher standards To what we What we deem a void Like I just think

we are deteriorating the meaning of the void right I see the show takes place in space which is a big void all the time right

this planet had a city on it like it wasn't like there's a diner on that planet that was a void like it was weird like they had a blank

empty sky and a featureless desert and I was like this plant's pretty weird that never that never paid off nope I was like

there was something weird about this planet nah The thumbnail, the thumbnail for that episode of the orange sky and what, I was like, fuck, like, this is going to get surrealist. This is going to get really trippy. I was like, maybe some mortis vibes again. Like, we're just going to be playing in another realm of allegory. It's also called a sunny day in the void, which sounds like an existentialist play.

You know what I mean? 100%. Like, it sounds everything about it. Which is the premise in a way. There is a Pheloni's own style thing that's like a little too long for us to watch with Brent Friedman, the writer, who wrote, I want to say wrote this whole arc, because now they're just writers are writing arcs now. And he talks about how, like, George is, we'll explain what this episode is in a second. But he explains that this epic, this whole arc comes from George, and that George really wanted to do an existentialist play about droids together and all the other writers backed down. The way he frames it, he's like, that was.

my thing exactly, and no one else wanted it. No one else wanted to touch this arc because it felt too, like, weird and heady. And unfortunately, I mean, I think he comes across really, like, he's excited to write this arc. I think it's a hard arc to write for lots of reasons that we'll talk about. George wrote it? No, no, no, no, no, no, no. The actual writer, Brent Friedman was the only one in the room who was, like, willing to pick up the existentialist void arc. I mean, it's not even, it's only one episode in the arc, but it's the centerpiece of the, of the arc. sort of, and so that, because no one wanted to write that episode, he defaulted to writing the whole arc, so.

I see, I see, I see, I see. Wow. So just for the one episode, everyone just bounced? You know, it's an interesting one of these things to watch. I'm not going to cue up the whole thing for us, and I don't want to go, like, just take a clip because it takes too long in the middle of us podcasting. But there's like a little bit of dialogue in that, and I'll link you, I'll put it in the show notes, maybe.

Okay. People should go watch it because there's, there is interesting. discussion about, where he kind of talks about what that process is, and it becomes very clear that it's like, the writers are in the room together, George has some ideas for episodes, they start talking through it, they develop those ideas, and at some point someone steps forward and is like, I'll take this one, which if you know anything about TV production, that's not that dissimilar from any big show that has a writer's room, where there's a lot of collaboration, and then someone owns it, and then often the supervising director or

an editorial team will go through the script and like punch it up after the initial draft or whatever or make make big edits to it right or it'll change in the edit or in shooting or whatever but it was interesting to have someone actually come up and say like here is what the process is George pitches the stories we you know not all of them I'm sure Philoni comes up with some of them I'm sure some other people get to pitch their own stories but this is one of the ones that George is like I want to do a thing about droids and I want the centerpiece of it to be them wandering through a void of nothingness, talking about what's it mean to be a droid,

is programming the same thing as experience, et cetera. And I just don't, you know, that's a great pitch. It's not really what we got for lots of reasons. It's not, there are decisions made about who the primary characters were in this arc that limit just how existential that existential tragedy or existential drama could be. So, Rob, I'm guessing you have a little summary of what we got here. Well, it's, you know, the arc is really easy to summarize. Yeah.

Like, we follow, for four episodes, R2 and a little commando squad of droids being led by a little frog martinet as they attempt to steal and then deliver separatist codebooks, basically, to the Republic. The first part of that, they, it all goes very smoothly. They get the codebooks reasonably fast. but then they get it, like, stuck on this void planet, Abafar, for mysterious, like, a mysterious, like, little turn here, they get off that planet, and then they discover that their means of escape is actually a, like, effectively a fire ship, if you're familiar with that, for that notion from, like, age of sail, where you basically send a ship full of, like, explosives into a harbor and have just blast the shit out of stuff. that's what the separatists are planning on doing to a Jedi professional security conference. Like, yeah.

This is weird. Honestly, this is also war on terror, like, age shit where it's like the Jedi are now just having a military industrial complex. It's like J-com. Like, it's like it's 100% feels like the Jedi arms convention.

But it's very weird. It's very weird because it's like you're very busy with the war. Anyway. But like that is a plot point. Annikin is like, I should be killing separatists. We should be going and doing war. I don't want to be looking at poster presentations of how to kill separatists. I want to be doing it.

So, but like, the summary. Just strap a GoPro to fucking Anakin sent him out there, live stream into the fucking. But like. So yeah. It's, so that's, they meet a clone. They meet an amnesiac clone. That's a part of the story. They keep raising weird.

They don't answer satisfactorily, honestly. Also, this is like a kind of, it's on a dark set of episodes, but it's an episode, like, the word suicide gets used way more than I thought it would, and like people gesture at whether suicide is like the right choice in any given moment. Now, again, not in a thoughtful way in like a cartoon punchline way. And then, and then again, we get a really, I mean, one of the droid protagonists, does die in the final episode of the arc. And the clone, who they meet, who has amnesia, there's an arc with him that I think

is just deeply tragic and fucked up that we'll get to, I guess. It's so unbelievable. This is, this was the most, like, U.S. Army fucking ad arc. Yes, ever. Like, by the end of it, I was like. And again, there is a Filoni zone. Are we going to watch this one? I think we might watch this one.

So I'm not going to spoil it. Okay. I think we're going to, maybe that's not, we have to see if it's the one that I put the thing for. Okay, we are. We are going to do it. Filoni says some stuff about the troops, so. Wow. So.

Can't wait to hear what this motherfucker has to say. I'll be honest. So, for me, the vibes start going off immediately. Because is it the blue logo? Are you like, whoa, blue logo, this is going to be bad? No, I was like, hey, they do special things, but the, okay, it doesn't always imply great things. like the fact that like when they brought out the red logo for a minute you were like yeah this is some real and then it's like so you want to see the little jungle book snake lead our

boy astray I mean and then it'd be mean to his adopted brother versus this yeah I'm right oh believe me bring back the oppressed and yeah well that's the thing is so one that's the next arc is the savage and mall stuff that we got the first episode of the beginning of the season. Two, I'm back around. They made the right decision starting with the Savage, that one-off Mall Savage episode. Because imagine if we, okay, we would have opened this season on this, the, what's the Anderad arc, which was like solid. But then since then it would have been last episode, what was last episode?

What was the thing that I didn't like last time? Oh, the Jedi Kids. Jedi Kids. And then this, like, knowing that we have the rest of that mall arc coming. has like kept me also how's this one feel so much thinner than the Jedi kids one too I don't know how I was so much more hype for this one as well like I was like like droids like I want to I want to be with them I want to my heart was breaking I knew how excited you all were and then they brought out the frog and I was like I don't know

that this is going to be what the gang can I tell you also I watched this in the middle of listening to the rest of blowback season three which is about the Korean War where Douglas MacArthur is an important character. And the frog is equal parts McArthur and Patton. And it's just like a, that's like the archetype, right? This kind of like U.S. military man. He isn't just McArthur. But there's enough in there where I'm like, I can't do this.

Like by day, I'm listening to this podcast about a dude who wants to literally drop 50 atomic bombs in North Korea in Manchuria. And by night, I'm watching this little goofy fucking frog do his best U.S. general, you know, cadence and it's just too much it's just too much literally when I first saw him I wrote down in all caps little freak alert like so excited

and then immediately immediately when he started talking I said never mind you're not allowed to do this you're not allowed to create a little freak that we don't love that we don't love it's rude and fucked up

it's fucked up I think there should be a spectrum of freaks. I'm sorry. Yeah, I'm with that. Hatable freaks. No, but he's not even a hateable freak. He's like a boring. You've to understand. A hateable freak. I like

a hateable freak. Yeah, like the fucking mortis freak. Yeah. Hatable little freak. Hatable little freak. Lived him though. The point, the deal is, apparently, so the separatists have recently changed all their codes. And

immediately, and this seems like a big flaw with this whole code system they've got. They've got co-breaking ships. Oh no, they've changed their codes. And so Mace. Master Strategist's Mace window.

God, God, do it. I wasn't going to laugh at it until I realized it was unintentional, and now it's I can't say it. I can't say. Mace Window Wendoo.

Wendoo. Wendu. I can't say it. Bring it. It's good. All right. So, master strategist,

Mace Windu, is like, let's just run up on the code breaking ship and steal their new codes. Yeah. But to do that, we got to infiltrate

the droid ship. And even though they don't use any of the same droids. And the show's drawn from this well repeatedly. Yeah. It's like the droids can't tell that like, okay, the astromac by definition is a droid that supplements a human pilot. Yeah, that's what it does. The droid army doesn't need it.

Yeah. But in this conceit, the droids are going to be like, we have no idea what droids do. We have no concept that there's like other droids out there. So Mace hatches this plan that they're going to send R2D2 and a bunch of, of other droids onto this show. Put some respect on their names. QTKT, M-F-Z,

and U-9-C-4. And? Not to mention, Wock 47. Oh, it's Wack. It's Wack 47. That motherfucker's name is Wack. Agent 47 is here.

It's here. Your mission. So, already... The Separatist code-breaking ship. Okay, wait, wait, I do have a genuine real thing really quick. Okay. QTKT is inspired by R2KT, a pink astermak droid created by Star Wars fans in tribute to Katie Johnson, the daughter of Albin Johnson, who founded the 501st Legion, which is a Stormtrooper

cosplay group. The droid, who is now dedicated to the memory of the late Katie, who unfortunately died as a child, makes appearances at children's hospitals, is like part of a big. fundraising, you know, group, basically. And there is a, there is a literal R2KT named after her that's like a pink R2D2 style thing that was made by a bunch of fans from the R2D2 club and has done a bunch of charity. You know, at this point, that that droid kind of goes around and helps doing lots of charity work that the 501st Legion does, which we've talked about that like, I don't know that I would make our fan group named after Vader's Fist. I would name a charity group or a fan group after the best fascist's fascist army, but beyond that, I do think the stuff with Katie Johnson and all that is really, you know, it's heartwarming to see that they found a space to put this character in here. They had this opportunity to do that.

So I think that that's pretty great. Unfortunately, QTKT is surrounded by a number of other characters. What was, go ahead. Well, I was going to say QDKT belongs to Aila Sakura. Right. M5BZ belongs to Sanubei, and U9C4 belongs to Thongla Thongleur. Right, right. So, and obviously R2D2 is Anakin.

And Wack is just on the loose? Wack is a... Can't contain Wack for each other. they cleared Sunubei's droid's memory banks to put a little guy in there

Yeah, it's so fucked up, isn't it? How long has Sunube been in the, like, those memory banks are probably important. Those memories are probably important. Okay, I think my theory is that Sunoube has never wiped

M5BZ's memory, but because he forgets every year to go and do it. He's just doing other shit. He's doing other shit, right? He's just being an old man Well, don't worry This fucked up squid guy I'll do it for you for free

Um, yeah, why The Why did they have to literally Create a carcass Just make another men I know, I don't know So there are The thing that we're talking about is there is a

First of all these characters come out Like it's Ocean's 11 It's like we're assembling the team And then it's like Yeah, me too And they're going to give you all special equipment That's super unique for you R2D2 gets like a special jump jets that let him fly around like the old jump jets though

I was expecting to be a little bit more like oh now they've added gnauz what's the name Dr. Gubaker is it Gubacher so we got another Peter Laurie impression basically yeah it is another Peter Laurie impression a hundred percent Robb also he's kind of a Nouveauvindy right he's kind of like what the Republic had in fact I'm pretty sure this is operation this is paper-clipped Nouveau-Vindy. They gave him work to get rid of his previous face. That's why he looks so fucked up. They just went...

They faced off him. Nuts on him with the... Yeah, yeah, yeah. We'll let you keep doing weird inventions, but just for our side now. Anyway, R2 gets a jetpack, special jet pack, I guess. KT gets a magnet?

What does she get? She gets a floating magnet above her head that can zoom around and color. She uses it one time. to collect like a bunch of like floating landmines or something like that. Oh, yes, yes, yes. C4 has a super gun, has a laser gun that like has huge knockback effect. And then BZ gets his brain removed.

BZ's superpower is getting his memory banked extracted, is being deleted. But he can still move himself around. So I don't know what's going on there. At a certain point, but I feel it feels like he, most of the time that Gascon is in him, he's off and then at a certain point when he gets like saved that one time

he's like semi on again and now he makes his own decisions at the end he does stuff at the very end exactly by the end he's like back and sentient but the first bit there he's a carcass

yeah it's pretty fucked up anyway this is the squad and then Wack 47 is a Pitroid one of our I love a pitroid I love the pitroid design I don't know about Wack 47 though It's just again like Well the other thing is they just keep

They just keep throwing elements into this To hope that like the chemistry and the comedy will come together And it just doesn't like And uh oh the mission's being crashed by Wack 47 I'm just a little mischievous droid Whoops I'm incompetent And it's like if Phantom Menace Anakin were a droid

That's Wack 47 to a degree is like, whoa, this is pod racing. And then that would be a little bit overbearing. But then having this whole thing be led by this little frogman, Colonel Meeper Gaskin, is just too much. Having this crew of, like, droids get yelled at by this tiny little frogman who's, like, and also... Racist.

Oh, yeah. racist and like that whole like listen up maggots I'm commanding this that is a exhausting character to spend time with what do you get four episodes where he's one of the only people who can talk rob yep like the only version of this character that is compelling is like the drill sergeant and full metal jacket and that's because it is so pushed like first of all arlie ermie is memorable in a way this character is not and second that character is so pushed to the stops of like being um obviously, like, violent and abusive and, like, unstable as to make the entire thing kind of luridly fascinating. This guy is just like, he's a drill sergeant type character, but also... And he's insecure. Right. Yeah.

And wants a promotion and wants to prove himself because he's a small little guy. He's a small old guy. I have a quote here from Stephen Stanton from an interview of Star Wars.com where, you know, they're basically saying he's a very polarizing character, and Stephen Stanton says, you know, there's a lot of people who actually like Mieber Gascon, despite the fact that he's divided the audience about 50-50 when those episodes came out. So let's see. Mebrugaskan, when the audience for him or when the audition for him came through, once again, there was not a lot of detail other than he was called the Colonel. They wanted something that was not a sound alike,

but something similar to George C. Scott. And I'm assuming when they said that they meant George C. Scott as Patton, as patent. But it was funny because you read the first line in the addition, the very first line of dialogue is, well, this is a fine mess you mex got us into, which is very much a Laurel and Hardy type of line, but the rest of it was pretty straight. So, that was the only line that, if you were thinking about it, suggested there could be a comedic element to this character, but I don't know anything one way or the other. So I get the notice from my agent that I booked the job, and I go in, and that is when I first see what the character looks like, when I get to the session.

And that's when I find out he's only like six or eight inches tall. I want you to do exactly what you do in the audition, but I want you to amp it up, like 10 times more than that, and just make this guy bombastic and bigger than life. That's very funny. It's very funny. He goes on to say that it, you know, it made it funny because it was such a contrast. His personality, I always thought it was a lot like Lawrence of Arabia. You know, he was a map reader who was thrown into greatness and proved that he could do more than just read and make maps, which is like, I guess that's a detail. about Gascon that comes up

that he was a navigator, but that's not the character. No, he doesn't ever use that, because he jumped on a bird. Dickhead gets lost in the desert, getting some warrants of Arabia lots of this.

So, yeah, you know, it's, it's, he basically, you know, the rest of that quote ends up being just about him, and the guy who plays whack, uh, Ben Diskin, and how like, it was a weird recordings, it was just the two of them in a room together, and Faloni told them, look, just

get as big and wild as you want. Go Warner Brothers animation. Go Looney Tunes, basically. Don't be scared to go too far on this. And I wish they'd been a little more scared to go as far as they did. Fear is good sometimes.

And they just don't... Like, Looney Tunes Animation has some of the best visual comedians, like best visual humor. right of like the 20th century like there's just like clone war is not funny that way for the most part and they certainly don't get anywhere near it here so yeah you get this little guy like uh you know sort of shouting orders of these droids you get the sort of funny reveal that uh yeah he was a veteran at the battle of genosis but as he sort of reveals all he did was readmaps and not even like

he basically is a sentient ways is what it sounds like is he's not even like he's being told plot a course and he just plots it right and that's kind of it and he's only picked for this mission because he fits in the droid uh you can fit in a little droid skull even though again why do they even need him they don't arch who could have done it like actually what is he doing I don't know I don't know Just someone else For a walk to talk to

No the actual thing is They don't trust droids Right Like this is the racism Of the Jedi who are like We can't just send droids to do it Droid's need a person An owner

To own them and tell them What to do They would never just send droids To do a thing, right? Yeah Yeah That's the fact Have they ever?

This was the time They could have done it And Aniken would do it There are like Individuals who would do it Anakin would send R2 to go do something, obviously. Right, sure.

Like, go get Bogan fruit with C3PO. You could trust them for that. But not get a ship decoder. Right. This seems like a big mission. That's the other thing. They didn't put Jedi on this? This was too much.

They can't be sneaking in there. I guess so. Why not? Why couldn't you find a tiny Jedi? Because they had a conference. Right, why didn't they get a tiny Jedi? I know they have a tiny Jedi out there they could have used. Yeah, well, okay, here's an important thing

is we, we, who's the shortest Jedi? Who's the shortest Jedi? There's got to be someone smaller than Yoda. One of those younglings. No, it's probably Yoda, right? Smallest Jedi. I did just, I was looking through notes and stuff, and I forgot about this. These pictures of nude Gascon.

These were originally concept art. You could tell this was from 1996 or 1995. These were early drawn, Gascon. Skahn originated as an unused concept design for Jar Jar Binks. Why is his feet so voluptialist? The middle one where he's doing that, the little, like, Marilyn Monroe, like, why is he simping? Why? You know?

He's literally doing sims. Why is he look drunk in those first two? He looks. Oh, my God. He's put a from back. I don't like seeing him lay down. I don't like it. No, that's like swimming.

That's like swimming. He's like swimming through the water. Yeah, but no. I mean, yes, obviously, but also. No. Not for me. Not for me. It's rough.

When he's laid down, he has like a hill butt. But the one of him standing up, it's like, it's like there, right? He got cheeks on the one on the right on. We've just seen him from behind. Yeah. I don't get it. Oh, no. Oh, is this?

Who's this guy? This is the smallest Jedi. A male Kushibon from the world Kushiba, who was trained by a Jedi by Yoda and became a Jedi master. Yeah. This is a false. This is a fucking with people. Oh, no, he was, he died five years ago, I think.

Oh, no, that's after Battle of you have. No, he was alive for this. What the fuck? Where was he? He went into self-imposed exile and for 400 years. It says by doing this, he avoided all Jedi events. for the next 400 years. Including the Godworn and

the Red Jedi Purge. That's so funny. Like, I'm out. I'm out. I'm good. My RSVP, it ain't making me. Oh, that's so funny.

I'm not feeling good about my output lately. I need to be, I need to go into exile until someone can free me. I will keep my salary. You can keep, you keep paying me. Yeah, I'll take my check.

I'm thinking out here I'm meditating trust me it'll do us some good in the long run can you imagine can you imagine you're on exile

self-imposed exile and then literally all your boys get got by the clones just in general like you're on exile and the Jedi go to war you're that's not what they do

you put yourself on exile and because you were like down on yourself meanwhile the Jedi go to war you have to rethink you're going to be like well

I'm pulled myself to too high a standard. Well, also you're like, I made the right decision. You're right. You're right. What did this guy do? Why did he go? Yeah, why did he go to exile?

He discovered a messassy temple on the oven floor. He discovered a temple with trapped massasi children, trapped souls of massacian children, and he failed to free them. Okay. You make a mistake sometimes. At least you try. And it's killed them, kids. Children? Oh, yeah.

Eventually. So I just think, you know, Don't be so hard on yourself. Little fox. They get aboard the decryption ship. Right. Yeah. Well, it's important to note that Star Wars establishes a hierarchy very quickly in this first episode.

Yeah, they sure do. Of, you know, the social hierarchy of this, which is Frogman at the top. Yeah. Pitt droid Middle He can talk That's the thing He can speak in English

Basic Yeah With the top And last is Mex Yeah Astromechroids Yeah

Astromechroids And there's a Point at which I bet under that would be like The little like mouse droids Or like things That's made very clear When we see them later

I think I think when we See the little trash cans And Oh the gom I just think in the way that they're received, it's like, this is the crew kind of vibe. It definitely feels like it's a step down from AstroMec. But what's his name?

Oh, WAC is like, I just want to set the record straight. I am not a mech. I am a whack. Granted, my master's not a Jedi, but like my engineering is, you know, I can pilot ships and I'm da-da-da-da. Which afterdx pilot-shed In the awkward hierarchy There were parts of this hierarchy I didn't like Which was who's your master

Which further underscored the like Excuse me I work for a Jedi Like Don't like This little map of intra-droid social relations either Well bro and the bit where Gascon eventually like

Brings Wack in to be like Well yeah you're more like me than you're like those droids Has the biggest like You used to not count as white but now you count as white energy in the world. Yeah, and this is, yeah. And it's true, because you know C3Pio gets better service. If C3Bio walked into a store, C3Bio could buy something from that store.

They would not let R2D2 buy something from that store. They'd be like, uh, who's droid is this? But C3Pio, they'd be like, oh, what's your master want? Which is still bad. But it's a higher level of access to society than what R2D2 has. But Star Wars is fucked up. Anyway So

Also by the way Speaking of like Just droid hierarchy So are now all the tactical droids The weird like bird droids Is that just happening now Because the commander Cotuni style ones

Yeah Yeah like this They're super tactical droids Okay So are the old tactical droids The like Cylon type Are they just like I think they may have been replaced

I think they might be done I have no idea I like those shit heads Yeah I mean, they lost every time. Well, but not all, every time. They're kind of ruthless. Anyway, point is, they're spooky.

The new bird-like ones are kind of eerie, but they are still not on top of things enough. They overlooked the fact that multiple signs of a heist to unfold under their nose. Okay, I do enjoy whack. Just like, the droids are so naive. The hulking battle droids, the heavies, are so naive

that they just can't conceive of a little droid coming up and lying to them and so he just is like General Grievous gave me an important mission he needs me to check the vault it's like he does the wallet inspector bit basically to leave your station

immediately and go anywhere else yeah and it's really good it was funny it was good I like that but then it's a Again, you'll have weird, like, pivots to dark because the droid he's been using as his little, like, as his little husk, basically, that is piloting around, in one of the signs that occasionally it'll just go rogue, it starts hacking the door right as, is it whack who's calling out that it might be booby-trapped? Yeah, I think so.

But, yeah, like, immediately the droid electrocutes himself, and all the droids basically in their, with their beeps and boops and Wack 47 in English, everyone's like, does the, oh my God, you killed Kenny a bit with the, with the droid. And, yeah, like, and Gasco is like, it's not my fault that he fried his circuitry. You suck. Like, bro, you literally told him, you're in his head. You're inside of him. You told him. You're piloting him. Basically.

So fucked up. I hate the little frog. Yeah. And then we get a whole little action sequence with them trying to rip off the encryption disk, the tactical droid and a bunch of other droids show up. They play around the artificial gravity to carry out the heist. They all sort of work together and team up and use their special abilities to win this brawl, which has some macabre touches, like the,

Well, I mean, there's just droid body parts, littering. There's a decapitation at one point. Archie's who cuts a dude's head off. Yeah. You know. Yeah, that's he deal. He did that. But then, I guess for me, the only other keynote here is, as they're leaving the ship,

all the droids are like, nope, we do not leave our droid friends corpse behind on this ship. And Gaskin. In sort of the arc he's on for this, sort of reluctantly admits, you're right. We don't. We are not going to leave a soldier behind. And they sort of, again, battle droids just don't get it. There's a bunch of astro-mecs, Paul bearing another astro-mec through their ship in a security lockdown. I don't get it.

And nobody does anything. They just leave. They don't have these types of droids, like, at all, at all. Yeah. Well, well. It's like seeing, like, a soldier in the enemy's uniform walking around. I'm being like, well, it's a soldier, so I'm a soldier, roll an army base.

Maybe they're like, if it's not a clone, I'm not shooting it, right? You think that's in their contracts? I think that's in their heart. Yeah, but that quickly gets refuted on the next ship where they are only with toys and all the droids are trying to kill them the whole time. This is true. This is true.

So that's that episode. That's secret weapons. They get the encryption. thinky and fly away. Yeah. And then we get to, I guess this is the one that folks were like, intrigued by a sunny day in the void,

which does have kind of a, this one's going to be weird. And it is weird, but not good weird. There are some visuals in this episode that I think are very good. Yeah. I think the cool comet storm looks great. At the beginning, they're going through hyperspace. I don't think this is how hyperspace works,

or I didn't know that this was how hyperspace work. I guess I do now that you can go through hyperspace and like, uh-oh, we're going to hit something. which to me feels like that would have happened by now but I guess not I thought it was miscalculated and that's why

I still didn't understand that's how hyperspace worked I'm not sure it is but this episode does When I think of hyperspace I think of basically you're zooming so fast you're like threading a needle

through space that's what I imagine At least during the High Republic era Hyperspace was not truly understood by anyone in the galaxy. Hyperspace was a dimension of space-time, alternative to that of real space. It could only be accessed through molecular displacement, which was achieved by breaking the speed of light.

It was coterminous with real space, meaning that each point in real space was associated with a unique point in hyperspace, and all adjacent points in real space were adjacent in hyperspace as well. Additionally, every object in real space, such as stars, planets, and asteroids, had its shadow counterpart in hyperspace. I don't know what that means. Aside from these well-established facts acknowledged by all competent astrophysicists and astrogation experts, other aspects of hyperspace have admittedly remained a mystery.

What's a mass shadow? How did you feel like they're fucking nobody? This part I do remember from the expanded universe. Okay. Yeah, this is still canon. There is still a mass shadow. That is still a thing, Rob. Yep.

Okay, okay, okay. In hyperspace, a mass shadow was a gravitational signature of a large object in normal space. Since those shadows were potentially lethal to any starship traveling too near, it was necessary to avoid colliding with them by piloting or by plotting precisely calculated hyperspace jumps. By simulated in gravity shadow of celestial body, a ship's travel through hyperspace could be halted or their jump to hyperspace rendered impossible within an interdiction field. So you do have to be aware of like jumping through a planet or something. You can't hyperspace through your planet. You will die. You will be pulled into by the shadow.

And so I guess there's a shadow. This is a huge comet storm, basically, like a huge wave of these, basically. And they drop out of hyperspace to try to, like, navigate their way through. It's beautiful. You're bright blue comets, icy comets. You know, just dozens and dozens of them. I think that looks really great. The ship gets damaged.

they go out and start to repair the ship because they're astromech droids, the type of thing we haven't seen in a long time, the thing of like, remember when we first saw R2 in episode one where R2 like goes out onto the ship with the other astromechroids and the other ones all get got? They do that here. And they almost lose people, but they team up. They all have a little grappling hook things and they get pulled back and it's safe, but they have to crash land. And they crash land on a place and I think looks really pretty. But that's kind of all. all there is that I'd like about this episode. Like, you sort of think for a minute, because the whole existentialist play type thing, that, like, they crash into a blank set, effectively. Yeah. Like, a bright, sunless sky and a vast, bright white, featureless desert, and there's nothing. It is an eerie space. Everything's flatly lit, and there is, like, nothing but these two colors and textures in their world.

and so yeah you're like you might be racing yourself for all right time to watch these characters really go through it this is weird this is eerie and it just kind of turns into them bickering as they wander what could be any desert um yeah and like and i thought for a minute maybe it was like when they find another crashed ship but everyone's desiccated remains and they thought it was their ship for a second i was like whoa we're in a time thing. It's them. But it's not. It's not so much. And that's fine. It didn't need to be no exit to move me. You know what I mean? But like, it mostly is Gascon and Wack trying

to do comedy bits that don't super work, right? Artu leaves with the, they crash land and they can't see anything in any direction. And there's a debate about like, can you, what do we do in a situation like this? And Artoe is like, well, what I'm going to do is just take the shit and start going in a direction. We don't know what Artu thinks because R2 doesn't, we don't have access to R2 because R2 isn't just constantly doing cartoon yelling bits like Gascon and Wack are. But what follows is Gascon and Wack following the rest of the astramac droids, debating

whether or not Gascon's experience and training are the same thing as a droid's programming. and that doesn't it's not trust me if they did that in a way that was interesting at all you know this would be the podcast that would be like getting into it but like they just raise it as a potential topic effectively it doesn't go anywhere I guess they go they go and animals are all also animals have their instincts and there's a third one yeah that is the like it's not just one or the other like we don't have to be programming or or or or learn. learning, we can be instinct. There is like, I think that there is a, it is a particular quality of a certain site, sort of children's media that wants to talk about prejudice broadly and sometimes racism or, you know, sexism, but just prejudice broadly. And the strategy ends up being, we're more alike than different, right? And I think that that is, I get where that lesson comes from.

Do I think that that lesson is insufficient when it comes to thinking about particular systems of oppression? Absolutely. Do I think that it reduces difference in important ways across culture and all of that stuff? Absolutely. Do I think it reinstates the idea of a normative person that like, yes, it turns out that R2D2 and whack count as people because they're sort of. of like people. Instead of saying, even though they're not like people, they deserve humanity or they deserve respect, right?

It's a classic children's like media thing to do this maneuver because the other version of it is way more complicated. The version of it that is like, hey, there's actually a great deal of diversity about what a person is and how a person might express themselves and how a person might see the world and experience data and experience stimulus. All of that is really different, but everybody deserves. the same treatment is not a lesson that is easy to teach as you're basically a person like me. Your training and my programming are basically the same. Right. Right. I will say that I do think

there is a very simplified children's version of the second thing that you're talking about, which is your strengths, like all of our strengths make them. Combined. Yeah, totally. Together we're better. Rather than it being like together we are the same and like we, we, you know, share humanity or whatever. The thing that I expected, when you're talking about the three pillars they're identifying here, like instinct programming and learning, I thought that it would be like, okay, so we're going to see how programming actually prevails over. Right.

You get the rock, paper, scissors. Exactly. You get to, like, you need all of them. Exactly. That's the kid's version of people can be different. And also, like, everyone. But, I mean, obviously, that's assigning, now you're assigning value. Yeah.

But still. But we just get this version of it, and it's not. And it's not even particularly interesting. It's not even, like, a really developed version of it, you know? Yeah. Well, it's only, like, 20% of the episode, because we still have all of the clone shit. That's all in this episode. Right.

And a fourth episode of episode. Wait, no, no, no, that's third episode, right? The clone diner stuff is next episode, right? Oh, oh. This is the episode where WAC looks up at Gascon, who is distraught standing on top of a spaceship. And it's like, do you think he's going to jump? And it's like, oh, my God, what are we doing? And then he, after that, he's like, he should have jumped, like, five minutes later.

Tell him it like it is. He was just like, this was, this would have been a good decision or like he's like, I understand why he would do that or something. I was just like, who is this? And it's a lot of 47 is posting being hero on internal comms. It's fucked up, you know, and there's like some hallucination and, you know, it's like that. It's like, it's a lot of that stuff, right? Like the classic cartoon stuff. Like, oh, no, I'm getting dehydrated.

Oh, no, I'm seeing a mirage. Oh, what's that? Is that the sound of animals? Follow the animals. You'll find water. You know, Warner Brothers cartoons would have had him hallucinate one of the droids as a big sexy lady holding a hamburger in a Coke. And now that's comedy. If they would have,

if he would have hallucinated QT as a Betty droid with a hamburger and Coke, I would have hogged. I would have, I would have just 10 out of 10 episode. So, like, instead he climbs onto the head of the creepiest fucking birds I've ever seen in my life. Yeah, but they're cute.

They're a little head-nezzle thing. I'm always, look. Not a fan. Look, anything with a long neck, like, sort of nuzzling. I'm like, look at my dog. She's got a normal neck. No, she does.

I regret to inform you. She does not. She does not have a normal neck. But it takes them to this town. And right there, like, too, the entire thing's been like, what the fuck is this planet? Like, what is it? Yeah.

You almost get the sense of, like, it's almost guarded by the comet storm. The planet has no features whatsoever, no identifiable sun that you can see from the planet. Like the desert is bizarre. And then there's just a town on it. And there's like a thing that's disappointing here is there's an uncapitalized upon sense of eerieness

and unplacedness to Abafar. Abafar is the sort of thing that should be like, Probably, like, Abafar is one of the less offensive, liminal spaces, Twitter posts that you find. Well, and it's explicitly, the two things that get referenced, that people reference around it are THX 1138, the dystopian film by Lucas that has this kind of white room, this featureless white space where torture happens, which is not what's happening. here. And then some of the comics and spaces from Mobius, the French comics artist. And both of those things do more with those with that visual language. And so I feel like it's definitely one of those things that's like, wow, cool robot, wow, cool empty void. You know, you're not actually going anywhere with the empty void. You're just cashing in on big bright

orange sky. And it's a, it really looks cool. You could tell a cool story here. I think you'd even tell parts of the stories that they're telling here here. I think it's interesting that this is where the clone we're about to meet in the next episode is at. Like, the featureless backwater place that you can't see any suns, you can't see any way out of here. The ground around you is featureless. That's a great little visual metaphor for being disconnected from your own past and history. The show doesn't do anything with that because it sort of forgets that it's on this planet outside. of it being the backdrop you know but like the voidness of it does not get used ever in this next

episode so yeah it's like completely unremarked upon in the entire third episode it's just like oh we're in a city now and it's basically tattooing even though we're saying that it's not well and you're 100% right yeah and the thing is like it's this the town still has weird fucked up vibes because it's like it is a place without an identifiable economy and I don't mean that like I

what's the GDP of that before I mean what are people doing here what are people doing here yeah where did that guy get that big turkey leg

that got rods for me? Yeah no exactly that that bit is funny the first thing is like I feel like this town isn't dangerous at all

and you see again one of the tiny little dudes from that R2D2 and 3PO side plot again appear pulling a knife on a guy with a big mutton leg

and then running off with it like that's just great little dudes carrying switch blades is always funny and the visuals of this place are also very cool like there's a zoomed out shot

of the city that I think is really interesting to look at there it is so again the sky here is this kind of burnt orange And then the city itself is recessed down into the ground into like a relief. And it has kind of like a trenches built out into a little semicircles in different places. And the city is in the semicircles.

But it's only like three, it's like three big semicircles that are connected by these trenches. And then you get this great zoom in on the city itself and everything there is built out of. It's as if it's been carved out of the terrible white stone that is the whole planet. And so everything is that color. Nothing, like the wide shot of the city. It's just shapes. It looks like an unpainted, like model in a real way. It has that sort of that plastic, that white plastic feel, as if they've gone in and added all the little greebles.

They've added all the little detail, but they never did a pass with paint or stickers or anything. And it's a really striking look. No one seems to know they live there. They all act like they're living. You know what I mean? Like, it's just a city. And, like, that's fine. That's kind of Star Warsy in some way, but I don't, do they do mining here?

Do they do, I don't know. And maybe I, maybe I missed a line in here. My guess is mining because everything seems like it's been built from stone, you know? But, I don't know. Like, throughout everything in this, you were wondering, what are people doing here? What brings them to this place? What is, like, and it doesn't have answers. Sorry, you know what?

Is it actually the. place where the rhinoidonium the explosive stuff from the next episode is it is this where it's mined? So this is basically just like an offshore oil rig?

That might be the case. I'm checking. What's the other city? Ponsora? Yes. It's a mining installation. That is what it is. Okay. They're mining rhidonium. So that's something. There's a little bit there.

We don't ever see the mines, really, but we do see the rhidonium eventually in the biggest explosion that's ever been in Clone Wars. That explosion was almost worth the price of it. I was like, okay, fine. It's really fucking good. This is some shit. Like, I dig it.

So, one of the weird features of this town in the desert is that it has a greasy spoon diner. And, you know, again, you know, this town is cursed because you don't see that many roaches in the Star Wars universe. There's a bunch of them here. Uh, it is one of the most unwholesome places in Star Wars. It's so gross.

I wouldn't, I love a diner. I know some diners have roaches. I would not eat at this diner. No. No. Um, you couldn't couldn't pay me, honestly. Uh-uh. And, it's like gross on the floor right away. Like, right away. It's not like in the back. There's, like, you see a roach in the bathroom or whatever. Right, exactly.

You're like, oh, you're out, you're in the alley out back and there's trash, whatever. Yeah. No, it's like you walk in the door, roaches. No, bro. And the ground is just gross. Like, it's just fucking you should be cleaning. Yeah. It's like, slop on the ground.

And so the owner of this place is this like mean burly celestial who's like, I don't serve your kind or droids to to the little to gascon so so whack 47

continuing his mission of just torturing Gaskin is like well I can find you food and he points points him to the where the roaches are screaming toward the trash pit and Gaskin

so so defeated he's like I can't this is nauseating I can't eat this and Wack 47 is basically like and it's just basically fuel? Who cares? And Gaskin's like, maybe I can eat this. And right

at that moment like the janitor slash line cook from the diner comes out and is like, hey, you know that it's garbage right, but holy shit, it's a droid. Not a droid. A clone. Holy shit. It's a clone.

It's a clone. It's a clone in a full like beard and like long hair Let me say. More clones should grow out their hair. It looks good. I agree.

It looks so good. Looks really good. His whole fit, by the way, was fantastic. The, like, messenger bag with the leg thing, the yellow vest, the jeans. I was into it. You should say out there, yeah. It's giving, what's his name from Andor? Cassian and Andor?

Cassian and Andor. It's giving Sanca Luna. Endor is a place. But look, Star Wars, again, doesn't have that many ideas for names. It really doesn't. Indoor. Indoor. Oh, it's on Mantuin.

Oh, I thought you said Dantuin. Whoa, whoa, hold on, Chief. I actually said tattooing. God. So, immediately, this is the answer to their prayers. Like, this is somebody who can help them. This is a clone. and so Gaskins immediately like

hey you must be undercover like what are you doing here poor guy has no memory he has no idea with talking about clones war whatever so the B&E is house and ambush him as he's just trying to unwind after shift we do get a sense of like you know he's kind of being mistreated by the by the diner owner

but they so clones have wrist serial numbers and RFID chips where you would fear they would be let's just say and R2 basically gets tired

like everyone trying to explain to this guy who and what he is R2 is just like scan here's your here's your Republic ID picture pal and immediately he's like oh yeah no I'm a clone commando

I have amnesia Why is he of amnesia, Natalie? Because he was reported missing an action during the Battle of Sarish, which was one of the Republic's most devastating losses in which fucking so many clones died. And his immediate recollection is talking about the bodies he like. Yes. It's so fucked up. Why the fuck would you tell him who he is? let him cook well I mean god damn

this whole episode is so bad this whole episode is so bad he says that Mr. you want to be a slave to the republic or a slave to fucking Mr. Borkas yes and nobody draws the connection everyone is like they find

it's like they find an ex-child soldier like it's like oh no you're not meant to be doing landscaping work for peanuts you're a proud member of the Lord's resistance army it's like what are we doing It's absurd.

The fact that fucking, the fact that fucking Mr. Chefman literally Mr. Borkas, get his name right. Mr. Borkas

is like You want your freedom? He is super racist against diner cultures, by the way. Oh, 100%. If I were Greek, if I were Italian, I'd be fucking pissed about Mr. Borkas.

I feel like I need to change that org on this immediately. he tell Gregor who is the name of the clone which is like Mr. Berkish just told him

his name was Gregor right? What's my name? Gregor. Gregor. He's like Okay first of all Gregor's place

again roach infested fucking Gascon steps on a big roach which is gross because Gascon's not that much bigger than a roach Can you imagine if you stepped on a roach that was as close

to size as you are as the roaches? Does that size of your fucking knee Absolutely not. Honestly, profs the Gascon, that's like real alpha behavior. Yeah, that's the most heroic thing he's ever done. Um, but, uh, he says that Mr. Borkas

says, I don't even make enough money for rent for this place. Oh my God. And he just kind of helped me float it. And it's like, bro, you're being, they are absolutely taking, he's absolutely taking advantage of you. Guess what? Slavery dude. Yes, which he says it.

True. Like, this is a, this is a wrecked. And then later this episode gives a speech. about how this is what all soldiers were meant to do to die for people like us. I can't, I can't, I can't, I can't. Literally, the fact, okay, so they reveal Gregor's

real identity. Gregor is like, I think I know where my armor's at, I know where my fucking guns are at, like let's go cop. Like, let's go grab all this shit and get you off this planet. Gregor immediately snaps back into like clone soldier mode. And then

Mr. Barkus with a gun. Borkas. Mr. Borkis. B-O-R-K-U-S. Mr. Borgas. With a gut, holding fucking Gregor's gun at him is like,

you want your freedom, Gregor? Like, this, like, he says your life is mine. And that is like, prove, prove to me that you're the guy you say you are,

basically. But the fact that he's saying, you want your freedom, and freedom is being a Republican clone soldier. I know. It's fucked up. It, like, And then it's celebrated, and nobody, it's like, I feel, I feel nuts.

I feel like, the short version of this, the short version of this is they figure out how way to get out off the ship. There's the, there's the shuttle from the people, the separatists, mining this, this mineral. The whole town's over, lousy was separatist, roaches and separatist. Lousy and separatists, right, exactly. So they, so Gregor goes, like, Apex Legends mode, just goes like absolutely e-sports. I've never seen... We've never seen a clone do this before.

So, some of the shots, I'm like, this is the last stand of Randy Shookart and the other sniper in Black Hawk Down. We're like, the two snipers are like, we're to defend that chopper alone. You're right down to the fact that they're surrounded on like four sides and like we're over the shoulder watching them just like empty the mag.

And I'm like, but what's going on? What are, like, Gregor five minutes ago was just an underpaid, yes, exploited, like, indentured servant. No, he goes Jason Bourne mode. He remembers, and he's going to just kill anyone who gets in his way. Yeah. He's doing, like, one-armed SMG shots running across the rafters. He's doing flips.

He's doing shooting red barrels to make them explode. He's on his mission impossible shit. And he, this is the one who has the helmet that has the Jerry Cheever's helmet. Jerry Cheever's is a goalie in the Boston Bruins goalie. in the NHL. He's like a kill count as a little scars on his face. And it's just covered. So many.

He like. Dozens. Dozens. Hundreds? He was a Republican. He was a Republican or a clone commander or whatever. So he's like, he was like the leader of his, his little contingent. And he was a commando also, which is to say, not just the leader of a group, but the leader of a group that

does elite behind enemy lines type shit. The fucking Navy SEAL. This is the, right, uh-huh. And so I'm not surprised, I would not be surprised if they did pull from something like Black Hawk down for this, like you mentioned, Rob. I think it's time to go to the Filoni zone. He doesn't mention this, and there's other stuff here that has nothing to do with some of what we talked about, but this is where he will talk about the troops.

So he doesn't say the word troops. He says soldiers, but, once again, thank you to. Mr. Anderson for this, this wonderful link for us. Our king.

I mean, listen, I guess so. Mr. Anderson 00001. What's a picture of Neo? I wouldn't call

Neo Mr. Andrew. If I was, if I, I don't know, maybe he identifies with the version of Mr.

Anderson when he didn't know what the Matrix was. What can I say? Anyway, are we ready to do this? Is Mr. Anderson in the Matrix?

Is that a matrix thing? Neo was taken. Come on. You know, Neo was taken. Sorry what? Hell, though. Natalie?

What? Natalie asked if Mr. Anderson was from The Matrix. That's Neo's name. That's Neo's Matrix name. Maybe this will jog your memory. Mr. Anderson. You said that so quiet if you didn't come through Discord. It was like, Mr.

I was like, I don't remember the nose. Okay, but the audience is going to have heard it because Rob's actual, my friend picked it up. No, but I did it. I did it for them. Okay, so, yeah. Cuego weaving draws the pronunciation out in a really creepy way. It's great. Okay.

Yeah, okay. Anyway, okay, are we ready for this? I saw that movie one time, just so, for the record. It's been a while. Okay. Yeah, that should still, it still goes. Let's watch the Matrix. Yeah, okay.

Okay. But first, we should watch this video. Okay, I'm ready. Three, two, one, go. you're a clone excuse me I wouldn't know about that my name's Gregor

what's a clone Gregor's a unique clone I felt that that was going to happen I'm not going to have a clothes that I've done before he doesn't know who he is and so the way that he behaves towards other people and towards the rest of the world is not that of a trained confident soldier

this is a fellow who is is kind of leasing down, and broken, and really is enslaved. You're disquashed. Uh-huh. He really is. Unlike normal.

For saving you from your crash. Your life is mine, Gregor. Dee Baker and I, we've been working on clones and the character of clones now for many, many years. No one has survivors on Teferon. It's fives. The name's fives.

Quit yapping. More blasting. It's been a long developing. This is very funny to me. He's good at it. Who are all very similar, but when you get down to it, very different. It's really fascinating to see the clones that are slightly deviated from what you would call kind of the archetypal clone, which for me, I kind of take to be Rex. What? We didn't mention this.

We didn't mention this. They do, they broadcast Rex. And he's a good. Their role in the war. Yeah. We had done a traitor, slick. We had done the ultimate soldier. I think that's what Rex is always representing.

The show is so much worse. And here was a case of someone that has basically forgotten who they were. And since there were no other clones around, well, how would he know he was a clone? Look, I'm lucky to live in this place. Mr. Vorkas says my salary doesn't even cover the rent. I don't think we really had a clone quite like that in this show. A guy who doesn't really know what else he can do other than just serves. this really horrible job in this horrible diner, this horrible master.

They all just can't do anything to serve. There's a softness, a quietness to the way that his character starts. Are you watching the same show? You'll notice that he's not speaking as a soldier. The first season had a greater be like... I didn't see you there. Gregor. Yeah, I know, I know.

Rather soft like that, tentative, halting in the way that he speaks. Um, uh, not, not too loud. He doesn't want to upset that. I don't like but then as he realizes who he is and becomes locked into what he's about

then he can speak confidently in the voice that is truly his that of Gregor I'll cover you and clear the way you all head straight to the shuttle the rising music in this background feature when it came to Gregor

something that I really want to stress was that he was unique even for a clone Impressive you were a captain and part of an That's gas gone. Clone Commando. I didn't want this to be the idea that he was just a grunt trooper that was found out in the outriff.

God forbid it would have just with a regular guy. I'm stuck on unique even for a clone. I thought wouldn't it be great if this guy was for the Republic of Maine? It's something that I know the fans want. It's something that, you know, I've been interested in. There was a great response when we've had them briefly in an episode. And I've been looking for a way to try and fit more of the Republic Commandos. Right.

They aren't something that really comes from George Lucas's Star Wars. They were a creation for a video game franchise, a really great video game. We do love video games. That's us. But they're not something that you see in the Star Wars films. I have to say, you know, what the droids then got in Gregor was a one-man wrecking team. He's an elite. His dedication level to his mission was immense, so much so that he makes.

The ultimate sacrifice that I think, you know, soldiers are willing to make. Where is Gregor? He's doing what a soldier does, sacrificing himself. He sacrificed himself, by the way, everybody. Yeah. You know, that's the unsung thing about a soldier. That's what these guys are doing in reality all the time. You know, you begin to feel kind of bad.

Here's Gregor. I like this guy. I like this Gregor guy. Dang it, if we did it, just blow him up. You know, so I thought I need some wiggle room there. So I actually added that line where he says, don't worry about me. You made me remember who I am. I'll make my way home.

I promise. Now go! So I had, you know, this explosion, but Gregor making a promise, and I very much believe in keeping promises. Oh, my God. I'd put my money on Gregor surviving that. And to be perfectly honest, with what's coming. once Darth Maul's back

you know Oh what the fuck I gotta keep as many Charters alive as I can I can't I know He's that the best of the worst Hightman ever

You will be around Captain Greger It's show I don't you think It sounds like it's the end of this this floating zone But there's still like a minute And a half left

Whoa Why An interesting tidbit About this episode Would be that it is The 100th episode of Clone Wars and that's um it's kind of strange i could remember in you know the early discussions with george and some of the early press releases when interviews would ask george well how many

episodes you think you'll make i'll say well we're making 100 and i thought remember that that would be something if we made a hundred episodes of star wars wow man i wonder what that would be like and i'll tell you what it's like it's like nothing we blink and we blink and we're We passed. You know, I thought, are there 100 stories in the Clone Wars that are unique enough to do this? Maybe you should jump. Yes. There are.

If you look at the first episode and now you look at the hundreds of episode, the increase in quality across the board, whether it be the character design, the animation, the lighting. Everything has gotten better and better and better and better. The ships. I've been really fortunate to have an incredible team. And one thing that we all have common, one thing that I think, you know, is true across all 100 episodes and beyond is that we all love Star Wars, just like when we grew up with it, and we want to make sure that what you're getting each week is... Not one of those episodes, do we not like Star Wars? ...theirance experience we had because we loved it so much. So, you know, 100s and beyond, and we just keep on rolling.

So thank you very much. I can't believe we, we have watched 100. I know. We've watched 100. We've done in 100 episodes. It's true. Well, actually, 100 and two. No, there's only one more after this one for this. Sorry. 1001. And then the movie. Yeah.

Anyway, soldiers do this every day for us. It's unsung. Not enough people are talking about how soldiers die for us in 2000. How was the check? What was that check like? Let me know. Which check? From the U.S. Army LLC. I guess like when they started doing a flag ceremony at the start of every episode.

And then they do the same bit again next episode. Like this is, it was so, the whole like soldiers die and that's what makes them epic And we love them And we should salute them every time Every time we got to salute the troops Also like the sheer number

Of veterans I know who would be like Listen some guys just pieces of shit in the army Or out of the army it doesn't matter Like it's a world like any other It is just It is so funny that throughout that entire thing They keep coming back to the like You know that we don't normally see a clone be subservient

in a diner. We don't normally see like... Yeah. Well, because it like... I get that they're making the show about a military that we want to root for

so nobody at the writer's room like gets it as much as they should but like it starts when he's like explaining clones to him and he's like clones fight and die if necessary.

It's like in that same conversation. Frequently as necessary. I'm horrible Like later today Like later today when I'm going to need you to do it for me What the fuck Also he literally came from the most fucked up battle I know

Of the clon wars hit this This is what I'm saying when I'm like There is a version of this I think Natalie you may have stepped away Briefly earlier when I mentioned this But like The clone who has Who sees the worst battle in Republic history

Surrounded by the death of those who who he loves and cares for to such a degree that he has a traumatic response, you know, shock amnesia, somehow escapes, you know, through the skin of his teeth, drags himself to a ship that crash lands here on this void of a planet where nothing has color. It's a sunless, bright, oppressive sky. Like, there's stuff happening here. Like, that, that, there is, you can play with that really well. Down to the fact that, like, he doesn't have a name. He doesn't how, you know, he's trying to recreate himself again. He's looking, he, you know, winds up subservient again to someone who wants to use him

for menial tasks and who doesn't value what his, you know, who he is. And like, all of that is so good. And I think even the thing of like, you know, oh, he reads, he finds out who he was again. He started to work through that trauma again. And there's a version of the story that's like actually interesting and tragic that he, that he falls back into dying for somebody else. a dying for the republic like he didn't really he managed to get away from the first time and that's just like the but this is like not how this final act of this episode is trained at all it's just super heroics and orchestral swell and the tragedy is that i mean it isn't it isn't tragic because it's very clear he's going to live through this for me right i mean yes there's a big stupid explosion but like he's promised he's going to find his way home feloni has just said as much here directly which like bro keep your cards closer to your chest please this this this this arc was

one of those arcs that I felt like had so many it's like they had all the ingredients in front of them and at each prep step they're like you know dice the onions and they don't dice them they like slice them they don't dice them they sliced them up or they're like chopped them they minced them They minced them. And it was like, oh, no, but the slice is what you want here. It's mush. You mushed up the onions, onion mush. Or, like, roast the tomato.

It's burnt to a crisp inedible. But you throw it in the soup anyway. They microwaved the tomatoes and then put them in the soup. They were, yeah, good enough. Yeah. They were, like, used tomato paste. They put ketchup in there. Like, it's, it's so many, so many of these aspects, like, the, if you just pull out, like, hey,

there's going to be a clone with amnesia that has. found himself in a whole other world and has to re-learn who he is. Fascinating. There are going to be droids that have to lead, like make critical decision-making and also have to like, like, wrestle with their sort of like inter-droid politics and things like that. Interesting. Like, we're in a void fucking planet.

Like, that's so, I love voids. I love it. Like, let's hang out here. Exessentialism, yes, let's get it. And everyone is just a fucking miss every single time. It's unbelievable, the L rate of this arc. It's wild. Anyway, they leave.

They get away. It explodes. And then we get to the point of no return, the next episode. Yeah. Sorry, I just keep going back to you also. One of the most pro-military things you can do, Mina, stay away from that, please. this sense of like

it's always meaningful sacrifice and the conversation had the other day with Matthew Gault, a colleague over at Vice who covers a lot of military affairs and such as that's about the burn pits scandal that is currently going through it right which is like tons of soldiers were exposed to toxic chemicals because like on deployment

a thing that like troops do all the time is they just burn waste materials in burn pits and as you might expect a ton of that stuff's carcinogenic and now there's as there always is after a lengthy war a huge downstream

issue of veterans being sick because they're exposed to horrible stuff during their deployment but like that to me is like that's actually how a lot of soldiers experiences and like the harm done to them plays out

it's kind of just like meaningless sacrifice where it's like it was just easier to do this like your body was easier to sacrifice than to figure out the problem and like here this story is basically like

no he's going to fulfill his destiny it's to die a heroic like one man army you know alamo style death and it's like I suspect a lot of the clones death is a lot closer to the people getting sick from burn pits and such where it's just like

you know it's just kind of easier to put you on the line than it is to like figure out other approaches here and like you know part of you know he was a he was the one of the worst battles for

for the Republic well how many Jedi died versus how many clones right like why didn't you know oh yeah and the analogy you can make is Borkas is basically Crowl in just a different context yes 100% right like it's like

which again in a more clever episode could be a really powerful move that like Krell is this sinister malevolent like military figure but this clone escapes that and finds himself and turns out

Krells exist and sometimes it's just your shift boss and like that well again at this point at this point clone wars is getting fully Marxist right where it's like you can't escape and the clone runs off and it's like

you know wage labor is also a form of adventure and slavery. It does really undercut the plot of this though when like both of these things have to exist at once. Like when it's like when you have the characters say the words like you're being a slave

to that diner guy and you're going to go serve the Republic. Like you're putting those words next to each other. You've looked into these ideas in the show before like you could have a tiny bit more nuance here. I don't care that there's a frog man like. The show

didn't used to be this uptuce. Like, yeah, that first season, a clone was like, this is all fucked up. What are we doing here? And now we get to this point where it's like, your destiny. Your beautiful destiny is a clone. There's some magic inside you, Gregor. And that magic

is a commando who's going to happily march to his death. Did somebody leave? Did the Marxist leave? Like, where did they go? This is the problem of leftism so often opts out of contested spaces And, you know, that's purity politics You fucking Cold Wars got bought by Star Wars got bought by Disney

And although whoever our pet Marxist was on the on the team was like, you know what, I'm not going to Disney I'm not, I'm not going to do it Should have changed it was just Lucas Uh-huh I do have some other quick, I actually have some pro to eat you may recall last maybe the last Patreon episode

it may even the last main episode I said there's no way the Clone Wars writing room played and enjoyed Star Wars

Knights of the Old Republic too uh oh gascon says out loud there's no way in Malacore that something something something happens

uh and Malacor is the final planet on clone or on Cotor 2 it is like this is where the of that story. I mean, it's a core place in the lore of Cotor 2, but also it is where Cotor 2 ends.

So, and it's, it's fucked up. It's a planet that a Sith is like devouring. Mmm, yummy. Which is, yeah, uh-huh. Fucking Cotor 2 rules. How do you feel about the fact that you were wrong? You know, that's, I'm fine to be wrong. How do you feel about the fact that they played it?

I'm a grown man. I wish they had taken some lessons to heart. I wish there was more, like, I wish there was more like, I was. Listen, that patch doesn't fix as much. Like, that patch fixes some important things. So there's a big, okay, hmm. There is, uh, Coach R2 famously finished, famously released unfinished, which is to say there is, there was content that was, that did not make it all the way into the game, including some key, like, dialogue about what happens to your party, right? Like the sort of like, 10 years later, they would go on to be a senator.

Like, that type of stuff did not make it into the game. There's also stuff that got cut from the game because it was cut from the game, and maybe it wasn't great. They didn't finish it in a way that was fantastic. There are, there are, there's the Sith Lords, uh, re, I don't remember what the actual name of the patch is. The Sith Lord's re something, something, something, um, uh, patch. Um, and then I think that the, and then I think that the, Epic names, Sith Lords tonight. Okay, well, that's, I think so, Cotor 2's, Cotor 2's, Cotor 2's subtitle was already the Sith Lords, right?

It was Star Wars, Knights of the Old Republic 2, the Sith Lords, because it's about a couple of Sith lords. And it's the Sith Lord's restored content mod, T-S-L-R-CM, that restores some of the ending material plus an entire planet of assassin droids where there's a big side quest. Anyway, my point is, I think if you didn't like Cotor 2 without that patch, that patch ain't going to make you like it. It's just not going to be for you. That added content does not suddenly change the didactic nature of it or something like that. But also, I don't know. Like, I'm just, I think that the stuff in Cotor 2, there's a lot of, Cotor 2 very much does not trust the Jedi as an institution.

The Clone Wars does. The Clone Wars thinks that the Jedi have fucked up. They don't think that the Jedi as an institution is bad, whereas Cotor 2. too very much does, you know? I think that's a big, that's a big difference. Anyway, what's that little frog dude out there anyway? Yeah, what the fuck was he? I'm saying.

I don't, I don't know. Did you imagine you go back and play Cotor 2 and you see fucking Gascon in the fucking background somewhere on Malacor? I'd be so mad. That's why they, that's why they canceled it. That's why they canceled the remake or whatever. I'd be hyper.

I said we don't know that they canceled the remake. The, the Cotor wanted to remakes that Aspire were making are now on hold though so we've no idea what's going on with them so anyway To2 on Switch. To2 is on Switch though

Oh is it? I thought it was just the first one. If you want a good version of a game the Switch is always where you find it. No you know what? No it just you know what it just I will say I've played this spire There's a review out for it.

Republic Commando for Switch. And I was like, when is that 360 version that's back compatible on the series X? Because I can't handle this. I'm not... Yeah, there's a... I'm looking at a review here that says that it's buggy. It's pretty buggy on Switch, but it is out on Switch. We need the Switch Pro, please.

Yeah. Well, the Steam deck and the lack of scruples is your solution. The scruples are bullshit. Like, go buck wild out there, folks. Like, IP is bullshit. They are burning down the temple of HBO Max. I no longer believe in anything. Sorry, when it launched,

it was impossible to complete the game because of a bun. You couldn't beat Cotor 2 on Switch. Oh, yeah, yeah. Now, if only this had been true of Republic Commando, and we know Filoni's lying. I finished Republic Commando, and it's, like, famously unfinishable. Oh, I don't know how to... me mad. You know how hard it is

to get fucking pass certification to zero bugs? Yeah, you're not wrong. You're not wrong. So, anyway, this last episode happens. They're on a spaceship. It's a republic spaceship, right? Yeah, and again, it's

it shows a lot of things away. The part where they're landing on a clearly derelict ship is eerie. There are a moment, like, again, there's so many moments in this where I'm like, there are cool concepts being kind of just like thrown down the disposal in this quartet of episodes and this is one of them they land on an obviously

derelict and screwed up like Star Destroyer and the part that really got me it's the most it is the most that one of these Republic cruisers has looked like a Star Destroyer by the way like it's very clear that's what this is the pit from like the front of

an imperial bridge is here that stuff looks great and it is creep is when they walk into the bridge and there's like the ship's been totally dead and silent and quiet and they walk in and there's a teeming bridge section full of like clone officers and they're just holograms their phantoms uh and like that part was cool i was like this is a cool concept for an episode there's not much more to it than that though it turns out the whole thing's loaded with bombs uh and this rhidonium fuel and then there's a few droids to make

sure this like um kamikaze mission goes off without a hitch and our crew of droids have to prevent it. Okay. Why did they have droid clone holograms? So that if someone had eyes on the bridge, it would look like a ship full of, like, so it would look like it was under clone

control. In hyperspace? But they're coming out of hyperspace. They're going to have to, like, I thought, they can't even communicate with them from, I think it's cool, but, like, do something with it. I don't know. They should have, like, they should have had to, like,

fake the call with them or something. Right, right. And people should have been like, hmm, that clone sounds a little weird or something. Or like, I think one of the clones should have like acknowledged one of the, or you know what I mean? Like, there should have been a moment where it seemed like they were like

going to interact and then, but they just kind of immediately walk through them and then you realize the hologram. And again, when they get to the place they're going, there's not even an attempt to call in and be like, everything's okay here. No, you're kind of missing that moment from the first episode of Battlestar 33

where there's the ship that like rejoins the flotel. And at this point, it's ambiguous. Like, did the sylons get it and fill it with bombs, et cetera? And so the whole question is, like, are we opening fire on a friendly ship? That moment's kind of missing here, because it's so obviously, like, it's a thing coming streaking in high speed. Yeah. Yeah.

That would have been really interesting of, like, yeah. I mean, eventually you do get the call from gas gun that's like, hey, we're, there's bombs. Yeah, I mean, he's, there's bombs here, which is the thing. This vessel's filled with the explosive material from the mine on Abafar, and it's a rollicking good time as the droids try to fight their way through the ship and steal the detonator, and then they lose the detonator, I guess. You got to fight a bunch of bug droids with the help of some of the ships. That shit was pretty, pretty.

I did not like seeing R2 sets a bunch of them on fire. That was cool. That's R2's move That was cool R2's like That's R2's like Hey Is this

No it's Disney So he can't You can't put R2 in multiverses Uh No No But it's a Ah

You know I I All that takes is a deal You know All that takes Is the ink And a pen

All that takes Is a contract And a lawyer What a denial move Right Just like Up R2's Yeah

R2's going up And nope You're not going to be You can't get Completely zoned him now All right All right Nerf R2

We got our first bad feeling in a while Oh no This episode had rants in opening vibes Yeah Because it's no I've got a bad feeling about this And then it's a trap like back to back Yeah Back to back

And it was like I can't And he does the fire I forgot I look at my notes He does the fire What's Gasconce Impressive Good

You've established a perimeter. Oh, God damn it. Yeah, I heard that one. Establish a perimeter around the survivors, we must. Around the survivors of perimeter form. Perimeter, create. Okay. He says create. Around the survivors, a perimeter create.

Yeah. Yeah. Anyway. So it's bad. In all of this, by the way, so our ambiguously lobotomized droid that sometimes Gaskin is riding around inside and sometimes not this time, so to get

like, also there's just too, like, so this kind of just bugs me. So the tactical droid in charge this whole thing is like, hey little bug recon droid, go and check it out, figure out what's going on. When they try to catch him, the bug recon droid goes to the room full of a million

bug recon droids. And it's like, so you just have like the ship full of these? Like why? Like, why weren't things just everywhere? But what's going on? Anyway, so the little... It's like an RTS when you forgot to put out like observation towers or you just like built them all at home by mistake.

You've left all your scouts at home. You haven't sent your explorers out. You're like, fuck! It's the final act. I haven't put anybody anywhere. Just ban select everyone and just like try to pull this out. Go, go, go, go. So BZ, the little astromac whose memory banks were, were yanked to make room for

Gaskin's cool little cockpit thing he goes and he's opening the airlock to pull all the little bug droids out, the buzz droids and he doesn't realize that he needs to magnetize his little feet and so when the airlock opens

he's immediately yanked out and this is horrible he's yanked out in the hyperspace and if memory serves hyperspace is kind of a null realm like he might just be out there forever forever. He's in hell. Yeah. It's fucked up. He did not deserve that.

Send the frog out. Yeah. And he already got the like death in this this article already. Yeah. Like it's not fair. It's not fair. He already died. Hold on.

Before. Maybe. And he brought him back to send. They did the same thing to fucking Gregor. He was you're right. You're right. Amnesiac like in, you know, in another realm or whatever and another version of his life and then they were like, guess what? You're actually fucking... You're back. You're back.

Die for us. Die for us now. The same thing to the fucking droid. I was like... Clone droid solidarity. We need it. We need it so bad now more than ever. There are other Republic droids on this ship too that they kind of meet up with, right? Buddy and the godroid. The one that looks sort of like robbed the

robot for the Nintendo Entertainment System with like the big eyes but he's like a long, long thin like lamp body you know also is this the first time we've heard of the carita system which

I have no idea that's where the conference is happening but it's in the old expanding universe and I think it's referred to in the solo movie as well this becomes the hub for Imperial training

this is their like West Point and Annapolis like all rolled into one but this is the thing that the clones are the the separatists are here to bomb. And we do get, like, all the Jedi,

while this important mission is unfolding, all the Jedi are basically attending this professional conference. Anakin is annoyed that they're there. Obi-Wan seems, you know, hey, this is part of the job. Sometimes the job is attending a conference and networking.

You know who else is there? Tarkin. Right. Tarkin's there. Tarkin is there. He's there, and he's like, annoying because he's Tarkin. Yeah.

I read if he even has any like meaningful lines at all. He just calls out when the ship arrives and that's it. However, his voice actor does show up in the Fallone Zone for this episode, but we can't watch the Flonie Zone for this episode until we talk about what happens, I guess, when the ship shows up

because something very dramatic and explosive happens. Yeah, ship blows up. Yeah, the ship blows up. I mean, there's a whole, like, R2, we got to stop the ship from blowing up. It's full of explosives, but there's a little detonator that Artu's got to, like, fuck with the tactical droid who's trying to set it off. And all the other droids fly off, so R2's trapped aboard the ship when it goes. And then, yeah, the explosion's awesome.

It's like a tsunami of debris whacking into the Republic Fleet that's gathered, like, shields are cracking. It's awesome. Also, the color is, like, extreme. It's just like rainbow. Happy Pride, everybody. Rainbow bombs blew up. Happy Pride, kill the Jedi.

Kill the Jedi, yeah. But yeah, he blows, R2 blows it up early so that it doesn't blow up in the station where it would have destroyed everything. It's one of those. And then, go ahead, yes. I just want to say my favorite part of the scene is that there's all this debris from the explosion

and then you get to the inside of the command center and there's, like, debris on their, like, little map set up thingy, it looked very cool. It does look very cool. You're not wrong. And they, you know, Anakin is like, no, go get R2. R2's out there. Got to rescue R2. And they do. They find R2 and they fix them. It's pretty easy.

He's happy. Anakin's like, there's people here who want to see you. And it's the droids and the droids are there. And they're like, who we're here. We're all droids and friends. And Gascon is like, you're a real soldier, Artu, because you also sacrifice. That's right. A third

fucking soldier's sacrifice. I could I didn't do it. I couldn't do it. And also the joke is like they're all going to become like little war buddies. They're going to continue to serve together. But like there's no reason for that. The Jedi are now just like making jokes out of all these characters. Like, wouldn't be funny if we get D-Squod together with the little Frog Commander? That is basically it.

All right. We do have now. We can now watch the second. Filoni zone. This is a much shorter one. Obviously, this is only the 101st episode. So it doesn't matter as much. Bap-p-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-god.

God damn, that's a good-looking explosion. Shit. It is. It looks really good. We're going to hear a little bit about it. Uh, are we ready? Yep. Three, two.

No. Yeah. Okay. Three, two, one, go. Point of no return. I made an interesting episode. I think we're all glad to be back on a Jedi cruiser. after being in the vastness of nothingness of Abafar.

Well, soldiers, this is the end of the mission. Colonel Gascon has succeeded. Art two, contact the bridge. Tell them I request a meal with the captain. Hagea! Stephen Stanton quietly has become a mainstay on this show. Most famously, Stephen is Tarkin, so much so that you might have seen Stephen in the flesh as Tarkin.

This is Stephen Stanton, his captain will have talk, and you're watching Star Wars.com. I originally started on the Clone Wars back in season two, playing Mossameda, Captain Wilhofftok, and played a lot of other characters like Bounty Hunter Moralo Evol and a lot of other villains and things like that. It's that guy. I'm currently playing Colonel Meeber Gascon.

Attention! It originally just said that he was a colonel, and the voice sort of evolved out of that, just sort of a... He's a military man, and you know, he's letting people know that he knows. knows what to do. And then I got to the session, and I found out that he was just a little guy. A little freak. In my mind, I was picturing somebody very big and commanding. And then once we got

started into the session, Dave said, yeah, just do more of that, make him even bigger. D-Squan, fall in line. Listen, we even talking about they're called D-Squant. Oh, yeah. I didn't want to. The space station where the Republic is holding its big gathering, I'm always searching for, new inspiration and new designs, and I happened to be at the reopening of Star Tours. I was on the ride, and there was Darth Vader in front of me, and we turned around,

we threw out, pulled back out of this hangar, and there was this amazing space station. There it is. Well, this kind of thing probably was around during the days of the Republic, so let's make that the meeting place. The quality of work, the I love to be creative, it's pull off. That's how it works. I mean, the perfection of the models. If you want to get excited about the future of Star Wars

and how incredible 7-8 and 9 are going to be, just look at the work aisle and did on that ride. Isn't that ship coming in a little too fast? The one thing you're going to remember from this episode, pre-gaming the sequel trilogy by going on Star Tours. I mean, this is something that you sit and go, is this a TV show? Because we blow a lot of things up,

but we've never blown something up this well before. It's a TV show. The dimension of the explosion, the number of colors in the explosion, And the aftermath of the explosion, there is a maelstrom of debris that hits the space station. And that's very real. I mean, that would have happened. Those kind of details, respect to take the hole.

It's a test for that. It's kind of like Joel Aaron's signature now is that explosion. Man, if you got A to D, turn on that explosion and watch it. You'll find everything in the kitchen thing in that thing. And you thought this conference would be boring. It's a really good explosion. It's a good explosion. It's really good.

It is. It's really good. That was great. That was worth it. Thank you. Love a good Faloni zone. Is that the episode? What else happens?

That's it. I have one line read I want to call out. Please. That made me ha-ha-out loud. Very, like, loud. which was when the commanding droid in the desolate Jedi cruiser looks at one of the battle droids and he's like, did you destroy the intruders?

And the battle droid immediately goes, uh, no. Yeah, that's great. That's really good. Just so deadpan. I was just like, oh, God. I love these fucking battle droids. They just kill me. More of them, please.

Yeah, agreed. The last thing I have here is I just think the action and the scene or in this episode is really rough. There's like that sequence in the hangar when they're trying to escape. And like, if you mapped it, I think it would be senseless, which is like, I understand that when you're making visual media, sometimes it's about feel. It's not about literal simulation of like, I don't need every step they take to be literally moving through a space and then you shoot it literally. and it has to be, the space is fake, right? You know, you need it to be legible, you need to be evocative, you don't need it to be literal.

It's not a video game level. And even video game levels are like that, right? It's not a real place. It's a place in the imagination of the viewer. However, they, like, run through the, like, 15 to 20 feet in front of the door into the hangar, like six times, as if they made no progress. Because they don't have, and the answer is they don't have beats. Like, you know, you can think about telling a visual story about, like, well, what am I

communicating by showing this sequence, what's this shot telling the audience? And the only thing they have to tell you is they need to run around a bunch before they can get on board the ship and escape. And they just keep showing filler shots. There's not like, the wrestling terminology for this would be a spot in wrestling. You have a lot of like fighting and then you have a spot. And the spot is someone's going to go to the top rope and do a backflip or someone's going to miss a punch and then the guy's going to get the finisher on him. There's going to be a storytelling beat called a spot. And there are no spots. And that aren't. R2 is having a fight against the tactical droid where they're doing some stuff,

but it keeps cutting back to the hangar and nothing is happening. Well, they're not fighting that fight up with the action at the escape either. And they try to faint, like, oh, no, we need to get to R2. But there's no sense. There's a shot where they're like, they can see R2 fighting. But then, like, I thought I'd miss something. Or was like, so are we going to rescue him? And how to keep saying it.

The walk is just like, taken off. We got to go. Uh-huh. It's very weird. Hits the fucking launch ship button immediately. Well, he doesn't want to be overshadowed by R2 anymore. It's true. Yes, that's true.

We needed a fifth episode where they really duked it out. Oh, yeah. A fifth episode of this. This arc would have been great. We're done. We finished it. We are on to the back of the final arcs of season five. I'm so excited for it.

I stop looking at episode titles. Have you already watched the head? No, but I see the episode Discurses when I go to my You can't You can't read them because they're They're filled with spoilers And it's like, it's not just season five

Like the rest of the shit It's too, it's bad Like I need you go to Okay, I need you go get an electrical tape And there's like tape over the part of your TV Where it will show the descriptions So you can't see the descriptions I'll hold it over your eyes

Put it in special glasses like you're looking at Any clips You know Dead ass, like the spoilers are real in these descriptions, so... Well, hopefully that means we also have some, like... Oh, we got you... Oh, it's time. It's time to talk about big things.

It was not a sunny day in the void for me. It was... It was not. That's true. I kept waiting for my flock of desert birds to show up, and they never did. They never did, but... This episode's going to be under two hours. I don't think we've done it.

forever. And we thought we'd be shorter. Hang on, we were on hold for 30 minutes. So. No, like 20 minutes.

Yeah, they're about. I'm saying we're under two hours. That's what I'm saying. We're significantly under. Yeah. I think that that's appropriate. I think looking, if you would have asked me

before we recorded, before I watched these, like how long do you think this arc will be? This droid. I would have been like, two and a half, three hour,

three hour pod easily. On droids? A droid? And if I had said... And there's a clone. Oh, and there's a clone. And a fucked-up little freak. And a fucked-up little freak.

And we go to a diner and we're in a void. And there's essentialism. This is, do you know what this is? This whole arc is like one of those things where I don't have ever dated someone who thinks they have the line on you and they think they understand what you're into and they just extremely don't understand it like what you're into for the reason that you're into it. You know, it's like they give you a mixtape and it's like just completely. wrong and you just have to be like yeah like yeah I did see them at the they did open for

the band I was actually going to see that one time it's like all of the the note all of the it's what you said before all the recipes are right and it's just the wrong meal wrong meal just fucking blew it on the on the on the on the on the on the on the on the but the ingredients beautifully sourced free-range yeah hand foraged yes gorgeous

the episode was just in the dumpster outside in the alley that's food right it's all the same to you organics all right well next week Patreon backers are going to get to hear us what are you going to talk about revisit this

and the Jedi kids again, the Padawans. Send them questions. Make them good. Please make them good. Please for us, please. Not that you, y'all send bad questions, but just for this one, like, especially good. Like, for these arcs specifically, please. So you'd like to hear that or just want to support the show. You can do so at patreon.com slash civilized.

And then in a couple weeks, it sounds like we are getting back to some main plot. That's right. We are doing... Who will fall? Who will fall? Episodes 14, 15, and 16, eminence, shades of reason, and the Lawless. Yeah. Ooh.

And then a four-episode banger after that, so. And then we're in the 12-episode season zone. And we're in two 12-episode seasons, and we're done with Clone Wars. No, season six is 13 episodes, apparently. I think it's 13 and 12, is that right? 13 and 12. Suspicious. So basically, we have, we basically only have, we basically only have,

have one, we have a season and a half left, basically. Yeah. I feel like it's just begun. I don't. I guess that's a good question. We've done, we've done 100 episodes. We've had so many crumbs and not a single meal.

The fuck? We've gotten meals. There have gotten meals. A hundred episodes. Tell me how many meals we've gone out of 100 episodes. I think, I feel like, the times you've been fed and satisfied. Before we go on to the file, Al, you have something you want to say. well I was just going to say I feel like I'm understanding like the the rhythm of a season of Clone Wars now where like they'll tend to like either come out with a really strong opening or a really bad opening to a season like water war and then it like the quality will dip from there and then you'll get the mid season it goes really high and then they try to do like oh it's a big season finale and stuff is happening yeah and then it's really exciting and then you go into the new season and then it's mid and then it's mid and then it's mid and then it's mid and then

it gets worse, that it gets good. But I am curious that the switch to the shortened episode order changes that vibe of it. And also there will be a, it's a jump in time, right? Because is season, when was season six? Season six, I don't know, so season six is 2014. Season seven is the one that's 2020. Oh, sure, sure. So, huge jump between those two.

You know, before we wrap up, since we have a little bit of time, I am just curious, you know, looking back the last hundred episodes, pulling up a list, looking at that list, thinking about what we've watched, and then we'll do a full re-evaluation of everything probably at the very end of the Clone Wars before I move on to whatever's next. Maybe there'll be a bonus thing. That could be fun. But I'm curious, what trends you think emerge from just looking at all 100 episodes we've watched so far?

The show's not as good as it was at the start. It's funny because... They've adopted the arcs, and I don't know, yeah. We were distracted by the poor visuals, and we were. Like, but everything was so much more interesting because they were just doing weird or shit, I feel like, in the beginning. And now it feels way more formulaic in a sense that like we have to end with this like moral upswing. Yeah, four episodes is a lot for some of these arcs. They cannot sustain four.

It's too long. It's like they somehow stumbled into years in advance like the Netflix problem of like you don't have four episodes here. You don't have 65 minutes of content here. This is, like, this can be one tight episode, or you need to, or you need to figure out, like, what the actual, like, act structure is for this. But, like, this move to, like, the longer arcs has been kind of a bus. They're not, they're not contiguous. They don't really arc. The first four-episode arc that they ever did was the second genesis war, right?

Or battle. And that's landing at Point Rain, which is the one where it's like the groups are separated. It's like heavy war sci-fi or sci-fi drama. Then it's Weapons Factory, which is Luminarra and, or sorry, that's Barris Offi and Assoca have to get into the base and they have to sneak around. And like you're learning with the different styles of Luminarra versus Anakin as masters. The third one is like a safe terror, which is the one that's like the alien, you know, style horror in the caves. And then it's brain invaders. Those are all very different.

Brain invaders, they're on the ship. The worms have done, have taken over the clones, but also is there something latent in the clones already? Therefore, that's an arc, but they are four distinct episodes. And I remember at the time, we've generally felt like it would be cool if there was more of a through line in these episodes. And now we live in that world. And I think what we've traded away is the variety that came with.

Let's just do it four stories in a place, but they're not directly connected in the way that they are like this four episode arc you couldn't really watch one of them by themselves I guess you could kind of but they're just like not this feels like it was more cohesive in some ways but less interesting in many more they're leaning too much on each other like

they're leaning too much on the next episode there will be payoff which there's yeah but also I don't think we get Embara in seasons one through three so when it hits I think this model does work But it's hit once. Yeah. The Cadbane steals the kids, and that one is also a pretty connected arc.

That is pretty good. That one hits. Yeah, I think, for me, it is a weird thing where... And I think Anderan, Anderan, also a pretty connected arc that mostly works. It's not as good as Ambara, but it is a connected arc. They set up new characters. They build the revolution, et cetera. But also it's kind of talk the episode.

I think maybe this is something else, is that, there is a shift to we have resources and we can do like visual storytelling and we can like have a cool looking show that will carry some of this. And I feel like because they're masking a lot of constraints in those first like couple seasons, you ended up being a show where there's a lot of like batting ideas around, right? Like I mean, if you think about the episode where Luminar and Asoka are escorting Gunray on that ship, um, there's a lot of time spent that detention center. Like people arguing about what they should do with this guy. And there's a lot of, hey, you can't handle Ventrists.

Like, you do not know what you're up against here. But again, not like in this kind of thing, right? Sometimes it's cooler to hear people talk about stuff and actually see them do it. That thing does culminate. When Ventra's finally like breaks cover and we have a big fight, it's a good fight for that era of the show. But for the most part, there's a lot of good buildup

and like character work done. Of late, there's a lot of characters who aren't really fleshed out interesting characters. And you're being forced to spend a lot. of time. You're right. So I want us to carry this. Go ahead.

So many, well, I was just going to say, just thinking about it, so many of the arcs that were like banger arcs are characters that we've spent more time with and just have more depth to them. Like, you're spent, they used to, this arc in season one or two is two episodes. Yep. And now it's four. And we'll never see this fucking frog again. I hope.

the past. Listen, we might. We might be cursed with this frog forever. He didn't die at the end of this. I won't see him. They're all going to be together. I won't perceive him. Quit the show if he comes back. Meber. Meber Gaskan.

Terrible. Yeah. I think we're done. Okay. I'm done. No other appearances. No other appearances. Really? Okay. The thing that I want to say before we wrap is I want us to sit with that energy that we just brought and that these thoughts that we have about arcs. as we go into these next arcs, because they're big arcs, I have not seen them, but I know big plot points from them.

And I'm so curious if we feel how we feel now at the end of this season, because it feels to me like they are going to be, and I might be wrong about this, but given where I know things are going, they feel like they're going to be extensions of this new model of what Clone Wars it is from here on out. And I want to, I want us to, maybe these are things you can send in questions for, not for this episode, but in a month, next month, next month, when we get through. Because the next month Q&A is going to be about these next two arcs, which we could not have lined up better for reasons that will become clear as we continue to watch this show. And we will embark on that journey in a couple weeks' time, for those of you on the main feed. But in the meantime, we do have that Q&A over the Jedi kids. And I keep calling about whatever that arc is, you know, the, not even Paduan's yet. Anyway, the lightsaber, the lightsaber game. The younglings.

The younglings. And the droids. Younglings and droids. Who wins in a fight? The droids. The droids, R2 kills them. If they had to fight to the death, R2 wins. You know, this episode, okay.

No? No, I'm saying RGGGG could be. I don't think RGGG would kill a child. I am saying this episode would have been improved if, and there's only one man we can have lead this mission. It's not the frog. It's Honda. Hondo's got to lead the droids. Could have improved it.

He's that little, like, gives a little zip. You want to see him out in the desert in the void, complaining about the void. He's like, damn, I wish I had a drink out here. You know what? Honda would look at a droid and think that it was a betty droid instead. He would do that.

It would have been such a better arc. This would have been his redemption for us. I can't. No, if we cannot keep getting this man. Chances. We cannot. If we did not have the frog. And if it was a hondo with some droids,

I genuinely think I believe, I believe in, y'all are gone. Y'all are two-year-off it. You're too far gone. Listen, no, I'm not. I am, I get off the train, I get back on,

I get off the train, I get back on. I'm taking it like it's a commute, okay? There's some decent shops. Love yourself. Love yourself. You don't mean the, man in your life anymore. You've got to get distance.

I can't. I can't. I can't. I want him to be better. I want, I can fix him. Natalie, you cannot. Natalie. Well, so in two weeks' time, we're embarking on a lot of interesting arts.

It sounds like looking forward to it. Until then, please rate, review us on your podcast platform of choice. Never forget that one droid's name who sacrificed himself because he, B.Z. BZ. BZ. BZ. Weese. We'll never forget you, BZ. You deserve battle. BZ's name will be in the episode list. Every character who's ever died who matters on Clone Wars has been in the episode description. So I'm keeping track. I started keeping track on the first episode of the clones that have died. And that's just expanded out into the Jedi that have died. kill count at the end of this.

We probably do. We do need to do it. We need to release like a fucking in memoriam at the end of his first. We got to put Gregor's mask, but it's a dash for every dead character in Clone Wars instead of every hypothetical droid that he's killed. And send it to Dave Filotie. And save it sent to Dave. All right. That is a wrap.

We are done. This was going to be a short one. Not much to talk about here. We can't say that out loud anymore. That's what we can't say that out loud anymore. I'm going to be able to be. Thank you. Thank you.

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