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Delving into STAR WARS: THE CLONE WARS episodes 101-105 with Jessika | 035
34 Plays24 days ago
Join Branwen and Seah as they deep dive into all things Star Wars. Follow along as we fly off exploring all the wonders and geekery of a Galaxy Far, Far Away, chatting, worlds, lore, sound, music, story, behind the scenes, nostalgia, and much more with each other and some very special guests.
We've hit Season 3! This is our first episode diving into Clone Wars series, and to kick things off we're joined by a returning guest, the fabulous Jessika, to chat about episodes 1-5 from Season 1: Ambush, the Malevolence arc, and Rookies. We get into the key characters, the storytelling, the cinematography and visual design, behind-the-scenes nuggets, sounds, music, Star Wars Easter eggs, Yoda's wisdom vs impishness, Plo Koon's physiology, Gonk Rock, droid sentience, and much more.
Sisters of the Force is a weekly, UK-based, Star Wars podcast, produced with joy and love by Seah and Branwen. Sisters of the Force theme by Seah and Branwen.
Follow us on Instagram @sistersoftheforcepod, Bluesky @sistersoftheforce.bsky.social, TikTok @sistersoftheforcepod, https://www.youtube.com/@SistersoftheForce, and https://www.facebook.com/sistersoftheforcepod.
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Transcript
Favorite Characters from Episode 101
00:00:15
Speaker
Sia! Hi! What's your favourite character from the Clone Wars episode 101, Ambush? ah Yoda, obviously. Plus his little green wrinkly face. Nostalgia value. i was drawn to him in this episode in the same way as I was drawn to him as a child, which was really nice. Yeah, yeah. Yeah.
00:00:37
Speaker
Hey, Branwen. Hello. Who is your favourite character from The Clone Wars Episode 101? Lieutenant Fire, I think is his name. He's the clone that blasts the cliff face at the end with his last rocket. Nice. and i just For similar reason, I love the way his interaction with Yoda. We'll get into that.
00:00:55
Speaker
It was a really nice little full circle moment for him in his one episode arc. Maybe he'll come back. We don't know.
Introduction to Sisters of the Force Podcast
00:01:05
Speaker
You're listening to Sisters of the Force, a Star Wars podcast with me, Branwen. me, Zia. Hello.
00:01:10
Speaker
Hello, and we are now officially, at last, we keep saying the beginning of every episode lately, now we're actually starting. But now we are actually starting the Clone Wars TV animated series. We're going to be breaking it down. Today we're looking at episodes one through five from season one.
00:01:29
Speaker
And wos we've got a little arc in the middle of all of that, the Malevolence arc, and a couple of rando episodes. And not only that, we've also got an amazing special guest. Yay.
00:01:41
Speaker
Once again, Jessica, welcome back to Sisters the Force. Hi. Hi. Fourth appearance now. Definitely feeling smug. Including Amanda and team appearance. Yeah, yeah, yeah. yeah yeah I'm really happy to have now met you in real life. Yes. Same. Same lovely. Yeah. yeah I forget that you haven't met each other in real life. Well, you have now. Well, you have now,
Sia's First Experience with The Clone Wars
00:02:05
Speaker
yeah. I had completely forgotten. so how are we all feeling about The Clone Wars? I mean, as everybody listening, if you've listened before, although I've already watched once, this is a re-watch for me. But Sia, how are you enjoying? This my first watch. um
00:02:20
Speaker
I'm really enjoying it, especially after our Wild Space episode where we got hyped. That was really fun. Yeah. And I'm already, that episode was a bit like, for me, I don't say much. I'm very much just listening to what's going on and kind of, because I have nothing to contribute, but now I can pull all the threads out of that conversation and
Jessica's History with The Clone Wars
00:02:43
Speaker
that's really nice. Absolutely. Yeah. That was a good setup episode, definitely. Yeah, it was a good setup. Yeah. Thank you, Mary, because I was a bit blank about a lot of Glenn stuff as well. Even having watched it. Jessica, this is this a first watch or a sort of you're kind of doing a partial rewatch sort thing? So I've watched a little bits of it before when I've been like, oh, I want to deep dive about the inhibitor chips. Or I want to learn about this particular character or I'd like to see this person's backstory when they've popped up in other media.
00:03:12
Speaker
Yeah. So I've watched chunks, but not many, very small chunks. And then I started a few weeks ago when it was confirmed that I was coming for this episode.
Asajj Ventress: A Character Analysis
00:03:21
Speaker
I decided to start a binge. So I've got to the end of season two.
00:03:25
Speaker
And then I come back and watch these five yesterday. My favourite character yes from episode one jealous us is, shockingly, fellow shaven-headed, scary woman, Asajj Ventress. That's two for Ventress so far in my tally jam. She's cocky. She is just so overconfident and it's beautiful. She's just like, oh'm just go I'm just going to beat up Yoda. yeah just Sure, that's the thing, love and love. I love her. I love that energy. Actually pulling a couple of lightsabers on Yoda. Yeah. One of my thoughts about this episode is how like she's just a messenger at this point. Yeah. How to misuse an absolute goddess of the Asajahs. Yeah. Pretty wild. But yeah, shes she was amazing in the episode. Like you say, her her overconfidence and... I felt she had a bit of humble pie at the end, which was quite interesting to watch because she doesn't usually. I just was watching her like, this is going to go terribly.
00:04:28
Speaker
it says It's that classic, you know, your overconfidence is your weakness sit thing, isn't it? Yeah, sure. And yeah, it was nice to see her be sort of, I'm inserting myself on Dooku's orders and I'm here to basically mess up Yoda's day, but so confident that it was going to work.
00:04:48
Speaker
despite her you know surely by this point the separatists have realized how pretty terrible battle droids are at least your default battle droid anyway your b1b not so good in the battle no but also this whole episode is essentially game isn't it it seems like a game for yodi yeah
00:05:12
Speaker
So did he go into it knowing what was going to
Yoda's Strategy and Leadership
00:05:15
Speaker
happen? Was he like, oh, I've got to go and meet the Troidarians. Clearly there's going to be a whole face off. see happens. I mean, it's interesting, isn't it? Because the Troidarians, like, they love a game.
00:05:26
Speaker
We know this from Water. yeah They love a gamble. They love a bet. yeah There's no way for Yoda or Ventress to do a shortcut with a Jedi mind trick. It has to be played out. But also at the end, the Troidarian monarch,
00:05:41
Speaker
He's very angry that the deal... ah That it wasn't fair. That it was, yeah, he who would never align with someone who would break their word. Yeah, yeah. Which reminds me of how angry Watto is when he's convinced the chance cubes...
00:05:54
Speaker
have been moved by Qui-Gon. You have won the toss out, Lunder. This is super interesting. I was watching a little behind the scenes thing with Filoni and Cillian Plunkett, who's sort with the art director. That's a hell of a name. Say that again. Cillian Plunkett. Yeah, he's awesome.
00:06:13
Speaker
ah He's been working on Star Wars visually for years and years and years, since the 90s, I think. And he was talking about how in the movies we often only see one representative of a species. So Watto being the example here. And how the Clone Wars gives them this brilliant opportunity to like look at what what do the other members of the species behave like. And course clearly these look very different. They're very regal looking. They've got nice kind of like blue and gold armor and costumes and stuff.
00:06:40
Speaker
yeah ah Yeah, like platted. The king's got like the two plats. Their planet looks quite... Yeah, I don't think this is their planet. Oh. No, I think this is a neutral planet. I misread that.
00:06:52
Speaker
I was going say it looks quite humid and Watto's having to live on Tatooine, which might affect his skin
Tribute to Tom Kane
00:06:59
Speaker
condition. Famously, Tatooine ages you. Yes, Tatooine. Very quickly. We go to Toy Dario later in the Clone Wars. I've not got there yet. Okay. No, I think it's like all underground-y and like cavernous, which kind tracks. But yeah, this is a neutral meeting point.
00:07:15
Speaker
I think that was the idea. But it's lush. It looks, it's got that kind of coral. It's gorgeous. That's what wrote down. it's just It's made of coral. It's a corally space. Yeah. It looks a bit like, if you've watched Rebels listeners, Chopper Base, which is where they end up building their little kind of mini Rebel base. It's got the same kind of like flora, these weird coral things, fronds. Fronds. These are my fronds. I feel like because you mentioned how much you love Yoda in this episode, Sia, that we should do a RIP shout out to Tom Kane. who's yeah Yoda's voice actor who passed away last month on the 18th of May.
00:07:53
Speaker
ah Very established voice actor and gave his own sort of spin on Yoda. Like Yoda is, he's almost got a more playful lilt yeah to his voice in the in the Clone Wars, I find. yeah But very good at the, you know, the way he phrases things, the way he delivers the lines. It does feel true to Frank Oz's original voice.
00:08:14
Speaker
Yeah. I think that's why I really liked Yoda in this episode because of that playfulness. And he's very instantly, he's like, no yeah, sure, I'll have a challenge. let's just Yeah, yeah. I think Henry Gowry spoke about Yoda in the Clone Wars and in this episode in particular as being a kind of like flashback to Empire because we've seen Yoda in the prequels and he's very serious and he's dealing with this whole thing about they know the bad stuff that's happening. like losing rubb So this was an opportunity for them to go back to that kind of impish, like, yeah. yeah That's even there in some of the script. He says at one point, um weapons do not win battles, which is very similar to wars not make one mighty.
00:08:53
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, definitely. Yeah. yeah um And we see him teaching as well. He sort he teaches the clones in a way, in a similar way that he would suddenly go serious with Luke and drop some force bombs, which is awesome. Yeah.
00:09:07
Speaker
And he does some lightsaber welding, which I'm well into. I didn't even write that in my notes. It's just popped in my head. Like, he actually, like, we're seeing a practical use of lightsabers beyond fighting have you know, let's make a crutch. Awesome. He's great. laugh But yeah, big respect to Tom Kane. Tom Kane is also the guy who does the intros, the musical. Oh, really? Yeah. I've got them written down under my, because the sections you gave you said, this is how we're doing these new episodes, and one you said was vibes. yeah And under the vibes section, I've got that I love the sports commentator slash Saturday morning cartoon recap. This week on the Clone Wars, we've got da-da-da-da-da-da-da. I love that.
00:09:52
Speaker
It's got wonderful, wonderful. And I don't read i can't tell that's Tom Kane. That's really good. Yeah, he does Admiral Yalaren as well. you listen to Yalaren, Yalaren sounds exactly like the narrator. The intro, yeah. yeah, that makes sense.
00:10:06
Speaker
I like the little on-screen wisdom vibe of the episode. Quote things that you get at the start of every Clone Wars episode. What's the one for this one? Great leaders inspire greatness in others.
00:10:17
Speaker
Yeah. Which is very much what Yoda does and it shows how bad a leader Ventress is to be honest. She's just sat back giving orders over a holo. I think we should track these, what we want to call them? yeah little The little things, the little nuggets. I've written all five down. That's good. I have not. I knew Branwen would do it to be fair.
00:10:37
Speaker
I feel like by about season three, they probably start to have more vague, less detailed. Yeah. i can represent Like all of these five, I felt were really, they did summarise. Yeah. Yeah. Really nicely. yeah But we'll see. We'll see how
Non-linear Storytelling in The Clone Wars
00:10:52
Speaker
they go on.
00:10:52
Speaker
that' really good What I really like about the sports commentator intro bit is... Because a lot of Saturday morning cartoons in the 80s, which obviously you won't remember, Sia, but me and Bran will remember. I didn't exist in the 80s. They did a sort of like, in this week's episode.
00:11:10
Speaker
And it was almost spoilers. I kind of hate watching stuff on streaming sometimes because I'm like, oh, I never had this on my VHS copy or whatever, like, because they got rid of them. But these ones, I've noticed the more I've watched Clone Wars, they're quite often filling in blanks for stuff that isn't on the screen. yeah Like, this big battle has happened in the past week, and now we're looking at the aftermath, and you've never seen that big battle.
00:11:34
Speaker
And I love that it gives it, um it fleshes out even more beyond what the show is doing. It makes it feel like an even bigger conflict and even bigger. I'm doing lots of talking with my hands. you Audio medium. We can hear it. We can hear it. Yeah. Yeah, I think given them the anthology nature of The Clone Wars, like they are part of that. They're contributing. They're telling us this is an anthology because you do sometimes see footage from episodes that we've already seen and sometimes you don't. I have a feeling as we go along we'll notice that they show you footage for something we haven't seen yet possibly. I'm not sure that's the case. But because The Clone Wars series jumps around the timeline when we get to episode five we can talk a bit about that as well how like it's definitely not in order of chronological yeah so there's like two ways of watching a clone wars do it as we're doing it season by season episode by episode but there is a chronological watch which is quite different oh the firefight viewing method
00:12:34
Speaker
yeah yeah So Disney went, you know what Fox did where they released the intro episode like seven episodes in? Let's let's do that. Yeah, not the best tactic.
00:12:46
Speaker
I think Star Wars what star wars generally does that. suppose it started with episode four. Yeah, what am I on about? Yeah. And I've just discovered, i think Star Trek, the original series, does this as well. Certainly not, they didn't air those in the order that they were made. they order Which I don't know if that affects timelines whatever. Anyway, we're not here to talk about Star Trek, of course, but super interesting. I mean, that's got wibbly wobbly timey wimey stuff, hasn't it? so yeah the Yeah, like, how let's not get into Star Trek timelines.
00:13:19
Speaker
Yeah, I loved, ah but i'm very okay, that probably my favourite bit of the whole episode.
Yoda and the Clones' Unique Bond
00:13:24
Speaker
and Yes. We've got five episodes to talk about here but I love this bit with Yoda in the cave when he's talking to the clones. About their different faces. He says, your helmets, remove them, your faces I wish to see. And i was like, oh my gosh, this is...
00:13:40
Speaker
so sweet and we heard Yoda's theme v like yeah it just gets you every time yeah one of the things I've written for the theme of the episode is the uniqueness of the clones we're straight in with yeah yeah showing that these are different beings despite sharing the same yeah physical template but even they're saying it like yeah even they're learning this But they're also learning about yeah the idiosyncrasies of the Jedi. Yeah. Like how unique Yoda is amongst Jedi. Like these clones are talking because they've clearly never been in the field with a Jedi before.
00:14:13
Speaker
And they're learning from Yoda, not just about the Force, but about what it means, which again comes back to the great leaders in play greatness in others. He tells them that they can use the Force to calm their minds or something along those lines. He may not use the Force, but he's implied. He pretty much does.
00:14:29
Speaker
yeah I've got this theory. i don't know if we've talked about this theory on the podcast or not, but the way the sequels went and the way things feel like they're going and some of the stuff we've seen in Ahsoka, the TV show, it feels to me like the perception of the Force is changing or whether the nature of the Force itself is changing in that...
00:14:51
Speaker
Pre, I don't pre-sequels, I guess, and maybe pre-Disney, it was always assumed that only the people who have the Force can be Jedis, and there's only a select number of people that are sensitive to the Force in that particular way.
00:15:05
Speaker
But I feel like seeds being sown that the Force isn't as simple as that. That's not how the Force works. Like we had Finn in Rise of Skywalker. Finn is kind of implying in Rise of Skywalker that he's got the Force. He never comes out and says it, but it feels like he's starting to sense it. And the fact that we've got Sabine training with Ahsoka now and developing some Force skills, which I know has made a lot of fans very unhappy. Of course it has, because you know who knows what everybody wants. But that if there was this underlying theme of...
00:15:36
Speaker
What is the force? Who can tap into the force? And here we've got Yoda saying clones, you know, who are clones for starters, they've had accelerated growth and all of that. He's telling them that they can calm their minds with help from the force. And that's to me, Yoda saying, yeah.
00:15:49
Speaker
Isn't it about faith? Like, Yoda's telling them that and they're quite new. And we've seen... People who are attuned with the Force who aren't Jedi or Sith, the Force healer in Andor.
00:16:01
Speaker
I can't remember. the The blind character in Rogue One, I can't remember. yeah, Chirrut. Chirrut Iwi, yes. Chirrut Iwi. Yeah, you know, I am one with the Force, the Force is with me. Yeah.
00:16:12
Speaker
He's not a Force user. Yet he is aware enough of the Force to be able to just calmly walk out in between all the blaster shots. Yes. Or to take out all the stormtroopers with a stick. Without sight, yeah.
00:16:23
Speaker
Yeah. And when Baze then finds his face at the end, having seen Chirrut do that sacrifice in Rogue One, he walks out and he takes out all the death troopers. um I think that Yoda is talking to beings that although they are fully grown adults,
00:16:42
Speaker
They are very young yeah spiritually. They're very young and in terms of actual existence, maybe not physically, but in time spent in the universe. So I think Yoda is trying to instill in them faith.
00:16:55
Speaker
Yeah. Because if you have faith, if you believe in the Force, like we've seen it with Han. Yeah. As far back as the original trilogy, how you know, hokey religions, da-da-da-da-da. And then...
00:17:06
Speaker
may the Force be with you, he ends up saying it Yeah. Because
Lessons on Faith and Leadership from Yoda
00:17:10
Speaker
he believes. And is the Force not acting through him when he shoots Vader's TIE fighter away from Luke so that Luke can destroy the Death Star? You know? I think it's about faith. And I think Yoda sees the clones and goes, these guys are a blank template.
00:17:23
Speaker
Yeah. I can teach them to calm themselves with the Force, even though they're not Force-sensitive. I can teach them because if I tell them, they'll believe me because maybe on some level they've been programmed to believe the Jedi, or maybe it's because...
00:17:36
Speaker
They're essentially children. Interesting. And they have faith in a great leader, inspiring greatness in others. Oh, no It's like poetry. It rhymes. It's going to be an interesting thing to watch, both as we watch the Clone Wars, but as we see new Star Wars content. I'm really intrigued to see what happens in Ahsoka Season 2, how they address that, because they have to address that. yeah It's been set up in Ahsoka Season 1.
00:18:01
Speaker
Who knows? But it's just, yeah, just it just really touched me, that little... conversation and have made me think of like what is Yoda saying? It's beautiful. That whole scene in the cave is really beautiful. I drew a little heart next to it.
00:18:15
Speaker
But much as I hate to move on, I feel like we need to move on. We need to move on. One last thing I wanted say. Just because it references an earlier podcast. We have the appearance, this is the first, obviously I didn't watch the movie and I think they were in the movie. But the stylized B2s, the super battle droids, they're big, big, and they're so over-exaggerated. They're like egg-shaped, upside-down egg-shaped. And they're walking down the narrow valley bit, shooting at the clones, and it's really intense scene, and they speak.
00:18:48
Speaker
Yes, they do. Just like they did in Revenge of the Sith. Just like they did. I didn't realize they spoke. Yeah, I caught that. it was like, oh, okay, fair enough. it is Yeah, I did love listening to your episode about the Jack Black ah Mando episode. Oh, is this the first time we've heard? I was like, excuse me, get on the comments, as I am known for. We didn't hear one speak in the movie, but we did hear one shout as he fell off a cliff. Yes, he did shout. He was like, oh. He shouted as he went down. Yes.
00:19:18
Speaker
Oh, great. Yeah, I'd written that down. Hey, what's going on? One of them says. Yeah. I think it's just a pitch shifter on his voice. Yeah, it is. Yeah, it's interesting because they're not the same voice coding or whatever. Yeah. So correct me, Soundgirls, what the actual phrase is. It's not the same effects chain. But the ones in Revenge of the Sith that say, that nothing. Ignore that. Oh, yes. It's not the same. They're not as gravelly and croaky.
00:19:44
Speaker
Yeah. um But they're definitely different to the B1s. Yeah. The B ones are ridiculous. That's my whole note. This is the link between all of these episodes. They're always ridiculous. I love them. They're becoming my new favourite thing. Like, I never thought I would love them as much. They may well be my favourite character in one of these episodes. 100%. 100% we should shout out Matt Wood we did talk about Matt Wood a bit last episode he's the guy that voices them he's the supervising sound editor on the Clone Wars at this point i don't know if he stays all the way through all seven seasons but he's a really key part yeah of it and he does a lot of the voices as we'll get to but he's obviously the voice of the B1s I bet he does the B2s as well but being as though he's the sound editor it's just easier isn't it to get your sound editor to do it But then what I've been reading the Sounds of Star Wars book, which is all about the sounds of Star Wars, funnily enough. yeah And there's a little bit at the end. It's mostly about the six movies, but there's a little bit at the end about the Clone Wars. And he's really like the focal point of it.
00:20:47
Speaker
And he's in a lot of the kind of episodes that i've been watching, the little behind the scenes featurettes and stuff, which are on YouTube, by the way. I think they were on the DVDs originally. They're just little six, seven minute chunks of interviews per Clone Wars episode, which really cool. wow.
00:21:01
Speaker
Just get some little nuggets, which I've dug a few out for these. Okay, we're pushing on then. So 102, Rising Relevelance. We ought to also shout out Stephen Melching, who wrote all five of these episodes. Oh, wow. Okay, cool. He's written loads of animation in the past. He's also written on Rebels and Star Wars Resistance and Batman, Transformers, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, loads of stuff. Oh, he's got some good range then. Just across these five episodes, there's a lot of different feelings. There's a lot different stuff, yeah. Like the first episode's so upbeat and 102, the one we're going into, it's very bleak. Darko.
00:21:35
Speaker
like It's right up my street. like yeah I think this is ah joint top of the most consecutive episodes by one person. Oh, wow. They change writers a lot, but they do seem to like have chunks. It's usually like three or four in a row kind of thing. So five in a row is is quite a lot. think that only happens to one other point. Oh, wow. so Okay.
00:21:58
Speaker
Rising malevolence. Belief is not a matter of choice, but a conviction. A of Ooh. Okay. Yeah, I didn't write that down. the other So, Bramwen. No, no, no. Do it, do it, do it. It's your part. I'm just jumping in being rude. No, Jessica, Jessica. Okay, Bramwen, who is your favourite character from episode 102, Rising Malevolence?
00:22:21
Speaker
Plo Koon. I knew you to choose Plo Koon. Yes. commitment to his team. Love it He's just real committed. i put all my faith in Plo Koon any given opportunity. Yeah, yeah. good I'm going to jump in and second that. That was also.
00:22:36
Speaker
Is that your favourite character as well? Yeah. It's the first meeting of Blowkoon. Yeah. Yeah. Well, we've seen him in the prequels, but not really. Not really. He screamed and blew up. Yeah. yeah yeah He was short-lived. R.I.P. Famously, Filoni's favourite Jedi. Favourite character, I think, could even say.
00:22:58
Speaker
Which explains why he's in episode two. Jessica, who's your favourite character? and Shockingly, it's Palpatine. He's only in it a little bit, but there's this little smile at one point when he's criticising Anakin for going off mission. Like he's mentioned in passing by like Dooku's like, I have heard word from Darth Sidious. And I'm just, it's just, it's yet more Palpatine sneakiness. And I love him being sneaky. It's the, we're right at the start of the Clone Wars and we're being reminded that he's the puppet master behind everything. that he knows all, but all the sides that are being played, oh, what is this separatist weapon? Oh, we must be careful. You know, it's your weapon. You're doing it.
00:23:41
Speaker
Yeah, so as the the resident Palpatine fangirl, shockingly, I mean, we've got our Palpatine t-shirt range now, yeah all inspired by your love of Palpatine. Awesome.
00:23:57
Speaker
I love that. Intrigue, intrigue. Yeah, I did love Plo Koon. I really like, there's a little visual detail, here the intricate design on his mask. On his mask, yeah. it's like I was looking at it, like kind of want that tattooed. Yeah. like for For the people who can't see me, have lots and lots of tattoos. I'm like, I'll add that one. Yeah. I do have to mention James Arnold Taylor, who is Plo Koon's voice actor and is phenomenal as Plo Koon. They've got some kind of filthy pitch shifter on his voice. It's not like the B2 voice is a kind of clean pitch shifter. yeah Whereas the one on Plo Koon, they purposely left these kind of like weird artifacts in the voice. and I think it's to to to represent his light voice. His mask. his go but who's going on He wears the mask because he's allergic to oxygen.
00:24:48
Speaker
Yeah, I guess, yeah. No, it says so in the book. I read it. It does say. Is that why he's got his eyes covered as well, because a mucous membrane on the eyes? Yeah, yeah. And even his ears, these little dangly ear tubes go into his mask. He's great. I'd be very interested to see what he looks like beneath the mask. Without. I don't know if you've ever seen that. I don't think we ever go to Keldor or whatever the planet's called. Keldors, yeah. Of course you know the name of the planet. Yeah, that's what he is. He's Keldorian and his mask protects him from oxygen, which is poisonous to their race. Interesting. There was a lot of talk about whether Keldor could survive in, or Keldorians, Keldor? It just says Keldor on the species. Okay. Whether they can survive in... Dorin is their homeworld. Right, okay. Yeah, that makes sense. Whether they can survive out in space, because he does at this...
00:25:39
Speaker
I mean, he says well he can withstand the pressure. he says Is it the pressure? Yeah, he says I can withstand the pressure for limited time. He doesn't mention the lack of air, yeah which is fascinating. yeah yeah because I'm guessing his breathing apparatus would protect him in some way, whatever. Yeah, well, that would protect your breathing, but yeah like the pressure would, like yeah a human or a clone, the vacuum would rupture your blood vessels onto the surface of your skin, whereas he is fine with that. He's tough, yeah. Yeah, but it doesn't mention breathing. so I think in the behind the scenes they were just like, yeah, we thought about it And then we just thought, yeah, you can do it.
00:26:15
Speaker
I love that. Matt Wood talked about him being like Gandalf voice wise, which I hadn't noticed, but now I've heard that. hear Yeah, I can hear that. A Jedi Master arrives precisely when he means to. um I have no memory of this planet.
00:26:38
Speaker
So this whole episode, literally terrifying. Yeah. They're being hunted by these B1s, which not traditionally scary. Yeah. Shouldn't be scary, but are in this thing. They're so awesome. But they are in this instance.
00:26:53
Speaker
And they're also, they've got these little mining hats on. Yeah. And their leader is like cheerfully humming. yes He's almost humming the Imperial March. yeah He's like... While they're going off to put clones into space. I love them.
00:27:11
Speaker
This one, my note there was droids humming while committing war crimes. Is that like, what's going on here? Yeah. hi but it's It's very bleak and it's an episode about war. It's an episode very much about...
00:27:25
Speaker
we're not taking prisoners no no mercy we need to hide our advantage it's got real overtones of real world war yeah like ah well real wars in the real world not world wars and it's yeah i like i like like the ahsoka and anakin side of it is the whole do you obey your orders even if you know they're wrong?
00:27:45
Speaker
yeah Which is a big trope and I watch a lot of war and violent fiction. Violent media. Yeah and that's a big like question and trope that's often examined and again I was very impressed to see this so early in the Clone Wars which is like yeah I've been guilty of thinking well it's kids show I've had other adult Star Wars fans over the years tell me, nah, you should watch the Clone Wars, mate. And I'm like, eh, you know, kid show. And I'm like, wow, they're really straight away. It went there quite quick. Because the movie I found quite kiddy.
00:28:19
Speaker
Yeah, it's so fun. It didn't have that many bleak moments. But straight away in the show, this whole arc, like I've actually written, you just mentioned war crimes here. I've written that as my one word vibe for the next one. I put the bleakness of war in solidarity. And the next one, I've just written war crimes. War crimes. Yeah. Again, we're attacking a medical center. Yeah. We're just going to kill all the injured. With the intention of being awful. Yeah. There's just no hiding behind it.
00:28:44
Speaker
so So this ship, the Malevolence, which is what then inspires the name for these three episodes, they're all yeah connected by that word. And the Malevolence, I initially i was like, that the Invisible Hand? Yes, I had that problem. The Invisible Hand must be like a new version of it. yeah The Invisible Hand is about...
00:29:01
Speaker
one third the size the malevolence is very big and the clone it's like a city did not build anything that big again after grievous messed up yeah it was a big big mistake but also awesome that i had to go and find out about the sound of it because it's similar to the sound of the invisible hand it's almost always like a tractor in space yeah and apparently it's like a very cheap massager that you can just buy in you know ah pushed up against a vinyl record.
00:29:30
Speaker
Like they tried it against loads of different surfaces to see what made the most filthy noise. And they found that pressure against a vinyl record, obviously close mic'd, but then taken away all the bass and you just end up with a little kind of weird. Yeah.
00:29:43
Speaker
There's some animal, and and the same sound I think gets employed with the ion weapon, the ion cannon thing. Oh, if we're talking about the ion cannon, I want to ask, I have a theory. So okay ion weaponry,
00:29:55
Speaker
On the the larger scale, we've seen smaller ion weapons such as the Jawa's guns, but I'm talking big, big ion cannons. yeah Why is it always breast themed? The guns on Hoth are the giant boob cannon. And the malevolence fires areola beams. Yeah, it does. Because they look like the nerve pattern for an areola spinning through space.
00:30:20
Speaker
Interesting. Is it because boobs shut people down quite often? like you know I think there's some stuff. I'm of this myself. Oh, boobs. My brain's off. Wait. It's just interesting. What is it about, yeah, Ion technology that needs... That's my costume for Boomtown sorted. Ion canon.
00:30:42
Speaker
Some kind. While we're on visual language as well, did either of you notice, um you see it a little bit in the first episode with Yoda in the pod, but you see it a lot more in this one. The window at the front of the pod is basically a TIE Fighter window. Oh, wow. And these pods have limited life support.
00:30:59
Speaker
yeah So did the Emperor go, hmm, actually, we had guys survive quite a bit during that whole malevolence incident. You know what, I'll use the pods from all these decommissioned Republic cruisers to make the core of my fleet of ships that need the pilots to wear breathing apparatus because we didn't bother putting oxygen in them yeah oh like they are tie fighters are essentially an escape pod with two ion engines strapped to it yeah and yeah i was like this is very interesting that front window is basically spot on yeah and then the tie fighter window itself is almost a glass version of the imperial symbol yeah Yeah. Yeah. So it's a nice, interesting carry through. And we also hear the Imperial alarm. Yes. My favourite noise, along with R2's scream, obviously, which get in another episode. We do get that as well. But yeah, the Imperial alarm going off on a Republic ship, which again, I'm like, oh, they didn't update the alarm codes. It's like, no, no. It's working. That's what it does. That's what it says on the tent. But then I thought that about the third episode in this series where you've got the Jedi fleet, but they look very Imperial because that's what they get turned into.
00:32:08
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. All those big cruises. Yeah. So they just get made more triangular. Yeah. Well, the third episode's got some really interesting ship. because it's got the blockade runners that are a predecessor to Leia's ship. It's got the Y-Wings, which I originally wrote down are predecessors, but then I was reading about Y-Wings last night, and actually it's the same ship. It's the same. Rebel Alliance stripped all the excess plating yeah off the engines, so they were easier to work on and faster. So it's essentially just a Y-Wing, because they're always talked about Y-Wings being old, yeah being an old design, being an old ship still in service, yeah whereas the X-Wing was like bleeding edge.
00:32:47
Speaker
technology they have to go and like in in rebels they do a mission to like extricate a load of old y wings and those are the y wings that make up gold squadron yeah before we leave episode two which i can see we're about to do did you notice the pod number those one nine seven seven yeah oh yeah oh yeah there's There's quite a few, like we've also mentioned that the Han Solo conversation, was, yeah.
00:33:14
Speaker
Anyway, there's there are a lot, a lot, a lot, a lot of Easter eggs in these yeah episodes, but we're not going to dwell on them because there's more interesting things talk about, but it's just nice to notice the odd one when they show Yeah.
00:33:26
Speaker
Yeah, and also the the malevolence is canon when it fires. yeah The B2 droids, it looks like the Death Star's canon. Yeah, the B2's sheltering. They a rail. holy one unlike the death So the Separatists were riding to their droids, health and safety-wise, than the Empire is. Which tracks? It does strike, yeah. The sound of that weapon has like like I mentioned earlier, it's still got that same buzz from the massager on vinyl. yeah But there's a little moment of silence, whenever for like a split second, and then after it's charged up, and then it fires, and apparently there's like human screams and stuff in in when actually fires, mixed in with the kind of...
00:34:06
Speaker
yeah the great I know we're not doing favourite lines, but there was a line that got my eyes to water for half a second, which was, and we're just clones, sir. We're meant to be expendable. And Flo Cairns replied, not to me. Not to me. And I was like, oh, clo that's how we almost beat Palpatine. I was like, no, come on. That was it for me. That was my... Yeah, it was brilliant. Okay, clones are the line that I wrote down when he's talking to a clone in the pod and they're doing some work on it, I think. And he says, this one goes there, that one goes there, which is a Han Solo Empire's dress back. Oh, of course. um che know This one goes there. That one goes there. Yeah. Oh, I didn't even think of that. There's so many little callbacks to the original trilogy in this this early section. My favourite line from this episode was a Yoda line, which was twice the trouble they have become. ah Yeah.
00:34:58
Speaker
Oh, well, while we're touching on that, before we move on, I just, I have a note in my other section, which is Ahsoka is so annoying. So is Anakin. R2E, ooh, Sky Guy, ooh, God Anakin is a hypocrite. Like, how can he treat his Padawan the way he's been treated? I've ranted quite a bit about this. Okay. Yeah, that's it.
00:35:18
Speaker
It's just not fair. he We know from what happens in episode three, and we know from seeing his treatment in episode two, that he doesn't like being treated this way. And yet he is treating Ahsoka exactly that way. But that's classic, isn't it? That's classic. There was an article in The Guardian this morning saying...
00:35:37
Speaker
People who bullied as a kid become bullies. No, I'm not bully. It's not exactly the same. Not always, not always, not always, not always. But there are patterns of that, I think. No, I get you. I get you. I suppose, yeah, if you haven't unpicked your trauma, you can fall into... And Anakin never has, you know. When has Anakin... Anakin's got no... He's had no chance to unpick any of his trauma.
00:35:58
Speaker
Yeah. yeah Not at all. Anyway, next next episode. Shadow of Malevolence. Woo! Episode three, we're flying through them. Branwen. Yeah. Who's your favourite character?
00:36:11
Speaker
Oh, Shadow 2, Matchstick, RIP. Oh, yeah. He was pretty cool. He kept going. Matchstick. Bless his little Y-wing. Jessica, have you got favourite character? I do. It's the angry cyborg himself, General Grievous, in this yeah episode. He is so oblivious and so...
00:36:34
Speaker
infuriated and so overconfident it's yeah it's a great set of grievous moments there's not any particular standout lines it's just his whole vibe his whole vibe is good yeah yeah i went for grievous in the next episode actually so but in this one i went for nala say because she She's great. It was nice to see her again. will not leave without my patients. Yeah.
00:36:59
Speaker
Yeah, she was cool. I like her a lot. That medical station was awesome. Yes, the design of it is incredible. Apparently, if you look at it from the top, it's the Republic symbol, which we never see in this episode, but i feel like we might see another in the future because they are like a standard design. But the way the ships come and dock like vertically...
00:37:20
Speaker
Is that kind of creaking? It reminded me of, um because I watched this the other week, it's one of my go-to, have it on in the background when I'm making stuff movies. It reminded me of Fleet Battle Stitch and Ticonderoga in Starship Troopers. Because that's another floating, large ring, ship stocking underneath. They're docking sideways as well in Starship Troopers, but it has a lot of that look.
00:37:44
Speaker
which I suppose is quite a universal look for space stations but yeah in the High Republic book and comic series that has been finished now but it like it covered a lot of the last five years in terms of styles publishing there's a central space station called Starlight Beacon in that and the design for it is almost this but like upside down kind of thing there's a big similarity i guess it's like a space station isn't it it's that sort circular orbiting kind of thing yeah yeah super cool So the quote at the start of this one is, easy is the path to wisdom for those not blinded by ego.
00:38:19
Speaker
Yeah. And it's it's great because it's about both Anakin and Grievous. And Grievous. yeah Yeah. And then right at the end, Ahsoka, she gets a little bit of ego right the very last bit. where Whereas Anakin has kind of like acknowledged his ego. And by the end, she then takes it on, which again, like it's this thing of picking up behaviors of your mentors and what have you. yeah Yeah.
00:38:41
Speaker
Yeah. Interesting. What struck me about this one quite quickly was that one of the B1s says that they're having fun when they're shooting down. I'm just like, what? Another one lampshades their terrible shooting skills by saying, I still can't seem to hear anything. Yeah. Which is absolutely wonderful. I'm oh, great. They're so good. They're so like self-knowing. Yeah. Very self-aware.
00:39:09
Speaker
Yeah, we say were you talking about this is a lot more fun when they're not shooting back? Yes! Yeah. Yeah. We just picked them off. Yeah, we'll just shoot to shoot the injured. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Terrible. There was a great clone reference to...
00:39:23
Speaker
can't remember who he's talking to but he says the head clanker meaning grievous which is great skywalker's getting pretty ambitious we have a wonderful moment of plocoon saying from a certain point of view yeah yeah i'd love that that nice yeah Cut the chatter, Ahsoka, was another reference. Cut the chatter red. The final shot of the episode actually mirrors the end of episode five as well. We're looking out of a landing bay. We've got Anakin and R2 and Ahsoka in the same way that we had Luke and Leia and r two and 3PO and... yeah
00:39:58
Speaker
Yeah, it's quite an interesting little little visual choice. I think Filoni talks about that in the um behind the scenes little featurette. There's a little discussion about that and how so many of the Star Wars films end with a little tableau. Like Return the Jedi, you've got them on Endor.
00:40:16
Speaker
Phantom Menace, they're all at the big celebration on Naboo. And it's like a very square, the throne room scene at the end of A New Hope. Yeah, these little Star Wars sort of found family tableau type things, which is really cool. I loved in this one, i loved the launching sound of the fighters. yeah. Shadow Squadron. They sounded incredible. Is it Shadow or Shatter?
00:40:38
Speaker
I thought it was Shatter at first, but it was Shadow. i think it's the New Zealand accent. Yeah. yeah Loved the launching sound of the fighters. Also, I wrote down something about the iron cannon sound design, but we've already talked about that. No, we talked about its shape. We didn't talk about its sound much. We did. yeah It does make a crackling noise as it goes through space. Yeah. yeah It's very interesting. That is cool. The sound of the escape pods of the Corvette that we see in this, another episode with escape pods, have got this sort of same... Well, I thought originally that Malevolence had the same sound design as these escape pods, but it's not. they've obviously Unless they use the same thing, but it's similar to the sound design of the escape pod in A New Hope, I think. And it's this kind of...
00:41:23
Speaker
slow flange slow delay flange like a fixed flanger that isn't sweeping like flanges usually do stereotypically do it's like a fixed one where it's just basically a very short delay with some feedback that gives you like a ripley thing yeah A wibble is what I just called that. Just yeah for the benefit of the day. The other thing that I loved in this is the nebula. Flying through the nebula. What? Yeah. you jesus yeah Yeah. Yeah. The knee braids. I thought they said mantis at first and I was like, oh my God, there's going to be a praying mantis as the bug obsessed. yeah I was like, oh, wow. And then it was mantas. I was like, okay, mantas. Yeah, I've written down mantas as well. I mean, they look a bit like a mantis. But they look more like a manta ray. Yeah, they're big rays. They've got the big wings. Yeah. yeah yeah
00:42:09
Speaker
Which then I noticed, I couldn't, because I guess because large sea creatures were in my brain, the malevolence looks like a basking shark. Yeah. Yes. It's got that ah constantly open mouth, underslung. It's got a big rear fin. And it just sort of crawls through space, killing things. was like, interesting.
00:42:28
Speaker
Picking off plankton. Yeah. I love the malevolence. And I love how we get closer and closer to it until we actually go inside in the next episode. It's just so much detail in there. It must have ages to build the three d Yeah. quite Like we said, the the themes of this episode are a lot about overconfidence and yeah knowing when to change your plan. But I found it also it was a lot about the brutality and also the logistics and the realities of war.
00:42:54
Speaker
yeah Like we're going after the injured, you know, we're committing to the attack plan, even though one of the jets is damaged. Yeah. yeah The banter of the clones in the briefing. I think you mentioned it before when, you know, i going after the head clanker. There's like this. It feels like, you know, this could be a Vietnam movie and we could be watching guys being briefed.
00:43:14
Speaker
What was it? One of the pilots says, we make it through this and the drinks are on me. Yeah. i was like, well, so clones are getting drunk now. OK, let's get the spot. to go out like Great. Yeah.
00:43:26
Speaker
It is that sort of dirty inspiration of like, we know what's going to happen, but we're going to do it anyway because we're soldiers. Yeah. Yeah. yeah I do have a huge gripe about this episode that grates on me massively. Oh, no. Interesting, useless Jessica fact. I learned to fly planes in my teenage years. and I worked on the harbour at Bristol, so I know what side is starboard and what side is port. And when they said near the end, we're change of plan, Anakin said change of plan, we're taking out the starboard ion cannon, they then proceeded to torpedo the port cannon. It's very easy to tell the two apart.
00:44:01
Speaker
Port and left both have four letters. Starboard and right both have more than four letters. It's really straightforward. It's really simple. Port doesn't sound as good. Obviously, from the way they'd animated the episode, it was always going to be the port engine that he was swinging back around to blow up.
00:44:18
Speaker
But saying, we're going to take out the port ion cannon just doesn't sound as good. yeah we said starboard, and then whoever storyboarded hasn't bothered to spend three seconds on the internet. I've got little possible. I don't know if this is the case, but I was watching and a writer of ah the book that we're giving away at the moment, the Timelines Oh, yeah yeah. One of the writers of that, I think it was Clayton, did an Instagram post yesterday about the Yavin 4, like when they're preparing all the fighters before they go off to do the trench run. right And there's there's a shot, he was explaining how they filmed it all, but there's one shot that they flipped.
00:44:55
Speaker
And if you look like all the fighters are in the opposite positions or whatever that they are in the other shots... And I think it was an editing editorial decision to do that because it helped with the movement of going from one shot to another, that kind of stuff. So there could have been something like that where they rendered it all. And then when they were editing, they were like, actually, the movement is all wrong here. So we've got to flip.
00:45:16
Speaker
I like that you're trying to find a reason but it's possible the attack angle of the ships coming in flying towards it and then looping around the tail and where the malevolence is in in relation to the ah casualty what is it the hospital med centre yes thank you words um it's early in the morning um Yeah, it was always going to be the port engine. It's not just a single shot thing. It's not just a single shot. It's the whole thing. it makes the The animation makes continuity sense. It just doesn't tie up with the line that Anakin said. Although I suppose we could excuse it as Anakin not really knowing what he's talking about. yeah And the clones not having been briefed on what port and starboard are and just following him. Or maybe the clones know and they're just like... we well Yeah, just we're not arguing with Skywalker. We're just doing our thing. The chaos. The Let's write it off as Skywalker being an idiot, like in much of the prequels. um Okay.
00:46:13
Speaker
All right. Episode four. Episode four. Jumping forward. See how we're whizzing through. yeah gosh this is hard. This is hard. so Destroy Malevolence. Yes, I watched it this morning. A plan is only as good as those who see it through.
00:46:30
Speaker
Jessica, who's your favourite character in Destroy Malevolence? This is the episode where I've given my favourite character to the B1B battle droids as a whole. ah yeah that They show the sassiness, they show nervousness, they show absolute panic.
00:46:44
Speaker
The ones who are firefighters? You're not supposed to use it like that. And then proceeds to throw himself up towards the ceiling. Just bouncing around on the water jet. Absolutely brilliant. I love them. They did shine in this episode. They did, yeah. Sia, who is your favourite character in the episode Destroy Malevolence? General Grievous. Oh, are you mentioned you mentioned. Just the general like sassiness and furiosity.
00:47:13
Speaker
The whole thing. Yeah. ah Also, he demonstrated the use of there a singular pronoun in this episode. Find the stowaway and bring them to me. Yeah. Nice one. He also had two other amazing lines. He said hello there. He did. Yes. Which is great. So does this mean Obi-Wan got it from him? Referencing him, yeah.
00:47:33
Speaker
Chronologically, this is the first time we've heard that phrase. Is this the first time they've met? Yeah. And it's the first time we've heard that phrase, chronologically speaking. Is it? yeah Yeah. Oh my gosh. So General Grievous started it all He says it in Revenge of the Sith, which is after this. After this, yeah. He also says on the bridge, um he says to Dooku, as you wish.
00:47:54
Speaker
And I got this sudden thing in my head of, I don't know you've seen The Princess Bride. Princess Bride, obviously. Yeah, but I was like, it turned out every time General Grievous was saying, as you wish to Count Dooku, what he actually meant was love you. What he actually meant was love you. Yes. Fair enough. Yeah, that tracks, definitely.
00:48:11
Speaker
Branwen, who's your favourite character? Padme. This is where we start to see badass Padme. She's just like, and heroic. She's like, I'm going to do this anyway. Whatever it takes.
00:48:23
Speaker
You know, she knows the the possible stakes of this. she's very And she's thinking on her feet all the time as well. Just lots of, yeah. Lots of like, I'll just change the plan because we've got to kind of thing. Because now we're here. Yeah, i've put adaptability as one of the main themes of the episode. Yeah, generally in the episode, yeah. It's a wild ride.
00:48:42
Speaker
Grievous, Obi-Wan, Anakin, Padme, they all changed their plan multiple times. Yeah. It's actually almost hard to keep up with who's doing what at different points. And 3PO even kind of vocalises that like, I don't know where I'm supposed to be, what's going on? yeah And he says at one point, we're doomed, which is absolutely wonderful. There's a lot shout outs in this episode. I will deal with this Jedi myself. yeah Another great 3PO line, you're a site for short circuits. Yes. There's a wonderful Obi-Wan line, which is a really subtle. Well, for us a lot, it's not subtle.
00:49:17
Speaker
But I suppose it's subtle for some people. When they've just boarded the malevolence and he's commenting on Anakin's flying and he says, spinning is not flying. Anakin says, yeah, but it's a good trick. yeah Which is, oh. remember your childhood anakin at some point says somebody has to save our skins which is newline yeah yeah my general feeling of this episode was it's really really nice to have this gang back together there's something really lovely kind of yeah yeah when they pull off the rescue and they're all back together again there's something really really satisfying for me about that I think I get that in every time Padme shows up in the Clone Wars because she you know she's not in all of it, but she's in quite And whenever she's in it, I feel like there is some kind of gang factor that she brings. I don't know. Because she's not a Force user, I guess, and she's not a clone. yeah
00:50:07
Speaker
One of the themes I've written is just the line from Weird Al's song of the battle droids were broken. Yeah, yeah. Because there's so much battle droid annihilation going on in this. And there's really clever things that the Jedi do. Like Obi-Wan just decides to...
00:50:22
Speaker
to spin the destroyer droids the rollies civil yeah i'm like that's like really clever we need to track whether they do that again because i mean the destroyers are always the droid is like a kind of perpetual enemy that are difficult because they've got the shields and everything that although we saw in the first episode their shields work against blaster fire they do not work against kinetic energy you can just drop rocks on them you can drop them yeah We get into that in in our, which you've not heard yet, but will have come out at this point, episode with Mary. And in fact, in the Clone Wars last week, I think we talked about it. There's a whole arc to do with this coming up later in the Clone Wars. Or is it in Rebels?
00:51:01
Speaker
It's in Rebels. I don't know. Can't remember. Cut this Don't cut this bell. When they go to Saw Gerrera's. Oh, yeah. Anyway, we'll come to that. Got you, got you.
00:51:14
Speaker
One of the things that I wasn't expecting but really, really loved is that the Malevolence is full of little trains. and Yeah, the monorail. Mind the gap. Mind the gap. Mind the gap. Which Matt Wood does in the little behind the scenes feature. I go and watch them. Matt Wood demonstrates like how he came up with that. It's just like this little ridiculous. That so funny. He's threading.
00:51:36
Speaker
One of the most surprising things was that Obi-Wan gave a crap about a droid for about four seconds. yeah He's normally really indifferent, but he's like, I will go and save your droid. yeah And then he's like, actually, no, I won't.
00:51:48
Speaker
so I'm going to go and do the hyperdrive. You save your droid. So it was brief, but there was a moment of care. yeah That was a ploy to give them a little bit of privacy, to give Pamela a bit privacy on the train. yeah yeah Which then got cut short.
00:52:03
Speaker
Obi-Wan knowing exactly what's going on. Yeah. Yeah. She seems to know her way around. Yeah. yeah hint she knows yeah I did like when Anakin radioed R2 to rescue 3PO and he's like, I need you to get 3PO. And then R2 beeps and Anakin's like, yes, I know. this tone, like, I get it, mate. He is annoying. wish I'd never built him. He's annoying, but you still got to rescue him. You still got to go and rescue him. Yeah. He has work still to do. Yeah.
00:52:32
Speaker
Okay, well, that wraps up Malevolence. So we've just got Rookies. Rookies, which I love. This might be one of my favorite. Yeah. It's pretty awesome. Good episode. Yeah. It's very wholesome.
00:52:44
Speaker
Very wholesome. Very clone. I bet Mary wishes she was on to do this. clone has So many things set up in this. The best confidence builder is experience. Yeah. love that. What a nice opener.
00:52:57
Speaker
The clones growing from rookie, poor rookies, poor shinies. Yeah. yeah record It's about determination, isn't it? It's about them. yeah yeah It's about their individuality as clones. It's about their grit. yeah It's about how expendable they are. yeah And it's got the classic, again, another classic war movie trope.
00:53:16
Speaker
of the self-sacrifice, the one soldier versus overwhelming odds. Yeah. Like, yeah, again, it's not it's not shying away from the dark side of warfare and I do love Yeah.
00:53:27
Speaker
Sia, who is your favourite character in Rookies? Oh, don't make me choose. It's a clone. It's a clone. i I think Rex. I think I've got to go with Rex this one because he's fabulous. yeah I put Rex as well. His confidence, his leadership. We really get feel straight away. but I think this is where we're kind of introduced to him. I don't if we've... Oh, no, was in the movie, wasn't Was he in the movie? Yeah, he was. Yeah, a little bit. But I think this is... Oh, I can't figure out the timeline because some of these characters come up later and they're not dead. Anyway, spoiler alert. But this is one of those examples of the timeline being a little short. Timeline being strange, yeah. yeah Jessica.
00:54:08
Speaker
It's the BX Commando Droids. yes I've been playing a huge amount of Star Wars Outlaws, which is yeah a game that... was a bit rocky on release, apparently, um but has been patched and adjusted. And I really highly rate, to any of our listeners who are gamers, grab it. I think it's free on PlayStation Plus at the moment. know It's a lot of fun. And, um i don't know, maybe a fifth of the way into the game, you gain a companion who is a deprogrammed, reprogrammed, ah freed BX commando droid. And he gives little hints
00:54:44
Speaker
You know, like, oh, the things I had to do for the Separatists, like, you know, I was programmed for war, I was programmed to kill. And then much later on in the game, slight spoilers, um throughout the game you unlock various experts who can teach you extra skills, one of whom is Lando, one of whom is a Jawa, it's great.
00:55:03
Speaker
But there's there's a grid of nine character faces, but the middle one is just blank, so you think, oh, there's eight to unlock. It just made it a pattern. Turns out there's a secret ninth one. It's a BX Commando droid that is trapped under rubble and still thinks it's fighting the Clone Wars. And again, it gave me insight into... Because these guys are...
00:55:26
Speaker
much more intelligent than either a B1, a B2 or a Destroyer. Yeah. They are much more brutal. Yeah. They've got very little, they've got a slight sense of human, but very little. Yeah. um yeah And yeah, ND, ND5, who is the BX in Outlaws, has fast become one of my favourite Star Wars droids. He is absolutely wonderful and there's no way that they didn't choose ND and then give him neurodivergent coding. Yeah. I love him to pieces. So in fiction.
00:55:57
Speaker
i had not you're going for them seen them in fiction ah prior to Outlooks. So then I watched this episode and I was like, oh, here they are. And straight away their intro is them going, like changing their voice yeah to be a clone, putting on a clone uniform and only giving themselves away because they can't not say Roger, Roger. And I absolutely love that. I love their cockiness. I love their brutality, their skill, how much they're better armoured. It takes three or four shots from a clone to get rather than one yeah to take them out. yeah Very menacing. but also very enjoyable to watch. I did write that they're quite scary. I did give a special mention to Heavy, though, as a just shy of favourite character. We're going to talk about Heavy. Before we leave the BX droids, there's a book that's come out recently, I think about six months ago, by Mike Chen called Low Red Moon, which is an Outlaws tie-in book, and it's about ND5 and Jalen Rex. I think it's a prequel. I think it's about them before Outlaws. Can you send me this on WhatsApp?
00:57:00
Speaker
Yeah. because i will forget I'll leave open in the tab so that I remember to do it. But yeah, it yeah yeah I've not listened to it yet. i was hesitant because I've not played Outlaws yet and I am intending to, but apparently it doesn't matter if you haven't played Outlaws. It's a prequel, yeah, it's fun. Yeah, you can still listen to it. It's like, it's no spoilers, I don't think. It's just an an extension of those characters and you find more about what made Endy Vive the droid that he which is Lush. Yeah, he's really intriguing in Outlaws. Yeah. Like he's got a restraining bolt. Yeah.
00:57:29
Speaker
so that he follows Jalen's leadership. yeah And at one point, when the main character who you play as, KVess, is recruiting her droid smith expert, she says, well, he's a guy who could remove a restraining bolt.
00:57:42
Speaker
And ND says, if you carry on talking, I'm going to have to end your life. yeah So clearly his restraining bolt involves programming of saying, no one messes with my restraining vol bolt. And it's he's got this menace, but also this like...
00:57:57
Speaker
it's hard to tell how much he cares and how much he doesn't. Very similar to K2SO in Rogue One, you know, like, um I'll be there for you, Jin. Cassian said I had to say that. yeah like you know, but he obviously cares about Cassian. And yeah, it's the same with Endy. It's like, I think at the start, he's just been ordered to escort Kay. But the more time that's going on, he's bonding with Kay, he's bonding with Nyx, Kay's little pet creature. And yeah, I find him a very fascinating droid.
00:58:25
Speaker
I'm into reprogrammed ex-murderbots, apparently, K2SO. And Endy are definitely up there as faves. We get another interesting droid in this, briefly, in a holo. They're listening to the holo radio at the beginning. The holo radio is so cool! Yeah!
00:58:42
Speaker
and Which sounds like they're playing Grandmaster Flash, The Message, the tune. It's very inspired by. And the host is this BD3000 luxury droid, which are also called Betty Bot Droids. Betty Bot Droids. Which I feel like we've seen before. Filoni mentioned in the behind the scenes that we've seen one before, but I can't think. Can't think where.
00:59:01
Speaker
It's not the server in the diner in Attack of the Clones. I have no idea. She's like a wheel, like, want a cup Jawa juice or whatever is that she says.
00:59:12
Speaker
I don't think it's her. I don't think it's her. But somewhere we've seen, apparently. She's very cutesy looking. And yeah I love that whole sequence because I love i love the hollow droid. But also they've got pinup girls on the walls. Yeah, I know. It's amazing. In the background.
00:59:26
Speaker
yeah I had to pause it because I was like, wait, is that pole? It's not quite a pole dancer. They're pinups. Yeah, it's close. The droid, the holo droid, she looks a bit like Dot Matrix from Spaceballs. Yeah. I've got a callback. Yeah, yeah. going be A reverse kind of callback or whatever. Yeah. yeah It's very much and in the bottle episode. They call it a bottle episode yeah where it's quite contained. Yeah. And it's saying mostly clones, which Filoni said was great from like a production standpoint. Yeah, one voice actor. We've got no Jedi, which is so nice. Yeah, it's just pure clones.
01:00:02
Speaker
Like the Jedi appear talking, but they don't do any Jedi action. no it gave deep Bradley Baker a chance to really shine. And it's the first time we... Well, it's not the first time because we had it a bit in ambush as well, but where we start to really distinguish between...
01:00:15
Speaker
droid characters and these are rookies so they all look quite similar still they haven't got that like yeah developed to look where they've changed their hair and got tattoos or whatever like they're still all quite similar fives has got tattoo fives has got a five has got a five tattoo yeah and also the breastplate they've got a That's from Rex. Rex puts it on him. Yeah, puts his hand on it.
01:00:38
Speaker
yeah Oh, yeah yeah yeah yeah. I was looking through the book, yeah The Amazing Character Encyclopedia, and I was just flicking around the clones trying to work out who was who. But then, yeah, like you said, I quickly realised that they' they're still too new. it's hard to tell.
01:00:52
Speaker
And they don't necessarily look like their pictures. But they do introduce themselves, which is quite nice. Yeah, that there was a nice bit of exposition when Cody and Rex show. And Cody and Rex are great examples of lived-in clones who yeah have...
01:01:03
Speaker
like Rex has already got his Jai Guys thing on his helmet, which I'm now noticing every time I see it since our Clones episode. yeah And Cody's got his orange light markings. yeah They do an interesting thing to distinguish them by the way that they talk as well. yeah Rex and Cody talk like grizzled soldiers. you know yeah um There's hope for you yet, rookie. yeah Whereas the newer clones, they're crueler.
01:01:29
Speaker
in some ways like oh they kept him in his growth pod too long but they're also they also state the obvious yeah yeah when there's no need to and i guess it's because they are quite childlike like the line of um what was that that's one of those eels the reason we aren't allowed outside yeah yeah it's just like it comes across quite funny but then when you think about the layers of like you know he's been asked a question he's answering that question even though he's just two minutes ago they've spoken about that there's giant eels that live out there. yeah Did you notice at the start of the episode, when we're talking about creatures on the planet, that one of the space mantas, but a lot smaller, flies past when we're panning on the outpost? Yeah, I did see that. Not giant size like we've seen in the nebula. Yeah, yeah. I did wonder if that was the same creature. It looks exactly the same model. Okay. Exactly the same. They did talk about like repurposing models and using them, like with the Betty bot.
01:02:25
Speaker
They probably didn't think anyone was going to do this level of analysis, did they? They seriously underestimated Wars fans. Podcasts didn't exist when this came out, I don't think. How could they have imagined? Yeah, yeah de bradley but of shout out to D Bradley Baker. is and a source of endless inspiration to me. Not like could ever do anything that he does, but it's just so incredible. Yeah.
01:02:48
Speaker
There was a beautiful line, Camino, it's the closest thing we have. yeah All the stuff about clones is so tragic and devastating. yeah And yet they're so like hopeful and energetic most of the time. It's wild. They're very sweet.
01:03:04
Speaker
I think having had that chat with Mary made me even more excited about this episode because I've heard I've essentially heard Bramman and Mary have a whole conversation about the clones without really having any context for them and now I was hearing their names and I i was really excited so hopefully that episode does exactly what we want it to if you've not listened to it guys go go back a couple of episodes before this it'll come out two weeks before this one yeah it'll help kind of set you up can I tell you a bit about Heavy
01:03:36
Speaker
Yes, please talk about Heavy. Yeah. So Heavy, I don't know, because I haven't seen the rest of Clone Wars. I don't know if he pops up again. does come back. Yeah, we see him again. We see him in a flashback. In an early time. Excellent. So we do we do meet him again. So that's probably where some of this information will come from. Yeah.
01:03:53
Speaker
The book says that his life proves tragically short, which is true. He is assigned to the Rishi Station listening post as a shiny or a new clone trooper when the Separatist droids attack. He sacrifices himself to destroy. But it says here that he gets his name from Clone 99, which we will see but haven't seen yet, because of his training in heavy weapons. And then, i don't know if it's him that's talking about having... is the It's Rex or Cody tells him that big guns doesn't make a big man. Yeah.
01:04:24
Speaker
When he goes and is like, this is mine, but he's so proud of his giant gun. Minigun blaster, which is amazing. There's one in the first episode as well, and I love them. His abilities are armed and unarmed combat, heavy weapons expert, and military tactics.
01:04:40
Speaker
So he is heavy because of his heavy weaponry. yeah yeah He's so sweet. I love him. I was really sad when he was gone. I do love that final line though, the droid, do we take prisoners? I don't.
01:04:51
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. Epic final line, on yeah top here like, And also the droids, aren't they programmed to know whether they take prisoners not? B-1s, I think they have some sort of routine issues. They have to check in with each other quite often. they do I don't think they're getting wiped either. I think yeah maybe they're supposed to be, but they're just they're developing really curious personalities. that's true and you can imagine at some point dooku saying i want this person alive so like okay we do take prisoners sometimes wait are we taking prisoners now yeah don't know dude can you remember when we last took prisoners i don't know oh wait he's blown us up yeah yeah too late yeah
01:05:30
Speaker
And the follow-up line from the clone outside of Heavy always did hate that place. Yeah. Again, it's got those gritty war movie vibes. Like, I'm just like, oh, yeah. Love it. We had ah that, like, sound design of his heartbeat when he's triggering the explosives. Yeah, because he's he's dying on the floor. He's been shot several times at that point. Yeah. It's always quite un-Star Wars-like, but in a cool way, I think. Yeah. It's just really awesome.
01:05:56
Speaker
There's overall in all of these episodes, I keep meaning to mention it, but we always get, you know, we're just on this mad, mad, chaotic journey through five episodes of TV in a
Are We Like Battle Droids? [Question]
01:06:05
Speaker
very short time. Are we the battle droids? I think we are. That's what we're discovering. Are Are we doing favourite lines? I don't know. Do we do favourite lines?
Visual Style: Grievous' Ship and Dutch Angles
01:06:16
Speaker
There's some cinematography stuff which I've not mentioned, one of which is um I just love the green murkiness of ah Grievous' his ship and yeah the way his face fills the frame whenever he speaks. He's like leaning into the camera all the time. yeah But more significantly and more what I'm sure we're going to see throughout is something we can track is the use of Dutch angles, which is like where the camera is tilted slightly. yeah And it's like usually used in dramatic, you know, yeah, exactly. Jessica's doing it with her webcam. And it's like drama, danger, everything's going to slide, you know, you feel like that. But it's happening a lot in the Clone Wars and it's a stylistic choice. It's obviously referring back to the Flash Gordon series and those kind of like drama, science fiction, fantasy TV shows of earlier times when cinematography techniques and how we use the camera to tell story were were being developed. But here we're using it really stylistically in a pulpy way. But I love it. I love I'm here for it so much. And you can do stuff in animation that would be really challenging to do on actual set. Like we just go, oh, yeah, let's just check the camera here. Like you might not be able to do that, but they can do it. And I love that they do. They make those choices. It's like it realistic. They're trying to go for the realism, the naturalism in the animation style and in the way the camera is used. We talked about it a bit last week, I think, in our Clown Walls, the movie episode.
01:07:37
Speaker
But I love that they can just go a bit heightened with the camera. yeah yeah
Intelligent Droids and Gonk Rock
01:07:42
Speaker
So cool. Did you two notice, just going back to droids because I'm obsessed, did you notice the Ice Stalk droid just being used as a camera? You know, the one that comes out of Jabba's Palace? Yeah, yeah, yeah. But it was just...
01:07:57
Speaker
There's no droid speaking through it. It's more like doorbell camera. It was just like a door cam, yeah, that the clones were using, which led to the Rex or whoever it was holding up the VX Commando droid's head, which was phenomenal. So good. Absolutely brilliant, and a great turnaround from the start of the episode where the Commando droid had put on a helmet. I love that. But yeah, I was like, I saw the camera and ah what becomes the droid camera in other episodes. like um I've encountered...
01:08:24
Speaker
won quite a bit in Outlaws and it's quite an annoying droid to deal with. So again, it's probably stuck in my brain, but I was like, but so does this mean that Places like Jabba's Palace have put a droid intelligence inside a camera, or is that one that's had the droid intelligence stripped out of it? I maybe overthink these things. Is this an earlier model which is just a ring of the camera? Yeah, just a ring, I think by the time we get Return the Jedi and the Mandoverse and all of that, when we've seen them again and they talk, they've just stuck some AI in there. Did you feel sad about the gonk droids, Sia?
01:09:00
Speaker
Yes. That were used to power the explosion. They're being used accurately, at least. yeah they were like It was a a double gonk. Double gonking, yes. yeah I don't think I've posted about this on the internet yet.
01:09:13
Speaker
But I found a thing in Chris Gemshaw's book, The Rise of the Galactic Empire, about Gonk- I really want that book. Is it Gonk-Gonk-Rock? Yes, Gonk-Rock. You did post it. Yeah, I saw it. Yeah. There is I think it was on YouTube, i found somebody's done an album of Gonk-Rock. Excellent. I think they've used AI, unfortunately, which isn't great. Oh, I mean, it's on brand.
01:09:37
Speaker
yeah Yeah, exactly. It's almost like, well, thank you. But it's like this kind of punk album of different artists, like a compilation album of different bands, which all got great names. Yeah. the gonk rock movement. See, when I read it, I imagined gonk rock to be quite minimal.
01:09:52
Speaker
Yeah. I don't think it's made by gonks. It's made by like punks. I mean, real gonk rock is made by gonks. Real gonk rock unless it's from the... Proto-gonk. Yeah. Okay, this has got me... I want to go make some gonk rock. We'll make some actual gonk rock. Some early gonk. Actually, being producers...
01:10:16
Speaker
AI. We'll do it properly. Screw AI. We'll do it with actual humans playing
Ethics of AI and Sentience
01:10:20
Speaker
instruments. The only AI I like is battle droids.
01:10:25
Speaker
One last thing. One last thing. Okay. Because we're talking about being anti-AI and it segues quite well into this. There are so many slurs for droids whipped out by the clones. I made a note, we've got clankers, sparkies, and tinnies, which just seem generic. We've got rollies, specific droids. But we got the commando droids got referred to as tweezers.
01:10:49
Speaker
Yes, they did. In some ways, I find this the worst one because this is mocking part of their physical format. yeah It's their hands. It's like... Wow. like Again, it's really accurate to real world wars. You look at a Vietnam movie, there are all sorts of slurs for the Viet Cong. You look at, you know, Second World War movies and there's names on both sides for the other side, some of which are really derogatory. yeah And I like that they've put this in. Yeah, it's a good detail. it makes It makes it hard for me to have...
01:11:24
Speaker
Mary's level of love for clones. Because I'm like, you guys are really racist. like Is it racist if it's a droid? They're droids, yeah. We've debated this about droids, sentience and sapience. There is no way that these battle droids, I mean, all right, you've done the movie the other week and so you've seen the spider droids that act like puppies, yeah which, you know, they're a different matter. Destroyer droids we've never heard speak, but B1s, B2s, commando droids, those are all sentient sapient beings those are like you know do they deserve to be slurred like don't get me wrong modern AI when I see AI slop on Facebook I'm like oh clanker slop yeah yeah yeah I'll use the slur from the clone world for this stuff that is poisoning our internet and our creativity and our water yeah but I'm not sure I like the clones doing it so much That's interesting though, because is it going to develop to a point where it will develop sentience and then... And then, because I've said Clanker online, I'm one of the first in the camps. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, be careful of your AI critique. I mean, there's people online who say, can you draw... They say to chat whatever nonsense, they say, oh, can you draw a picture of what would happen if you gained control of the world? And so many of them look like scenes from Terminator. yeah And it's like, okay, we shouldn't be trusting these LLMs. Can we just switch it off now? Can we just switch them off? I guess, like, it gives me the sense of realism of yeah the war. And I suppose it's good in a way because...
01:12:58
Speaker
The thing about wars, like, which Star Wars has shown this very well, especially in moments like Andor, is even on the side that's fighting fascism, even on the side that you're rooting for, there aren't good guys. No. yeah War is... true death on an industrial scale like there's no getting around technological advancements being accelerated by the desire to murder your enemy as quickly as possible yeah so i suppose it's good in a way that we see this side of the clones like whether it's their bravado and oh going after the head clanker like you know whether it's that level of it or whether it's like this place isn't safe if it's been taken over by tweezers It's like you need that horrible element.
01:13:41
Speaker
yeah But I guess it gives me more sympathy for the battle droids. Interesting. And less love of the clones than I think a lot of viewers get. Yeah. I think that is intended though. Yeah. The battle droids aren't necessarily the baddies. Like as we know, this whole thing was was like manufactured by Palpatine anyway. Yeah, exactly. yeah yeah There's no right or wrong thing.
01:14:04
Speaker
No, it's all just bad. It's all Palpatine. yeah i think it's really interesting to look at it, like you say, with how the modern world is right now. like I don't think the term AI is applicable to large language models, as has been proven repeatedly. They're not actually intelligent. They're just information scouring and repeating, regurgitating. yeah yeah yeah Like if you search for something, like I have a number of rescue reptiles that I look after. If you search for specific care details for reptiles,
01:14:31
Speaker
the AI normally is pulling from forums where there are differences of opinion. So will tell you contradictory information in one thing. So I don't think it's artificial intelligence, doing the commerce thing for people listening. think that's the wrong label, but we will get there.
01:14:48
Speaker
yeah We will get the singularity is a thing. It's the acceleration of technological advancement is monitorable by various standards. We're going to get to a point where we're going to have the equivalent of battle droids going, do we take prisoners about us? And I don't know, like, you know, I'm critical of these large language models, but would I be critical of an actual...
01:15:12
Speaker
intelligent droid and i don't know i think it's a really interesting debate and i think that's why i struggle to identify with the clones yeah who are themselves artificially created they are yeah yeah yeah so and are following programming and have chips in their brains yeah i think this is the thing their lifespan is so short and they are just that they don't have social interactions with other beings other than each other they are trained for this and so it's not unsurprising that they use language like this and that's part of their training I'm sure like that would be encouraged in the training don't know actually does the training we do get to see a bit about that but we know who's like yeah spearheading and talking yeah we will see it's something to track as the series goes on and we get these different insights into coming from yeah see what happens next
Character Development: Admiral Yelaran
01:16:04
Speaker
Yeah. yeah There's some interesting developments and the developments that go beyond the Clone Wars. Like, yeah obviously, we know these big characters, but we mentioned a couple of times Admiral Yelaran. Yeah. um He's actually in episode four.
01:16:18
Speaker
He's in the white uniform, sat around the Death Star conference table. And then they've, all all the way back to Clone Wars, had him as this dutiful but slightly long-suffering Admiral under Anakin. And in the middle, we've got Rebels and Andor, where he has become the head of the ISB.
01:16:35
Speaker
which is why he's in the white uniform. Like we've got some characters like Palpatine who've been a baddie all along. We've got some characters like Tarkin who've been cruel and self-motivating and self-serving, that's the word, all the way along. Whereas Jalaran, it's almost like having to serve under Anakin's reckless...
01:16:55
Speaker
uncoordinated leadership yeah has pushed him radicalized him in a way yeah and made him end up being the perfect person to run the isb yeah in the whole we should have order because anakin is quite chaotic so he's like no no no this is what we need it's almost like the loss of troops that he's experienced And it's interesting to see how a franchise such as Star Wars that's existed so long that has played out these stories in such an and and anachronistic order has created these threads through various creators, ideas and properties that then make sense when you analyse it.
01:17:37
Speaker
from a chronological point, from a point where we're sat here, it's like, oh, this perfectly adds up. But that's four different things. Shout out to the story group. but The story group and, yeah, and just the genius of Palpatine. It's all Palpatine. the universe Out of the universe it's a story group story group. Once again, I'm just going to reiterate, he's the only vital character. You can remove any other character and it's still Star Wars. You remove Palpatine, it's just stars. Yeah.
01:18:06
Speaker
I'm not against that, to be fair. Yeah, it's absolutely essential. is That was fun. That's my last point, I promise. I thought this conversation was going to go. I'm done. Yeah, we've had a lot of clone content in these episodes, which isn't necessarily true of all of the Clone Wars. No. This is quite a clone-heavy chunk of episodes and a lot of battle droids.
01:18:29
Speaker
And it's interesting to like see what what that makes us think about, which is really cool. Thank you. Love. Thank you, Jessica, so much yeah for kicking off the series with us. Thank you for having me back. I'm looking forward to i my my guest slot in season two, I believe. Yes. Yeah, we're going to have you multiple times. We've got loads of good stuff coming up.
01:18:52
Speaker
We'll be back next week. What episodes are doing next week, please? That's a very point because we need to let our audience know. need to tell people. You've got to watch five episodes again. So it's 106 to 110. 106 to 110. Yeah, the R3-S6 arc, which is just two episodes long, and then Newt Gunray arc, which I'm really looking forward to. Excellent. Yeah.
01:19:13
Speaker
Go find us on Insta and Facebook isis and and Who's guy? Get in an argument with me in the YouTube comments. Go and argue with Jessica in YouTube comments. Also, if you have like time and if you enjoy this, ratings are really good. I know every podcast out there says it, but it's true. clicking like on a YouTube video yeah increases its reach lot more than clicking share. Yeah, clicking like, clicking subscribe, all of those kind of things. And also ah wherever you you are listening, if you listen on podcast feeds, you can rate every episode individually if you like, but only if you give us a good rating.
01:19:50
Speaker
Especially if you're on an app, like I listen to podcasts on AntennaPod, which you can't do that because it's like sort of a free form, I don't know, open source. Open source thing. Hot playing thing. But you can still go and join Apple Podcasts or Spotify or any of these other places.
01:20:07
Speaker
Just to do that. Just to do that. Which I may have done for other podcasts because I like paying back. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. So do that. And yeah, go watch the next five episodes and join us next week more Sisters of the Force Clone Wars Chaos.
Episode Wrap-up and Next Steps
01:20:23
Speaker
Yay! Which we love. We'll see you there. Bye. Bye.