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Ep 3.9- Sympathy for the Devil
18 Plays24 days ago
Join Ryn and Sam as we dive headfirst into Star Wars Animation starting with Tales of the Jedi (the Dooku focused episodes) to add some dimensions to our villain, before we jump into the Clone Wars with some early chronological episodes! Topics of discussion include cloning, janissaries, and Dooku's moments of doubt and pain!
Covers Tales of the Jedi (2022) episodes 2, 3, and 4: "Justice", "Choices", and "The Sith Lord", followed by Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) 3:1 Clone Cadets, 2:16 Cat and Mouse, and 1:16 Hidden Enemy.
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Transcript
Early Morning Podcast & Moose Encounter
00:00:00
Speaker
speaking of things that are dark not horny but horned honey or antlered in this in instance i could make a more rocky transition much like the rocks that we scrambled over hike listen i'm working on it you are we reward effort in this house It's early today. It's not.
00:00:29
Speaker
It's noon. It's early compared to when we usually record. It is a weekend day, therefore it is early. Fair. We saw a moose.
00:00:39
Speaker
That was very exciting. i have never seen a moose before. i have spent a lot of time in places where moose live, but we were literally just on the road driving from our Airbnb to our friend's wedding, which was beautiful. And you spotted it. And then I pulled off what I think was a very impressive turn, not getting us killed,
00:01:01
Speaker
in the middle of a New Hampshire mountain road. it was very well done. And I got to see the fucking moose. Yeah, it definitely, by the time you turned around and had gone a little further back in, and I was talking to my boss about it, and she pointed out that probably, like, there was probably a baby somewhere nearby. oh baby. It was probably really well hidden.
00:01:24
Speaker
It's the right season, and moose keep their babies with them while foraging. Mm-hmm. So it's entirely probable that there was, if that was a big mama moose, then there probably was one or more baby moose nearby. Because they do have, they do pretty frequently have twins.
00:01:44
Speaker
I'm sure they were well hidden though, because it was a huge female and I just barely saw her head. So. Oh yeah, absolutely. Little babies, I'm sure just blended into the trees. But now I know that I've been likely in proximity to a baby moose, which is fabulous.
00:01:59
Speaker
m I was also in proximity to a baby red squirrel, which was so fucking cute. We took videos of it, but it's hard to convey unless you were there just how incredibly tiny it was and eating seeds with its little tiny paws. Oh, you're so cute.
00:02:17
Speaker
It was maybe chipmunk sized. Yeah. Itty bitty. The chipmunk was on the bigger, it would be on the bigger end of the range for that one. It was, it was so teensy, so cute.
Bird Watching & Behavior Discussion
00:02:30
Speaker
We also saw what was probably an otter. And was that when we were walking to the wedding ceremony or back from it? I feel like two. Yeah. And so I had to rein Miles in a little bit because they got very excited by the otter. And I was like, no, our friends are about to get married. We have to move on.
00:02:49
Speaker
We are literally 10 minutes away from the start of the ceremony. We need to go sit down. But then there was also a raven. There's a couple ravens, actually, that we saw. There are two ravens nesting on the building across from my office.
00:03:06
Speaker
Which is so exciting. Which is so cool because we don't get a lot of ravens around here. We're pretty far south in their range. And so i am pretty damn good at identifying corvids. That is a professional skill that I have used in my life.
00:03:24
Speaker
I would agree with this. Professionally. Yes. And I still like, you know, when I see ravens any further south than like northern Vermont or New Hampshire, I question my identification, especially because the ones out west are so, so big.
00:03:42
Speaker
And we have we have some pretty large crows out east here. And these ravens are not like huge, but the sounds are right. The beak shape is right. The tail shape is right.
00:03:54
Speaker
And they're definitely like bigger than the crows that are around. I have noticed less crows since the raven. In the raven area. In the raven area, since the ravens are there. I know that nesting ravens can be really territorial.
00:04:10
Speaker
h So that would not that does not surprise me necessarily. But the raven we saw up in New Hampshire where our friends were getting married was getting mobbed by several crows, which was kind of fun.
00:04:26
Speaker
I've been really enjoying YouTube videos lately of birds ending up in other birds' nests and then the original birds getting very confused. There's one of a pigeon laying an egg in an owl nest that has seven baby owlets in it. And the owlets are all just looking at this pigeon like, what the fuck?
00:04:47
Speaker
What's happening? And then the owls come back and they're freaking out. And then there's another one with a starling fledgling in an osprey nest. And the osprey's also freaking out.
00:04:59
Speaker
Birds are stupid. I love them so much. The osprey just gets so vocal. It's like, George, what is in my kitchen? It's the same as like two people freaking out about a mouse in their kitchen.
00:05:12
Speaker
Been there. But I'm sure the Ospreys would have preferred a mouse. Osprey? No, they're not small mammal hunters, though. they're I know, but they if you gave that if a mouse showed up, I feel like they would probably still eat it.
00:05:24
Speaker
Maybe. The baby starling is perfectly edible-sized. True, I was kind of surprised that they didn't kill it, but there must have been some sort of instinct of, okay, I'm literally sitting on eggs right now. You are a baby something. You're a baby freak is what you are, but you are a baby. and so I don't want to kill you, but I do want you to go away.
00:05:46
Speaker
What the fuck are you? And you can hear all the other starlings in the background also freaking out because they know that their baby is in the wrong place. It's just very silly. It's very cute.
00:05:59
Speaker
There's a bird house that I frequently pass by and there's little baby sparrows in it and they just constantly do, know, the constant stuff. Beep, beep, beep, beep. But then when one of their parents comes by with a worm or whatever, they go beep, beep, beep, beep. And that's how you know to look up because you can see their ugly little heads sticking up out of the hole.
00:06:19
Speaker
Yeah. um Like smaller birds won't alarm on ospreys typically because ospreys won't eat birds.
DIY Bird Seed Mix
00:06:28
Speaker
Mm-hmm. you know if if you If there's like a Cooper's Hawk or a Sharpshint Hawk in the area, the smaller bridge will absolutely be making alarm calls or will go very, very quiet.
00:06:38
Speaker
h But like with an Osprey, it's like, oh, that's, yeah, that's just Frank. Yeah. Don't about Frank. Traffic at my backyard bird feeder has slowed down considerably now that there's more things for birds to eat out in nature and it's not as close to winter anymore. And of course, this is only after I bought the 40 pound bag of black oil sunflower from Tractor Supply because I was going through bird seed so fast. I was having to refill it multiple times a day.
00:07:07
Speaker
But now I have my concoction of black oil sunflower seed and chicken treats. That's mealworms and some various corn and grains and other things that birds like because that was cheaper than buying all those components individually.
00:07:24
Speaker
and then also a bag of shelled peanuts. And I mix those all together. And I am allergic to peanuts, but I know that birds like them. So I have to wear big rubber dishwashing gloves when I scoop it out and then wash my hands after.
00:07:38
Speaker
But this is the sacrifice that I make for the birds in my backyard because I really like them. I've been leaving work very, very late compared to most of the people in my building. So there's like nobody around.
00:07:49
Speaker
But I feel like one of these days, someone is going to catch me
Ravens and Sci-Fi Segue
00:07:53
Speaker
standing in the parking lot, staring up at the top of this other building, like cooing at the Ravens and be like, what the fuck are you doing?
00:08:05
Speaker
like Don't worry about it. They're cute. There's only one proper reaction to that, and that is to be charmed and to say, oh, what are you cooing at? And then they get to see fucking ravens, which aren't they one of the most widespread birds in the world? I feel like i heard or read that somewhere, that ravens are just fucking everywhere.
00:08:22
Speaker
They are pretty much fucking everywhere. Yeah. Yeah. You know which character I feel like would benefit from a raven just like hovering behind them the whole time?
00:08:32
Speaker
Who? You know what? I came into this with an idea and now I'm really, really torn between saying Dooku and Ventress.
00:08:58
Speaker
Yeah, I feel like they both have looming raven energy in different ways. Dooku's just your very classic sort of, you know, Sir Christopher Lee villain. Obviously, he's going to have a raven. Ventress, I feel like, has a raven in a little bit of a more edgy way.
00:09:14
Speaker
Ventress has a raven in like the like kind of playful, mischievous nature of ravens. And not the death omen bit of ravens. Yeah, I agree.
00:09:28
Speaker
I love Ventress. We'll talk about her soon, but she seems she seems like she's got a lot going on and she's a very fun lady. Yeah, she's she's kind of great. i do I do really actually like her quite a lot.
00:09:42
Speaker
She starts off kind of one-dimensional, but she really grows on you. Hello, everyone. Welcome back to another episode of the Phantom Apprentice. My name is Rin. I'm one of your hosts.
00:09:53
Speaker
I grew up with Star Wars and Lord of the Rings and various other sci-fi and fantasy pieces of media that we have discussed on this podcast and not discussed on this podcast. And as an adult, I have made it my mission to inflict this media upon my dearest friends who did not have the chance to grow up with it.
00:10:14
Speaker
Yippee! I'm Sam. I'm the other one. i am having the media inflicted upon me. And it's a good time.
Star Wars Animation Appreciation
00:10:20
Speaker
Today we're doing animation, which is a real vibe change from the movies. But I enjoyed this little clump of episodes that we're going to talk about.
00:10:30
Speaker
Yeah, I love Star Wars animation. A lot of the fanboys get, you know, really shitty about it for... Why? ah the Because they're shitty fanboys I don't know Is it what is it not edgy enough for them?
00:10:48
Speaker
I think some of it's not edgy enough Or frequently Especially in later later animation There's too many girls Oh yucky Oh no oh But personally as As a girl Asterisk Star Wars fan I'm a big fan of the fact that there's a lot of girls This is great
00:11:14
Speaker
We're girl appreciators here on the Fandom Apprentice and we're not afraid to say it. In many, many, many ways. Bisexuals unite. There aren't a lot of girls in this bunch of episodes. No, but there I'm sure there will be later We'll get more.
00:11:30
Speaker
So we have spent our time so far in this season going through live action Star Wars. We started with The Mandalorian just the first season since Sam had already seen it.
00:11:40
Speaker
And now we have gone through a New Hope and Empire Strikes Back and The Phantom Menace after the reveal of Anakin Skywalker is Darth Vader. We needed to go back and understand how Anakin Skywalker got to be Darth Vader. So we went back to the Phantom Menace.
00:11:58
Speaker
Sam kind of hated the Phantom Menace. head Yeah. ah We had Attack of the Clones. Sam liked Attack of the Clones. Yeah. And at the end of the of Attack of the Clones, we meet Count Dooku.
00:12:13
Speaker
And so we decided today we would take a little sidetrack for the first half of this episode and go through the three episodes of Tales of the Jedi that deal with Count Dooku's backstory.
00:12:29
Speaker
Sort of how he fell to the dark side. And then in the second half of the episode, we will start going through the Star Wars, the Clone Wars TV series.
00:12:42
Speaker
And I think just off the bat, we'll talk more about how like Star Wars animation came to be and how we got the Clone Wars.
00:12:53
Speaker
I think in our next episode, because next time we're going talk about the Clone Wars animated movie. Okay. Which chronologically takes place following these episodes.
00:13:06
Speaker
But I guess anything else we want to talk about before we start going through all of this? Not really. I think we just get right into it. I enjoyed...
00:13:17
Speaker
These Tales of the Jedi episodes tremendously. I have thoughts about the visuals and stuff the Oh, the visuals are gorgeous. But my sort of just immediate impression after watching them being like, wow, that was good, was, wow, this would make no fucking sense if you hadn't already seen a bunch of other Star Wars.
00:13:34
Speaker
It is the opposite of The Mandalorian, which is a great entry point. This is context and background, and it means nothing if you don't already know who these people are.
00:13:44
Speaker
No, these are these are designed as like extra fun pieces for people who are already attached to these characters. You can't watch these and have it be your entry into Star Wars. They're not, you know, standalone shorts like the Star Wars Visions stuff, which we will also discuss probably in about three or four years. Mm hmm.
00:14:08
Speaker
Yeah, these were
Japanese Aesthetics in Star Wars Visions
00:14:09
Speaker
really, really fun. um And for somebody who has watched Visions, the influence of Star Wars Visions was really, really obvious actually on the Tales of the Jedi episodes.
00:14:23
Speaker
For context, Star Wars Visions is a series of non-canonical shorts, each one made by different animation studios, frequently Japanese animation studios.
00:14:36
Speaker
And they lean really, really heavily into the like manga and anime and samurai movie background of Star Wars. That's cool.
00:14:47
Speaker
Because Star Wars draws so, so heavily on Kurosawa, who his movies are all samurai stories. So that pulls that back into like the realm of Star Wars. And some of them you know don't really don't like really fit into overall Star Wars canon, so they're non-canon. They're just...
00:15:06
Speaker
They bring sort of the ideas and aesthetic of Star Wars to either... Some of them are done in an anime style. Some of them are done in a more sort of modern animation style, more like cyberpunk-y.
00:15:23
Speaker
Some of them are done like a sketched manga. There's all sorts of different styles that are used in Visions. And so Star Wars has always drawn from Asian aesthetics and particularly Japanese aesthetics and particularly samurai stories.
00:15:43
Speaker
But particularly in this first episode, in Justice, like this this was a samurai story. I feel like I need to watch some samurai movies so that I'll have some context because I have never seen a single samurai movie.
00:15:57
Speaker
I think i might need to do a little side quest to venture into those so I can appreciate this stuff more. I have never watched Kurosawa and I need to watch Kurosawa because I think just to get a little more of the background.
00:16:10
Speaker
But I've watched some more like modern samurai films. Well, and that's the thing is i've then I've also watched a lot of westerns. Which, as we know, are kind of the same. as Yeah, they're the same fucking thing. so But this very heavily was like pulling from the samurai aesthetic.
00:16:31
Speaker
And I noticed, because I just finished watching the Maul series, I noticed that a lot of the backgrounds and even a lot of the clothing looked almost sketched or painted in parts.
00:16:46
Speaker
This becomes a lot, a lot stronger Maul. The backgrounds in Maul all look like watercolors and it is so pretty. How many business years before I get to watch that one?
00:16:59
Speaker
Like two. We'll see. We'll see how fast we go through all of this because I really want to discuss Maul. So how about we go through the episodes and plot and stuff and then specific visuals as they come up?
00:17:15
Speaker
Sounds good. I'll start us off by setting us in time, and then I'll hand off plot to you. Because we are introduced to two characters at the start of Justice.
00:17:28
Speaker
And we know one of them is Dooku. We are not given the name of the other one until the very end of the episode. But for those of us who know the background, and then it's revealed at the end, this is young Qui-Gon
Tales of the Jedi: Qui-Gon Jinn & Dooku
00:17:43
Speaker
Jinn.
00:17:43
Speaker
Yeah, I guessed that because I didn't know Dooku as well as a character. I felt like Qui-Gon was more identifiable to me. Not visually, because he looks nothing like older Qui-Gon, but just because he's kind of somber and British. That was my guess. And I did turn out the right. Important.
00:18:02
Speaker
He's not British. no Irish he's irish I'm so sorry Irish people you can just bleep that out no this is an anti-British institution i also famously I've said on the podcast and I'll say it again i cannot identify accents whatever part of my brain is supposed to do that is broken so this is famously on brand for me again I'm sorry Irish people No, I mean, I don't, I did not identify it as an Irish accent, but Liam Neeson, who plays Qui-Gon in the original movie in Phantom Menace, and then also returns to voice Qui-Gon in The Sith Lord, which is the third of these three episodes, is an Irish actor.
00:18:47
Speaker
And the actor playing Qui-Gon in Justice here is Michael Neeson, Liam Neeson's son. Oh my god, I love that! That's so sweet. How old is he? Is he like an adult or a teenager? Yeah, he is... ah I may also have pronounced his first name wrong, and my apologies if I did.
00:19:11
Speaker
think it's Mikhail. It might be. He's 30. Okay. Yeah, it will just always tug at my heartstrings if people make media with their kids. That just gets me every time. so that makes me happy. I love that.
00:19:25
Speaker
There's going to be a lot of that in Star Wars. Yay! I think that's really fun. Especially with a lot of these actors who keep returning after 20, 30 years.
00:19:37
Speaker
h We'll see a lot of their children. Billy Lord, who Carrie Fisher's daughter.
00:19:46
Speaker
plays Princess Leia in Rogue One. I have mentioned on the show, and I won't be too specific, so I'm not going to dox myself, but I have some family members who have, as I said before, found mild to moderate success in entertainment. Not like rich or famous, but they've been in things. I have never watched any of my great-grandmother's movies.
00:20:07
Speaker
I've been a little afraid to, Because they're like from the 50s. I don't know what's going to be in there. um Some kids that I used to take care of were curious about her and they wanted to watch movies. And i was like, ah let me watch them first. I don't know what's going to be in this stuff, but I should at some point because I think that would be cool.
00:20:25
Speaker
Yeah, it'd be fun. We should do that. But I'm so sorry. I said I was going to ground us in time and I didn't. That's okay. Go for it. Go for it. So we're introduced to Dooku and young Qui-Gon as Dooku's Padawan.
00:20:40
Speaker
And according Wookieepedia and Star Wars timelines, Qui-Gon Jinn became Dooku's Padawan in 68 BBY. So 68 years before the Battle of Yavin and became a Jedi Knight around 58 BBY.
00:20:59
Speaker
So this takes place somewhere in that 10 year period. And he's clearly older, so it's probably closer to 58 BBY. So we are 60-ish years before the Battle of Yavin.
00:21:13
Speaker
Before Luke blows up the Death Star. Okay. And we'll get and i have I have years for the other two episodes later, too. Anyway. Sweet. So we have them visiting a village that has had some kind of natural disaster.
00:21:30
Speaker
Fire seems like something. It's not really specific. Doesn't really matter. Something bad happened. And the village is not being served by its senator. The senator's son is missing and the Jedi have been sent to, quote, resolve the situation, unquote.
00:21:45
Speaker
Turns out the villagers fucking hate their senator and they've taken his son hostage. But the son isn't even mad about it because he's horrified at the way that the people are suffering.
00:21:56
Speaker
There's shootout with the senator's army showing up to try to reclaim his son. The Jedi literally in the middle of these two forces. Dooku tells the senator to go fuck himself and almost kills him. But it resolves with the soldiers from the senator's personal force and the villagers working together to rebuild the village.
00:22:17
Speaker
There are a couple of overarching themes, I think, through these Dooku episodes and then leading into the beginning of our Clone Wars coverage. And that we'll be focusing on through the rest of our Clone Wars coverage.
00:22:32
Speaker
The who do the Jedi serve? What is the purpose of the Jedi? Question. Yeah. And there is a line at one point when the senator shows up and tells the two Jedi to arrest the commoners and says, you serve the Senate. And Dooku goes, no, we serve the people of this republic.
00:22:56
Speaker
There's a lot of that theme of, you know, like you said, who do they serve? Because the villagers think that the Jedi serve the Senate and they're very reluctant to trust them.
00:23:07
Speaker
and There's all of these sort of moments that I highlighted where we're planting the seeds of both Dooku and Qui-Gon's disillusionment to different extents with the system.
00:23:19
Speaker
Because when they first show up and they're in the moody tavern where, of course, there will be plot as per the laws of fantasy. hmm. They're talking to some of the villagers and Qui-Gon very naively is saying, well, if you hate your senator so much, why don't you just elect a new one?
00:23:36
Speaker
and the lady just looks at him like, are you fucking stupid? The world is a lot more complicated than that. And just the looks on everybody's faces or were you born yesterday? What's happening?
00:23:49
Speaker
And then when Dooku introduces them, he goes, allow me to make my intentions clear and sits down and he puts his lightsaber on the table.
00:24:00
Speaker
the The person who is in charge, more or less, she looks down at the lightsaber, looks up and goes, Jedi. In a voice that is like halfway between fear and disgust.
00:24:13
Speaker
Mm hmm. You can tell her thoughts are running through like, we're fucked. They're here to kill us. They're pawns of the senator.
00:24:24
Speaker
you know, he got so pissed he sent the fucking Jedi. Yeah. And then it's revealed, of course, that the senator didn't send them. The senator didn't know they were coming. But the villagers are also aren't wrong to be very suspicious of the Jedi. i think Of course not. The theme that will continue to carry through these next couple episodes.
00:24:44
Speaker
I did... really like that the senator's son wasn't mad he's had obviously an extremely sheltered life but now that he's seen how the world is outside of his bubble he is also questioning the system and he doesn't blame the villagers for acting the way that they did and i was wondering because the son isn't named and i don't know is the senator named nope i don't remember the senator i was wondering if this I was wondering if this kid grows up to be someone important and then we see him later as some sort of woke senator in the future. But I liked that. I liked also that later on the senator finds them because one of the other villagers
00:25:27
Speaker
Yeah. basically sells her neighbors out she rats on them in exchange for something which is implied to be food but it doesn't really matter what it is specifically but also her neighbors aren't really mad at her because they go yeah we're all suffering she's hungry we probably would have done the same in her shoes. So there's a lot of complexity and there's conflict, but also empathy and people understanding why they're acting the way that they are, which I thought was a really interesting way to go about it, especially in this very black and white Star Wars morality situation.
00:26:03
Speaker
Right. And ultimately it's empathy that saves the life of the senator. Right. It is this son's empathy. Qui-Gon realizes that the son is the only one who can solve the situation because Dooku ends up force choking the senator. Yeah. Very clearly going to kill him.
00:26:26
Speaker
And so Qui-Gon can't snap him out of it and goes to free the senator's son, who then goes and begs for his father's life. There's a look on Dooku's face. The facial expressions are fantastically done here. There's a look on Dooku's face of like, what the fuck have I done?
00:26:45
Speaker
Yeah, for a moment. But this is this is the start of the fall. We're seeing that this darkness exists in Dooku. h But at least at the beginning, his fall to the dark was out of a desire to see justice, to see the weak protected, and to see the strong who abuse their power punished.
00:27:13
Speaker
And then at the end, when you have everybody sort of working together and this nice harmony resolution, as I am thinking, this seems like a band-aid on a much bigger issue. Dooku literally says, wonder if any meaningful change will come of this.
00:27:32
Speaker
Because he knows, like okay, I was merciful, and that's good, probably, and these people are being helped for now, but he's thinking about the bigger picture, which I also really like. That's kind of a sophisticated...
00:27:47
Speaker
argument for a what I assume is a children's cartoon. I'm not really sure who the target audience of Tales of the Jedi is. Kids could watch it, but if they don't have a bunch of Star Wars background, then it probably wouldn't be fun. So I don't really know who it's for age-wise, but I like it. I thought it was sophisticated while still being a pretty straightforward cartoon plot.
00:28:10
Speaker
Yeah, Star Wars animation very much started out as like children's cartoons. Like Clone Wars and Rebels are very much geared towards children. And Bad Batch is definitely still a children's cartoon.
00:28:21
Speaker
But I feel like Visions and Tales and Maul in particular all sort of depart from that a little bit.
Medieval Aesthetics & Jedi Roles
00:28:31
Speaker
I liked the visuals in this one a lot. They were so pretty.
00:28:35
Speaker
There's a lot of very sort of bleak, muted colors. The village has this ye olde Tudor style feel, but still with spacey Star Wars details. Like all of these Tudor style homes have metal sliding doors, which is really funny to me. And all of their outfits are kind of In a mixed era style, we've got tunics and vests, and I was trying so hard to identify the specific collar that the sort of leader lady is wearing. It's this square...
00:29:12
Speaker
separate piece that's tied on over her shirt and the closest thing that I could find the word for was like a Puritan collar but those tend to be pointy and hers is rectangular I know that I've seen it before I know this is a yeah specific historical garment and I cannot find the name of it and at some point I will but I saw the historical influences and I liked it a lot because you know where I've seen this before where on our Canadian lawyer friends oh my god yeah uh-huh this is this is like a lawyer's like like a like a barrister's yes oh my god i i'm sure there's a more official name for it that's so funny we're gonna have to message them about this later
00:29:56
Speaker
ah i'm i'm like remembering the image of one of our friends called the bar that she sent us and i'm like that's that's where that is it is yes You're so smart. Yes.
00:30:11
Speaker
i was I was looking for it in our group chat and was like, I'm going to spend too much time finding this. so Yeah, i I really enjoyed like the visuals very clearly set us back in time. they're They're very, very obviously from a different time while still being Star Wars.
00:30:36
Speaker
Yeah, that's difficult to pull off. Did you notice the visible fastenings? I did not notice the visible fastenings. I was not looking for visible fastenings. Yeah, it's not something we see very often in Star Wars, but the senator and the senator's son and the village headwoman all have visible buttons.
00:30:58
Speaker
Interesting. I'm going to need to go back and look at them more closely and contrast their button designs. Yeah. Yeah, we have like, you know, poofy sleeves on the senator's son and um the military uniforms are very old timey.
00:31:15
Speaker
You know, this very clearly sets us back 70 years from where we were previously. Yeah, you know, this is this is.
00:31:28
Speaker
40 years prior not quite that far this is um like it's like 30 years before the events of phantom menace speaking of time unless you have anything else to say about this one where are we time wise in the next episode So at the end of the episode, we see that Mace Windu getting his seat on the Jedi High Council.
00:31:53
Speaker
And according to Star Wars timelines, he was one of the younger people ever to serve on the council until something happens in Revenge of the Sith.
00:32:04
Speaker
But it based on that, Windu must have been at least 22 at this time. Oh, so very young. So very, very young. He might have been older.
00:32:15
Speaker
He could have been in his later 20s. He could have been in his 30s. But he must have gained seat on the council no earlier than 50 BBY.
00:32:26
Speaker
Mm-hmm. And apparently he was part of the council, according to a canon book that was published a couple years later. Sorry, not a couple years later, several years ago.
00:32:37
Speaker
Time is funky when we talk about release versus actual, like, in-universe time. Anyway, point is, according to a book that was published a couple years ago, Windu was part of the Jedi Council in 48 BBY.
00:32:50
Speaker
So this happens somewhere between 50 and 48 BBY. So it's a two-year... period. So this is probably 10 to 12 years after that first episode.
00:33:04
Speaker
This whole process reminds me of that guy who makes TikToks of finding old globes and maps and figuring out exactly what year they were made based on what countries are and how the borders are sitting. This is reminding me of that. We're doing some kind of historical endeavor here.
00:33:22
Speaker
Yeah. And we see the passage of time with Dooku's beard because now he has a beard. Yes. The plot of this episode, we have Dooku and Windu discussing a murdered Jedi who died in an ambush while the senator she was protecting escaped. Windu discourages Dooku looking further into it since it's outside the scope of their assignment.
00:33:43
Speaker
They visit this senator, Senator Larrick, whose version of events is clearly full of shit. And instead of taking this information back to the council, the Jedi investigate and realize that this was an assassination of the other Jedi.
00:33:56
Speaker
The guards who are there with them kill the senator. we get a confession from one of them that they're the ones who orchestrated the whole thing. Apparently the senator was super corrupt and they had a plan to use him to push their own agendas to benefit their planet.
00:34:12
Speaker
When asked why he didn't take this to the Jedi, the guard says, Quote, Jedi are the lapdogs of the Senate. Their bidding always comes first. It's evident throughout the galaxy. Jedi claim peace, but mostly keep law and order for the rich and powerful.
00:34:26
Speaker
Unquote. They arrest the guard, whose name is Samaj? Yeah. But Dooku tells him that he's sympathetic to his cause and encourages him to keep fighting.
00:34:37
Speaker
We get the Jedi Master Katri's funeral and Windu is given her council seat, showing us the clear divide in his and Dooku's paths. ah Windu is the rule follower. He gets the council seat.
00:34:50
Speaker
Dooku is the more rebellious, edgy one. e One visual I forgot to mention from the previous episode, which carries through all three of these episodes, is Dooku, much like Anakin in the last movie, is wearing dark brown robes.
00:35:06
Speaker
And every other Jedi is depicted in lighter colors. And they might have a cloak that's of a darker color, but their robes are light. And as we know, Star Wars relies very, very heavily on color symbolism.
00:35:20
Speaker
So this slightly darker color palette on Dooku indicates that he is closer to the dark side. They get referred to as Senate puppets a couple of times.
00:35:34
Speaker
This happens on the planet Raxus, which we will return to. This sort of dissatisfaction of the people on planet Raxus will come back during the Clone Wars.
00:35:48
Speaker
There seems to be a lot of environmental issues. The corrupt government is selling off land to be used by corporations and ruining the planet for everybody else.
00:35:59
Speaker
Good thing that doesn't happen in real life. All from his comfortable residence on faraway Coruscant. This will never affect him So he doesn't care.
00:36:11
Speaker
It just lines his pockets. And i I mostly wrote down quotes from this episode. There's, you know, similar vibes to the last episode, especially visually on the soldiers. They're all in sort of blue and gold, old timey ceremonial armor.
00:36:27
Speaker
They all have fucking creepy ass claws. Yeah, they've got the seven inch acrylics for no reason. It's very clearly ceremonial. Yeah.
00:36:39
Speaker
But before Samaj says that line about Jedi being lapdogs in the Senate, Windu is like, Katri was a keeper of the peace. Why did you kill her? And Samaj rebuffs Windu.
00:36:52
Speaker
And Windu goes, Katri was a Jedi. She would have listened. But you're not listening now, Mace. Yeah. Like, you're you have utterly... you You said, like, she was a keeper of the peace. She'd have listened.
00:37:07
Speaker
And Samaj says, none of you fucking listen. And then you just repeat yourself. Yeah. But Dooku's totally silent. Ooh, yeah. That's a good fucking point, bestie. Dooku says nothing during this exchange.
00:37:27
Speaker
This reminds me of way less serious an exchange that I had with someone who I will not put on blast, but is a man in my life. And i was talking to some people about the whole...
00:37:42
Speaker
bit cultural joke of men mansplaining IPAs. And this guy interrupts me telling this story to tell me why IPAs are good, actually.
00:37:54
Speaker
And then me and the other people I'm talking to just stop and look at him and go, You don't understand that this is the funniest thing you could have possibly done. And then he's like, no, no, but actually you've got to listen to the IPAs are really good. We're like, no no, you're missing the point. You're missing the point and making the point at the same time.
00:38:12
Speaker
yeah It's beautiful and that happens. We also see a couple of pieces of like the Dooku who will become the leader of the Separatists. which is says, you had every right to protect your planet, to Samaj. Yeah. um And then says, you know, make sure your people don't lose heart and evolve, Samaj. It is the only way you will truly have victory.
00:38:37
Speaker
I say that for all of us. And Windu, as they're leaving, asks if the council will approve of Duhu's tactics in solving the murder. But like... Unlike when he force choked a senator 10 years ago, he didn't really do anything out of the ordinary here.
00:38:54
Speaker
Rather than just showing up and collecting the body, he solved the murder. And that was, yes, outside of the direct orders. But like he didn't attack anybody without being shot at first. Like he. i feel like he didn't do anything that was dark side adjacent or unforgivable.
00:39:14
Speaker
He just didn't follow orders. Yeah. I am very sympathetic to him in these two episodes, which is exactly the point because you're setting up the emotional damage, but it's working. I'm getting attached.
00:39:29
Speaker
um Well, and Dooku at the end, he asks Windu... Do you think the Jedi will truly keep peace if they continue to take everything the Senate says as law?
00:39:42
Speaker
In the larger scheme of the Star Wars universe, there's been the whole recent High Republic project, which takes place like 300 to 200 years prior to the Battle of Yavin.
00:39:53
Speaker
But that means that possibly some Jedi who came up during the High Republic era were around when Dooku was a Padawan. which means they're the ones who trained Dooku.
00:40:06
Speaker
And during the High Republic era, the Jedi were very, very different. They were very, very separate from the Senate. yeah um There's a scene in one of the books where like the Jedi show up during a conflict and the Senate requests help. And there's a moment where it's like, they're not sure the Jedi are actually going to help.
00:40:27
Speaker
they could just leave. A request from the Senate is just a request. It is not a we're sending Jedi to do this. This is literally just enriching my understanding of this so much because now I'm seeing, you know, the people who trained Dooku and Dooku training Qui-Gon and then Qui-Gon training Obi-Wan and then, you know, Obi-Wan, Anakin, all the stuff.
00:40:51
Speaker
It's all connecting. It's all connecting. and it's And in answer to this question, Windu, who is younger than Dooku, brushes him off.
00:41:02
Speaker
He says, Luckily, we are guided by our counsel and not by politics, nor ego. He's reducing this whole thing down to Dooku's ego.
00:41:17
Speaker
Rather than being... about a larger systemic issue. Shall we move on to the next one? Because we have made a vow, listeners, amongst ourselves, to not discuss these episodes for longer than the runtime of the episode, because we could and we would, but we are keeping it because we have a lot to talk about, so we're going to keep going.
00:41:41
Speaker
So, next one, the Sith Lord. There is a time skip once again. so where are we time-wise
Dooku's Fall to the Dark Side
00:41:49
Speaker
now? we are at the beginning of the episode right during phantom menace which if i'm remembering correctly is like it's either 36 or 32 bby so we have now jumped another like 15 years um and dooku's got gray in his beard now yeah Because at the beginning of the episode, we see Dooku erasing Kamino from the Jedi archives.
00:42:20
Speaker
Yes. And Qui-Gon has just reported his encounter with Maul to the Jedi Council. Exactly. Yeah. Plot wise, Dooku talks to Qui-Gon and tells him that he believes him about his encounter with the Sith Lord, grumbling about the Council, never taking his report seriously.
00:42:38
Speaker
Master Yaddle, who is also there, says that the council just wants to be cautious, but they do believe him. Dooku and Yaddle bond over how fast their students grow up. And then another times get to after Qui-Gon fucking dies. and it's so sad. We'll talk about it.
00:42:57
Speaker
Dooku goes off to a mysterious second location and Yaddle follows him. And she sees him confronting Sidious for letting Maul kill his apprentice, but they're clearly working together.
00:43:10
Speaker
Yaddle tries to reason with Tuku, but she knows too much and he kills her on Sidious's orders. This one's a fucking gut punch. It's so sad. It's so good. And I started listening because we know me. I'm all about the music.
00:43:26
Speaker
of The music for these episodes was composed by Kevin Kiner, who also does the scores for most of other Star Wars animation. And specifically for these episodes, he was joined by his children, Sean and Deanna.
00:43:41
Speaker
Aww. Especially for an episode with themes of masters and students which is the closest thing that jedi have to parents and their attachments that obviously they have and we see i mean throughout these episodes but especially in this one how deeply dooku feels for qui-gon and how much qui-gon loves obi-wan because dooku even remarks you know i should like to meet him someday you're always singing his praises and of course he does meet him later but it's sad there's all of these very very strong bonds and relationships and
00:44:14
Speaker
And so then to also have the family making music for it, oh I'm going cry. I love it. But one of the pieces is entitled Dooku's Fall.
00:44:26
Speaker
And it's in two parts. And we hear it ah throughout the episode. The first part we hear is as Dooku is standing in front of the tree mourning Qui-Gon.
00:45:04
Speaker
At this point, no matter what happens in the rest of the episode, he is already gone. He has already fallen. And while I think he doesn't become Sith until the end of the episode, but he has already fallen to the dark side.
00:45:21
Speaker
Yeah. I love the vocals. what What really pulled me into this piece was the vocals. And there's the vocal track as he's staring at the tree reminded me really heavily. This is not a direct poll, but it reminded me really heavily of the vocals over Assassin's Creed Revelations, which also follows...
00:45:46
Speaker
Ezio Auditore da Firenze, who's the main character of AC2, AC Brotherhood, and AC Revelations. He, at this point, is now also older. He's in his 50s, 60s, and travels from Italy, where he spent the previous two games, to Turkey to follow sort of the origins of the Assassin Brotherhood.
00:46:05
Speaker
Mm-hmm. And I was just drawing parallels of like the music similar, the, and these two men are sort of in similar positions of being sort of older and having spent most of their lives in this sort of semi monastic warrior monk organization. h And also both sort of seeking out what is the heart? What is the purpose of this organization?
00:46:29
Speaker
Yeah. And, you know, i have no idea if Sean and Deanna Kiner, who apparently were more responsible for that piece, are Assassin's Creed fans. And that was their inspiration or anything. But like, it's not impossible.
00:46:46
Speaker
It's not impossible. But that was just a parallel from my media consumption that I was drawing. I don't have too much to say specifically about what is fun to call the Yaddle battle.
00:46:58
Speaker
It sounds nice. It sounds like a Dr. Seuss thing. But it was really good. It was a fucking awesome battle. There's a part where it seems like she's about to be crushed in this sort of docking bay door. But the shape of it is this...
00:47:12
Speaker
oval with gear teeth that obviously kind of locks it up and down but then when it's partially lifted she's literally in the jaws of death crushing her and then it crushes down and you think she's dead but then she pushes it back up with the force oh it fucking rules it's so good And there's a statement of the Force theme there. Oh, my God. And it's behind her and the light is streaming through the door. And did you see in the background Sidious is cowering light? No, I didn't see. I need to rewatch that. Oh, yes.
00:47:45
Speaker
And see this is a fight scene that not only did I pay attention, I enjoyed. This was a good fight. I like this very much. And just overall, the visuals in these three episodes, the texture is so good. It's got that sort of painterly sculptural quality. I feel like I could feel, like could just reach into the screen and feel the textures on everything.
00:48:09
Speaker
It's good shapes. It's cartoony, but still kind of gritty. It's not as gritty as like original trilogy Star Wars with everything just being dirty, but it's got, it's got the spirit, but then you also have the Jedi archives, which are so pretty. And it's this great combination of university library and giant server banks with this technological magical glow,
00:48:39
Speaker
It's really good. I thought these were very artistically well done. It's really, really cool. i want to talk ah just a little bit about the way Dooku interacts with Sidious because when he shows up, like...
00:48:51
Speaker
like he's He's pissed with Sidious at first. And Sidious is like, we both just we both lost apprentices today. And he's clearly working, the way he's talking with Sidious at the beginning, he's working with Sidious because he feels the Jedi have lost their way. He does not yet see himself as a darksider. He doesn't see himself as Sith.
00:49:16
Speaker
Mm-hmm. he sees himself as trying to stop corruption, that there has been a corruption of the Jedi's values from working with the Senate, I guess. um like yeah They are beholden to the Senate's power now.
00:49:36
Speaker
And he has become so obsessed with this that he can't sort of pick out that Sidious is the source of a lot of that corruption and is yeah is willing to work with the Sith to try and break this down.
00:49:53
Speaker
And it so it's it isn't until he fights Yaddle and he he pushes the entire ship out of the way to get at her with the force and then crushes her in the door and he falls to his knees.
00:50:08
Speaker
And Sidious goes, You have done well.
00:50:20
Speaker
Oh, my God. And that's the point of no return. And it ties so nicely into that first episode where he's almost killing the senator and has the, oh, my God, what have I done? And then in this episode, it's, oh, my God, I actually did it.
00:50:34
Speaker
These three work so well together. Yeah. Well, and then she pushes open the door again. And ultimately forces Dooku to kill her with his own hand. Mm-hmm.
00:50:46
Speaker
You know, a he goes up to her and he's still trying to explain himself. I want only to bring peace and order to the galaxy.
00:51:00
Speaker
Already so many have suffered for what you call.
00:51:07
Speaker
Then let me give you peace, Master Yaddle.
00:51:14
Speaker
Fucking devastating. And that's when we get the second piece of the Fall of Dooku song statement, and it's much more discordant vocals.
00:51:51
Speaker
kind of similar actually to um some of the duel of the fates stuff oh so good because here's the thing i think before these episodes dooku even through clone wars is kind of a one-dimensional evil character yeah but this gives him just so much more oomph oomph Yeah.
00:52:17
Speaker
I love it. I love humanizing a villain. We've talked so many times on this podcast about the idea of corruption and how anybody who is sufficiently motivated can end up doing things that seem like they would be counter to their beliefs.
00:52:37
Speaker
You know, nobody is immune to influence and that's just a theme that I really enjoy and now I'm now i'm attached to fucking Dooku which was a great you did it congratulations my only real and it's not even a real gripe it's just kind of an offhand gripe design wise is if you have not watched this episode and you don't know what Master Yaddle looks like she's the same kind of alien as Yoda and we know she's a girl frog because she has a ponytail
00:53:09
Speaker
because otherwise how would we know so that's just a little bit silly whatever it's yeah it's a girl i'll take it she she appears in the background of phantom menace and then isn't in the later two movies which is why she can be killed here and so yeah again this is our dear professional misogynist uh george lucas is doing Make the girl frog bald, you coward. ah Give the girlrr girl dwarves beards.
00:53:43
Speaker
Yeah.
Clone Wars: Individuality & Science
00:53:44
Speaker
The difference going from Tales of the Jedi animation to early, early fucking Clone Wars animation 2019 or twenty i think it was or something to two thousand eight is really jarring It was a bit of whiplash, but you know, it was fun. the intro music version of the Star Wars theme is really snazzy.
00:54:12
Speaker
I liked it, but wow, these are two different experiences. Yeah. um And so strictly speaking, we are starting with season three, episode one, Clone Cadets, which chronologically...
00:54:24
Speaker
Apparently takes place technically after the movie. But i wanted to put it here because this shows us I'm looking to humanize the clones. who Because they are all just, when they with their helmets on, they are faceless numbers in an army.
00:54:44
Speaker
They aren't given names, they're numbers. And here we see them giving themselves or each other names. Yeah. Yeah. And these three episodes that we're going to talk about, we're talking about season three, episode one, Clone Cadets, season two, episode 16, Cat and Mouse, and season one, episode 16, The Enemy Within.
00:55:06
Speaker
And season two and it's episode 16 and season one, episode 16, chronologically flow into each other. And then this will flow into the Clone Wars movie.
00:55:17
Speaker
and We'll talk about exactly how that all came about next time. But basically the plot of the first one is baby clones, babies. They're graduating from the military academy and doing their last test and learning to work together and be part of a team.
00:55:37
Speaker
Yeah. This is, you know, this is obviously children's show. Yeah. There is a line, we have had to stretch his DNA, right? Yes, I wrote that down as well, because this is after Jango Fett is dead. Uh-huh. So... So this is, like, Jango Fett died literally minutes before the Clone Wars started.
00:56:00
Speaker
And the clones grow from babies, so these ones are, like, 10 or 11. They grow at, like, double speed. So they would have been born when he was still alive. And so this begins... My gripe with the Clone Wars timeline.
00:56:15
Speaker
Okay, let's hear it. Let's hear it. And but my gripe with the Clone Wars timeline is the entire reason that rule number three exists.
00:56:27
Speaker
What is it? Time responds to story. Story does not respond to time. Yes. I'm going to forever fuck that one up. um Yeah, but the point is like time doesn't matter.
00:56:39
Speaker
Canonically, the Clone Wars timeline is three years long. There is a 10-year lead-up period, so Master Sifo-Dyas orders the clones from the Kaminoans, like, basically at the end of The Phantom Menace, like, right around then.
00:56:55
Speaker
Probably shortly before Dooku deletes Kamino from the Jedi Archives. Yeah. The clones grow for 10 or 11, 12 years, whatever.
00:57:08
Speaker
So then Anakin is 19 years old and we have Attack of the Clones and the Clone War begins right at the end of Attack of the Clones. And then we have three years and then it ends.
00:57:20
Speaker
Yeah. And in that three year period, so much shit happens. And particularly, we have clones of different generations, different groups coming on. And in the next episode, we're going to see a clone that clearly has already gone through a bunch of fighting, greeting another one as like a rookie. You know, you're going to sit here where I can keep an eye on you.
00:57:44
Speaker
Okay, how long has he been in battle? Four days? Yeah. Because this, you know, Anakin's appearance is vastly different, and that's to bring him more in line with what he looks like in Revenge of the Sith three years later.
00:57:59
Speaker
Okay, but we then learn that this is the first year of the Clone Wars, so he's still fucking 19. He has a brand new scar, so clearly there's been some stuff in the interim. But, like, this is all, like, maybe four or five months between end of...
00:58:14
Speaker
Attack the Clones and Beginning of Clone Wars. There's also 99 who confuses me. He's obviously kind of like a defective clone. He's this hunched old man and everyone makes fun of him.
00:58:29
Speaker
But then also he has a little mini character arc, which is great. But how old is he supposed to be? That's unclear to me. He's defective, so maybe he's aging more rapidly than the others but yeah but if they have to stretch the dna and 99 is you know any more than six months old then he came from when jango fett was still alive yeah so let's have a brief aside i'm not counting this in the amount of time we're discussing the episode to talk about cloning yes please i would love to
00:59:08
Speaker
Because, hi I'm a biologist. My day job actually involves clones. And a clone in biology is just a genetically identical copy.
00:59:20
Speaker
There are creatures alive today that reproduce by parthenogenesis, so they create genetically identical copies of themselves. Bacteria, single-celled bacteria, and you know the cells in our bodies reproduce by mitosis. They split into genetically identical copies.
00:59:35
Speaker
But this, we have had to stretch his DNA. That is a thing, because to replicate DNA... That has to be done through cell replication and through cell culture.
00:59:49
Speaker
And every time a cell divides, every time DNA is replicated, there is a chance for a mutation. o something is not replicated correctly.
00:59:59
Speaker
Either something gets recombined wrong or, you know, something gets read incorrectly and there's a single base or a deletion of a base or an addition of a base.
01:00:12
Speaker
And so now you have either a difference in a single codon or you, you know, now have a stop codon where you didn't have a stop codon or a start codon where you didn't have a start codon.
01:00:23
Speaker
And a codon is a series of three base pairs. that during transcription and translation tells the cell what proteins to make. Is that like the ACGT stuff? I'm trying to cast my mind back to the eighth grade for the last time I had to think about this.
01:00:40
Speaker
Those four, ACTG, are adenine, guanine, cytosine, and thymine. So those are the four base pairs in our DNA. There is also uracil, which is found in our RNA, which takes the place of thymine.
01:00:54
Speaker
So every group of these three bases, you know, AAA, TTT, TCG, Like every one of those series of three base pairs is a codon in a coding region specifically. There are parts of our DNA that just don't get read.
01:01:12
Speaker
It's the non-coding areas. But in a coding region, a codon, a single codon codes for one amino acid of which there's a fuckton. And I don't want to think back to biochem.
01:01:24
Speaker
And so if I take out one of those base pairs, I'm Now, when the DNA gets converted to RNA and the RNA gets read to become protein, it's reading the next base pair. So if I had, say, ATG and I take out the T and the next codon was CCG, well, now I have AGC and that's a different amino acid.
01:01:51
Speaker
So that's going to change what happens. So that's that's a deletion. Sometimes an additional base can be added. So suddenly there's a second T added in there. So now I have ATT instead of a teche Sometimes there is a replacement. So now I have ACG instead of ATG.
01:02:14
Speaker
And these are all different. There are certain codons that code for the certain groups that code for the same amino acid. And then there's also start and stop codons, which tells the RNA to stop.
01:02:26
Speaker
making amino acids based on this based on these directions. But the point is, every single time that you read this, the cell is basically typing this all out again.
01:02:37
Speaker
It is reading through the entire genome and typing it out, replicating it. And every time that that happens, there's a chance that they make a typo. And so every time that that happens, there is a chance that there is a variation that causes a significant change.
01:02:56
Speaker
And so if you don't have these fresh DNA samples, you're working solely with what you've replicated from the original sample. And if you're doing it in massive, massive amounts, then you run the risk of mutations.
01:03:11
Speaker
That makes sense. The type of cloning they're probably doing is probably, it's probably something along the lines of somatic cell nuclear transfer. In which case you have two cells.
01:03:24
Speaker
You have your cytoplasmic donor, which is the cell body, and your nuclear donor. And the nucleus the nucleus contains the DNA that you're looking to clone. So that will be an entire nucleus rather than just in a gamete, you just have half the DNA that then integrates with the half the DNA from the other gamete. And then those combine and create cell.
01:03:44
Speaker
a new being. In this case, the cell does not split the DNA in half. So you just, you have all of the DNA in its replicated form because we have two copies of every one of our chromosomes.
01:03:59
Speaker
So you have all of the chromosomes for the creature in the nucleus and that is placed into an egg cell. which has had its nucleus and therefore its DNA removed. So now the cell itself is just the cytoplasm. It's just the supporting structures of the cell.
01:04:17
Speaker
But that means when it starts to replicate, it is going to replicate the DNA of the donor. Yeah, yeah. How they're getting... a bunch of cytoplasm donors?
01:04:31
Speaker
I don't know. That's another question. Are they doing some form of like induced, like stem cell inducing meiosis somehow? That's a different issue. The science of this in the Star Wars universe is never discussed.
01:04:49
Speaker
Weirdly, it will keep being relevant, but it's not actually going to be discussed. Mm-hmm. Somatic cell nuclear transfer does not work very well. The most well-known early clone, Dolly the Sheep, took like 300 tries oh damn to get a surviving sheep.
01:05:09
Speaker
I would presume in this sci-fi universe from a species where cloning is their whole fucking thing that they figured out how to do that a lot better. Questions.
01:05:22
Speaker
I think that all tracks and I don't think I know enough about cloning to ask any more specific questions. Heard chef. That all makes sense and I see how that connects to the Star Wars of it all.
01:05:33
Speaker
Cool. Anyway, so that is now where my gripe with time comes in because all of these clones have been growing for like 10 years.
01:05:44
Speaker
Yeah. And we're also going to keep getting like new clones throughout the war, but they're all like a year apart, which, you know, in clone years is, you know, two years, right? So, okay, fine.
01:05:58
Speaker
That's still not a lot of time. And we've discussed, you know, that in our real world and in the Star Wars universe, obviously things can change really fucking fast. We have seen that the world can change on a fucking dime when a global pandemic happens or when wars start, like, wars start and with elections and whatever.
01:06:16
Speaker
Things can change in days. Whole systems and whole cultures can change over a few day period, over a few months. But when you're talking about like the growth of living beings, which gets called out in this episode, they're living beings, not objects.
01:06:36
Speaker
you start to run up against issues with time. yeah of we are We are compressing this timeline in such a way it doesn't really make sense.
01:06:49
Speaker
But unfortunately, we are beholden whatever the fuck George Lucas said. And we have to tell an entire, complete series of stories in that three-year period. So we just have to go, and rule number three.
01:07:05
Speaker
Yeah. The response to when Jedi Master Shaak Ti says that the clones are living beings, not objects, the response from one of the bounty hunters who is helping train the clones is, you Jedi show too much compassion.
01:07:19
Speaker
And this will be a line that Dave Filoni fucking loves. Are we going to see it a lot? You can find a Jedi and you can see the effects of a Jedi through their compassion.
01:07:32
Speaker
Mm hmm. that the mark of a good Jedi is their compassion. I like that. Add that to the list of ideal Jedi qualities. m Also, Shakti rules. I think she's really cool. I like her vibe a lot.
01:07:45
Speaker
She's super cool. I love her a lot. She's she's fun. Anyway, they all learn a lesson about teamwork. We are introduced to the Domino Squad, the clones, and I just want to call out their names because we will see them again.
01:07:57
Speaker
We have Heavy, who is, you know, the Heavy Gunner, even though his name is spelled H-E-V-Y. We have Fives, because his number is CT5555.
01:08:09
Speaker
We have Echo, who just repeats all the orders. We have Cut Up, who makes a bunch of jokes. And we have Droid Bait, who constantly runs into danger. Even with their distinct personalities and names, it's really disorienting to watch and listen to a bunch of identical characters. I'm sure I'll get used to it eventually, but especially in these three episodes, I was just not even bothering trying to tell them apart. Well, and when we look at particularly The Enemy Within, we start seeing how they're trying to differentiate themselves. Yeah.
01:08:42
Speaker
via haircuts via facial hair we're gonna start seeing tattoos oh i love me a tattoo the clones are seeking individuality o they all have the same face they're they all have the same voice they're all voiced by d bradley baker aka oppa from avatar the last airbender why not Yeah, he voices all of the clones. He's great.
01:09:09
Speaker
Sometimes when it's like the entire episode is just clones talking to each other. It's like Dee Bradley Baker is just the only guy in this episode. He's just having a time.
01:09:21
Speaker
Anyway, moving on to Cat and Mouse. This is a submarine warfare movie. Yeah. Do you have thoughts on the plot line of this episode? The plot is pretty straightforward. There's fighting happening and Anakin and Obi-Wan are butting heads about what to do to deliver supplies to the planet that needs them or attack the bad guy. And Anakin comes up with a whole sneaky plan where he kind of gets to do both and he tricks the bad guys into lowering their shields and he's able to attack them and also help the people and it pays off and it works and it's kind of nice to see Anakin do something heroic and just have it work out and everyone be happy because I'm we've been spending so much time shitting on him because he is annoying and becomes Darth Vader so it's nice mostly I was
01:10:14
Speaker
hung up on the fact that Anakin looks and sounds so different than he does in the movies. And that was weird to me. Leia's dad is there and young Obi-Wan is there.
01:10:26
Speaker
And we love that. And he's introducing this stealth ship with the line, I've brought a new toy that might give us an advantage. And I'm like, what kind of toy? What kind? Yeah.
01:10:38
Speaker
It's going to give anyone give you an advantage. Okay. advantage you can have it You can take a vision. or but Anyway, it was a fine episode. Besides yeah the whole thing about Anakin, I didn't really have that much to say about it No, I mean, Anakin is voiced by Matt Lanter, who when I was I have now watched most of season one of The Clone Wars in my started my rewatch going through.
01:11:01
Speaker
And I do think he kind of settles into the voice little bit. Obi-Wan sounds fucking perfect because he is voiced by James Arnold Taylor, whose whole thing is voice matching.
01:11:15
Speaker
oh that's really that's a cool skill. Yeah, you can find a video of him online and there's like a PowerPoint behind him switching between famous actors. And he just goes through one by one by one by one, imitating their voices.
01:11:30
Speaker
Exactly. I'm going to watch that after we're done recording this. That sounds really cool because that is the opposite of me and not even being able to identify voices and accents. He is. That's pretty cool. So talented. it's Absolutely wild.
01:11:48
Speaker
And James Arnold Taylor will end up actually voicing like a lot of other characters throughout all of this. o Throughout the Clone Wars. It's James Arnold Taylor and Corey Burton are and Dee Bradley Baker are most of the background voices.
01:12:06
Speaker
And then Nika Futterman and there's like one or two other um female actresses who play like most of the female characters. And so like if you have a background voice and it's not like very different or a main character, it's probably one of them.
01:12:23
Speaker
It's not a very deep cast, but they're all very, very talented voice actors. Yeah. So this was a submarine warfare movie, which was very fun. This was, you know, I've watched Hunt for Red October and and elements of this in Bond movies, old World War II movies.
01:12:42
Speaker
This also in the sci-fi is self-referential. There's also callbacks to Star Trek. o They have to decloak to fire.
01:12:54
Speaker
Oh, yeah. Which is a thing for Romulan warbirds. And the first time we see a cloaked Romulan warbird is, I think, 1966, which predates modern stealth bombers.
01:13:10
Speaker
Modern stealth bombers, as well as like submarines. Submarines, if they fire, they do give away their position because it is sound. But like then they can go silent again and get out of the way. But a modern stealth bomber is typically not visible on radar. But when they open the bomb bay doors, the change in their profile renders them visible to radar.
01:13:30
Speaker
Oh, interesting. So they have to decloak to fire. Yeah. Trek came up with it first, but it is an actual real fucking thing.
01:13:43
Speaker
That's so cool. I mean, weapons, obviously, war, bad, poo. Yeah. But in terms of technology, very cool. But yeah, I love that this is like this is essentially a Star Trek reference in Star Wars.
01:13:58
Speaker
The other thing that this is like this is a submarine movie Early on as they're sneaking past Admiral Trench's ship and all the hyena bombers come down to go bomb ah Senator Organa on the surface, there's even the fucking sonar sound.
Cross-Influences in Star Wars
01:14:14
Speaker
Everything's quiet. They shut down everything. Everyone's holding their breath.
01:14:18
Speaker
And there's this the sound of the sonar. in the background you're like really like this is you know you're in space you don't have like sonar it's for the vibes it it is for the vibes it's entirely for the vibes and the red light throughout the the stealth ship which is also used under like low lighting conditions in submarines it's entirely for the vibes yeah also at one point bail organa says help us opi-wan kenobi you're our only hope i did catch that one yep
01:14:49
Speaker
Anyway, next episode, Hidden Enemy. Yes. So the... Is it a city or a planet of Christophsis? Yes. Cool. Christophsis, whatever it is, needs help from the Jedi.
01:15:03
Speaker
Obi-Wan and Anakin plan an ambush. I also didn't mention that the setup for all these episodes is like a announcer giving a World War II style propaganda film intro, which is super fun and silly. So that's also happening, introducing these episodes.
01:15:20
Speaker
Yeah. And the guy who reads the matter is the same actor who plays Admiral Yularen, who is Tom Kane. Admiral Yularen originated in A New Hope. He's a background character on the Death Star.
01:15:37
Speaker
He will ultimately die on the Death Star. m and at one point during the previous episode he mentions basically that he's close with the chancellor he's heard things about Anakin from the chancellor so like again just little pieces of yeah he's gonna he's gonna serve the empire at the end of all of this he's been close to the chancellor since the beginning whether or not he knew is a whole different story but like he's perfectly happy to move into the imperial scene of things
01:16:09
Speaker
A couple of other characters who were introduced in this episode. Yes. We have Anakin and Obi-Wan's clone right-hand men. We have Commander Cody, who's Obi-Wan's clone commander.
01:16:21
Speaker
And we have Anakin's second-in-command Captain Rex. And we're going to see a whole lot of those, too. They're fun. I like them. They're great.
01:16:32
Speaker
And then we are also introduced to Asajj Ventress. I love her. Women's wrongs. She's so good.
01:16:44
Speaker
i don't know what her deal is. She's evil and sexy and mysterious. And when she shows up, she kind of drops her robe in a sultry way. And she and Obi-Wan have this banter where she's like,
01:17:00
Speaker
the pleasure's all mine, my dear Obi-Wan. I've missed you, eyelash flutter. And then he's calling her my sweet, I don't know what their deal is, but it's great. It's complicated, clearly.
01:17:15
Speaker
Yeah, he's he's like, Ventress. And here I thought this mission would be unpleasant. Yeah, I don't know what's going on, but I love it. And then at one point, he's about to charge forward and she goes, I'm all yours, Obi-Wan.
01:17:30
Speaker
And then triggers the trap, obviously, and he falls and she goes, you've served your purpose. Love it. Again, we know that this is early Clone Wars days when George Lucas was in charge.
01:17:42
Speaker
because she has a fucking boob window and and a backless top just for no reason. Yeah. She just does. Ventress originates in a different Clone Wars cartoon, which we'll talk about next time, that ultimately led to these cartoons. It's not like a chronological prequel, but ultimately led to these cartoons. And she is she has a whole backstory that has emerged over the course of Clone Wars and Tales of the Underworld. Mm-hmm.
01:18:12
Speaker
And she was force sensitive. She was raised in part by a Jedi. And they were stranded on a on the world of Ratatak. And he was ultimately killed.
01:18:25
Speaker
And that's what drives her, a teenager, his like teenage sort of half-trained Padawan, to the dark side. And then she's found and recruited and further trained by Dooku, who okay she's not technically Sith. She wants to be, but there's only ever two Sith Lords.
01:18:47
Speaker
But she is a what is referred to as a dark side adept. And she is Dooku's personal assassin. Oh, I literally love her so much. I can't wait to learn more about her because she's just very, she's appealing. I like her design. i like her whole vibe, even though, like you said in the beginning, she's kind of one dimensional. I see the potential there for there to be so much going on with her. And I'm i just very intrigued. i I love the fact that like, I don't think there is any canonical, like major interaction between her and Obi-Wan that is not violent.
01:19:24
Speaker
But I love the fact that Obi-Wan is just who he is. yeah And therefore will flirt. As he should, and we are all grateful for it.
01:19:37
Speaker
Absolutely perfect. um The other pieces that we see in this episode, again, pieces of on our theme of the corruption of the Jedi and the corruption of the Senate.
Clones' Ethics & Historical Parallels
01:19:51
Speaker
We also see a couple of pieces on clone ingenuity, which was brought up in Attack of the Clones by the Kaminoans, that clones can think and clones are resourceful.
01:20:03
Speaker
they steal One of them steals the tactical droid head during their first retreat, um says, you know, we can find things out from this. At one point, when they're discovering that there's a traitor in their midst, I think it's Cody, says that it had to be someone cunning and resourceful enough to gain access to all our plans.
01:20:24
Speaker
And then, you know, the way Slick, the clone ah the ultimate the clone who is ultimately the traitor, ends up executing his plans and then is ultimately tricked by Rex and Cody.
01:20:36
Speaker
And Slick has a very good point. Slick is like a clone liberationist about how the clones are literally enslaved. Yeah. They are grown for a single purpose and forced to serve in the military. And God forbid he wants to do something else. You know, he's the villain of the episode in terms of the plot. But then philosophically, yeah I see where he's coming from. i don't blame him.
01:21:02
Speaker
Also on the theme of the clone search for individuality. Yeah. You see through these episodes, we have the names of Yeah. We have the one clone who is finding droid fingers to string together.
01:21:18
Speaker
Yes. As like essentially a coping mechanism. Mm-hmm. We have the different facial hair and the different haircuts on all of the clones searching for individuality.
01:21:29
Speaker
And then we have Slick expressly calling out that Ventress offered him freedom. Mm-hmm. And that says, you know, all of you are blindly following orders for what?
01:21:42
Speaker
And then while he's there was a continuity piece here while he's wrestling Rex, the captions say bones crunching and we hear a crack. But then Rex is up and walking around.
01:21:53
Speaker
h Right afterwards. So either Rex is a fucking badass or they just kind of went, eh, whatever. yeah Maybe he just broke like a pinky. Well, but it's his leg.
01:22:05
Speaker
Oh. That Slick is definitely like dislocating. So probably, I mean, my headcanon Cody tied up slick, knocked Rex's leg back into place.
01:22:18
Speaker
And then Rex went, fuck it, I'm good. Yeah, because I do love Rex. He is a badass. There were two very silly parts in this episode that I just wanted to call out because I enjoyed them. One is their derogatory term for separatists is seppies. And I think that is so stupid and very silly. i just enjoy that. And they're like, oh, the seppies. Like, how are you supposed take that seriously? Come on. And then there's this. And then we have also the clankas. The clankas.
01:22:48
Speaker
So good. And then there's a scene where they're interrogating the clones in their sort of bunk room, trying to see whose stories don't line up and who's the traitor. And there are two pinup girl posters on the wall. And it's during a scene where one of them is talking about how he always cleans his weapon. And so that's how they know he's telling the truth. And I'm looking at the pinup girls like, yeah, they've been cleaning their weapons. All right. And one of them is dressed in one of the outfits that Padme's handmaidens wear the sort of like orange robes.
01:23:22
Speaker
And then the other one, I don't know if it's a reference to something specific. I just think that it's really funny that they're in the scene.
01:23:30
Speaker
We will see pinups, actually. They are a recurring feature. i like it. I think it like it's hilarious. it's It's good stuff. there's That also reminds me that there's one point in one of these episodes, I forget which one, where one of them's bragging about flirting with a girl or like something happening, and the other one goes, you've never even met a girl. What are you talking about?
01:23:56
Speaker
Quick aside on slave soldiers. Yeah. Because, yeah, the clones were created to be soldiers. Can they leave?
01:24:08
Speaker
Are they allowed to become conscientious objectors? I mean, probably not, right? We're going to see more of this. ah So let's real quick aside on the Janissary Corps, which was a group of soldiers in the Ottoman Empire who were drawn as children, usually from the Balkans and specifically from Christian populations in the Balkans.
01:24:38
Speaker
trained as soldiers. And they were, strictly speaking, owned by the Sultan. If they survived to 40, they could get married and leave the army and become businessmen.
01:24:52
Speaker
But until then, they were the property of the Sultan and forced into military service. Yeah. So, you know, this, not cloning specifically, but the raising children as soldiers has historical precedent.
01:25:09
Speaker
And we, you know, we had our whole murder bot season. So we're going to see more clones throughout this questioning their purpose and questioning Are they just what they were made for? Are they simply weapons? We even have called out in Attack of the Clones and then shown through this movie that they're not just walking weapons. They're not droids.
01:25:35
Speaker
They think. They reason. They make plans, but they are treated as equipment. They are treated by their commanding officers, you know, by the army of the Republic as just more pieces of, they're just the meat that works the weapons.
01:25:55
Speaker
Which, as a note, is, you know, even though modern soldiers are not raised from childhood to be that way and not cloned, that is still how the U.S. military will treat you.
01:26:09
Speaker
Don't, don't enlist the military. Nope, the recruiters can and do lie to you. it was not It's not worth it. Thinking about comparisons to Murderbot specifically, the clones don't have a governor module.
01:26:24
Speaker
Nope. As far as we've seen at this point, they don't have the technology that Anakin and Shmi had where they have trackers implanted in them and they'll explode if they go too far. So the mechanisms that are controlling them are more like institutional and psychological.
01:26:43
Speaker
And it's going to be very interesting to see, you know, that combined with their whole genetic engineering stuff. You know, I highly doubt that any clone is ever going to be voluntarily freed. i will eat my hat when and if that happens. But it's interesting. It's more variations on the theme that we talk about a lot here.
01:27:07
Speaker
Well, and whether or not the clones have a governor module is another question that we'll get at at some point. As far as I know, but i haven't seen it, but the whole shtick is that I don't know things, so.
01:27:20
Speaker
Then there is the question of, is indoctrination from birth essentially a governor module? Yeah. hmm. there they've been according to attack of the clones bred to be loyal and bred to follow orders yeah they were created for that purpose So we'll we'll get to see them, you know, become individuals over the course of this series. And I'm really, really excited for that.
01:27:50
Speaker
The last two pieces from this episode that I have, well, three pieces. One, when Anakin and Obi-Wan are headed to go fight Ventress, Anakin is spelling everything out.
01:28:03
Speaker
And Obi-Wan keeps basically going like, yes, and. Leaving it like open-ended. He's still teaching. Aww. Anakin might have been knighted, which in the lore, Anakin and a bunch of other Padawans who were towards the end of their training were knighted in a mass ceremony so that they could be shipped off to war.
01:28:26
Speaker
Oh, damn. Uh-huh. They were rushed through the very end of their training so that they could lead troops into war. Wolf. But I mean, yeah, Obi-Wan at one point, like Anakin's like, ah it's a trap. And Obi-Wan's like, I imagine it is. Like he's letting Anakin come to his own conclusions and being like, yep, you got this. What does that mean?
01:28:49
Speaker
you know, he might've been thrown into being Anakin's teacher unprepared, but now 10, 12 years later, He's actually a good teacher. i love Obi-Wan so much.
01:29:03
Speaker
oh Second thing, the random alien that we see with Tusks at one point, who is a separatist general, he's called out his name being General Loathsome, which is just the word loathsome without an E.
01:29:20
Speaker
Oh, I didn't even notice that it was missing the E. It's, it was just that. It's just loathsome. His first name is Worm. Oh W-H-R-O-M. His name is Worm Loathsome. Would you still love me if I was a loathsome worm oh feel bad for him and then ventress calls out that she is going to execute the next part of my master's plan what is the next part of the plan we will see next time in the 2008 animated movie star wars the clone wars
01:30:00
Speaker
Hell yeah.
Exploring Clone Wars Series
01:30:02
Speaker
And as we move on after that, going to do our best to like rocket through the rest of the Clone Wars series or a bunch of them, especially for these first couple seasons.
01:30:12
Speaker
Later on, they start packing in like more story information. But early on, it's kind of like, yeah, this is a fun series. And there's there's definitely like, the animators and writers are still having fun with it. They're still packing pieces of story and character development into all of these episodes. But I feel like the first couple of seasons are a lot less deep.
01:30:36
Speaker
Also because later seasons will build on the previous ones as well. So as you get more character development, you get sort of deeper stories. Yeah.
01:30:47
Speaker
But so after we're going to focus our next episode just on the Clone Wars movie, which is technically speaking, it is four Clone Wars episodes mushed together. It is a little four episode story arc that they just went.
01:31:00
Speaker
ah Yeah. vomp It's a movie. yay Yeah, basically. And we'll discuss how that came about and how we even got the Clone Wars TV series. Like what was the background behind all of that?
01:31:11
Speaker
There's going to be you're going to get jarred a little bit by voices if you recognize differences, because there's some different voice actors for the movie because it was a theatrical release than there will be in the rest of the Clone Wars series.
01:31:22
Speaker
h um so some people are played differently or by different voice actors Mace Windu in the Clone Wars movie is played by Samuel L. Jackson and then voiced by I think it's Corey Burton in the rest of the series ah anything else you want to talk about?
Podcast Engagement & Credits
01:31:40
Speaker
no I think that's it I think we covered it So until next time, if you would like to follow us on social media and see clips of our episodes, background information, more information about the episodes when they drop, you can follow us on our social media at fanapppod, F-A-N-A-P-P-P-O-D, on any social media site that we're on.
01:32:04
Speaker
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01:32:16
Speaker
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01:32:26
Speaker
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01:32:38
Speaker
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01:32:50
Speaker
Yeah, it's it makes our day genuinely. If we are not on your preferred podcast platform, let us know. Shoot us an email at the fandomapprentice at gmail.com and we will do everything that we can to make sure that we are on your preferred podcast platform. So if you are listening to us somewhere that you typically don't have access to or you would prefer us to be somewhere else, it's easier for you to listen there.
01:33:15
Speaker
Let us know. We want to make sure that as many people have access to this and get to come have fun with us as as can. So until next time, interact wherever you'd like.
01:33:29
Speaker
And yeah there we have an extensive backlog. both sci-fi and fantasy discussions in various types of media in various series. So feel free to go back and listen to our backlog and come back in two weeks to hear us discuss the 2008 animated Clone Wars movie.
01:33:47
Speaker
Thanks so much for listening. We'll see you next time. May the force be with you. See you next time. Bye. The Phantom Apprentice is produced and edited by Rin and Sam. Our music is composed and performed by James.
01:34:00
Speaker
You can find more of his work on Spotify and Bandcamp under Baeruz, B-A-E-R-U-Z. Our art is by Casey Turgeon. You can find more of her work at KCT Designs on Instagram.
01:34:11
Speaker
The content discussed is the property of the original copyright holders and is used here under fair use.