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Delving into STAR WARS: THE CLONE WARS episodes 111-114 | 037
26 Plays9 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 third episode diving into Clone Wars series, and this week we're chatting with our excellent friend and special guests, Sarah, about episodes 11-14 from Season 1: the Florrum and Maridun arcs. We get into the key characters, the storytelling, the cinematography and visual design, behind-the-scenes nuggets, sounds, music, the ambiguity of Hondo, Star Wars pinups, Jar Jar having a new lease of life, the Lucas/Pantoran link, the many difficult decisions Maridun arc, 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.
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Transcript
Favorite Characters in The Clone Wars
00:00:16
Speaker
Sia. Hi. Who is your favorite character from the Clone Wars Season 1, Episode 11? Obi-Wan. Oh, Obi-Wan. We've got my first Obi-Wan. I thought it was going to be constant, but it's not.
00:00:29
Speaker
As we found out. Very true. He was as lovely in this one. Fair play. Yeah, we like him. ah To be fair, I hated him in one of the episodes previously, but this one, great. Love him. Wonderful. Good, good, good.
00:00:42
Speaker
Branwen. Yes. Who is your favourite character from The Clone Wars Series 1, Episode 11? Hondo! I knew that was going to happen. I can imagine.
00:00:53
Speaker
As you might remember if you've listened to our episode with Mary earlier on. Hondo! We get very excited about Hondo. His audacity to capture a Dark Lord of the Sith and then offer him for ransom to the Emperor of the Galaxy. Yeah. So on brand for Hondo. He is a lot of well, we'll get into Hondo. again We'll get into Hondo. Yeah.
Guest Sarah and UK Weather Chat
00:01:15
Speaker
You're listening to Sisters of the Force. I'm Bram Wynne.
00:01:18
Speaker
And I'm Sia. Hello. And if this episode gets a little wild, it's very, very, very hot in the UK right now. We're not built for this. it's not We do not have the infrastructure for this. We really don't. But to help us along our way on this hot morning, we have a wonderful returning guest who hasn't been here since many, many, many moons ago when we started our Mandalorian rewatch.
00:01:40
Speaker
Please welcome back the lovely Sarah. Hello. Hello there. are you doing? Hi. love your little Obi-Wan. Hello there. Amazing. You're in the gang. You're in the Obi gang. Welcome back. It's so good to have you again. Thank you. It's so lovely to be here.
00:01:58
Speaker
it has As I say, it's been a very, very long time since we went to. and Because of that, maybe could you, in because I think we have some new listeners that we've kind of gathered in the intervening
Drama in Storytelling with Sarah
00:02:08
Speaker
times. which you should.
00:02:10
Speaker
Let us know who you are, apart from being an incredible Star Wars geek like the rest of us. That one's a given, really, isn't it? It is. Could you tell us a little bit about what you do?
00:02:22
Speaker
Yep. I'm a drama practitioner. So I write stories, create stories, make stories and use drama to just help people do the next bit, whatever the next bit for them is. So use it in training and development and for playfulness too.
00:02:38
Speaker
So yeah, that's that's my thing. no This is why we love having you on because you've just got so much awesome stuff to bring to the table in terms of like what Star Wars, because what you've just described is a lot about Star you know, it's like storytelling of yeah and so it's exciting to have you back.
Artistry and Narratives of The Clone Wars
00:02:54
Speaker
Thank you. Have you watched The Clone Wars before ever? No, this was new and exciting and I'm a bit hooked. Yes. Yes. Because it's so so easy. It's just like a 20-minute fix of Star Wars with no effort. And so pretty and epic and all of those things contained in very small little passes. Yeah. I really, really feel, i mean, this is partly our reasoning for doing the Clone Wars as our next sort of chunk on Sisters of the Force, is that so many people haven't done Clone Wars, or any Star Wars animation for that matter, because...
00:03:28
Speaker
There's a you know bit of a kind of presumption that animation is just for kids or you know those kind of narratives, whereas it absolutely is not. There's so much going on in these episodes. It's wild on every level.
00:03:40
Speaker
And the artistry, like you say, they're visually beautiful to
Podcast's Focus on The Clone Wars
00:03:43
Speaker
watch. yes So we've been basically sort of focusing on each episode at a time. And we will talk about like the different things that we loved about them and different characters and bits of music and sound stuff, visual stuff, whatever we want to get into.
00:03:57
Speaker
We whiz through an episode and then we whiz onto the day. There's so much. We've set ourselves up in charge. It's quite a quick pace, this one, this one. Great, lovely, I'm there for it. It's just like the Clone Wars. Yeah, it's just like the Clone Wars, really. Well, I was going to say, I was actually...
Hondo's Character and Storytelling Enthusiasm
00:04:12
Speaker
It's non-stop.
00:04:13
Speaker
Because it just it doesn't stop. it's There's no pause for breath. It's onwards. Yeah. Which is great. When we sort of scheduled, like, oh, yeah, we'll do four episodes of Clone Wars per episode, that's so that's less than a feature film in time, but it's like, it' that each episode is like a feature film in content. There's so much going on. There's so much on.
00:04:31
Speaker
Before we get into this episode, ah do you have a favourite character from this episode, Sarah? I do, I do. And it's partly because I love the series as well. I am a big Ahsoka fan. I just think she's a boss. She's like, and she's there with a really low status. We talk a lot about status in storytelling and theatre. And she's kind of supposed to have this really good status, but she's just fixing things and sorting things. And and so I adore her.
00:04:56
Speaker
Excellent. Nice, nice. She's very much, we talked about this a couple of episodes ago, I think, that she's very much us on this journey as well, because she's new to to to the war. You know, she's just been thrust into this very dangerous situation. And so a lot of the way that she encounters stuff is kind of how we're encountering stuff, I feel, to some extent. Yeah, you can definitely see yourself in that character and that's a really clever thing to create. If you can put yourself in those shoes and you're going through that with that character, it it gives you ah a stronger connection. I think that was their intent is that they needed a student yeah and Anakin wasn't a student anymore. So we have to replace us, which is amazing.
00:05:33
Speaker
Give us a Soka. So Dooku Captured, episode 11 of season one. yeah These first two episodes are a and mini arc called Florham, which were both written by Julie Siege, who I didn't know much about. okay As always, I have to go and do my little bit of research.
Hondo's Complex Morality
00:05:49
Speaker
Apparently she used to write on Supernaturals a lot. Like she wrote loads on that, which I'm not familiar with either. so Can I give you a little anecdote about Supernaturals super fast? Yeah.
00:06:00
Speaker
Okay, ex-partner of mine, very, very lovely, we're good friends now, used to tell me that he couldn't tell stories. And I'd be like, but I need you to tell me a story because I'm bored. And he'd be like, I can't tell stories, I don't know how. And I'd be like, okay, tell me the plot of Supernatural because I've never seen And he could do that in such amazing detail and he'd get so animated about it. And it was just like, yeah, this is perfect. I'm more than happy to have that. Yeah. the b plot of supernatural told to me it's just finding the thing that speaks to you story so good unlock but
00:06:35
Speaker
it was brilliant so i'd never seen it but i do know the plot of supernatural you know all about julie siege because that's what she did yeah she was yeah so there's a lot about pirates in this episode which i've been kind of with yes waiting for as you can tell hence So hodo he does reoccur.
Pirate Influence and Character Development
00:06:55
Speaker
He's like an ongoing character. He's an animatronic character at Disneyland, if you go I think it's on Smuggler's Run. oh really? Okay. Yeah. And we're all waiting for him to come into live action.
00:07:07
Speaker
ah yeah Maybe one day we're still... Everything that comes out, I'm like, Hondo's going to be in this because he could be in anything. He does pop up at the most random of times. He could pop up wherever he wanted, couldn't he? He gets way more fun as his kind of light appearances progress. So we get to Rebels and he pops up quite a lot of times and he's hilarious in Rebels. Right. any Pirate-y.
00:07:29
Speaker
Frustrating, but also lovable kind of a way. So yeah yeah this is our first iteration of him. and He's a bit darker in this episode. And as I said at the beginning, very audacious. He is audacious. Yeah.
Character Dynamics in The Clone Wars
00:07:41
Speaker
I liked him. He was a close second to Obi-Wan. I only went for Obi-Wan this episode because of the level of sass that was going on. There's much sass for everybody. Everyone seems to think that everyone is stupid. Just having a There's so much sarcasm and cynicism about every single person. It's great.
00:08:04
Speaker
They're all sassing each other the entire time. You get these married couple tiffs from Obi-Wan and Anakin. I'm just like, I'm here for all of this. It's just the the banter. It's just brilliant. Later, there's Anakin Ahsoka bantering and Obi-Wan is just watching them. So I wonder if this is a thing in Supernatural is whether the characters he just enjoys it.
00:08:27
Speaker
Do the bantery thing. Ooh, maybe, maybe, maybe. I don't know. It's also Dooku episode. Yes. Although after watching I i was thinking, how is Dooku being apprehended by 30 pirates?
00:08:42
Speaker
He's a very powerful Sith Lord, but falony apparently Filoni justified it, but just because of sheer numbers. and he Yeah, to be fair...
00:08:52
Speaker
You would get overrun, wouldn't you? Yeah, he referenced Geonosis as a thing where you've got all the battle droids in the arena like gathering yeah those Jedi at the end. who And they would have won the droids would have won that battle if the clones hadn't appeared.
00:09:06
Speaker
So, yeah, yeah i think we'll we'll trust Filoni on that one. We'll go for that, yeah. We'll have to get away with it. I think also because they're pirates and they're not droids, that's the other thing, isn't it like Yeah, battle droids are fairly easily disposable. Yeah. Pirates often have a luck at their fingertips as well. I think they lean into that a bit, so they could have been... Yeah. yeah There was a a technical thing. up well As always, I watch some of the little behind-the-scenes featurettes on YouTube, and Killing Plunkett, the great designer, described this method they use called the paper doll technique because they've got loads of pirates, and all of a sudden you've got to generate models, 3D models of pirates, and making 3D models is very time-consuming and expensive, so... This is why you gradually see new characters evolve, you appear and appear throughout the Clone Wars because each week they'd have a new budget and they could bring in another one. To have 30 new ones. That's a lot. So the paper doll is like you just make copy of them. You just copy them and then just put slightly different accessories. So if you look at them, they often... They all look quite similar. Yeah, they all have a similar vibe. But again, it's moving at such a pace that you haven't got time to snag on it. And and I'm absolutely certain the makers of The Clone War didn't expect anybody to go back and re you know it it was an onward curve. yeah So they kind of have an idea that they can get away with those slight shortcuts to move it on because not many people are going to sit necessarily and and analyze it. And you just you're just too busy enjoying The plot. The ride, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's fast. I did appreciate, I don't know if it's this one or if it's the next episode where we kind of meet a few more of the pirates in a bit more detail and they give them different accessories. So you're like, oh yeah, the one with the bandana, sure. I thought the cockney accent one, was really noticeable the first time he spoke, I was like, yeah, he's a pirate. He's
00:10:55
Speaker
Yeah. opposed to Hondo's accent, which is, what is Hondo's accent? I've never even thought about It's all quite strange, isn't it? I was trying to work it out and I couldn't quite work out. There's some great accent works in the second arc as well. but there's Oh my goodness, there is. yeah Hondo, is he you he's European of some kind? Is he sort of French? I'm not sure. I'm not sure. it's definitely a hybrid accent. Somebody found a voice and liked it and went with it. Yeah, yeah. It's Jim Cummings is the voice actor who voices Winnie the Pooh. so What?
00:11:29
Speaker
The Winnie the Pooh, Hondo and Udaka crossover as well. Now that's a juxtaposition I enjoy. That is wild. I'm just, peaked when I said that, so I'm just ah turning my game down a tiny bit. Sorry.
00:11:46
Speaker
There's also like loads of kind of Bollywood influenced music going on at this pirate tavern. Like what? I'm so into that. I mean, there is. yeah Throughout the Clone Wars, I'm noticing as I'm focusing on the music more than I did the first time I watched it, there is a bit of like your cultural appropriation going on. There's so much cultural appropriation.
00:12:05
Speaker
So the Hutts will have like Arabic and Middle Eastern music and then the Pirates will have Indian. Indian, Bollywood? Yeah. Sure. I thought they would go with the Caribbean island. you know some ya yes nope Yeah, No, it's Bollywood.
00:12:18
Speaker
They wanted to defy expectations. It's a full Bollywood. It's just Bollywood. They've just they've just lifted that. Again, it's why I felt very at home with Hondo. Back in the 90s, I was making a lot of music in the kind of Asian underground scene in London, yeah which was like British Asians like Talvin Singh, who are I've worked with quite a few times and it's like blending electronica with Bollywood and classical Indian influences and samples and the bit where they land on Floron the first time is literally like a track that me and Tarjan made. yeah yeah i can I did think of you when that happened actually, I was like, oh yeah, no. So good. There's also a little random moment of 1950s. When we first see the Pirates' Mothership, I think it is, and the Pirates' Mothership is blatantly a 50s UFO.
00:13:09
Speaker
Like it's a flying saucer. George Lucas is, you know, we know he loves his 50s sci-fi and Flash Gordon and everything else. And I think he always wanted some of that in Star Wars, but didn't find a way to put it in. But then Filoni and Plunkett and the others have figured out this way of like, oh yeah, the Pirates can be in a UFO. yeah They just had to wait. They did, yeah. They just had to pick their right moment. And we've got this like South Asian band of pirates um who suddenly have like a theremin scoring the yeah the appearance of the UFO because it's the nineteen fifty s now. it's the 1950s UFO. And I think that that definitely the Clone Wars have that...
00:13:49
Speaker
where are we going now vibe because of the anthology-ness of it. It's constantly going somewhere else and going somewhere else. And there aren't so too many through threads. You know, there are some through threads. And the first time you watch it, you are literally going, where are they now? Yeah. yeah And yeah you're kind of, you're feeling like you have to run to catch a punt. But that absolutely draws you in, yeah which is which is really, really clever. yeah And it's Star Wars, you know, that's George Lucas' favourite trick. Like we start in the midst of Leia's ship being captured by Imperials and we have no idea why, where she's going. Why? Well, you have the little crawl. She's on a diplomatic mission, obviously. Yes. We now know every little detail about why she was there. At the time, we have no idea. And so, yeah, that contributes when you're talking about a series of 20-minute episodes that have no specific connection a lot of the time.
00:14:39
Speaker
You are literally, like and and the little news things we've talked about at every episode so far, the little newscast at the beginning with the voiceover yeah is a great way of helping you in but not helping you very well you know it was still leaving you with that sense of well where are we what's going on what's going on yeah i just i did that i'm so grateful to the little newscaster at the beginning it's like right okay yes i'm grounded now i know where i'm going i've got a definite leaping off point excellent let's go yeah yeah love it So one of the other things, memorable things from this episode that I need to bring up, Dooku's got a slide on his ship. Yeah. Anyone notice that? Yeah, an escape slide. He's got an escape slide. He can just sit there cross-legged meditating and then go down his slide. Yeah. So Count Dooku. Do you think somebody had been on a cruise or something before they put it together? So good. Taking that, thank you very much. It really reminded me, we're always checking out Easter eggs in Clone Wars, of which there are many in every episode of Cloud City when Luke falls down the thing. Which, by the way, I've watched that bit so many times, I still can't figure out the geography of those tubes. It's so confusing. No. This one was a little bit more... think they've glossed over that. They're just like, well... How does this work? There's tube. Get over it. You're fine. He's on a slide. And this, again, we don't really get any reason. Why would Dooku have a slide through the shelves? It's a quick way to get to the hangar. We also meet some Gundaks, which I was very impressed by. Yeah. Okay. So I nearly did West End Geek Girls for this. I had it written in to do it, but then I actually started trying to find it in my role-playing game books and...
00:16:20
Speaker
and I can't find it. But in the behind the scenes thing, they did say Gundarks were in the RPG originally. And I found mentions of them, but it would literally just be like yeah a word in a sentence somewhere. I was looking for like actual statistics and actual backgrounds and stuff like that. yeah but I can't find it, but I'm sure it is there somewhere. I just couldn't it. Haven't found it yet. Apparently, Cillian Plunkett did a load more design work, sort of adapting what was originally, allegedly, in the role-playing game. But Lucas loves the original, so it pretty much is what was in the role-playing game. is originally Oh, cool.
00:16:55
Speaker
I really like them. Obi-Wan was being incredibly chill about them. LAUGHTER They got big ears you can grab hold of, apparently. LAUGHTER
00:17:08
Speaker
There was a really funny, was it in this episode about him? Yeah. Where's your lightsaber? It got knocked out of my hand by a rock. Yeah, by a rock. yeah It was just the most like ridiculous.
00:17:21
Speaker
Why? Bunch of failures. I mean, if if we can't have Anakin doing some silly things sometimes, we got to remember that he is only a person at the end of the day. He's still only about 19 at this point as well, isn't he? Yeah, guess he must be. Yeah, because he's quite early on, I think.
00:17:38
Speaker
yeah They've only got like one lightsaber between them and it's not working. I love the glitchy lightsaber. Like it just kept turning off. And just then walking through with the kind of lantern lightsabers was just because you're so used to seeing them being used really cleverly and yeah an excellent fight choreography. And then they're just kind of held desperately trying to get through this game.
00:17:58
Speaker
Oh dear. So... They go through all this thing. Ahsoka comes and rescues them like she does. I'm wondering how many rescues we're going to get from Ahsoka. Oh, many, many, many. Should we tracking this? Yeah, I think you're right. think that's a good track. That's why she's my favourite, you see? She comes in, swoops in, saves the day. I love that. I need an Ahsoka in my life. Yeah. She's very good at that.
00:18:20
Speaker
Because she's done it pretty much every episode at this point, I think. Yeah. every episode that she's been in. It is a very recurring pattern, certainly in the first of the Clone Wars, yeah, definitely. Yeah, yeah. But yeah, then they they all go back to Coruscant, don't they?
00:18:34
Speaker
Is it, they all go back, no, they communicate back to Coruscant. They just communicate, yeah, yeah. And Padme is the one who sorts out the deal to send yeah a couple of jokes. Because Padme, again, i mean, she only has that one scene, really, but she's very helpful too. She is very helpful, yeah, but that's true. De-escalating. Let's send Anakin and Obi-Wan to go and drink with some pirates. that Yeah, I'm armed.
00:18:57
Speaker
pepper Off you pop. Okay, so have we got anything else about this one? Just that one right near the end there when they arrive in the Bollywood bar and Anakin takes his lightsaber from the monkey lizard with the force.
00:19:15
Speaker
And immediately the pirates have all got guns around them. It's a bit like the Ewoks with their spears around Han Solo. Oh, yeah. The choreography of it all is so slick. And the monkey lizard that's kind of earlier on in the episode, I think it befriends Dooku, it comes hopping around over the guns somehow and then up one of the longer guns to Anakin and takes the lightsaber from his hand. Back off him, yeah. It's just the most beautiful little... His name is Pilf Muk Muk.
00:19:40
Speaker
And the snap is lovely. The kind of atmospheric snap from the kind of Bollywood-y, everybody's having a great party, and boof, we're serious again. And again, that's something that Star Wars does really, really brilliantly. You think you know what you've got, and then it's something very, very different. And somehow it still reads. Yeah. Because snaps are really hard to do, and without them just feeling...
00:20:02
Speaker
clunky and horrible but they never feel clunky they always feel like course that's what's going to happen next yeah it's a it's a really clever star wars thing so is it the choreography of that all of that stuff happening like how they i think it's because they make all the elements come together it's it's done through the sound it's done through the yeah they just know how to yes it's choreography it's choreography of every single element working together yeah sure yeah Which in animation, I guess, is probably easier, i imagine. Yes, because you're not dependent on human beings to stand in a way. Damn those human beings on film sets. Yeah, humans are difficult. And do the right thing to the right degree.
00:20:41
Speaker
They're not going to get bored. yeah I mean, on a set you would have to coordinate, especially with like aliens and things like that. You'd either have puppets or motion capture performers and then you've got your actors and then you've got light. Like all of the things would have to coincide. Absolutely. And that thing to get everybody to tell the same bit of the story at the same time is so hard with real people. yeah Whereas with animation, you can just tweak one bit of it and put it right. I mean, I'm not saying it's easy because I i dread to think just how complex it is. But but doing that with difficult and different real life humans would be really difficult. Yeah, finding that. Like everybody's got to be the right energy at the right time. That's difficult.
00:21:22
Speaker
Sia, did you say the monkey lizard has a name? Yeah, is called Pilfmukmuk. Pilfmukmuk. Did they say that on the other episode? No, it's in the character guide. What? How did I miss that? Sarah, we've got these amazing books that me and Sarah and Mary will have, which have all the characters. you mentioned them on the podcast. They're just outstanding. I find this podcast really difficult to listen to because I start buying more and more Star Wars books. And I wrap them up as presents for Oz to pretend that it's not me that needs them. But you're expensive is what you are. Well, this is part of our mission. It's definitely...
00:22:05
Speaker
We are desperately hoping to get some writers of books from the Star Wars world on this season. That would be incredible. Come and talk to us. There'll be more books. Come, come, join. All of us.
00:22:16
Speaker
Okay, so this episode ends with little sleight of hand. Yeah. Little sleight of hand trickery, let's not get poisoned by pirates.
00:22:27
Speaker
for Sleight of Hand, which is great. But then the next episode opens with, oh, you were drugged anyway, it didn't work.
00:22:37
Speaker
I was confused for a moment. Yeah. like they But they swapped them round. Why were they still drunk? I don't understand. Yeah. I didn't notice that. I must have missed the switch. Did you not? It was a blaring, blaring plot hole. I mean, they did a whole kind of and sort of throwing of glasses to... They did the whole switch, yeah. And then the two on either side of them that they swapped their glasses with went down.
00:23:00
Speaker
so it was like, yeah, they would have been poisoned. Well done then. Well done. But then they still wake up in a... Okay, I need to go and revisit that. I must have been typing. i seem to remember I was typing who my favourite character was and running along. Fair enough. Obi-Wan instantly goes, ah, that must have been stronger than we thought. And it was like, but you you swapped it. You didn't drink the poisoned one.
00:23:25
Speaker
Are they just saying that pirates grog? is really, really strong. So maybe they weren't poisoned, yeah but the alcohol level that pirates enjoy is too much for a Jedi. It could be, yeah. It could be. We'll gloss over that for the moment. It's absolutely fine. And not a plot hole at all. No.
00:23:47
Speaker
so Episode 12, The Gungan General, yes directed by Justin Ridge, who, little factoid, he was working on Avatar, The Last Airbender, presumably with Filoni, because that's where Filoni came from as well. They both like, k which is a classic animated show and definitely a- Also great. yeah Yeah. So good. And yeah, it it changed animation in a lot of ways, I think.
00:24:13
Speaker
Just, yeah. Well, he gave us Dave Filoni, apart from anything else, which is yeah pretty serious. It is a good one. Dave Filoni, speaking of Filoni, was talking about Hondo and his like morality, which is an ongoing theme with his character. he talks a lot about honour. Yeah.
00:24:31
Speaker
Honour. He's honourable. It's independence, but honour. And the bit at the end where he really struggles to understand why Obi-Wan would let him go, yeah which is really, really interesting. He doesn't just jump. Like you would imagine Hondo, he's a quite slippery character that he would just like take an opportunity and run. But because that was to do with something that he can't get his head around. Yeah. Even though he does. Yeah, he does have honor, but he's also ruthless.
00:24:56
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Interesting. But he's very, yeah he does commend them on their honour. Yeah. So he does value it, even though he was going to poison them and whatever else.
00:25:10
Speaker
But I think that's what draws you into him, doesn't it? That he's complex. is is yeah He should be an archetype, but he's anything but. Absolutely. When he goes into Rebels, he becomes more and more like that, where you know he's a good guy. he is like Lando, you know, and in that you know he's on the right side, but Just maverick. yeah Yeah, he's unpredictable, exactly. And you're just not quite sure what he's going to do next. And then you're never surprised when he does the dirty on everybody at Going back to that, when Lando first did the dirty, i I was devastated. I was so small when I watched that for the first time and I was absolutely devastated. That's a that' a sideways thing, but I couldn't believe the treachery. Sold too much. yeah
00:25:57
Speaker
The um caption, the little bit of wisdom at the beginning of the episode that we have been mostly tracking was fail with honour rather than succeed by fraud, which kind of, that's kind of Hondo in a nutshell. That is Hondo, yeah. He usually does fail. So did your favourite character for this one change or did were you were you sticking with Hondo? No, I changed and went for Jar Jar again. I think this is my second choice for Jar Jar. This is your second Jar Jar. I just loved his clumsy luck.
00:26:25
Speaker
Like, it's very, very on brand for Jar Jar. Like, he falls over something and saves the day. He did it The Phantom Menace again and again and in kind of the bo And I just, I don't know. It's weird because in Phantom Menace, he did, I'm not going to lie, he annoyed me a bit. I've grown to love him in it. I think yeah he's one of those characters that I've grown to love, like the battle droids as well, that kind of comedy character that I've just embraced maybe as I've got older. yes i'm I've got more room for comedy in my life.
00:26:54
Speaker
It's all slapstick comedy as well. It's just ridiculous comedy. I put slapstick gloriousness as one of my notes. It's like elegant slapstick, if that can be such a thing. Wonderful. It's little oxymoron of Jar Jar. Yeah. What about you, Sia?
00:27:10
Speaker
I went for Count Dooku. Yes! Is that our first Dooku? I think it might be our first Dooku, actually. We're tallying, by the way, Sarah. I mean, I'm sure. We are tallying. Oh, okay. There's scores being kept, I see. Yeah, there is scores being kept.
00:27:23
Speaker
Have I said Dooku before? I don't think I have. No. Looking through my notes, I haven't said Dooku before. And ah neither have you. So... The sounds you can hear, Bradwyn, is my cat. Yeah.
00:27:34
Speaker
but nice I'm so sorry. yeah She's just decided to come in. She doesn't like the heat either. So she just comes to tell me that she doesn't like the heat. She's going away again. i do apologize. I could just see your face go, what is that sound? It is Willow the cat. I apologize for you. We love Willow. Not today.
00:28:00
Speaker
ah so way eat a duy Oh, he's just, he does lots of interesting flips this episode because he's obviously in survival mode. Oh, now I've got to work with these Jedi to like try and get, because I've been chained to them. So like the the early on alliance thing I really got into, yeah i was like, oh, this is interesting and I like it. And then he continues to sass both of them the entire time and then Obi-Wan's sassing Anakin. It was just like... Another sass test. It's another sass fest where he but I really enjoyed. but i read I really enjoyed their alliance for a bit. But then he also had some classic lines of, I would kill you both right now if I didn't have to drag your body. What a line. Whoa.
00:28:49
Speaker
Calm yourself. don't know if it's like ah an animation thing made it easier to do, but the choice to sort of, I can imagine them in the writer's room going, what's going to happen if we throw Dooku and Anakin and Obi-Wan together and they're stuck together? yeah And then like the yes and of that is let's you have them actually tied together physically. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:29:08
Speaker
We can't escape each other. i love that yes and has just been used in your podcast. That's delightful. um yeah And that all comes back to you, Sarah. You taught me all I know. Yes and him.
00:29:22
Speaker
I liked it, but then he did flip by the end back to his normal, like, yeah my last note about him is he's actually a scary m****. Yeah. He really is. Yeah. but I enjoyed that film Sarah who's your favourite character? a Hondo Hondo takes the prize in this episode with Jar Jar as my second i was it was it was very close and both of them got lots of accolades on my little written notes so Nice.
00:29:52
Speaker
I love the way that in the the kind of newscast recap at the beginning, which in this case was a recap, sometimes it's yeah let's show the audience some stuff that they've not seen before. You know, or like this happened five years ago or something. Or where we're jumping in. Yeah, it's like voices. There's weird chronology about the Clone Wars in general, but the little newscasts that are definitely part of that. But when it I think when it's a an arc, they generally... an arc, they do have a recap, don't they? But they described him as the brigand Honda Anarka, and anybody can throw the word brigand into a script. And doesn't, I think Dooku calls him a brigand at the end, or somebody else does. think he does, yeah he yeah. A great title. Yeah. Yeah.
00:30:34
Speaker
There was a few lines in this, actually, that i noted down. I know we haven't been noting down lines as much, but this one had some crackers. I've got two highlighted lines, yeah, similarly. i haven't got two, I've got one. But yeah, there were so many gorgeous one-liners. yeah handdo Hondo's mum.
00:30:51
Speaker
Okay, so... we don't like We don't know anything about Hondo's mum, but he mentions his mum. He mentions his mum. And recounts her saying to him, if one hostage is good, two are better, and three, well, that's just good business. Good business, yeah. And that's just good business becomes Hondo's kind of catchphrase in future episodes. Yeah, okay. That makes sense. Rebels. So his mum, his mum's wisdom to him... has endured, should be proud to know. There's a lovely little three-liner or two-liner between when we've got Dooku, Obi-Wan and Anakin chained together where Dooku's trying to concentrate and he tells Obi-Wan to control his padawan and then control you control his insolence. I'm concentrating and then Obi-Wan turns around and goes, Anakin, control your insolence, the Countess concentrate.
00:31:40
Speaker
That's Obi-Wan in a nutshell. So good. ah Hondo saying, are you calling me a liar? And Anakin saying, isn't that what you do for a living? oh yeah Nice.
00:31:52
Speaker
Nice. And then it's the, what are you supposed to be about Binks? Which is that really good thing. What are you supposed to be? Poor George. Yeah. But he did get referred to as representative binks again a few times, which always brings me a little joy. Like Palpatine does it in almost a sarcastic way, but in a respectful way as well. He just rised that fine line that Palpatine is very good at doing, where he's, you know...
00:32:17
Speaker
Not quite giving himself away. So yeah, Jar Jar. Jar Jar comes in with Karis, who I looked up in the book. That was what I was leafing through the book for. Karis, who's a Gran from, I think Gran's come from multiple planets, so he may come from Malastare, not sure.
00:32:34
Speaker
um But he carries a staff with him, which I didn't notice because my eyes were probably on my laptop screen all the time. But he carries a staff that has a little icon thing on the top, which is directly lifted from the staff of Ra in Raiders of the Lost Ark. which continues this back and forth between Star Wars and Raiders yeah or the Indiana Jones films in general.
00:32:57
Speaker
We've had loads of R2-D2 and C3PO appear in Raiders the Lost Ark in a carving in like a bas-relief. In Luthan's shop in Andor, there's some props, I think, from the Indiana Jones galaxy. It's constantly back and forth between Spielberg and Lucas. or I mean, it's Lucas and Lucas, really.
00:33:18
Speaker
me it But he sadly didn't make it. I was gutted because I think I'd noticed him in the character encyclopedia before and thought, oh yeah, i like Garan. I'd be interested to see what they're like, you know find out a bit more of them as a race. But he didn't make the crash. He was a very short-lived character in this this state. But we also got Falso, is that his name? The pirate? Yes. The second in command guy. Yeah. yeah And he is double crossing, obviously. yeah so
00:33:49
Speaker
he's going out off to ah to try and steal all the spice that's coming in the diplomatic ship. But he has a pinup girl on his speeder bike. And a pin-up Twi'lek behind him in the where the speeder bikes were. I was like, wait a second. This is the second episode. We've this before. This is the second time there's been like a base full of probably male characters and they've had pin-up girls. Oh my goodness. It was in Rookies, wasn't It was in Rookies, yeah, Rookies. they had Well observed. Just hang on a minute. And one of them is like the classic like chopper...
00:34:26
Speaker
naked girl on a bike thing on his speeder bike. and then Yeah, I know. And then just a pin-up... twilight behind him so funny interesting yeah i'm not sure what that says about the clone wars the fact that we've had this twice i'm gonna keep looking out for it and the fact that in the behind the scenes it is all very very a men's club i mean they have got women writers i mean this was written by julie siege and women directors as time goes on as well but
00:35:00
Speaker
In the behind the scenes, it's very much a boys club. It kind of makes sense though. in yeah It made sense for the rookies. It makes sense for the pirates. It's true. It's observational. We'll let it fly.
00:35:14
Speaker
Like I don't have pinup girls all over my house, but that's different.
00:35:22
Speaker
I have a pinup of myself over there. Amazing. Amazing. That's peak seer. love it it. So Lucas was apparently, there was this very contrasting section where they bury the grand senator and George Lucas was keen to show Jar Jar being respectful. I think George Lucas has probably revisited Jar Jar quite a bit in his mind yeah in many, many years since obviously like when The Phantom Menace came out and he probably had something in his head of what Jar Jar was going to be and
00:35:54
Speaker
there was, you know, a fairly toxic response predicted from some of the fan base. And yeah, I think Jar Jar has been given a whole different lease of life. in I don't think we've finished Jar Jar's story either yet. I keep waiting for show up in the Mandoverse. Well, this episode as well is his second episode in the Clone Wars, and he's also showing his kind of affinity for animals again yeah yeah in the same way that he was before. I love that with the grazing creatures. Yeah.
00:36:23
Speaker
Geek moment there called Scalders, by the way. I knew you'd know, and I was excited to find out. Yeah. a Yeah, they like they seem to be like a rhino kind of thing, or like cross between a rhino and elephant, I thought. And it's that kind of like knowledge, kind of almost indigenous knowledge of this is, you follow the animals. Yeah.
00:36:44
Speaker
I mean, it's weird because Gungans are the underwater species of Naboo, but they do seem very at home on land as well. And the way they kind of... Amphibians. Yeah, the way they work in the the battle on the grassland...
00:36:58
Speaker
Yeah, I like that for him. I like Yeah, I like it for him. Yes, because I have another brilliant line about Binks, which is he's no representative that leads from what you were saying. He's no representative, he's a plague, which is such a cutting insult. Nasty thing to say. Yeah. Awful. It is. And it just ties into the fact that that representative is something important and it just gets cut down. The height of his kind of lucky clumsiness happens when he tries to get aboard the speeder but doesn't. And then crashes into another one which crashes into the perimeter fence which takes out the entire power. All the power. Each thing you're like, oh my gosh, it's another yes and sort of thing. And then does this. And then the Jedi and Count Dooku can now escape. He's facilitated their escape. Yeah. They were being tortured. They were in the process of being horrifically tortured. And then as soon as the power goes out, Hondo goes, what happened to the power? I was having fun. And you're like, oh my gosh. Absolutely. And I have a real problem with torture scenes. Yeah, I do as well. Me too. One of those things that I really don't like it when it turns that way. Oh, thank goodness. I was so happy. Especially in animation and like it's the Clone Wars and it's fun and da-da-da-da-da-da. And then you've got actually Obi-Wan is really struggling here.
00:38:16
Speaker
yeah Yeah. Yeah, yeah. It's horrific. And that's what it does, doesn't it? It's constantly turning. It's constantly going, this is fun and this is lighthearted and then this is brutal. yeah And you're constantly flicking from those different modes. Yeah, you get moments like the the little grand burial scene where you've got like Jar Jar and a clone burying somebody and you only get about 10 seconds of it. But they do, you know, they include each of those things. It does go through all of the kind of spectrum of what it needs to all of the different emotions and everything, but it's just so high paced. So no time to breathe about it. Yeah.
00:38:51
Speaker
Yeah, there's one tiny detail again, another little visual callback, which oh yeah um we did mention in a Mando episode. i think it's the one where he goes to Tatooine and meets the, oh no, children of the Watch are going to kill me. um Who's the kind wannabe bounty hunter on Tatooine who's going to track down Fennec Shand? Oh, him. Yeah, I don't like him.
00:39:18
Speaker
In that episode, there's a shot of Mando on a dewback and it's like a low angle shot. And I did a side by side with ah a still from the original Star Wars novel. It was a photo of a stormtrooper on the back of a dewback.
00:39:30
Speaker
And there's a shot of a clone trooper, I think it is, yeah, on the back of one of these scalders. And it's the same framing, same thing same low angle. Yeah. Definitely nice one for the geeks. We love it. It's become like one of those little Star Wars motifs. Great. Instead of like, I have a bad feeling about this, you get the low angle creature riding shots instead.
00:39:54
Speaker
Nice, nice. I did love that they got to use creatures to yeah to come and invade Pirate Land. But yeah, that's pretty much that one. We better move on. better move on. one Episode 13. By the way, I've noticed that we've not been doing a proper like episode recap. So if you're listening to this and you've not watched the episode, apologies.
00:40:15
Speaker
Go and watch the episode. We make it. I don't know how clearer we can make it. Absolutely. Do your homework. And also we haven't given away many spoilers then, have we? So we were just being nuts. This is true, yes. People can go back and enjoy it and that's great. Exactly.
00:40:33
Speaker
ah Sky Talkers, who who are an amazing podcast with Caitlin and Charlotte, who are one of the biggest Star Wars podcasts, they're also doing a Clone Wars rewatch. They're doing it over a lot longer of a period of time than we are. We're trying to do it in a year, which which sounds sounds like a lot. It's a lot of watching. It's doable. beyond beyond Whereas I think there's just like open-ended, they just come back to it every now and again. But they always do a really succinct like recap. Recap.
00:40:59
Speaker
But I think, yeah, go and watch it. Watch it with it Watch along. That's what we're here for. Watch along. We know what's happening. you won't regret it. It's great. Yeah. We've got a new arc. New arc. The Maradon arc, and another two-episode arc.
00:41:11
Speaker
This one was written by Katie Lucas, who is George's adopted daughter, the middle child. And she played she's played multiple characters. She played a Twi'lek in Attack of the Clones in the Outlander Club, the Death Stick Club. She's the background there. But she also more significantly plays ah Chi Ikwe Papanoidia, who's a Pantoran senator in Revenge of the Sith. Oh. If you remember the bit where Anakin and Obi-Wan, after the initial scene, they land on Coruscant and they're going to go and like debrief with the politicians and Obi-Wan leaves Anakin and says, I haven't got the strength of all.
00:41:45
Speaker
Anakin goes in and he kind of meets up with Mace and Palpatine and Masamida. There's some dignitaries and there's a blue-skinned Pantoran there sort of walking behind Masamida. That's Katie Lucas. But she is a writer in her own right and...
00:42:01
Speaker
Yeah, it's great. And what's super interesting, if you really want to get specific, is that George also gave himself a cameo in Revenge of the Sith. He plays another Pantoran standing outside the opera house when Anakin goes to see. that It's just literally a blink and you miss it as Anakin's running up the steps to go and into the opera house. He goes past this blue skinned alien, which is George Lucas. And now in canon,
00:42:26
Speaker
They appear in Clone Wars. We're going to see them quite soon, I think. And today they are father and daughter in in the of Star Wars That's amazing. It's so cool. I just love, love, love that so much. That's very sweet.
00:42:44
Speaker
Anyway, Katie Lucas, fair play. She wrote this. Jedi Crash. Nice. Did she write both of these episodes? No, I think she only wrote the first one. The second one was written by Bill Canterbury, who's a writer for The Simpsons and Scooby-Doo. Okay. Okay, cool.
00:42:59
Speaker
Okay. give a wild card, but yeah. There we go. So this first episode is kind of setting the scene for what the second episode really gets into the the details of which is a classic Star Wars trope of low-tech community of aliens of some kind. think Ewoks, maybe a bit more advanced than Ewoks, have to defend themselves from the marauding evil giant whatever.
00:43:28
Speaker
Whatever it is. Empire or separatist or whoever. So this is a big set up. We get to meet Isla Secura, who is yes amazing. And okay, while we're here, favourite character.
00:43:41
Speaker
Favourite character. see Who's your favourite character? Me. yeah Tiwatka. The kind of boss, the the elder of the village. Because he's got an incredible beard and a slightly dodgy Irish accent. but They are very sort of pseudo-Irish, aren't they? absolutely agree. They are, but also his son is Scottish. They've just gone Celtic. They've just done that. They've gone Celtic in general.
00:44:08
Speaker
Yeah, my favourite character is the same as he is. ah Well, i had mine is Wagtu, who's the son. Wagtu, who's the son. Yeah, yeah. Understandable. Nice. I love everything about the Lerman.
00:44:19
Speaker
I feel like the accent thing, Star Wars does this quite a bit, where, yes, they kind of use regional accents, but they do often just shift them slightly. Slightly, yeah. Like, Twi'lek is pretty much French, but not quite. Yes.
00:44:32
Speaker
Maybe it's because the voice actors aren't necessarily from that region. You know, I don't know whether there's something about that. I'd like to think it's a little bit more thought out than just like bad accents. Yeah. No, i've I've definitely heard the sound editors and people talking about the fact that they work with the voice actors and they kind of find the alien accent. And it usually does start from a country. yeah Right. yes But it's intentionally slightly different. And in fact, I think I talked about it but somewhere. Maybe I missed that in my notes.
00:45:02
Speaker
No, it might be in this episode. I don't know. I'll see if I come across it. There's a bit where there's really specific pronunciation stuff that they worked on. Wow. Okay, interesting, because I was listening to them and going, are we are we Irish? Are we Scottish? And then I was like, some of them are one and some of them are more the other. And then it just kind of turned into, but if it was true Scots, they would have pronounced that differently. Yeah. Yeah, it's all like, it's bit of a mishmash. So that makes sense of that then? Yeah, yeah. Yeah.
00:45:32
Speaker
Yeah, it was it was. I've just found it. It was in the BTS featurette. I think it was Filoni talking about it and Jennifer Hale, who voices Isla Secura. Yeah. So she did this. I think this is the first time we've heard Twi'lek apart from Bib Fortuna.
00:45:49
Speaker
speak She's bit French. as sure you Anyway, so she speaks, yeah. She did a Twi'lek French accent. yeah But Filoni noted that she chose really specific words to pronounce in a really specific way. And the way she says creature, and I can't do accents. I'm not going to attempt if you go back and watch the episode, look how when she says creature, it's like they debated as to whether it was in quotes right or not. and And I'm not sure whether they mean, is it right for a French accent or is it right for a Twi'lek accent?
00:46:21
Speaker
wow. Yeah, of course. Yeah, so there's definitely this of... Interesting. Interesting to think about. But this episode opens with a hell of a in-space battle. Yeah. My note on it was that it's just classic Star Wars music, sound design, visuals, all of it.
00:46:36
Speaker
And we're dropped right into the middle of this battle. The visuals, immediately i was switching to my yellow colour coding for cinematography. Because I think we're sort of just above the clouds of this planet.
00:46:48
Speaker
Yeah. And so we're still in atmosphere. So the sky isn't the blacky blue of space, but it's not the pale blue of sky in atmosphere either. It's sort halfway in between that beautiful space.
00:47:00
Speaker
they reminded me of in Mandalorian and Grogu where that happened a couple of times where they left atmosphere and we see that transition from sky blue to space space blue, which yeah always makes me feel so excited about space travel and everything we love about Star Wars. But yeah, this felt like it was in this kind of weird atmospheric area. mid Middle ground. but the detail, the ships, like the three separatist munificent frigates,
00:47:28
Speaker
And the gunships coming from Anakin, everything was just so incredibly detailed and beautiful. yeah color The color use of colour and everything. But yeah, back to Isla Secura, because that's where we were when I jumped to favourite characters, because I thought I'd picked her, but I think it's next episode. She is incredible, by the way. She is, yes.
00:47:50
Speaker
i love her talk a bit about that next episode. I mean, it's kind of is her arc. this I can't remember if we come back and meet her again. I'm sure we do. So far, we've only seen her very briefly in the in the live action films. I think it's yes in Order 66. I think we see but that's what we see of her is her game. That's what we see. yeah so Taken down by some clowns. So it's sad really nice to get to see more of her in action.
00:48:12
Speaker
We've got a really, really impressive piece of force usage from Anakin here. Yes, we have. Yeah. I didn't even know that that was an option. Well, you kind of do, but also, like, it's pretty extreme. yeah yeah My word was blunt.
00:48:27
Speaker
It was a very blunt use of the force. And normally it's a little more finessed. Yeah. Yeah, definitely. And Ahsoka, again, just going, I'm going to save him. Yeah.
00:48:40
Speaker
I like how she just leaps into action and yeah like we don't see her cutting through the blast doors but we see that she has cut through the blast doors. It's like the pace is maintained by just like we don't need to see that jump to the next bit, jump to the next bit which is great storytelling in this sort of high-speed animation stuff. You wonder how much is made to just get cut.
00:49:02
Speaker
yeah Like, yeah you know, in that kind of whether animation is different, but just how much they have that they just get rid, to get rid, get rid. the editing process must be really, really fine tuned to be able to get it, to keep that pace, but still be understood and not lose people.
00:49:18
Speaker
To take people with you at that pace is is going to be such a fine job to kind of what are we keeping, what what's going Yeah, it boggles my mind with animation because you're yeah trying to do something that's going to be feel really quick but real. It's got to feel real but like slightly heightened maybe in terms of speed.
00:49:36
Speaker
But at the same time, you're having to do all that very slowly because the animation process is incredibly laborious and slow. It always has been, you know, from drawing, like how many pictures does it take? How many you do you have to draw to get from A to B? You know, how do you feel right?
00:49:51
Speaker
is always, I know they do references, they film something and then watch the footage of it. You see animators in their studios with their phones nowadays and they just film themselves doing some kind of action, grab it into the computer and map how many frames it took to do each bit of that motion. Wow. Which is so cool. But yeah, you're right. They must like generate stuff in the same way as like when you shoot a film, you shoot more than you need. Absolutely. And so you have like a virtual cutting floor where there's just like hard disks full of unused clips that they possibly even rendered, got as far as rendering, but then the editor still has that job to do of
00:50:27
Speaker
being brutal where they need to be which is really cool shout out to the editors who shout out to the editors well done the real storytellers in some ways you know they make those decisions of how it really feels they're the last chance you know apart from possibly the colour grader you know the What do they call Colour correctors. Yeah. correctors. In animation, it's colourists, isn't it?
00:50:51
Speaker
It has different... it used to be called colour timing, I think, which is like the final process because you've got the colour people who are like making shots match each other. Yeah. But then you've got the creative colourist on top. And I feel like this battle at the beginning of this would be a really good representative of that. Mm-hmm. How does the overall colour thing work? What do we make pop? What do we slightly desaturate and everything? And that truly is the last stage. If you're an audio person, that's like mastering, where you've got the finished product and you're literally putting the final gloss on which can be a real emotional thing.
00:51:24
Speaker
You know, by desaturating stuff, you can say a lot. Or by oversaturating, you say something different. By bringing out the reds, you say this. You know, it's just another of the many stages of storytelling. Many, many bits that goes in. Yeah. Yeah, fascinating, isn't it? Because we all respond to colour, so definitely.
00:51:42
Speaker
And we don't know we're responding to colour, but they do. So we're making sure that we're responding in the right way. The colour graders know. Yes, they know, definitely. They're intentionally taking us on this journey. Okay, another bit while we're talking about visual things, I noticed something in this opening scene especially, but I think...
00:52:00
Speaker
there's Mainly this opening scene because there's like an urgency and an inevitability almost, but like a constant struggle. So much of the framing of our heroes, Anakin, Ahsoka, the clones, whoever, you see the good guys usually go from left to right.
00:52:16
Speaker
Depending on, you know, sometimes it depends on the geography of the story that you're telling and everything else. But often it's the stereotypical of thing because we love reading. We don't love reading because we read from left to right. Right. We do love reading. I've always been intrigued. like where Cultures where the reading is the opposite way. o Don't know about that. Anyway, opening scene, the good guys are going right to left yeah most of the time.
00:52:43
Speaker
And also from top right to bottom left specifically. So if you're if you're playing with the vertical axis when you're designing character movement,
00:52:53
Speaker
If things are going uphill, either from bottom left to bottom right or bottom right to bottom left, you've got this sort of like struggle. It's literally like climbing a mountain. And you can do that by tilting the camera, obviously. yeah But if you go from top to bottom, that's where the inevitability comes from because they're kind of sliding. Because they're sliding down into it We're heading for a crash.
00:53:15
Speaker
And so you kind of know this is coming. And so this is kind of cluing you in. But it's right to left, which is challenging because it's the opposite of the way that we read. So is I call it like a difficult doom. Like we know they're heading to doom because they're going from top right to bottom left. That's going in the band name. Yeah, absolutely. And also just a just a direction, I think. I'm going to when a scene goes really wrong. yeah trying to sum up just how wrong it is to my actors. I mean, this is it. Acting-wise, in stage directing, I don't know if ever got into this, Sarah, with your directing, but you can do that on stage, obviously, if you bring the the kind of bad characters on from stage left so that the audience sees them coming on from the right, that makes you feel uncomfortable, like the villain should come from the right.
00:54:04
Speaker
Good guys from the left. It's harder to do the vertical stuff than you're going to fly them in. Fly them in. Fly them in. I know some incredible rigours. Good to know. So yeah, directing circus performers. Yeah, you can play with all of that. You can have them coming in from wherever you want. I've just been to see No Fit State for the second time.
00:54:25
Speaker
If you're in the UK, go and find them. Go and seek them out. They are incredible. But in this particular show, they fly two rope performers across the entire tent. Oh my gosh. Yeah, I know. It's wild. like what you I loved it. It's so good.
00:54:41
Speaker
So good. Anyway, that's my mini shout out. I'm currently working on a play, some music for a play that involves a hot air balloon. And I'm so excited to see how that happens. I think they have multiple multiple strategies in mind involving possibly miniatures, also like parts of set that move. Like puppetry. Yeah, anyway, we'll see. I'm going way off a tangent here. Just talking about the vertical visual storytelling. yeah I like it. I like it. That was a good tangent to go on. Yeah. ah There's a bit where there Captain Bly, who... think it was the first time we met Captain Bly. He's like Isla Secura's head clone, isn't he? Head clone, yeah.
00:55:26
Speaker
He says, we're heading right for a star. And yes the ship is literally on a crash course for a star. And it brought back so many things to me. One being Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Disaster area the stunt ship, which... is flying into the sun.
00:55:40
Speaker
Pink Floyd, obviously, set the control. And then Star Wars Legends had a character in the old expanded universe novels called Kip Duran, or Duran, don't know pronounce his name. He was one of Luke's protรฉgรฉs. He's a bit like Kylo Ren in that he sort of tilters into the dark side.
00:56:00
Speaker
And he has this ship called the Sun Crusher, which you can fly into a sun. It's like ah a kind of another super weapon instead of the Death Star blowing up a planet. It's like the early version of Starkiller Base. on Yeah, yeah, yeah. But it's literally just a ship that's shielded with this quantum armour that you can fly into a sun. Into a sun. And I feel like that last reference could have been something that just triggered that storyline. Yeah, yeah.
00:56:26
Speaker
it's It's only a little tiny story detail, really, of just the stakes of crashing towards a star. That is quite a lot. But they crash land. Yeah. but They crash land on a really lovely place, but they meet some quite scary bird wolf things quite quickly. Pesce la bird wolf things, please. Mastiff Thalons. Again, I was so confident you would have that. Mastiff is isn't it?
00:56:54
Speaker
Yeah, they do look like dogs. They've got the kind of dog bodies. yeah There are those dog-like creatures that the Tuscan Raiders keep on Tasween. They're called Mastiffs. So I feel like this is probably related. Phalone is like P-H-A-L-O-N-E, which is a weird word for me. That is a weird word. They've got like vulture heads. Yeah, they're sort of like griffins almost. I call them space griffins. Space griffins, yeah.
00:57:20
Speaker
I like that. That works. They've got a bit of a reptavian vibe. We've had that, like, the reptavian thing, which is like, it's not a particular species, but more like a sort of class of creature. Yeah. feel like it was sort of distantly related. Similar, similar thing. Anakin gives us that beat behind you line. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's a, like, pantomime line. It's behind you, Captain Rex. And he's doing his best kind of, i I'm very, very poorly. I'm so poorly. Yeah.
00:57:49
Speaker
There's a ah real desperation. Poor Anakin. I suspect that he is quite poorly in that moment, but also it's very campy and very funny. Yes, I enjoyed it So this planet, which I presume is Maradon, I don't know if that's ever actually said, but that's the name of the Ark. so It is Maradon, but it's been colonised by the Lerman people, so they don't come from there. They were kind of driven away by the war, basically.
00:58:18
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. Who can blame them? And this is where they live. so Yeah, it's a beautiful planet. Oh, gorgeous. The plains, purple-orangey skies. Gorgeous. The big seed pods, which really gave me amber spyglass. Yes, that's exactly what it is. Philip Pullman. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Philip Pullman vibes. So and musically, again, it was this kind of like ah cultural appropriation of yeah ethnic music from different places. This was more of like a South American vibe. We had some pan flutes. Yes, we did. Yes. I did note down the pan flutes. Mysterious pan flutes. Which very much juxtaposed the sort of operatic music vibes of the beginning. yeah and So it's almost Wagner-esque.
00:58:59
Speaker
opera and then yeah goes into panpipes. yeah Yeah. But you have to have panpipes for pacifist lemurs. That's just... yeah Yeah. I thought they were lemurs well. Totally. Lerman is just an anagram of lemur almost. It's lemurs. Yeah. yeah Yeah, I feel like the Claymore's has done a really good job with the music. in We do get these big space opera themes that are very John Williams, who yeah in turn is from Wagner and, you know, Stavitsky or Aaron Copland and all of that. yeah But then they do feed us these other colours. And we've had synths in earlier episodes, lots of electronica in some of the ah previous episodes, breakbeats and all this kind of thing. yeah But then like Bollywood, and now we've got South America, the music of the Andes. Yeah.
00:59:46
Speaker
But it's just adding colour to the galaxy in the same way as we're literally adding colour to the galaxy with these different planets and their different skies and different landscapes and everything. The music is really helping with that, which I'm here for. So yeah so that's it's basically all the big setup for what's about to happen. Yes. So Defenders of the Peace. Can I, one little fact about T. Watka that I wouldn't have known had I not had this galaxy encyclopedia. Excellent. Apparently, they stiffen up their beards with apis wax. Oh, wow. so So they stick out. um I'm giving you the visual, but you know, it's an audio medium. Amazing. That's how they get their beards to stick out and their hair to stick out. Styling wax. Styling wax, yeah.
01:00:35
Speaker
I wonder if it's to do with the um pod oil because they talk about the pod oil being used for treating medicine. So could be, yeah. Which again, Amber Spyglass. Yeah, it's very Amber Spyglass. It's very, we use this to treat, we use this to see, yeah, all that stuff.
01:00:50
Speaker
Cool. Defenders of the Peace, we're in. Yes. Let's go. Favourite characters? Aayla Secura. Aayla Secura for me too. ah me And me. Is that all three? Unanimous. Unanimous. That's never happened before. okay.
01:01:08
Speaker
But I mean, incredible. But she was great. I mean, you could have picked Ahsoka equally. She was amazing too. but i think I didn't because I'd already picked her in the previous one. and I do get that sort of like, oh, a new character, we should honour them kind of thing. yeah Unless one of the regulars does something really spectacular. Yeah. I feel like I go that way. But I'm so curious. She was very, what I love about the Jedi, she's kind of quiet and determined. She's heroic. Like the thing she does to save Captain Bly, where she like does this rope swinging thing. It's just like peak Jedi. She's so good.
01:01:46
Speaker
Love that. She's also really hot. I'm going to say it. Very, very, very hot. You say it. It's good. Yeah. I feel like Twi'leks are They are yeah. Okay, so the most kind of moving moment of the Empire Strips Back, which is the comedy burlesque show that Mary and I went to see...
01:02:09
Speaker
The most gorgeous moment of that was like this amazing kind of ballet dance between two Twi'leks. And it was just like, it was stunning. It was so stunning. It had been like very, very tongue in cheek, very kind of burlesque before, but then they had this beautiful section and it was just like, oh, everyone's now in tears. oh I love that they went there. I love they went there. It was so good. It was so good.
01:02:35
Speaker
Anyway. Anyway. Stuart Lee, who directed this, he's directed loads of Star Wars animation and continues to. He loves his cool moves and poses. And I think like Isla Secura's swing to rescue Captain Bly or Commander Bly is part Stuart Lee's visual language. yeah I feel like I need to rewatch that knowing his you know interest in that part of animation because I'm sure there were many more moments of it. so Sure, sure. With explosions and stuff, what happened to the clones.
01:03:07
Speaker
Yeah. the sort of The main villain of this episode is a new character and Filoni said... Knock, dirt. Knock, dirt. Which actually took me half the episode to realise he was a Narmodian. thought he was a different alien. But he looks so different from the Narmodians we see in Phantom Menace.
01:03:22
Speaker
Yeah, he does. He's just horrific. He is horrific. like the person you all want to hate. And I apologise for this and you can edit it out, but he's just like a British politician of the worst sort. Oh, that's staying in. Absolutely, yeah. That's true. That's the image, the archetype that got.
01:03:38
Speaker
In fact, visually, he's not unlike a leader that we've just lost. Indeed. ah I'm not going to say the words because, you know, who knows about how algorithms work, but yeah. Yeah.
01:03:50
Speaker
Yeah, I think the fact that Filoni was saying they brought in this new baddie because they didn't like to keep having Grievous and Asajj Ventress and Dooku constantly losing. Like you can't just have them losing always. So yeah you have to bring in some other disposable bad guys to lose.
01:04:06
Speaker
But it fleshes out the Clone Wars. Mary talked a lot about the reason she loves Clone Wars so much is this fleshing out of the galaxy and more new characters and just building this library of cultures and everything. But of course, we've got more separatists. but We've got have more separatists, yeah. They're not just Dooku and his closest. But also to see a Naimoidian who is confident because Newt Gunray is constantly alwayss a little wo overthinking and yeah panicking. Whereas this guy is just so cocky. and Yeah.
01:04:38
Speaker
yeah Yeah. He does have an amazing line. i My last note for this was he's the worst, but he does say, help, I'll be defoliated. Yes, that's the line I've highlighted too. does that even mean? Well, it turns out the weapon is called a defoliator. I missed that earlier on in the episode. I think they did describe it. But yeah, so this is the kind of the plot of this episode is basically he's brought this super weapon to Maradon to test. And it's a weapon. Which is horrific. It destroys organic life but leaves anything that isn't organic.
01:05:12
Speaker
Yeah. And yeah, it's literally called a defoliator because I guess foliation is like leaves. Foliage is leaves. Yeah, foliage. It's just living matter, isn't it? I suppose it's things that can live.
01:05:24
Speaker
It did also connect me with exfoliation, which is torturous thing that you can do to remove hair from your body. Which is kind of like expoliating, sort of like destroying organic, yeah, anyway. Organic matter.
01:05:40
Speaker
I felt really bad for the two B1s who got picked. All the B1s cheered when Lock Durd was doing his big speech about they going to test this heavy weapon and the B1s were just having a brilliant time apart from the two and he chooses them and they have to go to the ridge to be there.
01:05:58
Speaker
To be shot at. Amidst the test blast. And he says, I'm going to have two volunteers, you and you. That's not what a volunteer is, classically.
01:06:09
Speaker
Brilliant villainy. And just him being swept away on his evil plan and nothing's going to get in his way. Yeah. yeah I didn't realise until I watched the Beyond the Scenes that it's George Tekai. I didn't read the credits.
01:06:24
Speaker
But I'm so perfect
Voice Characterization and Character Plans
01:06:26
Speaker
voicing. and and Instantly I'm like, oh my gosh, yes. Oh yeah, that makes sense, yeah. He is so good. Who could better voice Lockdown? Because he did have a brilliant character, vocally speaking. Yeah, yeah. So good. He was great.
01:06:39
Speaker
ah He's bigger than the other Nemoidians. He's got a bigger hat. He's just's just a big villain with big ideas. yeah He's so ready to be promoted and it's so not going to happen. Yeah. yeah He's doomed from the start, isn't he? He is, yeah. yeah I think this is ah is this the earliest probe droid.
01:06:59
Speaker
that we've seen is not even Imperial probe droid. It's a Separatist probe droid. It's Separatist probe droid. he sends out to find out what's going on with the Jedi and stuff. It's probably the clearest that we've heard their kind of movement sound. yeah We've heard their like speech sound, you know, when they transmit their yes the little information information and we get that. gen to get a then But this, we hear the kind of wo woa wo what the LFOE probe droid sound. The movement of it.
01:07:26
Speaker
Love it. Yeah. I did write that down as a note of that is the best piece of sound design. That was another great Isla Securian moment when she takes it out with a slice and it's like that Wii Sports Resort thing, which I think we've spoken about before. In Wii Sports Resort where you do the sword and you have to cut pieces of fruit in half. some fruit, yeah. It's exactly like the way this thing animated when it's sliced in half was exactly... The same. Exactly the same animation. It's probably the same animators who were for Nintendo who are now working for Lucasfilm. My only other note really was it's all really horrible.
01:08:02
Speaker
The fact that he's like, oh yeah, now I'm going to go and invade this village and I'm just going to wipe them out. Hmm. And if you dwell on that too much, that's grim. yeah yeah But the Lerman do want to fight back and it's just the pacifist leader who's having a bit of a problem with it. Yeah. It's like that forever pacifist problem of like, can you be a pacifist
Pacifism and Moral Dilemmas
01:08:22
Speaker
ever? Yeah. yeah But I feel like this whole arc is about difficult decisions, isn't it? yeah The kind of two episodes is about each individual at some point having to make a difficult decision. and And his is the most difficult. Do I abandon my principles that I've set and that I've lived by in order to preserve...
01:08:40
Speaker
my people and and and holding onto something so fast because it's the only way that I can cope with everything. And then suddenly that doesn't become tenable anymore.
01:08:51
Speaker
So that's the big one, but all around the episode, that's being echoed with people having, do I leave... Do I leave Anakin or do I go? What do I do? yeah All of that kind of stuff. It's so many difficult decisions all the way through.
01:09:03
Speaker
yeah Anakin saying there's a difference between pulling innoc innocents into a war and leaving them to extinction. yeah Like, when do you involve yourself in other people's destinies? Which, again, is what he's doing, the the head of the village. yeah He's projecting his like beliefs on people. and he's going, they didn't attack us before, so there's nothing to say that they will now. And it's like, well... yeah Yeah, the giant cannon coming towards, he says otherwise. That's okay. That's your little... And what, Wag 2 having to make the decision to go against his father. and Yeah.
01:09:37
Speaker
It's very true. Difficult decisions. That's lovely, Sarah. I like a good scene. Yeah. Yeah. And you know they're there. you know They do bring these into the world you know when they're writing as a story group. And obviously an individual writer will go and write the script, but yeah the stories will have been broken and developed by the story group and they will have gone into all of this stuff. And it's our job to untangle it and yeah find out why it makes us feel the way we do yeah why we love it so much.
01:10:06
Speaker
What a couple of arcs.
Appreciation of Story Arcs
01:10:08
Speaker
What a couple of arcs. I really enjoyed them. Thank you. Thank you for giving, because you you said I think you'd like those ones and you were absolutely right. So thank you for that. That was good. I love it. I love it. I'm so glad you enjoyed.
01:10:20
Speaker
Very, very much so. Excellent. I'm so enjoying The Clang Wars, like you said, Sarah, at the beginning. It's colourful and fun. and But also there is some deep stuff going on in there, which yeah it's just you have to run to keep up with it all. Literally. My weekly schedule is now, when do I watch my episodes?
01:10:42
Speaker
Yeah, there is quite a lot of that. Thank you so much, Sarah, for coming on again. Oh, such a pleasure. We look forward to having you back again soon. Yes, please. Yeah, yeah. And if you've enjoyed, listener, thank you for being with us. Come on this Clone Wars journey with us.
Upcoming Episodes Preview
01:10:57
Speaker
Yes. So next week we will be doing episodes 15, 16, 17, 18?
01:11:02
Speaker
fifteen sixteen seventeen eighteen Yes. Trespass, The Hidden Enemy, which are both individual one-off episodes. Yeah. And then Blue Shadow Virus and Mystery of a Thousand Moons. What a great title. That's a fabulous title. So Those are two parts of the Blue Shadow Virus arc. which Okay. for I shall be listening. Excellent. That's exciting.
01:11:25
Speaker
Wonderful.
Community Engagement and Reviews
01:11:26
Speaker
Follow us on all of the usual places. Instagram, Facebook, Blue Sky, YouTube, tiktokk TikTok. TikTok. We're gradually getting more followers. I'm not very good at keeping up with TikTok. TikTok still makes me laugh because is I don't understand it. There's a beautiful Star Wars community on TikTok. It's fine with me.
01:11:45
Speaker
I've created our Sisters of Force account there. It's just pure Star Wars, which one is a great thing to scroll through, see people's creativity in Star Wars space. We love it. Marvellous. And yeah, give us a little review if you feel like it. If you can give us five stars on things, that would be really helpful. Thank you. Especially Apple and Spotify, but wherever you listen and tell your friends. Or just if you're in a crowd, this is what Mary does. If you're in a crowd, just tell people that you've been on a podcast and play it to people in the crowd because... She's been doing that at festivals, which makes me laugh endlessly.
01:12:19
Speaker
so This weekend, Sia and I are going to forcef Fest, a new Star Wars event that's happening in Cheltenham. And we're going to be dishing out stickers and probably annoying the organisers. This comes out way after yeah has happened. But we will talk about it. will about it. We'll talk about it. We might do a little mini-sode about it, actually. because Yeah, that's probably a good idea. But yeah, we will see you next week with another special guest. And we'll be talking about those episodes. So watch along and we will see you then.
01:12:50
Speaker
Bye. Bye.