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Delving into STAR WARS: THE CLONE WARS episodes 106-110 | 036
32 Plays17 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 second episode diving into Clone Wars series, and this week we're chatting about episodes 6-10 from Season 1: the R3-S6 arc and the Nute Gunray arc. We get into the key characters, the storytelling, the cinematography and visual design, behind-the-scenes nuggets, sounds, music, Star Wars Easter eggs, R2's playlist, more volumetric lighting, Grievous wasting B1s, bogwitches/hairless harpies, and much more.
Sisters of the Force is a weekly, UK-based, Star Wars podcast, produced with joy and love by Seah and Branwen. Sisters of the Force theme by Seah and Branwen.
Follow us on Instagram @sistersoftheforcepod, Bluesky @sistersoftheforce.bsky.social, TikTok @sistersoftheforcepod, https://www.youtube.com/@SistersoftheForce, and https://www.facebook.com/sistersoftheforcepod.
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Transcript
Favorite Star Wars Characters
00:00:16
Speaker
Hey, Branwen. Hello. Who is your favorite Clone Wars character from Season 1, Episode 6? It is Ahsoka. Ah. I just love the way she stood up for Anakin when Obi-Wan was criticising him, left, right and centre. But mainly because she put up with being called Pookums by Anakin.
00:00:41
Speaker
Which was the biggest laugh out loud moment for me of the episode. Nice. Sia. Hi. Who is your favourite character in The Clone Season 1, Episode 6?
00:00:53
Speaker
Anakin. Oh. My first Anakin moment. Yeah. Because that's cool I could really relate to his, he was having such a strop about, no, you will not replace my droid. Yeah. Like completely understandably, because we all know and love Ardu. But i I feel that. I don't like change either. There's a bit of Anakin in everybody. Yes. And that bit's the bit that's in you. Yeah, yeah.
Introduction to 'Sisters of the Force' Podcast
00:01:20
Speaker
You're listening to Sisters of the Force with me, Branwen. And me, Sia. Hello. Hello. We're a Star Wars podcast and we talk about all things Star Wars. At the moment, we are near the beginning of our epic Clone Wars watch. What? Which is already mind-boggling. We're only two episodes in.
00:01:40
Speaker
We hope you're coming along with us for the ride. The Clone Wars incredible. If you've just been listening to our Clone Wars coverage and not watching the the TV show, go and watch it. What have you been doing? Go and watch it. yeah You're missing so much good Star Wars. It's amazing. Definitely. It's been, although like these last two, we've covered five, we are going to be dropping it down to four, so that makes it a little bit more manageable in some ways. It's a lot of Clone Wars. Makes it a little bit more manageable.
00:02:08
Speaker
But actually, I've found it quite hard to stop, but we know that I'm a binge watcher by heart. so Yeah, yeah. Once you get into the role, you know, yeah four episodes into your vibe, and it's like, let's just keep going. Let's just keep going. and then I go, no, you'll get confused. Stop. Yeah. And I mean, it's like about... a feature film's worth of Clone Wars five episodes. It's like a long feature film. And because the animation is so fast, it's everything's action packed. It's like you're watching loads of films. All in one go. Yeah. I'm having to figure out which which things you actually want to talk about because we're going to talk for an hour. We could talk for about five hours. Yeah, about each each episode individually. Oh my gosh. that's So much going on.
00:02:48
Speaker
So if you are a yeah new listener, because we have had a few new listeners the last few weeks, welcome. um We love having you along yeah and we hope you're big Star Wars fans like we are. Yes. Yeah, if you want to find us, you can reach us on Instagram.
Social Media and Podcast Promotion
00:03:06
Speaker
This is the Force Pod. Facebook is the same. Blue Sky, are we the same? Yeah, I think Blue Skies just sisters of the Force. Okay, nice. But yeah, today we've got five incredible episodes, two arcs.
Discussion on The Clone Wars Arcs
00:03:18
Speaker
The first arc is two episodes R3-S6, who's a du delightful little astromech droid, we're going to find out all about in a minute. it That's the first arc. And then the second arc is a three episode one called Newt Gunray, which I think i think he's getting a bit of extra credit there for that arc. For that arc. i mean He was in it, but i suppose he was in all of it in some way. He's in all of it in some way. It's kind of focusing on him, kind of not towards the end. Yeah, he sort of dwindles into a background character the end. But they're two really wild arcs, loads of action. It's just pure Clone Wars. So much going on. A lot going on. So let's get straight into it. So yeah f episode 106, Downfall of a Droid. Yeah. And I presume they mean R2.
00:04:05
Speaker
I assumed they meant r too Yeah, but then they also could mean R3 because yeah he's really bad at his job. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, we didn't know in this episode about the fact, oh, by the way, this episode is going contain spoilers. We didn't know at the beginning of this episode that R3 is actually working for the separatists. He's a double agent. It could be that the downfall is him falling to the separatists' side. I don't know.
00:04:33
Speaker
Who knows? Actually, to be fair, I didn't actually see that one coming until quite late on. No, didn't either. I mean, I thought he was rubbish and I thought maybe he's a bit too rubbish. I saw the double crossing in the next arc coming a mile off, but the double crossing in this arc, not quite so much. Yeah, it was a little bit more. I think because Ahsoka was... Ahsoka is always us, I feel, yeah as a viewer. She plays us. And because she was sticking up for him so much. She was so kind. She was loving him. Yeah.
00:05:01
Speaker
I was watching some of the um like the making of stuff. It has become a habit since we
Anakin's Attachment Issues and Droid Relationships
00:05:07
Speaker
started doing this. yeah And there was a really interesting conversation between Henry Gilroy and Dave Filoni talking about Anakin's attachment and in particular to the family dog in this case, which R2 is described often as the family dog.
00:05:23
Speaker
And yeah, is what you were saying in your intro when you picked Anakin as your favourite character from this episode, he struggling with attachment and Obi-Wan is really testing him. I actually did not like Obi-Wan in this episode. Me neither. you know what? No.
00:05:40
Speaker
You are normally my hero, but currently, no, you're being a bit of an arse. He's not Anakin's teacher anymore. And it's not his job to start telling Anakin. mean, he knows what Anakin is like, and I know he eye rolls Anakin. And fair enough, I get that.
00:05:55
Speaker
But to be so brutal about R2, I mean, it did make me also then think about Alec Guinness saying, i don't seem to remember ever owning droid. Yeah, owning a droid, yeah. And like his detachment from the droids of the Clone Wars,
00:06:07
Speaker
but I'm wondering if that little bit of Obi-Wan telling him to go and kill R2 showing no apparent care for R2 is like a Clone Wars way of retconning Alec Guinness's line. Oh yeah, you interesting. Because of course he knows Of course he knows who R2 is. It's one of those plot holes that we just yeah we don't really care about.
00:06:29
Speaker
I kind of thought that that whole I've never owned a droid thing was to do with I don't have any attachments to stuff. And also he didn't really own a droid. It was Anakin's. Yeah. It's Anakin's droid. He had a droid in Revenge of the Sith. Oh, yeah, he's got Yeah. Yeah. But mean, I suppose he doesn't own... No. The droids in the Clone Wars are part of the Republic army, so... But we get more insight on this one into R2's not been wiped. Yes, 100%. I drew out my droid behaviour colour for my notes again.
00:07:01
Speaker
Ahsoka stands up for the fact that R2's mind hasn't been wiped and that is quite useful. Yeah, yeah. Which definitely feeds into our theory of how they develop personalities. And that makes R2 such an awesome sidekick. And a character. Because he's just years and years of useful information to draw on. Knowledge and experience. Yeah. I then wondered if that was partly why was so annoying and like so bad at his job. Maybe. he gets wiped regularly. But obviously like we know retrospectively that he's a double agent. Yeah. He was intentionally being rubbish. Yeah. Yeah. frustration that was also what made me love anakin more was the sheer frustration of why aren't you working properly i've had that moment with like switching software and switching hardware and it's being like
00:07:51
Speaker
yeah absolutely so annoying and he wait the yeah r3 was just doing some really annoying stuff Just like but get with it. But beautiful sound design. I loved him. I loved it. It was kind of more bubbly than ah two I mean, it's quite close to R2. I think they probably intentionally did that, but he did have a lovely bubbly look his voice. Some nice effects going on. Although, again, as we've noticed, the motors of Astro Droids always seem to be the original R2 motors. It's just their binary speech is is different. Slightly different. There was some cool music in this as well. Oh my gosh. In the battle at the beginning, we had these kind of big beat drum breaks. Yeah. And like with orchestra on top, but there was lots of electronica it. got some big beat stuff. Yeah. Yeah.
00:08:38
Speaker
And there was a bit of diegetic stuff in Garnacht's ship. Garnacht. don't know if I'm saying that right. Oh, that's a good name. It is a good name. Garnacht. forgot to look him up, to be honest. Yeah. Yeah, I think he was playing some tunes when he was just sitting in his cockpit. It sounded like he was playing some tunes. Tripoppy, yeah.
00:08:56
Speaker
There was a lot more electronic music in this one, and I thought, but this whole arc, actually, and I was wondering if that's something to do with just the droids in general. It's like the droids have got a bop going on. Yeah. They've got some of the best music. specifically. This was like R2's playlist, I feel. Like
Droid-focused Episodes and Music
00:09:13
Speaker
it's got action, it's got bleeps. I wrote down at one point, where does R2's voice end and the music And the music begin, yeah. yeah We'll have to track that and see if there are droid heavy episodes, do they have more electronica? they have great music? Yeah. liked it. I'd just sit and listen to this. It was great. I really enjoyed all the music. Yeah.
00:09:31
Speaker
Also, IGs. We've had so many cool droids in this. Yes! IGSS in droids. There was some great music when they woke up. was like, oh my gosh, it's on. And watching the first one climb up, it was sort climbing around inside whatever they were in, that kind of store or space or whatever. yeah Yeah. And it really reminded me of the Nintendo 64 Shadows of the Empire game, which if anybody played it, they will remember the train level because it was really annoying. You had to stay on the train. like avoiding things and this and the other. And then eventually you got off and then you had to fight IG-11. No, IG-88, in fact. IG-88. You had to fight him in this kind of like maze building and it was so hard. And then you'd have to go back the train again.
00:10:17
Speaker
oh so annoying. So where do we first meet IG units? Because I don't remember registering them properly until IG-11. ah The Empire Strikes Back. Oh. Yeah, right early on. Right early on where I wasn't paying attention. Yeah, the bounty hunters gathered on Vader's Star Destroyer.
00:10:38
Speaker
It's when Boba Fett's there and you've got like Bosque and Dengar and Forlom and IJA. Okay, I've just never registered IJA. Okay, technically, yeah people are screaming at their phones already. In A New Hope, you know when they go to the Chowman's Cantina yeah and around the bar there's various like decor, there are some cylindrical tube things hanging above the bar yeah and they are the same prop as IG's head.
00:11:11
Speaker
Incredible. Yeah, which in season three of Mando, I think it is, when Mando goes to Adelphi-based bar, think they've got some of of the other bars there as well. It's like a callback to Charmin's Cantina.
00:11:25
Speaker
Yeah, they were awesome. And they did, yeah, they moved like the computer game. They moved like they do in Mando. and The way that they've translated into live action with IG-11 and Mando season one is just, yeah, love it. Love all of it. Give me the IG droids. They are fab. I really like them. Yeah. My note on that was all of the music in this episode slaps. was It does. I want a playlist of just this episode and it's going to be called R2-D2.
00:11:52
Speaker
Arte did some cool stuff. I like the way how he kind Oh my gosh. Was it in this episode or am I jumping ahead? He does some good stuff in both episodes, but yeah he has a he has a moment when he drops one of the IG units out of the ship and he laughs You get a little r two giggling sound effect, which is just like, what? That's pretty much on brand for If you can dig that out for the soundboard, it will make me a eternally happy. I will do that.
00:12:19
Speaker
Yeah, so Garnacht and his yeah ship. Cillian Plunkett, one of the designers, we were talking about him last week, yeah he said... It was designed, the ship was designed with a paint job inspired from a dump truck that they saw. Nice.
00:12:32
Speaker
Which is absolutely right. And when yeah when Anakin and Ahsoka first get in there and they like discover that it stinks as well, I was like, yep. It's smelly. It's definitely a dump truck.
00:12:43
Speaker
But he's quite good. He's like sleazy Trandoshan an intentionally lopsided face. They were talking about that in the behind the scenes stuff as well. okay but A lot of their characters are quite fairly symmetrical just because it's easier to to build 3D models and you just like copy one side. But they intentionally made him lopsided to make him look a bit more sinister. Yeah, a bit more edgy.
00:13:05
Speaker
He is great as well. He very much does the, no, no droids here. are you talking about? not yeah Definitely no r two units. Yeah. He pretty much got me, actually. And then, like, right at the end of the scene, he then opens the little drawer thing. Catch, and there he is, yeah. R2 is endlessly resourceful, though, which is yeah excellent. Yeah, we love him. We can say more about him in the next episode because i think he really came alive then. yeah Before we leave this episode, there was a little thing at the beginning, this whole battle at the top yeah in the asteroid belt. Oh, I almost forgot about that. That was incredible. Yeah, I know. It's like this awesome light opening. yeah. Yeah, I guess it sets up R2 disappearing, but yeah other than that, it doesn't sort of have any impact on the rest of the story particularly. yeah But yeah, it was in the Botho-E system, which is where the Bothans came from. Many Bothans died, to bring us this information. We don't really know much about the Bothans. They were in the old EU stuff. ok But I don't think we've seen any Bothans in the new canon. Obviously, the planet has been mentioned here. yeah and the planet goes right back to...
00:14:11
Speaker
Well, I don't know if they had come up with the name of the planet, but in the RPG, yeah the very first book had an adventure in the end, which I've just been rereading because I want to run it for yeah some RPG volunteers. yeah And it's set on the planet Bothowy.
00:14:28
Speaker
So it's kind of nice to like hear that. My ears pricked up when it was mentioned the thing at the beginning. Yeah. Yeah. They've got these, what are they? Rex is like driving these crawler cannon things. What are they? Oh yeah, yeah. ATT's. Yeah. They're fun. Well, apparently again, Henry Gilroy was saying that they were short on assets. Yeah. because we're still quite early on in the series and it costs money to develop 3D models for everything. Yeah, of course. so by this point, they hadn't got that money, so they just doubled up and used the ATTEs, which I think were the same things that climbed in the movie, in the Clone Wars movie. Yes, in the yeah, yeah.
00:15:05
Speaker
So they just used the same things, but came up with a new ploy, yeah, hide them in the Astro Belt. So cool. And they were doing really well, like the whole battle was going really well. Yeah. Until, yeah. Until when it didn't. Horribly well.
00:15:17
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah,
Astromech Droid Battle: R2-D2 vs R3
00:15:20
Speaker
I love those ships. I'm sure we'll see them again. They're kind of like walkers, aren't Yeah. I don't know. Yeah. yeah Also at the beginning, I can't remember who says it, it might have been something to do with Obi-Wan, they mentioned the planet Faleen, which it just struck me that I was just talking about the N64 Shadows of the Empire game with IG-88 in it. yeah There was a character called Prince Shizor who was the big bad in that game. Well, in that story, because it was like a game and a book and comics, and it was all kind of like one of these multis... media story things and prince she's always the baddie and he was a feline and the fact that they mentioned him at the beginning and the ig88 was in the n64 game i feel like there's a little easter egg reference there yeah yeah maybe that makes sense maybe maybe maybe so moving on jewel of the droids jewel of the droids yes more amazing r2d2 action
00:16:16
Speaker
Who was your favourite character? R2. R2. It had to be I very nearly went for R2. Yeah, I love seeing him like getting very resourceful and sending his message. And the fight, I think it was the fight we've always been waiting for. Can we see R2 get all of his gadgets and fight another astrodroid with all the gadgets? Crash repeatedly into an astromech. Yeah.
00:16:40
Speaker
and Let's just see what the mess that that results in. And we did get to see it and I was here for it. so Little head-butting action R2, one for me. here How about you? Who was your character? i went for Ahsoka in this one. interesting. Because, again, it's the kindness thing. It was, yeah even though r three turned out to be a double agent, she was just so kind and so, like, kind fine about it. She was incredibly brave. Yeah, she did a lot of really, really brave stuff. So it was kind of kind of a combination of her her kindness and her bravery in this episode. Yeah, she gave my favourite line, which was that stubby little backstabber. Yes, i wrote that down as well.
00:17:21
Speaker
Having been calling him Stubby affectionately for the whole arc far. Well, she called him Goldie. She was calling him Goldie Anakin was calling him Stubby. Oh, yeah, Stubby. So she's picked Anakin's name. she's using Anakin's name for him as soon as it turns out that he is a Stubby little backstabber. Yes.
00:17:38
Speaker
So good. Because she's so kind to him and so like, oh, Goldie, it's fine. You're doing your best. but but bear And then as soon as he does that, she's like, no. Yes. Stubby little backstabber. ah So funny.
00:17:52
Speaker
And she takes on Grievous. Yeah. She fights Grievous single-handedly. She cuts off his hand. Yeah. Okay. So there was a moment after she had done that. Yes. And she leapt away over the towers of droid parts on shelves and they started to topple. Yes. And then she ended up leaping into vent and disappearing. Yes. And in a couple of episodes' time, we're going to see Ventress do a very similar maneuver. the same thing. Yeah. And...
00:18:18
Speaker
Who was it? Somebody in the behind the scenes, I think I wrote it later on, they were talking about the comparison between Ahsoka and Ventress. They're both like Padawan and Apprentice. They're both desperately trying to prove themselves to their masters. There's all sorts of parallels that you can draw with them. And to see them both do that same almost identical maneuver, jumping into a vent. Yeah, quite close together as well. Intentional, yeah. And having heard the storytellers themselves discussing that made me feel like that was an intentional visual bit storytelling, which I like. Yes. There was some great cinematography in this episode. I mean, there always is, but I loved seeing inside Garnach's cockpit again. Yes. It's kind of volumetric light. We were talking about this when we did the Clone Wars movie. Yeah, yeah. How it's like light that's got dust or something in it. And it's like, is it dust or is it like odour? Yeah. It's all kind of brown, purple-y colour. It's all a bit grim. It just looks nasty. They use colour like that in the lighting really effectively. Grievous' ship has always got green volumetric lighting, or mildly volumetric. It's not really volumetric, but it's like everything's green. This was like browny-purple. then when we see inside New Republic ships, it's all clean and white and nice-looking. Yeah. There was a beautiful shot of, I think it was like Anakin and some clones and Ahsoka and they were about to jump out of the Twilight hangar.
00:19:44
Speaker
yes. The Twilight is like the one wing ship that they fly around in at the moment. is This is when Rex was carrying the carrying all three The droids, yeah. And they had to jump down onto the thing. There was a shot at the beginning. it was a a Dutch shot, which we were talking about last week with this sort of slight angle yeah from behind them looking out and the cloud animations with the sort of orange. Ah, it's just so gorgeous. The design of that listening post as well is cool. Yeah. but this is This is all gorgeous. Yeah, everything was just like ah so lush.
00:20:14
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. We had some more Magna Guards back in action. quite a few Magna Guards in these two arcs. I like them. I like the sound of their weapons. Yeah, they sound incredible. They do, that sort of sizzly thing. And they don't speak a lot, but when they do, they've got a really distinctive voice. Yes. That apparently was some of Greedo's unused lines from A New Hope. Oh, okay. And then put through a load of effects. Yeah. Excellent. Next time you hear one, it's very processed. It's gone through a lot. Some ring modulators and all kinds of other filtering. But it's, yeah, and I don't know if they even speak like Huttese or Rhodian or whatever. They just snatch little phrases and stuff. Tiny little bits, yeah. Wild. Oh, that's really cool.
00:21:02
Speaker
The other thing that I really liked the sound of... was those iron grenades that they were using, the ion grenades. Oh, yeah. and then yes They call them droid poppers.
00:21:13
Speaker
Yeah. Which is hilarious. I was going talk about them because they do this thing. In fact, we saw it last week with the ion cannon from the Malevolence. It does a similar thing where it's like, it's kind of an EMP type thing where it knocks out all of the power to whatever it is. So it's very powerful against droids. But we see the ionization with the sparks and stuff. And again, in the RPG in space combat stuff, there's this thing where if you get hit by an enemy ship and they roll damage, one of the better options of what happens to you is that your controls get ionized and it means you can't use it for a round or something. And it said if it gets ionized a few times in a row, you see the lightning flicker over the control panel, which is very much like what this is. Very much the same. Yeah. I think we saw it in Luke's snowspeeder in Empire Strikes Back when he's getting blasted by the Atats. Yeah, yeah. I think that happens to him then. I think that's where the RPG got it from and now they've just developed it into weapons to use against droids. Droid poppers. Yeah, droid poppers, which could have whole other meaning. Incredible, incredible name.
00:22:22
Speaker
Oh, that's the other reason I love Ahsoka in this episode is because she saves Rex too. And it's just also nice. nice. There were some other really cool lines. There was a B1, another B1 classic line. The B1's dialogue is just getting better and better all the time. It yeah. there I think he was on The Sphere and he said, all this moisture is corroding my servo motors, which is...
00:22:46
Speaker
Like an echo or a backwards echo of 3PO where he's moaning about the sand on Tatooine. And the other one says you need to go up to level five and have your head adjusted.
00:23:00
Speaker
no The B1s are great. They're so funny. They are. we've got some gorgeous B1 stuff coming up in the next three episodes as well. Amazing.
00:23:11
Speaker
Me and my parents are always watching them together and we all laugh out loud every single time that B1 says anything. I did have a thing where I thought maybe we should be tracking this. To be fair, I could go back and track it. But ah how many times does Grievous just smash one up for no reason or just because he's annoyed?
00:23:28
Speaker
They are very disposable to him, aren't they? Yeah, yeah. He punches, like, we're only, what, seven episodes in and he's already punched out like five of them, I think. Yeah, that's a definite thing to tally as we go along. yeah Grievous and his absolute wastage. Battle droids. Yeah.
00:23:47
Speaker
There's some ah nice bits of Anakin and Rex in action together, like seeing them in action, like Anakin force-throwing a fuel cell into the air and then Rex shooting it and it just blows up the whole space.
00:24:01
Speaker
I was really sad seeing R2 in pieces. That shot made me feel really sad. I know, yeah. I think I'm very attached to this droid. Yeah, in a different way to like seeing 3PO in pieces in Empire. Oh, well, we're used to seeing 3PO in pieces, aren't we? Yeah, yeah.
00:24:17
Speaker
I'm trying to remember like what I felt when I first saw and Pieces, but obviously I was only six years old or something. I can't recall, but I feel like it wasn't the same. It didn't hit the same. It doesn't hit the same, no. R2's built different, and he is different in a lot of ways. like yeah I suppose we've seen 3PO get knocked apart. Reattached, yeah. also he's really quite annoying.
00:24:40
Speaker
That's true. Yeah. Yeah, i don't think Artie's ever been annoying. Has he? don't know. No, I don't think he He's always just like you're always on side with Artie. He can do no wrong. Yeah.
00:24:52
Speaker
who Yeah, he's definitely not a stabby little backstabber. No. he's Grievous, though, to like try and soften the blow of this R2 torture or whatever.
00:25:02
Speaker
Grievous says something about, so defiant, no need for fear, all droids here. Yeah. was quite a nice little rhyming couplet. A nice little rhyming couplet. Also, not a droid, famously, Grievous. Yeah. Yes, yeah. He's like...
00:25:16
Speaker
He's appropriating droid identity, which, I mean, don't know, at what point do you become a droid? At what point you become droid? He's not droid. He's almost droid, but not entirely. He's a cyborg, yeah. As we will find out in a few episodes' time, yeah. I suppose they all refer to him as a droid, though, as well, because even in this one, is it this one that Ahsoka him tini? Yeah, I think that might be... He's just a tini like the rest of them. one of them, yeah. She definitely, I wrote that line down somewhere. Yeah, fairly recently. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, he is a droid. No, he's not. No, he's not. We don't even know what he is.
00:25:49
Speaker
I don't know. robert Okay, this is a topic for discussion in a little while. Okay, we'll come back to this. What, come back to Grievous? Okay. Yeah, like what is he? Because I feel like we've got some answers coming up.
00:25:59
Speaker
Cyborg.
00:26:03
Speaker
Anyway, where are we? Where are we? We'll move on to Newt Gunray, the trilogy of more Grievous, really, if we're getting into it. But yeah, yes a fair amount of Newt Gunray, to be fair.
00:26:16
Speaker
So who is your favourite character in Bombag Jedi?
Memorable Characters and Creature Design
00:26:22
Speaker
you want to take a guess? Is it the same as mine? i don't know. I don't know what yours is. Who's your favourite character? It could only be Jar Jar. No. Oh, okay.
00:26:35
Speaker
Who is your favourite? Is it a b one No. It's the giant neon sea slug. Oh, yes. ah yeah, I suppose we can call him a character. Let's just, yeah, he's a character.
00:26:48
Speaker
Well, I wrote it down, so that's what's happening now. He's officially a visually character. He talks to Jar Jar. He gets named Bogey. Yes, Bogey.
00:26:59
Speaker
That's what Jar Jar calls him. Jar Jar calls him Bogie, yeah. So he's got a name. Bogie the Giant Neon Seaslug. Yay! Who is, I had to look this up, a Quazzle Moore. i heard that somebody named that in the script somewhere. And I wrote down what I thought they said. and I was trying to find it on Wikipedia. And it's like, no no, absolutely not. I can't remember how i found I think I went to the episode page and then it told you...
00:27:27
Speaker
I was absolutely spelt completely wrong. I had Q at the beginning, and which to be fair, it's KW at the beginning, Quasal sounds a Quasalmore, Quasalmore, which is based on an old Ralph McQuarrie design for a creature on Dagobah. Nice.
00:27:43
Speaker
I loved it. I loved him too. it looked super cool. And I love the arc with him and Jar Jar. And by the way, yeah, Jar Jar is my favourite character. yeah Just comparing him, although he is Jar Jar, but if you compare him in this episode to the Phantom Menace, yes and like he he's unquestioningly risking life and limb to help Padme. Yes, is. And I was like, there's no way. Like his first scene with Qui-Gon and he's the biggest coward.
00:28:11
Speaker
Like everything is scaring him and he doesn't want to do anything. Yeah, well that's true. Whereas here he's putting himself in front of all sorts of danger. He's trying to save her. Yeah. Yeah. Jar Jar for the character. crew Anyway, yeah, like his... Kind of link with the creature and how like at the beginning yes it's calling, hears it from the platform before. yeah And they have a little chat. Yeah. They have a little swamp chat, yeah which is incredible. Yeah.
00:28:36
Speaker
My first note was diplomatic mission with Jar Jar Binks. What could go wrong? And then, ooh. Everything. Yeah. He does make a lot of mistakes. Yeah. but I love seeing him though. Again, I saw Cillian Blunkett talking about how great Jar Jar is for animation. Yes. Because he was originally animated. He's just a lot of fun, isn't he? Yeah. And Filoni said about putting him with 3PO, it's like double comedy. Yes. They can kind of like out-comedy each other. three p says at one point, you're squashing my circuits. yeah Which is 3PO code for like, you're stealing the stage from off me from my drama. Get off me.
00:29:18
Speaker
Oh, bless them both. i love them. They also talked in the behind the scenes thing about how animating and rendering a cloak is expensive and time consuming. We don't often see them. So the fact that they gave one to jar Jar for the whole, you know, plot of this, basically Jar Jar being mistaken for a Jedi. I love that whole, oh, there's a Jedi's cloak in Padme's bedroom. How did that get there? And you're like, let's have three guesses how that got there, shall we? Oh my God, I didn't even think of that. I did not even think of that. That's hilarious.
00:29:51
Speaker
As soon as it happened, I was like, you know, you know how it got there. Yeah. Hilarious. It wasn't her bedroom, was it? It was on her bridge, but that still. Same difference. Same difference. It's more likely to be there than in her wardrobe in her apartment. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The little covert trips away yeah to the outer room or whatever.
00:30:13
Speaker
Yeah, talking of wardrobes, Uncle Ono. Oh my gosh. On a condo fire. He's got this incredible like pink and black striped, it's almost like animal stripes. Yeah. With his coat and he's got this gold sash and these like low slung. looks fabulous. Yeah, trouser things. He's awesome. I love him. I want him as my uncle. Yeah. Can i have a Rodian uncle next?
00:30:35
Speaker
why not And we heard Padme speaking Rhodian, which at first i thought was Hatties because it's very similar. And I looked it up and apparently it is very similar. They're possibly almost like dialects from the outer rim kind of thing to each other.
00:30:49
Speaker
Yeah, the story between him and Padme was quite a tricky one because yeah just they've clearly got this massive history, from presumably from the Senate, and like knowing each other. But it felt like a real familial bond. I mean, not just because she calls him uncle, I suppose. That's part of it. But he definitely has reason to feel neglected that Rhodia is just being you're left by the Republic. They're not looking after them. and You can 100% see why he does it and see why he makes that decision. And you can see why he sells her out. I think he did feel the kind of regret of it by the end of the ep episode. Oh, yeah, instantly. And as soon as he worked out that it wasn't actually going to help him in any way yeah or his people in any way, he was just like, ah, no. yeah But then she was very quick to forgive him as well. Oh, she was lush. Like, her brilliant, like...
00:31:43
Speaker
politician doing the right thing and pretending that the whole thing was a ploy to fool Newt Gunray. Yeah. Yeah, she's really cool. I love Padme. I love Padme. Clone Wars Padme is amazing. Yeah. I mean, she's great anyway. but So, Rodia. Yeah, this is the first time, i think, that we've seen Rodia in the canon. And this is beautiful. Yeah. Somebody said, I can't remember it was, that one of the designers designed the plants that they grow upside down. the bits that you those kind of things that look a bit like palm trees at first glance, they're actually the roots of the palm. And then the growing leaves and stuff are all under the water. All under water. Wow. Yeah. Oh, that's cool. And I think they'd done a load of design for it. And then somebody heard that George had already specified somewhere way, way back that Rhodia had transparent bubble dome things. Okay. And they're like, oh, so now we've got to redesign.
00:32:40
Speaker
Now we've got to do it again. Yeah. Oh, dear. There's a ah book, I can't remember what it's called, Something of the Jedi. It's a new Disney canon era book about Luke. I think it's between Empire and Return the Jedi. No, it must be between A New Hope and Empire Strikes Back, possibly. And Luke goes to Rodia, and in the book, it's really smelly.
00:33:03
Speaker
okay. And it keeps getting referred to in the story. Smelly. I think it's called Heir to the Jedi. Hmm. Yeah, there was some lovely lighting in the Rhodian city with those balls that had lights in them, sort of strands of light somehow, and they were kind strung like vines. Like fairy lights. Yeah, it was really lush.
00:33:26
Speaker
And it sort blended with the sort of green natural light. Backgrounds. Yeah, it was just like a really lush kind of atmosphere, made you really feel like you were there. yes Which I think is something Clone Wars does really well with the planet designs. They're very unique and exciting. It's the sort of thing that's really difficult to do in live action. Yes. So they just lean into the planets that have more wild sort landscapes and stuff.
00:33:51
Speaker
yeah I also loved the sounds in all the underwater sections. Yeah, yeah, yeah. There was lots of nice fun underwater-y bits. I like water sounds anyway. We know who I am.
00:34:02
Speaker
You are a big fan. Part of your degree was underwater. Every part of every course I've ever done has had some underwater element. Yeah.
00:34:15
Speaker
She's slightly obsessed with underwater. Yeah, yeah. that Yeah, it just always sounds so good. I like it. And I love that we got to see Jar Jar swimming around a lot as well because that is his natural habitat and you kind forget that.
00:34:27
Speaker
Yeah, totally, yeah. He's an amphibian. Whereas doing a bungee jump is not his natural. No.
00:34:37
Speaker
But that was kind of how he ended up in the water, so... Yes. Kind of fair enough. Kind of got in there. Bit of both. But he slips through a grate at one point as well, doesn't he? He escapes through it. Yeah. Underneath the globes were a grate. He has such a time of it.
00:34:50
Speaker
Bless him. He's coming up again. i think we've got him again in a few arcs time. Have we? Excellent. Yeah. Got some more Jar Jar our content. Wonderful. There was a tiny little callback to a conversation and we had a long time ago about three po This is part of our droid behavior yes tracking where like Leia putting her hand over 3PO's mouth.
00:35:12
Speaker
Padme does the same thing. I was like, like mother, like daughter. Yeah, stops him talking. You'd think things like that would like trigger some circuits of 3PO to access his memories that have been wiped. No, these have been wiped far too many times. Or maybe he just experiences this weird deja vu that you can't explain. Yeah.
00:35:32
Speaker
And that's why R2 is just always giggling next to him because he's like, I've seen this all before. I know this and you don't. yeah. There's a couple of interesting musical moments. Gosh, we're jumping all over the place here. We are. That's quite fun. Listener, you know the whiplash of Sister of the Force by now.
00:35:50
Speaker
Clone Wars is going to be especially like that, I feel. yes um But yeah, music-wise, there was a bit where Gunray arrived and it it was basically Mars by Gustav Holst from ah The Planets. Interesting. Which is that... Got you. pretty much that. Yeah.
00:36:12
Speaker
Not that I'm saying that Kevin kind of borrowed heavily, but just the influence. but I mean, so is John Williams. like So is every film score composer. Yes, that's true. yeah There was a really lush fanfare thing when the clones arrived at the end. We'd gone through this whole struggle with them fighting in this really small way and then the clones come down and he's like, yes. Clones are about. The clones. We love them. There was also, just before we move on from this episode, yeah right at the end we just got a tiny bit of Palpatine playing mind games. Yes.
00:36:47
Speaker
I was just like, you b******. like I know, like it's so weird, like listening to him. You're just like constantly overthinking everything he says. totally funny Yeah, he said, I can't remember the line, but he said something about Representative Binks and I was like, oh, yeah Attack of the Clones. It took me back to Attack of the Clones Revenge, can't remember which one it is. talked about Representative Binks, but then he's just like, oh no, it's great that you've caught this, nerve but like you're not just going to send someone instantly to go and like capture him back. Yeah.
00:37:22
Speaker
We know you. Stop it. Yes. He's playing his games at all times. Palpatine intrigue. Newt Gunray is just a minute pawn in the intrigue.
00:37:35
Speaker
I was quite surprised at how many times throughout these episodes lots of people referred to themselves as pawns and I'm like, you're all pawns.
00:37:44
Speaker
Does nobody realize? Yeah, yeah. Come on, somebody. Gunray it at one point being like, he says it a few times. I'm just a boy. And you're like, yeah, you all are. Just stop it. You literally all are.
00:37:58
Speaker
Yes, Anakin, even you So. So, yeah, shall we segue into the next stage
Direction and Lightsaber Duels in Star Wars
00:38:04
Speaker
of this arc? Cloak of Darkness. Cloak of Darkness, directed by Filoni, which was lush to have Filoni back directing. And I think this is my favourite episode. I didn't really take note of the directors until...
00:38:18
Speaker
just before we started recording. actually I noted them down, but I didn't sort of equate them. I think I write them down a long time before i actually watch the shows when I'm kind of preparing notes and stuff. So I didn't like log it. But coming away from the five, I just loved everything about this episode. And I think part a lot of what I loved about it probably is what Filoni puts into it in terms of direction.
00:38:40
Speaker
i think he's got a really... brilliant vision for combat, lightsaber combat especially. Yeah, yeah. This like had some just unbelievable lightsaber combat.
00:38:51
Speaker
Yeah, it did. absolutely loved it. It was an incredible episode for Jedi fights. Yes. And again, like you were saying earlier, we have that kind of, where you have the parallels between Ventress and Ahsoka. Yeah. We've got a new Jedi. Yeah. Is she new or have we met her before? She's in the prequels, but she doesn't.
00:39:09
Speaker
have short I don't even think she has any lines. She's She's there, yeah. And I think she was named. i'd like I'm guessing after, think she would have been in the end of the Attack of the Clones, which is, I'm sure she's in Revenge of the Sith at some point. And I bet you could buy the figure, you know, like she would have got that far. But yeah I don't think she really had speaking part.
00:39:28
Speaker
Because I thought there was some quite interesting parallels between her and Ventress as well. We had like... Yeah. It was a brilliant triangle of characters. Yeah. Like all women Jedi fighting each other. yeah Yeah. Don't get that in live action, do we? Yeah. I did put her as my favourite character for this yeah episode. Oh, that was the next thing. No. Oh, that's cool, because I was going to change mine if you had. You can't do that. You can't retrospectively change.
00:39:59
Speaker
It messes with my tally chart. Okay, I know, I know, I I did put somebody else first and I'm going to tell you who that was first, but then I changed my mind by the end of the episode. So who was yours? Ventress. Oh, cool. Okay. That's not who my second was. My second choice was 327T. Ooh. Who was the little Treadwell droid. Yes.
00:40:22
Speaker
I suddenly realised that treadwells have a very similar vocabulary to mouse droids. They do. that they have the same squeak thing. They don't exactly go, down and but but they do go, okay, okay. Yeah, yeah.
00:40:35
Speaker
And I loved how it specified that it was 327T. Yes. Was it a clone or somebody? Yeah, droids don't like the nicknames. Yeah. It prefers to called 327T. Thank you very much. yeah just put for prefers to be called three to seven t thank you very much Yeah, yeah.
00:40:51
Speaker
Yeah, and he's from, like, I'm calling him a he, I'm going to designate 3G7 as the he. He's like a Treadwell droid, which Luke has on Tatooine at the beginning of a New Hope. We don't see it very much. There's a deleted scene, which we're going to come to in a bit, actually. ah And there's one of them in that, helping Luke try and mend an evaporator. So it was definitely like an Easter egg-y type droid yeah appearance, but I was here for it. I loved it.
00:41:19
Speaker
I loved it. Great droid. I love the clone line about droids don't like going by nicknames because so many of the clones go by nicknames. They all have nicknames. So was there a particular reason that Asajj got into your character choice? Because she was great. Possibly partly to do with her music cues that she had because they were all incredible. She had some fabulous sneak music going on that I really enjoyed. gosh. Really cool. All of that. And I just loved her. like She was just so casually nipping her way through there, causing havoc, really. Yeah. so So devious. Love it.
00:42:01
Speaker
Yeah, I picked Luminara. I think she just has so much grace and poise that I aspire to in life and never achieve. so Grace and poise. I associate you with grace and poise, actually. I don't know how that happens, but yeah.
00:42:18
Speaker
Every time I see myself on camera or whatever. Maybe it's in comparison because I'm chaotic. I think we have our own special Sisters of the Force type of poise and we'll embrace that. Sure. Yeah, Luminara is a Mirialan species who we have had a few more since. They can be multiple colours, although most of the ones that we've seen mainly are green. But they can be yellow or pink or purple, apparently. And they usually have these traditional face tattoos tattoos yeah with different designs.
00:42:52
Speaker
The other, probably the most famous Mary Allen, if you're listening and you've seen The Acolyte, then you will have seen Venestra Rowe, who is from the High Republic books, which are set you know a long time before the prequels, few hundred years. So I think Mary Allen's live a long life. Okay. I think there's another Marie Allen coming up later in the Clone Wars as well that has another little story arc. Nice.
00:43:16
Speaker
no Super cool, but I just loved her, yeah. She is great. Do we get more of her? I hope so. I think so, yeah. I feel like it. I feel like when she came on screen, I was like, oh, yeah, Luminara, as though I knew her. Yeah, yeah, you know already, yeah. She's cool. Sure, sure. We were talking about Commander Gree before we started recording. Yes. Yes.
00:43:33
Speaker
I love him. I love his hair. I love his look. He's got a double buzz cut. Double buzz cut mohawk thing going on. Great. It's wild. I've never seen anything like here I'm here for it.
00:43:45
Speaker
He was also fab. I enjoyed him a lot. Yeah. Yeah, he managed his way through the episode pretty well, considering they were up against Asajj, who was in a particularly sneaky mode. Yes. She's taking everyone out. Yeah. Yeah, no, he survived.
00:44:00
Speaker
He survived the episode. However, I did not like Captain Argeas. Argeas? Argeas? Argeas. I didn't like him at first, before we knew he was a double-crossing agent. But...
00:44:11
Speaker
He was just very arrogant. He was so arrogant and he was so queer villain vibes. Yeah, with his little double blonde peak. you know who he reminded me of, actually? Who? Prince Charming in Shrek. You know, that blonde.
00:44:27
Speaker
<unk>k Maybe that was a reference. Maybe that was a reference. I've just wondered, right, because he was kind of like the arch nemesis of Commander Gree in a way, because they're both yeah soldiers. And although they're not clones, Captain Argeus is from the Senate Commando Guard wear clone armor, but it's blue.
00:44:49
Speaker
Yeah. And it's got Roman type helmets. I think the armor was the same as the clothes because it's cheaper to animate. they didn't But yeah, they they sort of got the same armor.
00:45:01
Speaker
But he has these double peak curl things going on with his hair. yeah These big, thick, curly bits. yeah And there are two of them. And Commander Gree has two buzz cut bits. Two buzz cut And it's almost like Argeus has nicked the hair. Yeah. It's like a kind of poetic. Kind of mirroring. It rhymes. Yeah. yeah yeah He was so annoying. I hated him so much. Yeah. Yeah. Kind of for no reason to start with. And then you're like, yeah, of course you're going to be the double crosser. Of course you are. I think he was written to be annoying. Annoying. And then double crossers get double crossed. And that is the way of it yeah because Ventress stabs him through the chest quite quickly as soon as he's talking about making his report and like absolutely not yep get out of here yeah and we get the other like the mirror image Asajj going into the pipe I wrote down big pipe huh so but which obviously all big pipe didn't come from here probably but you never know
00:46:07
Speaker
Yeah, the lightsaber stuff, the choreo is incredible. Oh, yes. wild manoo I love seeing two green lightsabers fighting alongside each other from a cinematography point of view. think really, really cool.
00:46:18
Speaker
I like the two-person versus one person with two lightsabers thing. That was quite fun. Yeah. Asajj doing some incredible acrobatics and athleticism. She's so fast. I think that's why I liked her a lot in this. very Yeah, I could see you doing some of those movies. But i could also I also thought of you when Ahsoka did The Splits. She does, yeah. That nearly singed her as my favourite character, to be fair. She just drops into the split.
00:46:44
Speaker
I'm like, yeah, you're great. Which I was doing at that wedding that we were both at recently. That's why I hurt so much the next day. Yeah, not surprising. I yeah i could never, basically.
00:47:01
Speaker
It's my party drink. If you've got one good party drink, I overuse it and then I hurt. So the whole Ahsoka-Assad fight gave us a few incredible lines that I wrote both of them down. If it isn't the hairless harpy...
00:47:16
Speaker
Yes. Ahsoka is full of like cheeky, sassy one-liners. and She's always got a sassy one-liner. Yeah, definitely. She's a bit like Spider-Man, I think. yeah And what was it? She has no idea what that bog witch is capable of, I think was the other one. called me a bog witch which she literally is she's from death for me which is very boggy and she's a witch i might get some t-shirts done of bog witch i like that i feel like a bog witch bog witch and hairless harpy we can put but like okay new sisters the force t-shirt massage ventress bog witch hairless harpy or the other way around whichever and whichever way i'm loving it i'll love it
00:47:58
Speaker
A little tiny bit of cinematography that kind of came out of the fight is that Luminara, because you know she got sort blasted by some steam coming out of the event. She had red eye later on from it. I think it did that's what it was. was like a little tiny, subtle detail. yeah Love the details. She had like strange burst blood vessels in her eye afterwards. Yeah. And bruising around her face as well. She needs to be protected at all costs. Yeah.
00:48:23
Speaker
She said some really nice things to Ahsoka at the end. i didn't write them down, but I did note that they were very kind. and Yes. I loved it. She was really sweet. And the little tease that Kit Fisto is going to be on the next episode. Yes.
00:48:35
Speaker
I bet if Catlan, Catlan, were you watching this? I'm sure you were. And if you were, did you leap out of the sofa at that point? Because we know Catlan is a big Kit Fisto fan. Understandably.
00:48:49
Speaker
I started to love him a bit more. He is great. So here we are, episode 110, Lair of Grievous. So this was directed by Atsushi Takuichi, who was an animator on Ghost in the Shell. Oh, okay. And lots of other anime, like classic stuff.
00:49:05
Speaker
Such a serious guy. And he storyboarded this episode himself. Okay, wow. And did loads of design work for it He was like all in. And they must have been just buzzing. Like Filoni must have just been like, oh my God, we've got...
00:49:19
Speaker
Atsushi Takeuchi, and he's working on Clone Wars with us, and he's all in, and he's drawing us storyboards and everything. It must have been so exciting. Super exciting.
00:49:30
Speaker
I think this was my favourite episode of the five. It was a close, close second for me. I think this was mine. it hadn't been for the fact that I've just become obsessed with Luminara and how cool she is, I think. completely fair.
00:49:41
Speaker
This would have won. This would have cinched it. So character-wise... Who did you take away? this is sense a four d yes I knew we'd in the end. five. Virtual five.
00:49:59
Speaker
The Doctor. i just love how utterly twisted He's so twisted. So firm. So he is voiced by David Acord, the sound designer, one of the sound designers. Excellent. So he and Matt Wood, who plays Grievous, are the two that you see interviewed all the time in the behind the scenes. Okay. And there's a nice little clip of them like...
00:50:22
Speaker
doing the voices with each other and it's just like gorgeous two sound geeks being incredible droids together like and they kind of worked on being really different so that grievous's voice like you know all of this he's got big voice a4ds is all kind of you know smooth and smooth and tiny too He's just so sassy. He's the sassiest. We've got a lot of sassy droids and we've seen a lot of sassy droids, but this one takes the biscuit, really. I think he is the most, yeah. He's sassier than R2, sassier than all of the battle droids put together. mean, he's the sassiest Grievous left, right and centre, which has got to be a risky business. Considering how quick Grievous is to pull the heads off battle droids in the UK. But I suppose he's the doctor, so he's needed. He's very, very necessary. He needs him.
00:51:17
Speaker
And he's got very particular needs that this doctor can give. So, yeah, we could talk a bit a lot about that. We kind of hinted at it earlier about Grievous and his origin. I hadn't realised, I don't think I put it together while watching this. It was only when I was reading somewhere on the interwebs at some point afterwards that Nearish the Beginning...
00:51:38
Speaker
Kit Visto and Nadar, Nadar, Nadar, think pronounce it. ah yeah Nadar, yeah. They're walking through this kind of compound and they see these statues in rooms. Yeah, it's Grievous. Yeah, in early versions of Grievous. yeah I don't think I logged that. They probably said it in the episode, possibly. No, they don't say it in the episode, but they say he talks about it being, a oh, this is is the home of a strange warrior, but like...
00:52:06
Speaker
it gets more and more Grievous as you go through. Yeah, yeah when you get to like the hideout in the middle, it's just Grievous' mask yeah over over again in and over again. But no, that's him in his form before he became Grievous. Yeah. And did he look humanoid to you? or is No, he's not. He is. I'll tell you exactly what he is.
00:52:25
Speaker
I think, yeah, we have confirmation of what he is. We know what he is, yeah. He a Khaleesh. Right, yeah. Yeah, he's from Kali, and he's become more and more cyborg as he goes along.
00:52:38
Speaker
he Is it because he wanted to be a jet like he wanted to have force abilities? Yes. And he doesn't, so he tried making cyber stuff to give him the same oh my advantages in combat as a Jedi has kind of is that in the book i don't know why i don't know if that's in the book i'm trying to read it now and have a look look oh Yeah.
00:52:59
Speaker
<unk>vis has no thought of foribility but his artificial limbs and cybernetic systems give him reflexes and agility to rival those of the jedo nights yes he has replaced much of his living body with mechanical parts voluntarily making himself into a cybernetic warrior with enormous strength power and speed Yeah. yeah Yeah. Filoni talked about that in the behind the scenes. That's where I heard He said Grievous originally wanted to be a Jedi, but wasn't Force sensitive. Yes. So he did his best.
00:53:27
Speaker
He did his best. And I wonder if it was EVA4D that did all of the work. Must be. Kind of feel like they go way back. Yes. definitely Yeah, full name is EVA4D. Okay. Because he's the same type of droid as EV99 from Jabba's Palace. Ah, yes. They've got that little mouth flap, lower yeah mandible kind of thing that flaps around when they speak. Yeah.
00:53:55
Speaker
got This one's specialised in cybernetic repair. Cybernetic enhancement repairing. Yeah. Because he He's like, he can't believe... Grievous is terrifying in this episode, by the way. Just so much like... Because he has his legs chopped off and then that's terrifying. And then he's just the scuttling running around on his arms and he's like, all like this, which audio medium, you can't see. It looks pretty incredible. Yeah.
00:54:21
Speaker
We are recording the video, so this could be a reel. You can have me doing this. That's my Griever's impression. So yeah, he's terrifying looking because of all his spidery... well And then the droid is just like, well, here you go. I'm going to put you back together, but I'm going to sass you the entire time I'm doing it. yeah And also it's going to take a while, hold still. Yeah. well And it's going to hurt. He feels some discomfort.
00:54:50
Speaker
That was my favourite line. Goes in with a welder. There was some stuff I mentioned in the very last battle between Visto and Grievous and the Magna Guards, where Rattakeuchi chooses these like full-on headshots of both the Magna Guards and Grievous at different times, where that character is advancing in the centre of the frame, looking down the barrel of the camera. Yeah.
00:55:16
Speaker
And I feel like it's a kind of anime technique. Yes, style thing. It felt really specific. And I mean, we've seen that a lot already in the Clone Wars. It's something I keep meaning to bring up, how it's a lot to do with General Grievous, actually. It's mostly to do with him or his ship when it happens, that he advances and fills the frame then we cut away. And the ship does the same thing when either the malevolence, or I'm guessing later on we'll see the invisible hand, when they drop out of light speed, it's like a junk right into the middle of the frame. Right, yeah. Yeah, it's pretty wild. That's pretty cool. It seems to be specific to him, but it is a technique. And I feel like that Japanese animation inspiration yeah yeah really came came across. That's really interesting.
00:55:57
Speaker
When they first kind of get there and they're first going through, yeah i was getting real Minds of Moria vibes. Oh, yeah. And then we met Gore, who's like a cave troll. I was like, whoa, this has got very Lord of the Rings-y all of a sudden. I love it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's true. Although gore is also like a kaiju. It's like yeah your Godzilla or whatever. yeah But yeah, it's that crossover. And it's weird that Tolkien would not probably have known much about Japanese culture. And is that when did that Japanese culture evolve? I don't know. There's a whole load of research to be done there, I think. Also, justice for Gore. Why did he have to go so fast? He was great. I know. He's just one of those like disposable just beautiful creatures yeah that we love. I know.
00:56:44
Speaker
Is he like a weird, scary, giant, turtle, monster cyborg? What's going on there? Kind of a dinosaur a bit as well. like Yeah. Yeah, that secret gladiator battle, it almost became where Grievous is just kind of like laughing at them.
00:57:03
Speaker
Well, he's just like, oh, he he laughs at them and then he has to go and get his legs fixed back. So he has to leave needs them to it. We lost a clone. i looked up the name. I think it was Clone Phil. We did. F-I-L.
00:57:17
Speaker
Aww. don't know he was. That's very sad. But he came to a pretty sticky end, actually. It was quite visually brutal. Quite grim. Yeah. Yeah. But yeah, Kit Fisto. Love seeing Kit Fisto. We haven't even talked about Kit Fisto. No, we haven't. We should talk about Kit Fisto. He is awesome. He is great. Yeah. I love his design. Who voices Kit Fisto?
00:57:39
Speaker
I don't know, actually. I meant to look that up, but I forgot. So, nil point for me. Nice. Yeah, he's great. He's been through various different design evolutions since Attack of the Clones. He's in the Attack of the Clones. I think that's where we first see him in the Geonosis arena battle. Yes. And he does the smile thing, and that became...
00:57:59
Speaker
what He's kind of synonymous. But by the time we got to Revenge of the Sith, he has changed, i think. And then in animation, he's certainly different. I think I prefer this visual representation of him, like the eye shape and the eye color stuff I really love. yeah And his kind of tentacle dreadlock type things that kind of, they look like snakes as well, but they're kind of, yeah, the way they move animation wise must be interesting.
00:58:24
Speaker
a lot of work. ah Yeah, yeah. Because they've all got their own physics and... Yeah, they all move slightly differently at different times. It's very elegant. Yeah. Yeah. We don't see many of these species, I guess because of the animation challenges probably. Someone on Instagram has done an incredible, incredible if slightly rude, breakdown of whether their dreadlock things are pull-on-able. Yeah. but they've done they've done it for all different star wars species depending on whether it's connected to their nervous system or not and it was wasn't me i didn't do it did i not send this to you either oh my god i'm gonna find it no is it something we can put on our instagram i mean it's not that family friendly to be honest it was okay
00:59:19
Speaker
It was whether whether they're pull-on-able in the throes of passion and lots of different creatures that have this kind of thing going on, including Twi'leks and all sorts of things.
00:59:30
Speaker
a I mean, he is just the coolest of cucumbers. i thought of cucumbers when I was looking at his head tails, actually. Yes. yeah He just glides his way through the whole episode, like down to possibly the coolest bit of Jedi movement I've ever seen, yeah which is at the end when R6 turns up with his ship and he backflips out of the fight and lands in a crouch on the side of the fighter and then grins as they fly off. Yeah, it's just like, this is incredible. He is great. I was quite sad that ah Nadar didn't last very long. yeah Yeah, I don't think he deserved to die, really. I mean, he was a bit brash, maybe. yeah he was an interesting character. yeah pat He left Kit Visto's guidance, I guess, yeah and finished his training on his own. And then he did the challenges and became a knight. He's apparently an accomplished force healer. Okay. which Interesting. Which we was. Short-lived, sadly. He's gone. We'll never get to see that again. don gone. Yeah, he was quite sweet. was quite interesting seeing a Mon Cal in...
01:00:32
Speaker
In a Jedi role. And he did have some of Kit Fisto's character. Like he did have some of the calmness and some of the cool, but not when he needed it I think he was trying to prove himself too much, which is probably something that happens to a lot of Padawans. Yeah, of course. Yeah, especially not finishing your training with your master.
01:00:53
Speaker
Yeah. And then having to finish it. I wonder, I think this may have been actually confirmed somewhere that he, because he's a water dwelling species and so is Kit Fisto, like that may be why they were paired together. Paired together, yeah, sure.
01:01:06
Speaker
I feel like that would be a thing. Hmm. Yeah, sad times. Very sad. He does have that moment. And I think this was talked about as well in behind the scenes that he is kind of a representation character of some of the younger Jedi who are tempted to use more aggression, yeah like Anakin often does as well. And even we've seen Ahsoka teacher on that a few times.
01:01:28
Speaker
She does. And it's something that the older Jedi don't tend to do. And whether that's because they're rushing the younger Jedi through their stuff because we're at war, you know. of course. There's definitely stuff about that they're pushing the Padawans out. Yeah. They talk about that in the Clone Wars movie. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Getting them out in the field as soon as possible.
01:01:46
Speaker
Because they need to. So they're not getting that calmness thing. Yeah, the calmness training. Well, Ahsoka does it almost instantly. she mean, Nadar's quite similar to Ahsoka in a lot of ways. Ahsoka goes for ghost for Gunray quite quickly with a lightsaber to be like, tell us all you know. and in the last episode. yeah And then, yeah, Nadar's doing the same thing, like advancing, running into running into things that he shouldn't really. yeah Yeah. It's what gets him got, which is sad. R.I.P. Nadar.
01:02:16
Speaker
We'll miss you. So, honourable mentions for this episode. Yeah. A4D said, when he was attaching Grievous' legs, he said, contrary to what you think, I have other things to do. which do you? You literally, you live here to do this, surely. Like, what else are you doing? That's amazing.
01:02:39
Speaker
Another line needs shouting out is a clone, I don't know his name, and said, this has got to be a trap. Yes. Literally, while in a scene with Nadara. Yeah, yeah.
01:02:50
Speaker
I did notice that. yeah And B1s realising that they're no good against Jedi right at the beginning. They were like, wait, have you ever killed a Jedi? No. Yes. You've never killed a Jedi? Me neither.
01:03:04
Speaker
So good. That was nearly my little favourite line trilogy of lines. Oh my gosh, it's so funny. B1s, man. We didn't know how lucky we were the prequels. So good.
01:03:17
Speaker
So good. Before we finish, there was a line, I don't know who said it, possibly Kit Fisto, possibly a clone, saying, contact the fleet at Bestine. Yeah, okay.
01:03:32
Speaker
Oh my God, it's back! It's the return of, you thought we'd never do it again. couldn't resist this one. As soon as I heard that name, my ear pricked up and I was like, I know that name. Where from? Okay, so is part, by the way, if you've just joined us, in listening to Sisters of the Falls and you've never heard that little bit of music before. This is a segment called West End Geek Girls where yeah occasionally we'll pick a little thing that is in whatever it is we're talking about and refer it back to its origins or at least when it was named or fleshed out a little bit in Star Wars the role-playing game which was originally created by West End Games back in the 80s.
01:04:15
Speaker
I'm a great lover of West End Games and i'm a great lover of Star Wars the role-playing game. Every now and again, I'll spot something in an episode of whatever it is we're talking about and I'm like, That was in the role-playing game way back when. So I had to do a bit of reverse engineering almost to find because I couldn't quite remember where I'd heard it. So it turns out, it goes way, way back to before A New Hope even.
Deep Dive into Star Wars Lore and Deleted Scenes
01:04:40
Speaker
In the novelization of Star Wars, which came out in 1976, written in quotes by George Lucas, although it was, I can't remember who the ghostwriter was. Anyway, it was the novelization of the film and had loads more of scenes and dialogue and stuff. And there's a bit at the beginning, which they did shoot deleted scene of with Biggs and Luke at Toshy Station when Luke has seen the battle going on up in the sky above Tatooine. And Biggs has come back from the Academy and he's about to go and try and join
01:05:11
Speaker
the Rebel Alliance. And they have this little conversation. I made some friends at the Academy. When our frigate leads to one of the central systems, we're going to jump ship and join the Alliance. The Rebellion? Quiet down. You've got mouth bigger than meteor. I'm quiet, I'm quiet. Listen how quiet am.
01:05:28
Speaker
You can barely hear me.
01:05:33
Speaker
My friend has a friend on Besteen who might help us make contact. You're crazy. You could wander around forever trying to find them. Oh my gosh. So apologies for the audio quality. That deleted scene is on, I think it's on Disney Plus. It's on YouTube. It's terrible audio because I think it's the audio that they recorded on set.
01:05:49
Speaker
And then because they deleted the scene from the film, they didn't bother to ADR it. Yeah. So it's really messy. I've done some cleaning up on that and it's still pretty filthy. Yeah, it's bit difficult to clean up when you've got music as well. But yeah, that was Biggs talking about a friend of a friend on Best Fiend. So then I found the a New Hope Galaxy Guide from the West End Games series of add-on books. Oh my gosh. And it's mentioned in that. We're going deep. We are going deep. Jack Porkins, you know Porkins from yeah the Battle of Yavin? You know the X-Wing I know Porkins.
01:06:23
Speaker
Of course. He's from Best Fiend. Oh. According to this source book. Yeah. ah So it says, jack was a free trade from the bastine system who had just gone into business for himself yeah when the empire decided it needed a new high security base of operations in that arm of the galaxy and the entire population of bastim four by comparison very small was forced to vacate their home world so the empire might have a totally secure base of operation sos him and his family and their entire civilization were de-housed from Bastine by the Empire. Okay. So he joined the rebellion. That was his motivation for joining the rebellion. Sure. And his speciality wasn't the dogfight, but rather the oft neglected strafing run, which obviously came in handy on Yavin, Having learned the skill from many standard years of flink crab hunting on the rocky islands of Bestein, Jack became deadly with the strafing run during his time with the Alliance. So we got a like a two for one because we got a bit about Porkins. Yeah. We got a bit about Bestein. So that little...
01:07:24
Speaker
throwaway line of, you know, need to contact the fleet, our best scene. It all goes back to Biggs and his friend of a friend and Porkins and this whole stuff in the role-playing game Galaxy Guide book one. We love it.
01:07:37
Speaker
What a deep dive. Well done. That's what here for. So I hope you enjoyed that little bonus West End Geek Girls. We won't be doing that every week, but every now and again it'll happen. When it comes up. Just keep you on your toes. When it comes up, it will. I'm so excited. That was so nice to hear that sound again. Yeah, it's
Appreciation for Recent Star Wars Episodes
01:07:55
Speaker
been a while. It's been quite a few weeks, been a few months possibly even. Been a while. ah Another request for the soundboard. Can we have one of Grievous' frustrated roars, please?
01:08:04
Speaker
Grievous' frustrated roars. Okay, I'm on it. He does it all the time and I love it. He does. He does. We love a bit Grievous. I loved all these episodes. I loved all these episodes. They were pretty wild. The last two, like I said at the beginning, I really loved the last two. I think those two directors, Filoni and then Takeuchi, they just brought so much awesome visual storytelling and movement and animation. Just all of it on point.
01:08:34
Speaker
Love it.
Upcoming Episodes and Listener Engagement
01:08:35
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. So i expect, listener, you're wondering what you need to watch before next week. And we did promise we'll keep you posted. So next week we've got a special guest. We've got a special guest I'm really excited. So exciting. She's been on before, but she hasn't been on for a long time. so I'm really excited to talk to her. Yeah, it's been a while. Yeah. So we're going to be watching two arcs. Yes. Each of two episodes. So the first arc is Florum, which is episode 11 and 12 of season one. Yeah. Dooku captured and the Gungan general. Then the Maradon arc, which is... 13 and 14 of season one, Jedi Crash, Defenders of the Peace, or all Defenders of Peace. So so watch those. You've got a week to watch them. You have one week. And then join us as we break them down, see if you spot things that we don't talk about. Meet us back here and then tell us about it. Yeah. Shout at us.
01:09:25
Speaker
You know Jessica does that, but just at her phone in general. and I know she does, yeah. I can sense her doing it. I've watched her do it. I think she sent clips to me. to But yeah. Excellent. We hope you enjoyed listening. Don't forget to follow us on the socials. Don't forget to come back next week. Click follow on your podcast. Click follow. Interact with us on whatever you want to interact with us on, really, because we're always up for chat. Give us a little five-star review if you enjoyed.
01:09:55
Speaker
We'd love that. And yeah, look out for us. See you later. We'll see you next week.