Transcript
Speaker: Sia! Hi! Who is your favourite character in The Clone wars Season 2, Episode 1, The Holocron Heist? Todo360. Oh, nearly chose him. Did he thank you?
Speaker: cute. He's really sassy for a tiny assistant's droid. He's really funny. love him. I loved him too. Hey, Branwen. Hello. Who is your favourite character from The Clone Wars Series 2, Episode 1, The Holocron Heist?
Speaker: Kato Parasiti. Yeah, I knew you were going to go Kato. I loved Sam Wessel. I remember talking about this in our Attack of the Clones episode. yeah i wanted see more Sam Wessel. And this is the next best thing. Another claw diet.
Speaker: yeah What a name as well. Yeah, Kato Parasiti. Yeah. Wild. You're listening to Sisters of the Force, a Star Wars podcast with me, Branwen. And me, Sia.
Speaker: And we delve into all things Star Wars. And at the moment, we're just commencing our Season 2 Clone Wars breakdown. Oh my gosh. Which is wild. We've got a massive Clone Wars journey ahead of us. We've got a fair amount of it behind us already, which is quite impressive. It's gone really quick. Yeah, I can't believe we're season two already. I know. Absolutely wild. Here we are. Not only that, but we have a special returning guest. yeah Extra special guest for me. My mum, Suzanne, is back with us. Hello, Mama. Hello. Hello, everybody. Hello.
Speaker: It feels like it's been ages since, well, doesn't feel like it would say been ages since we talk about Star Wars because we talk about Star Wars a lot in this household. Four minutes ago. But it's been a long time since you've been on the podcast. It's way back. I have noticed. It's been a while. You've just been biding your time. Watching everything in the background. Yeah. We have been watching a lot Star Wars. Yeah. You're probably in this podcast more than you realise
Speaker: I mean, you definitely are watching along with us because you have a choice because that's what we watch of an evening on TV. It's a pleasure. Yeah. We're really excited to have you back, though. And this is a pretty intense arc to have you back on. Yeah. What was this about? What was the thinking here? Did you choose to come on this?
Speaker: i don't know about this specific one, but it's been ah it's been an education. yeah Yeah, it's fair to say that. I've noticed, because we've got you booked in for later on in the Clone Wars as well, and both of the arcs, this one and the one you're coming on for later on, are both children-based, which i know you know you've got a history of working with young people, which totally makes sense. And I feel like in the other arc that we're going to be doing way way down the line, it makes a bit more sense.
Speaker: This one, I don't know if that was the reason that you're here. I can't remember why we chose. I don't. I don't think I was asked. Patrick, you're coming on then. We just put you on for this one.
Speaker: Do you have a favourite character from this episode? I do, and that's very relevant as well because it does tie up nicely. I wouldn't have normally chosen Ahsoka because she's in every episode and...
Speaker: I love her every time. yeah But particularly in this episode, because when she was sent to the Jedi Temple for just doing her job, she thought but she didn't moan. She didn't do that sort of pouty face, and which she does sometimes, at least a little bit. A little bit, a little bit teenager-y, but but no perhaps I shouldn't have said that. But anyway, but no she she just she just takes it on and um subsequently makes the best of it. yeah I respected her for that. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker: Definitely. So yeah, let's get into it. We're talking about the first arc of season two, The Magic of the Holocron. And this first episode, The Holocron Heist, yes is yes it's pretty wild. This whole arc is pretty wild, as usual. yeah But yeah, I was intrigued. like The fact that Ahsoka got put on library duty... By pure coincidence, the same day... Well, that Cad Bane's coming in. i mean... That somebody decides to infiltrate the Jedi Temple, which can't happen very often, I wouldn't have thought. No, that's true, actually. It can't be yeah a regular occurrence, seeing as how difficult it is to break into the Jedi Temple. Yeah. Although Cad Bane makes it look pretty easy, fair. He does. He does ease... Yeah, this whole, like...
Speaker: I was really confused by the beginning of this episode because this wasn't where I was expecting to be. Yeah, it did absolutely drop us in. in It did 180. Yeah, we'd finished season one um with this episode.
Speaker: I don't know if you remember watching that a few weeks back, Mum, with the episode where Cad Bane... takes a load of senators hostage yeah yeah or he sends some of his bounty hunter friends to do that because he's getting paid to go and rescue Zero the Hutt from prison so they have to take the political prisoners so that he It's all very confusing Convoluted plot But yeah, it introduced us to Cad Bane. And at the end of that episode, he got away. And coming straight into the next episode at the beginning of season two, yeah we know we're getting Cad Bane, but we're dropped into a completely different scenario. Different storyline. And like so much so that my notes literally call it a Cad Bane interlude because I was like, oh, we're just seeing him for a second. And then no, actually this is actually where we're going. Yeah, but he does do stuff that...
Speaker: You can't always always imagine how he can achieve that. He's got certain certain powers that you don't actually know how or Don't ask questions. He's there. He's there in the temple. He's a very shrewd bound chanter.
Speaker: But yeah, and what I mean is that we're dropped into this whole Felucia battle. Yes. Which is totally detached from the rest of the arc. It's just like one of those classic Star Wars things where you go in at the beginning of the action. We've got Plo Koon and Warthog, which I think is Warthog's first appearance in the Clone Wars. Is it? Ah, okay.
Speaker: I think so. I'm not sure. um But they're going to rescue the Jedi that have been trapped on Felucia. Yeah. Separatist cruisers. We've got Felucia again, which we've seen at the end of Revenge of the Sith. Yeah. In Order 66 is one of the planets. We watch Isla Secura meet her Doom.
Speaker: Oh, I did say it was a gorgeous looking planet. It's a beautiful place full of big green triffids. And yeah. And yeah, Ahsoka's on Jungle Patrol. And the whole point of this thing is to give us a reason Ahsoka in trouble. reason for Ahsoka to be in trouble. Yeah, yeah. Stick Ahsoka on library duty. Yeah.
Speaker: So she's got to do something wrong to get to the library duty. Yes. This is the doing. It's all a bit inconsequential. There's lots of battle droids and she doesn't stop. Even when Anakin tells her to stop, she carries on. and Yeah. yeah It's kind of classic. Like Ahsoka and Anakin seem to spend their entire lives covering up for each other. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That might explain a little bit the little thing at the beginning, the little message. oh A lesson learned is a lesson earned. And I struggled a little bit figuring out where that came from, but I think that's probably something about those two. so Yeah. Yeah, just this whole thing of like, if you make a mistake in one scenario, you will earn a lesson. We're going to stick you guard duty. Yeah, and what that experience is going to be even more intense than yeah yeah yeah you're going to end up fighting somebody with a lightsaber rather than just facing off a few battle droids, I guess. Yeah.
Speaker: Before we got too deep into the episode, while we're still talking about Felicia generally, Felicia's got this gorgeous look to it, as we've just said. Yes, it does. I don't know if it's me, but it feels like the animation has gone up a notch already. Yeah, I thought it looked a bit kind of...
Speaker: grittier in a way. Yeah. A lot of slight lighting change or something. There was a lot of lighting differences. They were using glow a lot. I've noticed a few shots. I think there's one in third episode possibly where it's another one of their classic silhouette shots out of a ship's open hatch or whatever and you can see light behind and they're silhouetted. and The glow is really prominent coming around their silhouettes which is a technique that you use when you're doing green screen compositing sure where you have like light spilling around and it sort of helps embed the characters into the composited backdrop. But in terms of animation, it's just like a stylistic thing yeah of light lens. It's not quite lens flare, but it's that kind of thing of light. Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, like the real world magic of light and how that works, trying to capture that in animation. And as usual in animation, it gets heightened a bit as well. So it it looks a bit even more, I don't know, dramatic than it does in real life. But yeah, that light is a wonderful thing. Light is a wonderful thing. lu This kept happening to me a lot over these three episodes is that I kept forgetting to write stuff down because I was just in it. It's so really non-stop.
Speaker: Both mum and I were typing on our respective sofas and it was like like like like like like like like like, pause. Yeah, and it's a shame really because you you get the story but you miss...
Speaker: little bits a lot of details and afterwards thinking so why were they doing that yeah yeah yeah the bigger picture i feel like really you need to kind of watch them twice like once to type your story points and anything and then just watch them at leisure again yeah yeah yeah but yeah they were incredibly dense episodes it's like a feature film in an hour yeah So anyway, we get past the whole intro and then the rest of the episode is the heist itself. And I thought this was a brilliantly created heist. Yeah. It felt so heisty. It felt very noir. I'd written film noir down. feisty heist. feisty heist. A feisty heist. feisty heist
Speaker: The supervising editor, Jason Tucker, was talking about noir specifically in the behind the scenes stuff. Yeah, that makes And I like, felt very vindicated because I'd already written down film noir. Yeah. But in this we've got Bane in his like really dingy apartment where apparently Cillian Blunkett said at one point they had a chalk outline of a dead Gungan on the floor. my gosh.
Speaker: All of these little details. I noticed one earlier. when Going back to Fallujah just for a second, um yeah the troopers have graffiti all over their dropships. Oh, wow. All the clones have got like all of these different like graffiti stuff. And I was trying to pause it on the right frame so I could read what it said. And like it was mostly just pictures of wrecks and stuff. Yeah.
Speaker: I guess it's like an extension of the way they decorate their armour and yeah yeah their back bodies with tattoos and stuff. It's really cool. And I suspect that as the Clone Wars goes on, it will become more and more evident as the clones get older. Like the older generation ones will have done more of that kind of thing. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker: But yes, back to the dingy apartment. Yeah, with the slap blinds, what they called, is it Venetian blinds? With like the lines of light. yeah, yeah. We've got them in our house. It is very dramatic. It's very film noir. Yeah.
Speaker: I did notice during the thing we watched afterwards, you saying about the film noir, and the guy said almost immediately as if he'd heard you. behind um oh that was impressive. super bad I a I also noted volumetric light, which you've talked a bit about on the show, where it's a bit like smoky atmosphere. And it was like that in Bane's apartment. Cab Bane's apartment is kind of like the light has volume to it. Like he sits there smoking in the... They're smoking cigars in the dark. I think early designs of him, apparently he did have a cigarette until they changed it to the toothpick. Slightly more child-friendly.
Speaker: Worrying about keeping the series child-friendly during an arc that's about children getting captured and tortured. That's so horrible. Yeah, I'm surprised they didn't have Sidious just coming over to him and saying, are you going to clean this place up?
Speaker: I would love that. Sidious, yeah, because I mean, Sidious, his office is always very immaculate. He's probably got droids doing it. But yeah, I bet he wouldn't like to go into No, he wouldn't like into it at all. So in his apartment, we get introduced to the two other main characters of this episode who were Sia, mine and your favourite characters. Yeah, Todo 360. Did you recognise who he's voiced by?
Speaker: recognised his voice, but I couldn't place it. Who is he voiced? Seth Green from Buffy. not of well The werewolf, who's originally Willow's boyfriend, isn't he, I think, in early Buffet? Yeah, think so. And he's done a bazillion other things after. I thought I recognised his voice.
Speaker: That's so funny. Mum, you did a similar thing where you spotted something about the way he voiced Todo 360 and you pointed out a line that he said that was a bit like 3PO. Oh, yes, I did. he actually says, I'm doomed. Yes. Oh, see, 3PO. Yeah.
Speaker: Which again, when we were watching the behind the scenes, ah can't remember who it was, somebody said that he, Seth Green, is basically doing his own version of 3PO. That's how they found the voice. So it wasn't lost on us. No, no we we spotted it. I just wrote down that he's incredibly dramatic and tiny and I love it. Yeah.
Speaker: They animate his fingers and stuff. He's like he's got nervous twitches yeah with his hands. He's rubbing his hands together and just very panicky. I was quite sad about his untimely demise. Yeah.
Speaker: It doesn't last very long. What did Killian Plankett say? can't remember. You get this phrase of like, how you join the show and then you're immediately killed. I can't remember. Oh, yeah. yeah Very short-lived characters.
Speaker: I actually did note that wid said about when he says about being doomed... that Bane still hadn't found a way into the temple because we were speaking earlier about, before we started properly, um about how did Bane get into the temple because you yeah can't just walk in. You've got to be a Jedi for a start. I don't think he can claim that. way So he obviously did make his way into the temple. Yeah. Yeah, so he we meet the other character that's going to help him do that, who is Kato Barasiti, who is a Claudite, one of the shapeshifters, changelings, whatever you want to call them, yeah like Zamwesel. Incredible.
Speaker: And we learn how they do it. They have to touch... They have touch the thing, the person that they're... yeah imitating yeah which is quite freaky don't like that in the behind the scenes they were talking about how do we deal with the clothing which is always a thing with anybody yeah yeah shapeshift so they decided that her clothes when she's in her claudite form she doesn't wear actual clothes she wears holographic clothes oh okay and so when she changes into somebody else the hologram changes the clothes to match so it's like projected clothing and if you watch carefully when she changes into Jocasta New later on in the episode she transforms and we see a little hologram glitch go up her body yeah which is a blink and you miss it moment but that is incredible and now I would like hologram clothing yeah
Speaker: how easy to change you know not even that just how comfortable being naked all the time and not having to actually like there's always that fear of like the battery going though i i don't think i'd care at this point and what deal with it right okay we better get to the heist because we haven't even got the heist yet My favourite line of the whole thing is they have these amazing little jet boots that happen. Oh, yeah. Both Toto and Cad Bane have jet boots to to fly around in these vents with. And and at one point, Toto just goes, this job keeps getting weirder and weirder.
Speaker: That's a very 3PR-ish aside. Yeah, that was one of my favourites too. In fact, the only other line that I highlighted was his other line earlier on. I'm a techno service droid, not a butler droid. Yeah, you can just hear 3PO doing that as well.
Speaker: Although I think 3PO literally is a butler drawing. Is a butler drawing, yeah. It doesn't mean he likes human-cyborg relations. I feel that was probably one of several meta Easter eggs ya yeah actually referencing 3PO because I think George Lucas might have said at one point that 3PO is a butler.
Speaker: Yeah. Or maybe it was a line in one of the films or something. But yeah, they get in through this whole changeling process Yeah. that and And that was all a bit horrible as well, because there's just a dead Jedi in Cad Bane's office. Yeah, yeah. What's the character's name? Ord Ennocence. Yeah. Who is a Skrilling.
Speaker: Oh my God! i I haven't heard that sound for ages. We haven't done West End Geek Girls for while, I thought we should do it. It's only a very quick one about Skrillings. I knew nothing about Skrillings. Excellent. There's hardly been a mention. I think this is only the second Skrilling we've ever seen. the only other one, I think, was a background character in Jabba the Hutt's Palace in Return the Jedi. Okay. Probably in one shot. So in Galaxy Guide 12...
Speaker: Yeah. Aliens, enemies and allies from 1995. The Skrillings were given a name from this one character from Return of the Jedi. Nice. And I think we still don't know very much about them. I think they've popped up a bit in comics, but okay on screen, this is probably one of the only new other ones that we've seen in this episode.
Speaker: And yeah, they're a scavenger species and they're considered, according to the book, a disgusting annoyance. Due to their preference for uncooked, spoiled meat and their whining nature.
Speaker: That's so role-playing gamey. Let's just put these really annoying aliens. Some really annoying things in here. But it describes them really well with their kind of like baggy, wrinkled skin and three-fingered hands. They almost look like a Simpsons character. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And these like weird little breather tubes either side of their nose.
Speaker: And they are completely under the control of a race called the Machinney on their homeworld. And the machine you designate the world AgriWorld 2079, which you can imagine it's just a kind of world to produce something. yeah But yeah, Skrillings are around the galaxy, mostly servants or low-level employees. So obviously this particular Skrilling was plucked out at birth, yeah, by the Jedi and...
Speaker: I don't know if we're supposed to think that he's dead or unconscious. I thought he was dead. But then that's partly because Cad Bane is pretty ruthless and that kind of comes across in the next couple of episodes where you're like, oh no, he's got no problem just murdering people. Yeah.
Speaker: Again, it emphasizes Cad Bane's skill, the fact that you just had a dead slash unconscious Jedi in your club. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Not many people can capture a Jedi. No, that's true. They get in using this Jedi thing. It all starts to go wrong, as good heists often do.
Speaker: It goes wrong quite quickly. Which results in Kato having to then transfer her light appearance to Jocasta Yes. A beloved Jedi. We can't have anything happen to Jocasta Nu. Yeah, I was a little bit like, yeah, I didn't like the whole let's just knock her out thing. now Yeah.
Speaker: Because she'd just been so sweet to Ahsoka as well and it was all quite nice. She was having a yeah she was being really nice. We also had a random Kit Fisto appearance. Yeah. walked in the background while Ahsoka's being, while the heist is going on in the background. And he didn't say anything. He just smiled and walked through the door.
Speaker: He couldn't get his voice actor in that day. Yeah, Kit Fisto was with Yoda and Isla Secura in the comm centre, I think. Yeah. As they were figuring out that this was a heist. No, he walks into the Holocron vault. Oh. When Ahsoka's being ah shown around. Yeah.
Speaker: Because then she tries to get in the Holocron vault and that's how where we get the no, you're not allowed. Not even I'm allowed. Only the Jedi Masters are allowed in there. There was a little musical cue that I loved as Cad Bane and Toto were going down in the ventilation shafts. Oh, yeah. And I've got the cue here to play it I'm in.
Speaker: It's about time. Just tell us where to get in. All right. There's a weak point in the shield that Toto should be able to break through. i'm beaming him the coordinates now. Okay, I have got it.
Speaker: So there's like those little diminished fifths going down a tone each time, and it's like harp and a flute or something. Bling, bling. The beginning of Gustav Holst's Saturn, the bringer of old age, starts like this.
Speaker: Oh.
Speaker: Oh,
Speaker: Which we know that John Williams was lifted strongly influenced by Gustav Holtz. Lifted. i mean, to be fair, George Lucas used Mars from the Planet Suite by Gustav Holtz in his temp track when he was first editing the original Star Wars. Yeah, fair. So I love how like the Kynas collectively have all... like They do continue the John Williams traditions.
Speaker: Such as this. Although they also bring a lot of their own stuff in as well. But I just liked noticing that little Holst callback. That is cool. I've figured out something about the music. I don't notice the music as much if it's all orchestral. yeah As soon as it's electronic, then I'm like, hello. Now I'm noticing what's going on. yeah but then there's something about orchestral music fading into the background for me a little bit more, unless it's like really...
Speaker: really intense or really strong reference yeah it often is yeah more emotional elevating yeah and i guess we're used to hearing orchestral scores in films way more because it's like by far and away the biggest yeah tradition in film scoring although that is changing thanks to people like ludwig Yes. Yeah, I tend to miss it a lot as well. And I think because in the Clone Wars, it's so fast. Yeah. Like everything is happening so fast all the time. You just don't hear it because there's so much dialogue and action going on. It's nonstop.
Speaker: That is very true. So we got halfway through this heist, we got Ahsoka instantly works out what's going on and is like, yeah no, not having it. Yes. Partly, I think, because she's so on high alert because she's been on a battlefield for the last however long. Yeah, as a teenager, which we must never forget.
Speaker: So she's instantly like, no, I'm going to raise the alarm and fight this intruder. She works out the intruders there pretty quick as well. Yeah, Yoda senses something too, doesn't he? He senses their being.
Speaker: Yeah. I think they all do. Obi-Wan. noticed yeah and anakin they were all like something's not right because yoda says they should place the temple on high alert oh yeah yeah well yeah i would have thought they would have already yeah he's already in the walls
Speaker: And we were saying about how did Cad Bane get in, but actually at some point says that Ord Innocence tells Cad Bane how to get in. Yeah. He finds a weak spot in the shield and Toto goes and pokes it, essentially. I mean, that was Cato slash Ord Innocence's role in the heist, was he needed someone to go in as a Jedi, which is where having a Claudite in your gang is quite helpful. It's quite useful, Because they can just disguise themselves. So role was to get in and then be able to get in control of their comm system in the library and send messages out to him via their comms. They were using little in-ear classic Mission Impossible style in-ear headphones. set things.
Speaker: Yeah. Yeah. So that's literally, as you say, mum, that's how they got in. Yeah. By having somebody on the inside. But also, Kato is quite quick to be like, as soon as Kato's caught, she's quite quick to kind of give him over.
Speaker: Yeah. Very, very quickly goes, well, this is where he's going next. I feel like she was just hired. I don't think she's like a particular friend of Yeah, that's true. I think she was just like, well, you know, this didn't go how I thought. I hope she got paid in advance.
Speaker: Hopefully. I guess she probably might not be getting out of, yeah, like if you break into the Jedi Temple, that's probably a pretty bad crime. that's true If they didn't make it a bad crime, then Claudites would be breaking in every five minutes. Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah that's true.
Speaker: But this is the first we kind of hear of this larger plan that might be afoot and the Jedi work it out quite quickly. They're like, okay, well, if that's the case, then this, this and this are going on. yeah So they're after a holocron. Cad Bane is after a holocron.
Speaker: The Jedi don't know why yet, they can suspect, but they know that the holocron is going to be no good. I like the way that Obi-Wan helps us with that by saying hologron is no good without a Jedi to open it. So that tells us what's going to happen. What's going to happen next. yeah next Next week on the Clone Wars. Yeah, yeah. So yeah, that's the whole thing is that they're trying to get this hologram.
Speaker: We know it's for Darth Sidious because we saw the hologram of him giving Bane his instructions. But even we don't know why yet. And apparently Dave Filoni said at this point in the writing, they didn't know what was going to be in the hologram either. Yeah.
Speaker: They just knew. I know that feeling. ah So the holocron was what Filoni called the MacGuffin, which is a phrase I've kind of recently got to know as part of like TV writing, isn't it? It's like yeah the thing that you want. I don't know where it comes from, the MacGuffin. I don't know.
Speaker: Is there a story with a character called MacGuffin way back when? I have no idea to look into that. Listeners, if you know why is a MacGuffin called a MacGuffin? What is this about? What?
Speaker: But the holocron is the MacGuffin. It's the the thing that is the episode is centred around. It's the important object that everybody wants and Cad Bane ends up with.
Speaker: Yeah. But we and we do have this lovely bit of exposition as soon as Cato hands over the next part of the plot. Yeah. Where ah all of the Jedi are like, okay, well, this is what's on the holocron. If he's going after this person, that's to do with this, that's to do with this, blah, blah, blah.
Speaker: Done. Yeah. figured out the plot was that the end of this episode it was yeah yeah yeah so obviously sort like got some of it sorted out but yes yeah more all of it yeah I'd actually say as well that how Ahsoka gets overlooked quite a lot for seeing stuff because she actually pointed out about Madame Jocasta fighting her. And she says that you may have Madame Jocasta's shape, but not her skills, which is a right dig for Bane. And she also, actually, I don't know if she noticed it or maybe it was just me noticing it, how Madame Jocasta suddenly develops this rather nasty smile that's not really her. So they haven't got a complete change over. But yeah, I mean, I think Ahsoka is very clever in things like that. and points it out. Yeah. But nobody's listening. was listening to her. Yeah, yeah. As often happens with teenagers. You know, they do notice things. Yeah, yeah. Shrewd means. I mean, we've talked about Ahsoka being the observer before and being our eyes almost. And yeah, that kind of ties in with that. She is often the one that kind of like see beyond all what the Jedi are carrying in terms of their own baggage. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: Yeah. She's for that. Yeah, she's cool. Yes, it is the end of this episode that we get kind of a little hint at the larger plan because my last note was, ooh, this makes it all slightly more sinister if they're after younglings. Yeah, but yeah, yeah.
Speaker: and I think it's this time that we break out the word intrigue because oh mag it's Palpatine and it's intrigue and we love it. Yeah, that's true. Going by our t-shirts on Redbubble, linking our bio. Yeah. Feel Palpatine, Intrigue, Simpsons, crossover t-shirts. Definitely do that. We love them.
Speaker: All right then. Nice. Moving on. So episode two, Cargo of Doom. Unless anybody else has got anything to say about episode one before we move on. Just hats off to Cad Bane, really. He is actually pretty good. He's doing a great job. He's very good at his job. Yeah.
Speaker: Okay, so Cargo of Doom. Yeah. This also was not the direction I was thinking it was going to be because I was like, oh, so we're obviously going to follow Cad Bane on his next mission to go and see. No, no, we're dropped straight in. He's done it already. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's one of those ones where the recap at the beginning isn't so much a recap as like a, hey, this stuff just happened since you last watched.
Speaker: This has been going on in the background. Yeah, we see a very, very quick flashback of Fane hunting and capturing Master Bola Ropal. Yeah. Who, I was worried he was dead. Another sort of possibly dead Jedi, but he's not dead yet. Yet. yeah He is by the end of the episode. Watch this space. Yeah.
Speaker: It took me a moment, and me and mum, were we were talking about this, weren't we, just before, about like the crystal and the holocron. It's all like a bit complicated in terms of like why did they need to get the crystal?
Speaker: And yeah, all of this sort of like another MacGuffin almost. Yes. Not quite as significant as the holocron, but I guess it's sort tied in with the separatists a little bit because the separatists are now helping...
Speaker: Cad Bane, which before he was very much working as an independent kind of contractor, but now he's on board with the separatists. but We're dropped into quite a gnarly torture scene straight away, which i've I never get used to this. Yeah, I mean, that's like the six plus...
Speaker: violence and fear. Aid rating, yeah. I don't know. Torture is pretty, I know it's animated, but they don't hold back on the torture. Like in Empire Strikes Back, Han is being tortured. We don't really see it. We hear him screaming. We don't see it. Like the, you know, the scene cuts to outside with Darth Vader and Boba Fett and, yeah,
Speaker: You know, the worst of it is left to our imaginations. It's all in audio, yeah. You're seeing it. You pretty much see him dying, yeah. Yeah. It's really grim. And Cad Bane talking to him saying, you will remain conscious, Master Jedi. Yeah, that was awful. He's going get a full dose of XC33, whatever that is. While we're here, Cad Bane's voice. Yes.
Speaker: I'm intrigued by Cad Bane's voice. yeah I love how it's like electronic and organic at the same At same time. It's got, I think... I went and down a few internet rabbit holes, but didn't find anything. Oh, trying to work out what it is. Yeah, I feel like I should just trust my instincts because my instincts are that it's a ring modulator, which we've mentioned before, is the sound that gives the Daleks their voice. is not a full ring modulator because otherwise it'd sound like Dalek. It's a very light ring modulator.
Speaker: It is. It dips in and out a little bit sometimes. There's also like a flanger effect, which is like a where you sort of double up the voice yeah and a kind of pitch shifter as well, which yeah I feel just a subtle pitch shifter. So I've managed to figure out how I can apply all of those three effects to my mic in real time. Have you? Yes.
Speaker: i I don't think I can hear it, but if I... Have I turned into Cadbury? Yes! Oh my God, that's incredible. So it's like whoever's commanding that cruiser is a bold one. So good. Yeah. That is pretty good. That was, was kind of...
Speaker: Yeah, that's like, I think it's even lighter than what you've got a lot of the time. I've got too much on to compensate for that, but I can't do the character voice because 90% of it is the voice actor. It's the voice actor, yeah, of course. That's wicked though.
Speaker: You can put effects. Why do I not have OBS? What's going on? need to get on OBS. Anybody who uses Zoom or anything, you can put OBS. So you can do all this in your Zoom meetings. I do have OBS. Oh my gosh. This has just changed the game for all of my online teaching. You can teach as Cad Bane from now on. Yay.
Speaker: so good. This whole episode is on ships, basically, isn't it? on Yes. It's cruiser, like a Republic cruiser and a Separatist cruiser, which looked a lot like the Invisible Hand. But think they all just look similar. They all look the same because they're using the same models. Somehow Cad Bane has managed to get himself onto the Separatist things, even though he's working for Palpatine, he's working for Sidious, of course, not Palpatine. Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah. So Sidious will have got the separatists to lend him this ship. Lend him a ship. But then he he destroys quite a few of them, apparently, in the off-screen thing.
Speaker: We're told that he's he's lost a lot of ships. He's not very careful with anything that people lend him, no. People or vessels or anything. So, yeah, the whole thing is they've traced him yeah from the information, presumably, that Cato gave them at the end of the last episode. Yes.
Speaker: And they've got to try and get him and preferably the Holocron off the Separatist ship. Yeah. Is that the plan? That's kind of the plan. That's kind of the plan. Right, I've actually written at some point. Got the plan. Ahsoka asks what the plan is. Alec's plan is popular.
Speaker: They're going to rescue Bollorapal. Sadly, they're too late. They're too late. Favourite characters. Who's got a favourite character from this? We're doing so well at just cloughing ahead. Okay, Mum, who's your favourite character from this episode?
Speaker: um Oh dear. Am I allowed? I'm going to say anyway. yeah whatever you want You can have whatever you like. I've got actually favourite character, Bala Ropal, for being brave and not giving in to Cad Bane's bullying. But...
Speaker: but My other favourite, a little light-hearted, because it does get a bit serious. Battle Droid 2 points to Battle Droid 1. He's in charge. Yes. And then Battle Droid gets shot. and he says, oh, now I must be in charge. guess I'm in charge now. And then he gets shot and forced out.
Speaker: I call that bravery above and beyond the call of duty, both Bella Robel and the Battle Droid. Nice. I love it Couldn't choose between them. I think you better have Polaroid, I think. Battle droids is as much bravery as circumstantial destiny. It felt like he was being brave. But anyway, yes, I'll agree with that. gave but about nice I think all my favourite lines that are highlighted were all battle droids. Battle droids are incredible in this. I noticed when we watch with my dad, who by default has to watch Go Wars, the things he always talks about afterwards are always battle droids. Battle droids, yeah. And in fact, he talked us through that very scene, which is unlike him to be so specific. That's so funny. Sia, who is your fave character? So for this one, I went for Ahsoka. Yeah. And it's my first Ahsoka of series two. We're only two episodes in.
Speaker: But I think she was just great. Yeah. Kind of on it. She was very brave as well because she was saying to Anakin, don't tell him when later on the episode Cad Bane captures her and holds her as ransom. Oh yeah, that was awful. And she was going to get pushed out of the airlock. She was really shouting at him, wasn't she? And she was really sassy with Cad Bane as well, which I always appreciate. She does come from the Obi-Wan school of sass. I would have probably liked to have had Ahsoka, but as I had her in episode one, you can't have her every time. I've done this before. Well, actually, no, I haven't. I did have a four-episode arc where I could have said Obi-Wan every single episode, and I didn't.
Speaker: Franwyn, who did you go for? I went for Yalaren, who, although, as we've talked about a few times, he does not end well. He becomes a full-on imperial working for the ISP eventually. yeah But in this particular episode, two reasons. One was his line, of all the Jedi, why did I have to end up with the Sky?
Speaker: I feel your pain. Yeah, quite. And generally his sassing of, especially at the end. So your mission was your usual version of success. Yeah. Like, yeah. Anakin just gives it straight back though. I like it. Yeah. They've got a good working relationship. but Yeah. I just thought I'd give you laron a shout out. He was very patient. He didn't like any of this. he know So yeah, pick it back up with the episode. is it that's He was like, we did not come here expecting to be taking on another ship. We thought we were going to be
Speaker: landing and you know using a ah land force with walkers and stuff so we are not equipped not for this yeah for docking with another ship and that kind of ship to ship interaction yeah but anakin decides to use the land craft the walkers walkers to dock anyway assault which is typical anakin yeah Risky plan. Again, this is Anakin's risky plan count with quite a lot. Yeah, and he's very good at just like bulldozing everybody. He gives a stern look to Rex because Rex is like, we don't have any assault craft and he just gives him a look.
Speaker: And Rex is like, okay, we'll get ready. go we'll We'll do this. We're off. As he's improvising, there's this kind of quite light, almost comical soundtrack going on. Yeah. It's almost like, oh, here we go again. do notice that. With Anakin's silly, crazy plans. Off he goes. Yeah.
Speaker: So to cut a very long story short, they cool infiltrate the ship. They have ah the best face-off ever in zero gravity. Zero gravity, yes. Because Cad Bane turns the gravity off. Yeah, because he's got his rocket boots and you know the droids can magnetise as well a bit. I love that the clones instantly go, wait, we're trained for this. Yeah.
Speaker: Go, go, Gatchit. I've just remembered. Yeah. I seem to remember reading something about that in our character encyclopedias about how different clones are trained for different things and these clones feel like they were a bit more specialist and ready for this kind of antigraph. We can fight in zero gravity. And they were using all their tricks. They've got their boots, they've got whip cords, which i don't know that we've seen clones using very much before. yeah and And the guy with the Gatling gun. So he's like upside down, magnetised to the ceiling, firing machine gun. With a machine gun. Battle droids.
Speaker: I have very few notes for this because I was just so in it. It was so long just a frantic like back and forth battle. Another original trilogy Easter egg was the clone banging his head yeah when they're searching in me the dark.
Speaker: absolutely Absolutely unnecessary, total meta, we love it. but Very funny. I liked, again, going back to Ahsoka, I liked the way she does actually take it on with Anakin. And she would say, no, you can't go back. You know, she really stands up to him. And he actually did listen. Didn't have a of choice. but oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Because Anakin, right at the very end, yeah, when... Yeah, sorry, I skipped a bit. No, no, you're absolutely right. Like... He's determined to get Cad Bane. Yeah. And the hologram, presumably. yeah He doesn't like failing. When he's come up with a wild plan, yeah, he's got to prove himself right, yeah I feel, is a bit of an ego thing. But he does save Ahsoka as well, just before that. I mean, they are very close, although they squabble all the time. Yeah, I noted actually a bit about that, about their relationship really has yeah consolidated. i feel like there is a bit of attachment stuff going on here. oh definitely. yeah And they're both juggling it in their own way. They're kind of a mirror image of each other a lot of the time. like One of them will be impatiently ignoring rules like Ahsoka was at the beginning of the last episode on Felicia and he's having to like step in and really talk to her. And then this is the mirror image of that where...
Speaker: As you said, Mum, she's having to really stop him and say, patience, and we're going this way to the hangar to get off this ship. Yeah. He takes a bit of responsibility at the end of this, where he's talking to her and he goes, no, actually, this was my fault. and Yeah. Yeah, because at the beginning, can't remember what those little messages are that come on at the beginning. Yeah, I heard Skytalkers calling them fortune cookies. Yeah, well, saw that. That's quite cute. I love that. Shout Skytalkers. We're also doing a Clone Wars watch. The one for this was um overconfidence is the most dangerous form of carelessness. yeah And you really have to think about it, but it is true. Ahsoka and Anakin are both overconfident. I can do this, yes. yeah And then, ooh, whoops. And it kind of takes the other one to step in and be like, you can't. Yeah, and actually sometimes put other people in danger as well. but Yeah.
Speaker: I just think they're quite interesting. Like Luke says in The Last Jedi about the Jedi and their hubris and how they're just like, yeah, that little quote, the overconfidence is the most... i mean, just calling overconfidence a form of carelessness at all is quite a cool yeah thing to think about. Like yeah as a somebody like a Jedi who...
Speaker: have this inherent power. They've got inherent gifts. They're instantly elevated as beings. But if you give into that and let it overcome you as Anakin and Ahsoka both do in these two episodes. Yes. I mean, even right at the end of this episode, Ahsoka then switches and weirdly says at the last minute, I'll go and get the holocron. You know, like they're literally on the shuttle. Yeah.
Speaker: It's like, come on, you just stopped Anakin from doing You stopped Anakin doing it. And then she tries and he's like, no yeah But then there's a big explosion and we see Cad Bane go down.
Speaker: i put inverted air quotes there because my instant thought was he's not going down that easy. No way. There's no way. no couldn't see, I couldn't figure out how he got out of it at that point, which in retrospect is like, oh my gosh, of course that's how he did it. Yeah.
Speaker: He's very resourceful. He is very resourceful. Once again, Anakin takes the blame for the failed mission. Yes. yeah Which is pretty good at that. He's pretty good at owning his mistakes, which, as always, as we keep saying in the Clone Wars, it's making...
Speaker: the Revenge of the Sith turn for Anakin way more believable and understandable. Because any critique there was of Revenge of the Sith was often about the fact of Anakin's turn to the dark side seeming abrupt. But now with all this like Clone Wars retrospective vision, we can see how often he made mistakes, somebody else made mistakes, he's getting more and more disillusioned with things, he's getting frustrated,
Speaker: He's having to invest a lot in Ahsoka and we're going see how that turns out. Spoiler alert, not well. Not good. Not good. Yeah. All right. Okay, Children of the Force, episode three of this arc, the finale of this arc. The finale arc. It just gets more and more intense as it goes along. This so intense. Yeah.
Speaker: I really, really struggle with bad things happening to children. I really, i watch a lot of quite gnarly stuff. i love The Hunger Games. I've read The Hunger Games.
Speaker: I watch a lot of gnarly stuff, but like, especially when they're really little, I just can't do it. And I've had to turn films and TV shows off because of the content before, because I just, I'm like, no, that's somewhere I don't want to go. So to go there... It's one thing for teenagers, like Ahsoka and I don't know the Hunger Games, but I'm guessing. They are teenagers, yeah. They're teenagers. And like there is still some really gnarly stuff in the Hunger Games with younger... Younger than teenagers, you Younger than teenagers. And it's like, oh God, can't read. But it's the framing as well. The framing's really important.
Speaker: I feel like the Cad Bane-ness of this... The way that he's just so, he just doesn't care. Yeah. And he's given this new mission in this episode to go and kidnap these kids. kid Like he just literally says, anything else I can help you with? And Dark Siddles casually likes lots of things. I'll go and get these kids and take them to Mustafar. Kidnap children and take them to a lava planet. Off you go. Yeah.
Speaker: I'd say he's heartless. He's pretty heartless. He is heartless. And he doesn't really ever get redeemed. Spoiler alert. Yeah. No. Yeah. I mean, you've been listening to the show, you'll have heard our coverage of Book of Boba Fett. Yeah, yeah, yeah. you know what happens to Cad Bane. Yeah, it's not good.
Speaker: it Still. All right. Favourite characters? ah I chose Ahsoka. She's done it. We've reached out Ahsoka. it.
Speaker: I loved her detective work with Anakin. loved her involvement in coming up with the plan. She decided that they should go into Cad Bane's mind. yeah to find the lab and also i love the fact that she gets her braid back which i hadn't even noticed her losing the braid probably because i was typing notes oh yeah he takes it it's like he's taking it as a trinket almost it's very yeah like i'll have this yeah what's that called like a little trophy gathering a trophy yeah yeah yeah nice it's a trophy Suzanne who are you going for Well, not exactly a favourite character. Sorry to change your rules a bit. but That's all right. um There's so many characters. My God, their names as well. I'll just digress a little bit and think, I keep thinking they must be anagrams of something and spend too much time looking at the letters thinking, what name could that name Because they often are. like But I thought my favourite line was by Mace Windu. who says, I think your fear of who you work for overcomes your fear of us, to Cad Bane. And I thought that was very was very deep. That is very deep. Because you don't think of Cad Bane being afraid of anybody.
Speaker: Yeah. Obviously not afraid of the Jedi particularly. i think Windu put his finger on the pulse there. Yeah. So Mace Windu. Interesting. Yeah. I'm going for Mace Windu.
Speaker: Yeah. i mean, I wouldn't say Nat as a general thing, he'd be my favourite character, but I think in that instance. In that instance, yeah. Yeah. He's a very good observer. He's great. Yeah, absolutely. See ya.
Speaker: It had to be done. We're three episodes in. We're back on Obi-Wan. There's no keeping you from Obi-Wan. He is your destiny. He is my homeboy. he was pretty cool in this episode. He was great. Yeah. I very much enjoyed that they all did heists in different directions. Yeah. Like go and find the children. Like what? Great. And he was so close, but so far. And he just did a little fist. Like, damn it.
Speaker: Which was such an underreaction. I loved it. yeah See, we have got like multiple adventures. Yeah, there's so much in this episode. Yeah, multiple Jedi adventures happening at the same time. So we find out, first of all, how Cad Bane escaped, disguising himself as a trooper. And we discover that he's got green blood. Was it green? It looked green. It's green, yeah. He's got green blood. And also, he looks really weird without the hat. Yeah. don't want to see it very often. I was very unnerved. It's a bit, yeah, unsettling.
Speaker: He does instantly go and put another hat on though, so he must have loads of those hats just hanging around all of his various places. sure he has. He goes and gets a hat a toothpick is one of the first things he does. Dave Filoni. We were shocked, actually, we were watching behind the scenes and there was a couple of shots of Filoni being interviewed with no hat. Very weird, very, very weird. And it looks even weirder than Cad Bane without a hat. Really? Oh, interesting.
Speaker: Maybe Filoni is really Cad Bane in disguise. But he gets away. Ahsoka spots him. You're no clone, she says, being awesome. And Anakin says, lock down the hyperspace rings. And Admiral Yelaren says, no, lock them all down, which is 3PO's line from A New Hope when R2's trying stop all the trash compactors. you know all these films of Pyharmid? Yes. You know I do. Yes.
Speaker: Yeah, so we've had a little Easter egg in each three of these episodes, which I love. But yeah, he's got away and the Jedi Council aren't happy because he's got a list of thousands of children. We forgot to say that the whole point of the holocron and the jewel, the jewel contains the list of kids' names. Is that right? Is that my interpreting that right? i I thought that the jewel opened the holocron to give him the list of names. I thought the Jedi has to open it.
Speaker: But I thought without the jewel, you can't extract the net. Whatever. So he needed both. He needed, because he got Anakin to open it in the end of the last yeah episode by yes threatening to chuck Ahsoka out of the ship. Again, awful. Cad Bane is awful. ah Oh, yeah. And, sorry, quick flashback to the sound design of the Holocron opening. Oh, yeah. incredible. Like, all these kind of, like...
Speaker: Hums and like high chimes and all sorts of stuff going on. Fun things. Which is not the last time that we're going to see a holocron opening. So i think we need to track holocron opening sound design. Because it's one of the coolest things of ever heard. See what it sounds like. Yeah. Yeah. That's a good point.
Speaker: But yeah, so he needed Anakin to open it. And he needed the crystal to extract the information. So he stole the crystal from one. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. And then now he's got that information.
Speaker: Yes. Fair enough. So he's got away with it all. And Jedi Council have to meet. Yoda sort of leads a nice meditation with some beautiful meditation bell sound score and like choir and stuff. I would like that on an app so that I can just meditate. Meditate to that. Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, kind of like meditation music. Can we have they're trying to find the children, which was a really spooky scene. Oh my gosh. I think I was just so unsettled throughout this whole episode because I couldn't quite get over the horror of stealing children. Yeah. So they figure out where they've got to where the children are being taken from. And Yoda says another original trilogy callback, the future you see young Skywalker. It's not the same quote, but it's the same vibe. Same vibe. Yes. But yeah, so they've got to go to Rhodia. They split up to find the kids. They've got to go Naboo.
Speaker: Yeah. And they've got to go to the place whose name I've forgotten where the Nautilun people live, yeah which has a strange name. i thought it'd be called Nautila, but it's not. It's called whatever it was called.
Speaker: So I had a bit of a question about this episode because they all seem to be getting everywhere very, very quickly. So are all these places close? I don't think so. Not particularly. I know Naboo is, I think, in the mid-rim, I think. Yeah, yeah. That's what I thought.
Speaker: I don't know where Rhodia is. i've got feel like Rhodia must be in the outer rim because Rhodian is so much like Hatties as a language. So they're all over the shop. Yeah, yeah. But I guess it's just we don't ever bother to watch Hyperspace Journeys. Yeah. Because unless there's anything interesting going on, which there probably isn't. Yeah. I know we talked about this in an earlier episode about how the role-playing game tried to establish hyperspace time frames. And there's a gazetteer and stuff. But I don't know if we've really stuck to that. think hyperspace journeys are quicker than the role-playing game would like you to think they are. The role-playing game likes hyperspace journeys to be quite slow because it gives opportunity for role-playing.
Speaker: Yes. Well, characters are stuck in a ship. All sorts of shenanigans can arise, whereas in yeah stories like Clone Wars and so on, it's just better to just have. need it be, yeah, really, really fast. I wanted to play a bit of the rhodia music because I loved it because it's Bulgarian choir, I think, which is a very distinctive voice sound.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Your sons. Wow. So cool. Like just drama. Bulgarian choir just brings all the drama. They do, yeah. I love a Bulgarian choir. Yeah.
Speaker: And it was nice to see Rodia again. We talked about last season about Rodia and how beautiful it is. And we get to see the the dome and how ships go in and out through these little opening window things, which are just stunning. And with this new hyped up animation of season two, it looked even better. It looked amazing. And the babies are really cute. Baby Rodians. mean, we've now seen a baby Rodian in live action. thanks we have. Yeah. But this one, which I hadn't tracked, is called We Done. no Which is such a cute name for a baby.
Speaker: We Done. That's very cute. yeah But yes, we're slightly too late. Yeah, Bane is already there, disguised as a Jedi using Jar Jar's... Method. budgetd here Budget. Budget cloak. Halloween Jedi costume of a cloak.
Speaker: Yes. And he's basically describing his own crime as an excuse for taking the child. He's saying like there's somebody on that way trying to take Jedi children. So we've got to take the child. now And he uses hypnosis because the mother's not having it. She's cleverer than he is. But he's got that little spinning, hypnotizing device. I did note that if Cad Bane is over there and has just kind of thwarted Obi-Wan to the post there, then that means that hopefully Anakin is on time to be able to get the other one. Because if they've all split off and gone in different directions, it's going to take Cad Bane a little while to travel between them. Yeah, I think there's an assumption that he must have done because we don't see a Gungan baby.
Speaker: We do. we do, yeah. do. Yes, we have that whole little scene. So they do a bait and switch to catch him with a Gungan baby. yes, yeah. And we haven't seen a Gungan baby before. And I think this is only second female Gungan that we've seen as well. Yes, it is, yeah. She got her head tail things in a ponytail. Yes. Which is bit different how Pepe Bo wore hers loose. Yeah, yeah. Yeah.
Speaker: Well, the more we learn about the Gankans, the more i love them. Yeah. Yeah, that's right, because, yeah, they do the whole thing with the Tukakat ambush. Yeah. And Ahsoka's don't move, Slimo. Yes.
Speaker: She loves dropping a bit Hatties in there. She does. She's great. I noted that the baby Gungan's got a really, really lush little mobile above bed.
Speaker: And it sounds really cool and it looks really cool. ah But they do the bait and switch thing where the Gungan mother is putting down a pretend baby. Yes. So the Cad Bane goes in to try and steal it and it's not there. Oh, a toy. Yeah. Yeah. yeah I forgot to mention, we also saw Bane's new ship, which I hadn't put two and two together until I went on Wikipedia and read about it. But I think it was in the previous episode. He asks for a new ship and triple the money that he got. think it might be in the first episode. It's this one, actually. It's this one because he's now going to go and steal children. So he's like, right, give me more money then. He's asked for that. And now we get to see the ship, which in case you're interested, is called the Xanadu Blood.
Speaker: And there's a modified rogue-class Porax 38 fighter. Okay. i noticed around the time of Ahsoka putting the toy in the cot.
Speaker: Yeah. And Bane does spot it, eventually. He says to her, you're quite clever, but naive. And I did put true there, but I'm actually not sure that it is true that she's naive. I think there's just so much that she's trying to yeah work out all the time. all the time, yeah. I think that's him trying to get the better of her but not actually yeah verbally speaking. yeah No, because she manages to injure him anyway.
Speaker: Yeah, and they capture him, which was... Yeah, they've got him. Ahsoka does that little cute look for the baby Gunga and she pulls a little cute face for the Gunga and the Gunga pulls it back. Slightly weird. It's how she's carrying two babies. yeah So there's so much that's happened already, but it's only the first half of the episode because we've then got to rescue the other children, yeah ones that he did manage to take. So to do that, the Jedi try and break into Cad Bane's mind. Yes, which awful. And use like a mind trick, which Ahsoka suggests in her like Bright Ideas. And Obi's a bit worried about it and Mace is a bit worried about it, but they do it anyway. And there's an amazing it's layering of voices. really cool and really scary. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker: David Acord said that there's like screaming cacophony of voices yeah in Cad Bane's head. And they showed it a little clip in the behind the scenes of the cast together recording like the voices of Obi-Wan and Mace yeah and Anakin all doing their lines in sync when they're, because they're sort of like talking off of each other. And I thought they just did it in post, but they actually did it as a performance thing. Whoa, lush. That is cool. Plunkett called them a boy band. A really, really creepy Jedi boy band. Scary boy band, yeah. That was so freaky. I didn't like that at all. And Cad Bane, he's very distressed by it and he's very go out of my head. Yeah, I can't this. What are you doing?
Speaker: Yeah, can't this. So he agrees to take them to the holocron. Yeah. Which he does. Yeah. Yeah. So he takes Mace and Obi-Wan and Cody in a shuttle to this place in the Outer Rim, which is his little hideout, which I only found out again by Googling because...
Speaker: It's all so fast. They don't really like give you any information. but yeah, they go to his little hideout and mace triggers. You've certainly stepped in it this time. Classic Obi-Wan.
Speaker: He does deserve best character just for that line. Yep. And there's all the laser cutting beams, which i reminded me of Logan's Run again. It's like another Logan's Run callback with the red lasers. And Bane escapes from that little...
Speaker: Yeah. he's Part of the story. He goes away in a skate pod. He's just very good, isn't he? He's just very very good. As sinister and horrible as he is, he's very, very good. Yeah.
Speaker: But the finale is really, well, after Ahsoka and Anakin have had to go and see Palpatine, and this is where we got that wraparound lighting effect that I was talking about at beginning of this with the silhouette. The CGI-ness of it is stunning. Yeah.
Speaker: kind of emulating chroma key compositing. Yeah. if we want to get technical. I wanted to shout out Ian Abercrombie, who voices Palpatine. He is really good at yeah Yeah. I mean, he's not Ian McDermid, but he's in terms of a replacement voice actor, he's doing a fantastic job. It's like when you kind of work out what they're doing in this kind of last bit before we get to that conversation, I think this is where I kind of just went, oh, now I'm just sad. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The kind of whole like we're going to condition them into being slaves. He's going to try and turn younglings into Okay. slave This is the big thing that I just, before we started recording, I had bit of a eureka moment because I was talking to mum about it and loads of fans of the Clone Wars are probably now, if they're listening to this podcast, shouting at their phones of like, yes, of course, this is what it is. Yeah. Is this the beginning of Project Necromancer? Yes.
Speaker: Because I wondered at first, I was like, why is he making Inquisitors? Because we've got Inquisitors coming up in Rebels a little bit further down the timeline, which is a similar thing. And like the how he gets Inquisitors is mainly from Jedi Order 66 survivors and converting them into dark side users. but Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker: This feels like the beginning of the Mount Tantis Hemlock Bad Batch plot with Omega, with the taking of Jedi children and trying to do stuff with their blood. yeah I wonder if this is a very vague or clever sort of indication from the little legend at the beginning that says the first step to correcting a mistake is patience. And I've been thinking all the way, well, what patience did they have, the Jedi, and what mistake were they trying to correct?
Speaker: But maybe it's deeper than that. And it's Palpatine's. Palpatine's. is going to have to be very patient to get this whole... Because he said that's what he wants, talking to Anakin. Yeah.
Speaker: And he says about seeing an army of force trained. um But that's not for who people think it is. his Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's his deeper plan. Maybe. i don't know. It's Puppetine intrigue.
Speaker: It's got Puppetine intrigue, Sidious intrigue, whichever way around, over it. Yeah, yeah, whichever. oh my gosh. Yeah, like having that caption... Yeah, the first step to correct your mistake is patience. It's referring to Palpatine. Which brings me back to Chris Kempshaw's book, The Rise and Fall of the Galactic Empire. Who is the Clone Wars for? Whose viewpoint are we getting in the Clone Wars?
Speaker: It's always different. And that we always assume that the little title cards are... Jedi related. It's for Jedi, but no, not I think. I mean, that's been bugging me because I can't, I haven't been able to see. Otherwise, yeah, what patience. What patience and what mistakes. I mean, they make mistakes every 10 minutes, but they're not patient. And they certainly, they're not patient in this episode. No, they just go barging in, really. Well spotted. So yeah, that could be,
Speaker: Could do that instead. It's a deep thing, isn't it? Oh gosh. And yeah, his patience is going to go through the Mount Tantis hemlock bad batch plot through to Grogu and what Gideon is doing and a load of stuff we still don't know yet about cloning and ultimately resulting in him cloning himself for the Rise of Skywalker. yeah So those seeds were pretty much sown in this episode, which makes this a pretty important Clone Wars episode. It does, yeah.
Speaker: yeah yeah We're not going to know for about 10 years, are we really? No. I might never know. In our terms, yeah. Like, when are we going to the rest of this, like, cloning intrigue? I think we will. I feel that Ahsoka Season 2 is probably not going to deal with it, but we are, I'm sure, we're going to get more Mando, and I'm sure it's going to be in the Mando side of things that we find out more about the cloning because it's part of Grogu's story. Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah. Strand casting and all that stuff. Yeah. But I'm really looking forward to re-watching The Bad Batch. Yeah. I said that yesterday. need to watch The Batch again. yeah but Because season three of The Batch is this continued. It's like the continuation of this episode.
Speaker: Interesting. Oh, my gosh. Wow. Okay. Yeah, another sorry now another little one-liner, Anakin, R2, begin the landing cycle. Yeah. It's a Luke Skywalker line from The Empire Strikes Back. Yep.
Speaker: Mustafar, we've got all of this prequels vibe stuff going on the Revenge of the Sith. We've got some pretty freaky droids on Mustafar dealing with the children. yeah I'm not sure about them. Yeah, like medical droids. But even they're nervous about doing the procedure They're like, they might not survive. And Palpatine's like, yeah, whatevs. Wild. Yeah, there's a a lot of talk in the behind the scenes about Mustafar because obviously it's an important planet. yeah We've seen it already at this point in live action in Revenge of the Sith. Yeah. They've introduced a new person in the behind the scenes, Joel Aron, who is a CG supervisor. And he talks about making the lava and doing texture paintings using Revenge of the Sith as a as a reference and taking colour references from it. He said it was like painting your house with the original paint that the house was painted with. Yeah. I love that. That's a nice quote. So he like built up layers of texture paintings on top of each other and then you rotate them at different speeds in different directions and it makes this kind of moving lava.
Speaker: That's cool. Dave Felloni was talking about the difference between photorealism and drawing and the in the Clone Wars they're constantly... going between photorealism, which of course they can do because they can animate. like There's so much photorealistic CG in Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith, but they didn't want to be photorealistic. But it couldn't be just like 2D drawings either. So they've kind of found this middle ground of three d but painted. And they keep talking about paintings. And if you watch more Shadow Lord, which is the latest in this series of Lucasfilm animation, yeah it's all about paintings they're using matte paintings it's all got brush strokes i love that interesting so having mustafar as being a very painted creation is really awesome it's cool yeah yeah that's really cool
Speaker: He blows up that base quite quickly though, doesn't he? He's like, right, there's Jedi here, quick. Yeah. Get the kids out, blow up. Yeah, just let it go. they did I mean, the Palpatine was like not even worried about getting the kids out, I think. He does tell them to evacuate. yeah evacuate the kids. and Yeah, he does. it Because he wants the kids still. Yeah, he doesn't want to lose them. He wants them to the plot. He doesn't want the Jedi to find out what he's doing, which is a constant theme from here on out in Star Wars, is Palpatine trying to cover up the cloning. Like, it's a constant...
Speaker: secret that needs to be kept secret yeah sure which he pretty much does because as we said we don't know yet so yeah yeah but obviously anakin and ahsoka are just like we're getting the kids out they get it they use the pulse they find the babies there's a great 360 shot around ahsoka she's reaching out and sensing where they are yeah ah they find them beautifully done babies get rescued they do r2 saves the day as always yes Opening the door. if you don't have R2, you can't get out. You open doors. You need R2 to open all of the doors for you and turn the gravity back on and all sorts of stuff like that.
Speaker: Yeah, he's always there. The epilogue is the council. They've got the holocron. They've got the babies, but they don't have campaign. And Yoda says they must move forward very cautiously. Well, we'll find out yeah in future episodes. Cautious doesn't exactly ring true. Maybe Yoda, but nobody else. Yeah, Yoda's pretty good at caution. Anyway, it's all right. I'm sitting back there telling everybody else what to do. LAUGHTER Yeah, the Jedi Council do have that privilege of like choosing when they go and where they go. Yeah, they do. Always somewhere safe in the background.
Speaker: Well, not always, because some of them are always off somewhere else, aren't they? Yeah, to be fair. They're all doing stuff. No, but this particular episode, I felt they were awesome. You never see Yariel Poof out with the clones. That's what I want to know. Where is Yariel Poof?
Speaker: Where is Yaddle? What's going on? Maybe we'll see later in the Clone Wars. I can't remember. don't think so.
Speaker: Oh my gosh. What an amazing arc. That was fun. It's significant arc, apart from the Cad Bane of it all, which is great. We love Cad Bane.
Speaker: He's so nasty, so dark. No conscience. No conscience, that's it. He's got no conscience whatsoever. He's the purest bounty hunter that we could have. Yeah, because you see all of the other bounty hunters at some point kind of go, ooh, especially around children. but like, Cad Bane's like, yeah, whatever. Yeah.
Speaker: But that's it, isn't it? He does anything for money, really. It's all about money and bit of power. But he hasn't got the power, but he can get the money. then That's what he does. and yeah it just He doesn't care. It just falls off him. yeah But as well as him, we did get this whole Sidious thing, which I had underestimated going into this arc.
Speaker: But just how significant and awesome it is, looking back on it with 2026 eyes. Because I think watching it back then, it would have gone over your head a bit. yeah Of like, well, Sidious is up to some shenanigans, but we don't really know what it is. But having seen all of the content, the sequel trilogy, the Mandoverse...
Speaker: Bad Batch, all of that in the aftermath of this. like This whole arc is so significant. yeah yeah Yeah, and a bit of real life. A bit of real life influence yeah makes you look at things differently to how we would have done a few years ago. Yeah, stuff that's happened in in our world since then. Yeah, that's a very valuable a point. yeah Whether that was intentional, probably not. Well, they obviously didn't know what was going happen in in the real world since then. but...
Speaker: As it happens, they were very, um yeah I don't know, able to see into the future. Yeah. I mean, watching The Clone Wars now, while also reading Dr. Chris Kempshiel's book alongside, is so very real. It's all a lot.
Speaker: and I have a ridiculous shout out to do before we finish, yeah which is i have a lovely friend who is currently getting guinea pigs used to people. And the way she is doing that is playing them this podcast. shout out to katherine's guinea pigs hello guinea pigs we love you guinea pigs i can't think of anything that's so cute isn't it i'd like a guinea pig they're cute well i was told yesterday that they're getting used to my laugh
Speaker: I was like, yeah, well, I'm going to see them in person. See them in person and see if they recognize me. We're indoctrinating guinea pigs into Star Wars, which is kind of cool. It's great, isn't it? Yeah, if we had a guinea pig, we could bring into watch. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yes. Right, it's happening. It's going to be called We Done. The Rhodian guinea pig. Named after the baby Rhodian. think we need to end this conversation right now it's sounding a bit too serious
Speaker: Listeners, if you've been enjoying this, you need to know what you need to watch an next week. You've got five episodes before next week. We've got Senate Spy, Landing at Point Reign, Weapons Factory, Legacy of Terror, and Brain Invaders, with the sci-fi titles there, which is the Return to Geonosis arc. It's a five-episode arc. We're going to be doing that just me and you, Thea, I think, next week. Can't wait. That's going to be a lot of watching. Yeah.
Speaker: I'll be with you. will be watching. I know. going to be great. I'll paste a little reminder on Instagram, our little graphic that tells you what to watch. Yay. And speaking of which, go follow us on Instagram. That's where we do most of our stuff. Most of our stuff.
Speaker: Yeah. But we're also on Facebook and we're also on Blue Sky. Blue Sky. TikTok. TikTok. Yeah, for our little reels when we get around to making reels. We're very busy people, but we do try to make the odd reel. It's difficult being self-employed. Thank you, Mama, for joining us. Yeah, thank you. Oh, it was fun. Thank you for asking me. I don't know whether you did ask me or whether you told me. We just went, ah, we could do with a guest there.
Speaker: Got one ready made. We've got our journeys into wild space planned with you and Rebecca, which is awesome. We're gradually gearing up for that. And we'll see you again for more Clone Wars 2. But yeah, thank you for being with us Thank you. We appreciate you, Star Wars mama.
Speaker: yeah And we'll be back, yeah, next week for Return to Geonosis. I can't wait. Until then. Bye. Bye.
Speaker: Bye.
