Star Wars series -Spoilers galore

MOUSE DROID GANG ATTACK *glee* look I just really love mouse droids ok

And I think I said this in the beginning, but I just. do not give one single fuck about Mandalore or Mandalorians as a people, so this season has been profoundly meh for me. Yes it’s a bummer the planet got burned out, but we’ve not spent enough time with any of them for me to really get a grip on them as individuals*, the helmet thing removes any impression you’d normally gain from facial expressions from supporting characters, and none of them have any personality beyond “gonna stand here and look stoic in my armor/be hostile”(also the no helmet-removing-thing-ever for an entire culture is just dumb af. I could get behind “no removing around non-Mandalorians”, but it’s just so…fundamentalistly cultish and creepy. Not cool and mysterious”. )**

Also having not watched the animated stuff, I don’t find Bo-Katan compelling in the slightest. However, I really, really dislike the “ I should have X artifact/rule Y civilization/be treated like Z bc ROYALTY” trope in any media; I don’t know if I’m too American or just too me but yeah nah no none of this right of kings bullshit for me. Anyone acting as if they’re owed loyalty simply because of their family line is automatically on my bad side.***

BUT it looks like we’re going back to the Lone Wolf & Cub angle, which is very much what I was here for in the first place, so yay! 

*except the Armorer; she’s awesome, but we’ve also spent a LOT more time with her. Actual character development works, who knew?
** I don’t know of any real-life parallel; anyone? 
*** lookin at you, Danerys Targaryen. And to a much lesser extent, you also Aragorn son of Arathorn.

I think the thing about fundamentalists not showing their faces to others is based on the burqa and niqab, except in real life Muslim women take them off when around family. And yeah, Mandalorians are under ninja rules - when there's one Mandalorian they're cool, when there are a lot of Mandalorians they're kind of meh. This season is the equivalent of me as a kid lining up all my toys to fight each other in a big battle while making laser and jetpack noises with my mouth, complete with not having any compelling backstory but just doing it because it looks kind of neat. And just like back then I also got kind of bored with the spectacle pretty quickly.

Rankin' The Jedi That I've Seen in Clones' Wars: The TV Show For Children Thus Far

1. Luminary Undooly
2. Kitt FISTO!
3. Bariss
4. Mace Windu
5. Yoder
6. Old Ben Kenobi (Young Version)
7. Plo Koon (Solely because of this George Lucas quote, "Only a diseased mind thinks Plo Koon is the best character.”)


8. Old Turtle Man Jedi That Investigates Thelma & Louise in Space w/ Asuka
9. Master Mondy (That Guy With a Really Tall Head)
10. Anakin "Skyguy" Skywalker
11. Some Lady With Dreadlocks Who Helped Anakin Save Ethan Koth
12. Jedi Librarian
13. Ethan Koth
14. Asuka "Snips" Tano

I think that's all of 'em that showed up in the show up to this point.

Did I just watch 2 seasons of Clone Wars for nothing? I saw the season finale of The Mando Season III and it kind of seemed like they were like, "Remember how much fun Season 1 was? What if we wrapped things up in such a way that you immediately assume it's going to kind of a be a 'return to form' next season and you aren't going to have to know shit about Duchess Satine Kreeze or Gloof Glumberschmiz or whatever the fuck that Giant-Sized Manthing looking-ass pirate was named."

By my estimation it kind of failed as it's own story this past season. This most recent season was a lot of bullshit that would have made more sense if I’d watched Clone Wars and so I began watching that show but Mando’s season finale seemingly reeled that shit in.

I do think Clone Wars is actually the best thing in the star wars franchise, but anything to do with Mandalore just sucks.

Honestly, anything mandalore related in all of Star Wars kinda sucks if it isn't Jango Fett.

Maybe we have discussed this before, but the whole Jedi order is messed up. It is not like Palps was all that ingenious, his plans were very transparent. The Jedi were too inflexible and set in their ways. They failed to listen to Qui-Gon. They bungled all their interactions with Anakin. They ignored the politics until it was too late. They supported the war. Obi-Wan turned a blind eye to Anakin's relationships with Padme and Palpatine. Yoda failed to kill Palpatine.

I'm well past the halfway point of Clone Wars now and while I still think it's kind of a mixed bag there is one thing it has done that I think is great. In Revenge of the Sith there's that one scene where a paranoid Anakin starts bellowing at Padme for Obi Wan visiting her while he wasn't there. I've always thought the "You fuckin' Obi Wan?!" vibe present in that scene is just so out of left field not in a way that really breaks the movie or anything. Anakin is, after all, kind of paranoid and losing touch with reality by that point but having now watched 70% of Clone Wars that scene has been contextualized and Anakin's fears seem a lot less unreasonable.

"Why?" you ask.

Because Obi-Wan Kenobi's defining character trait in the Clone Wars TV show for children is that he is extremely horny and flirts with every goddamn woman he encounters. Duchesses. Sith Assassins. Female presenting droids. Cartoon Young Old Ben does not give a shit! He will put mack moves on them. Anakin has seen this behavior from him and is completely right to be worried that his teacher/buddy might be trying to get in his wife's cultural appropriating geisha attire.

There’s a theory that the Jedi were generally dtf, just as long as they weren’t too blatant about it. Anakin’s tragedy is not his susceptibility to attachments, it’s that his yokel brain couldn’t register the nuances of actual Jedi behavior even though Obi-Wan was right out there showing him how it was done.

Do we need a Star Wars fuck count thread?

I finished Clone Wars. Overall it was a pretty mixed bag but the end of Season 5 through Season 7 was by and large pretty good where a bad episode was a rarity not the norm and they absolutely nailed the landing. I'd legit put the last two episodes of Clone Wars up near the top of all the Star Wars shit I've watch. So good was it that it kind of made me want to rewatch Episode III. I didn't though. Instead I just started watching Rebels.

This is exactly what my friend said to recommend Rebels to me: "This is exactly like watching a West End Games Star Wars campaign!*"

I love that show, and am SO excited for the Ahsoka series coming in a few weeks.

*This becomes even more true in one particular episode

Agreed. Clone Wars had a ton of filler (and even worse, Jar-Jar episodes) and really only was engaging to me when it focused on Ahsoka and Rex, once they became the real stars of the show. Rebels always felt more focused and coherent to me. Rebels also benefitted from the major plot points not happening in a movie that came out before the series started.