Star Wars: The Clone Wars/Headscratchers


 * Does the galaxy far, far away have no concept of war crimes? For example, Obi-Wan's fake surrender and the Republic's use of at least one child soldier (Ahsoka) seem rather war crime-y.
 * You do realize the entire Grand Army of the Republic consists of child soldiers? None of the clones are older then eleven.
 * Also, there is no equivalent to the Geneva Convention. General Grievous, for instance, has bombarded defeated worlds to cinders just for opposing him.
 * Boys as young as 13 have been historically used as soldiers up until the mid-1900s, and still are in some countries.
 * Well yeah, he's the bad guy. The clones are defensible on the child front, as different species probably have different ages of maturity, and thanks to cloning tricks, they're as close to adults as anyone. The fake surrender and Anakin's padawan are still fairly douchey.
 * The fact that they're using clones at all shows they don't have the same morals that we do.
 * I say the slave army of canon fodder is more warcrimey than a single child soldier.
 * The real difference is, the decision to use the slave army of cannon fodder rests entirely in the hands of a corrupt, Palpatine-controlled Senate- inexcusable, but understandable given who is responsible. The decision to use padawans on the front lines? That's all the "heroic" Jedi's doing..
 * Re. the clones: it's not all Palps' doing. Characters we're meant to see as heroic support using them: Padme Amidala, Bail Organa, Onaconda Farr, etc. They might view the clones as people more than resources (which is more than can be said of some of the other Senators), but thus far none of them has come out and condemned the use of clones as slavery. The way I see it, nobody in this story is innocent; at the very least, they're all guilty of maintaining a status quo where people who ought to have a right to choose whether or not to fight in a war--be they Padawans or clones--don't have any such right.
 * Ahsoka may be only fourteen, but she's still a Jedi. That's gotta count for something...
 * According to Lucas she's eleven.
 * Maybe her race ages differently? She doesn't look like a preteen, she can be like an 18 human.
 * Um, no. She looks pretty much exactly how a girl her age (14) should look. She's nowhere near the equivalent of 18.
 * The same Lucas that can't correctly pronounce half of his own planets. Every other source says fourteen, so...WordOfGod be damned.
 * Maybe eleven for Togruta chronologically is the physical/mental/cultural/all of the above equivalent to fourteen for a human? I mean, different species are bound to age and mentally develop differently than humans, and we can't expect them to have a human like culture when human cultures vary greatly in cannon. More of a Wild Mass Guess but if it stops it from bugging people.
 * Same troper that took a third option when it came to Ashoka's age, and in risk of once again going into WMG territory but doing it anyway to stop the issue from eating at people's brains, would like to point out what defines a child or adult is subjective, and entirely dependent and defined by culture, even in Real Life. There are some parts of the world where a girl becomes a woman, and hence is ready for marriage and motherhood, at a specific point of puberty, which can be as young as eight, although those cultures are considered "primitive," "barbaric" or "third world" to us, it isn't anymore right or wrong than our requirements for being an adult, it's just that they skip adolescence in their culture or that's how it's done. Even a few countries that we consider more developed have the general/acceptable age for marriage several years younger than eighteen, what we consider the youngest acceptable age. And in official Star Wars cannon, Mandalorians are legally adults when they turn thirteen or its species equivalent if they aren't human, and Chiss are adults at ten from what I understand (although that is the average age of physical maturity, but for humans it's around fourteen to sixteen), it's not treated as bad or reprehensible, its just something that had been done for thousands of years, and is ingrained into the culture and mindset. It's also implied that Mandalorians as a culture has no concept of adolescence. Consider the clones as a unique species of human, who grow and learn at twice the rate of a normal human, that means that they would be adults sooner. As for the training of the cadets that are still children (to our perception at least), consider that they are all clones of a Mandalorian (who was Mandalore himself actually), who's culture in all likelihood skipped adolescence, and consider people adults at thirteen/age where they are physically and mutually equivalent to a human thirteen-year-old on average, and those we've seen seem to be around that age. Remember that, according to the EU, most of the training was given by Mandalorians, and Mandalorian culture had a heavy influence on the clone's own culture and mindset, and that Mandalorians are said to be trained to fight the moment they take their first step (or at the age of three). That could be justification for the clone's young age when they start training. I still don't approve of what they are doing though because it is still basically slavery, which is technically illegal in the Republic and makes them major hypocrites, but "slave soldiers that are physically mature at eight and who are culturally adults around age six, who were raised to fight our battles" sits better with me than, "slave child soldiers who were raised to fight our battles that start training at six and are sent out to fight at eight."
 * Another possible justification for the slavery is Kamino law, it that it could be that they have a mandatory draft for all clones of that template, and feel that it is safer to make their educational system for them around military combat because that is their future, and the more they are trained, the better chance they have for survival. It just happens that the clones make up the majority of the military, that soldiers from Kamino are not allowed leave or downtime because of their home-world's laws, that most are killed before the required service is up, and that the length of the required service happens to end when they are too old to fight. It's still deplorable, but it might make it so they aren't legal slaves in Republic law. Still close enough for hypocrisy, but it would make the public, senate and Jedi feel better about it.
 * She's only a padawan as of the Clone Wars 'movie'...
 * Any reference to her as a "Jedi" is actually a mistake. Almost unanimously up to this series, excepting head-strong and childish characters that learn their lesson by the end, Padawans are not analogous to Jedi and are explicitly Jedi-in-training. Like how a student at a dojo is not the Master of the dojo. Many times, this has been humbly pointed out by the Padawans themselves, but when Ahsoka is referred to as "Master Jedi" she says nothing to contradict them. Rather, she occasionally uses this prestige to her advantage and calls herself a "Jedi Knight" without reprisals from anybody. She even references herself as a Jedi Knight when speaking of herself and Anakin to her Master's face. When Anakin started his training he was considered too old and when he did become a Knight, about eleven years later, certain Jedi Masters thought he was under-prepared. However, "mistake" with this series is relative, as it overrides anything that was published before it aside from something straight from Lucas's mouth or the movies.
 * Jedi begin training at the age of infancy, so it's really another example of the Old Jedi Order's general nuttiness and Knight Templar-like mentality.
 * "Your father was betrayed and murdered by a Jedi named Darth Vader." Yeah, the Jedi Order's that messed up.
 * Age of consent is also quite different from Earth norms. Ahsoka is the same age Padme was in Episode 1, after all.
 * Age of consent is quite different than American norms, you mean.
 * Mm, as far as I know, even non-American countries don't allow people as young as 14 to enter the military. And isn't age of consent in most places closer to 16? I know it was a big deal that Canada had it at 14 for a looooong time.
 * Also consider the fact that the concept of adolescence as a phase of life where one isn't a child and not ready to be and adult has to go through changes physically, develops mentally, ages emotionally, and as a time where someone goes through several rites of passage is still very new and limited to "developed", "industrialized" and "modern" areas of the world. Look at American life in the Victorian Era, when high school was becoming available to girls and people who weren't upper class, which was the beginning of adolescence becoming a phase of life. A girl was expected to get married by the time she was twenty, right out of high school if she was attending, as soon as she was legally able to otherwise, and it was more acceptable for the groom to be five years older than her at minimum than for him to be a boy her own age. She was also expected to have children ASAP once she was married, even if she was planning to attend college or get a job herself, which was very rare until WWI made it so women had to work to support their families. Men who could or weren't needed to help run the family farm/business were expected to find a job that could eventually support a family as-well-as himself if he wasn't privileged enough to be able to afford college. They also had to get to that point before they would be allowed by a woman's family to marry her, and his age only mattered when it hit the point where there would be no point to a marriage because he wouldn't be able to get his wife pregnant anyways. Both boy's and girls were legal adults when they were eighteen, just like modern times, but people were expected to be completely mature by the time they were eighteen, and were treated as full members of society. However, this is a description of the life of a white person, who was part of a family that was at least solid middle class, and not even lower middle class. People who were lower middle class or below, or who were minorities (although some managed to rise to solid middle class or higher if they weren't in the south) were expected to "grow up", basically reaching figurative adulthood, much sooner, starting work as young as six or seven. Basically, during that time, adolescence was only available to people born into privileged families, and ended at eighteen (not sure when it started). Today, adolescence is expected to be experienced by everyone, starts at ten or eleven at the earliest (socially anyways, some girls get their first period by age eight, meaning that they hit puberty two years earlier) and freshman year of high school at the latest. Teenagers are now considered less mature than they once were, and depending on who you ask, adolescence can end anywhere from eighteen at earliest to twenty five at latest. Remember that this is just one country's perception of growing up, and that it varies from region to region within itself, of course the US is really big.
 * Imagine cultural differences on a global scale with all the regions, countries on Earth, and keep in mind that it is constantly changing. Try and spread that to a galactic scale, even with Planet of Hats in effect, it is a safe bet there are a lot more occupied planets in the galaxy that Star Wars takes place in than there are different cultures on Earth. Each planet will have it's own culture and ideas of what makes an adult and when it can or should happen. Who's to say Ashoka isn't a cultural equivalent of an adult, or someone close enough to adulthood to be in war?
 * Obi-Wan did surrender and didn't start fighting again until Anakin and Ashoka sent the clones to rescue him, IIRC. Once a rescue attempt is under way, the surrender is over.
 * Can you really commit war crimes against droids? If the enemy can't be bothered to even show up in person and send robots in their place, then I think everything is fair game. I can't imagine the Jedi having POW camps for incarcerated B-1s.
 * Also, I think there might be some supplementary materials somewhere in the EU which posit the proposal that by this point of the Clone Wars, the Jedi Order is falling back on younger and younger padawans as the casualties amongst their elders and more experienced Jedi mount up. Likewise, bear in mind the Clone Wars are, at the end of the day, Palpatine's Xanatos Gambit -- he's the only real political power in the Republic now, and he's unlikely to pull up the Jedi Order on supposed "war crimes" unless it suits his purposes. In fact, it's a lovely piece of propaganda he can use against them later when the time comes for Order 66.
 * Except the timeline for the Clone Wars was adjusted to allow the series to take place during the start of the war.
 * Wookiepedia puts the start of the series in the second year of the war, possibly to give Anakin plent of time to become a Jedi Knight.
 * Also, you must remember that in order for International Laws (in this case, Interplanetary Laws) against war crimes to be enforced, there needs to be some kind UN/World Court like organization. The Republic and the Jedi's role before the war was basically the UN of the universe. It isn't like they can do anything about war crimes committed by the Separatist (What can the Republic do? Sue them?), and except for a few people such as Padme, Bail Organa, and Mon Mothma, no one in the Republic government is going to call out Palpatine for what he is doing.
 * The most warcrimey thing to this troper is the fact that apparently attacking medical centers and medical ships is a-okay. Of course, it's the bad guys doing that, especially Grievous, but still-- it seems exceptionally grim for a kids' show, even if the alternative is the unwieldy and difficult explanation that there are "rules" to war.


 * When exactly in the continuity does this movie take place? It has to be after Anakin was promoted to Knight, since he doesn't have his braid anymore, but it's before the end of the Clone Wars Series, since that segues directly into Episode III. Does it take place during the "Anakin Kicking Butt" Montage? And if so, what happened to Ashoka in that time period?
 * Simple, she eventually got Put on a Bus
 * It'll be explained in the TV series maybe?
 * New continuity. Five-year-old consumers > everyone who cares, apparently.
 * This troper expects the Clone Wars series to reach such a point that nothing ever happens to Ahsoka, and Anakin doesn't fall to The Dark Side. Lucas will, of course, consider this more canon than his own movies.
 * Then you're crazier than any of us.
 * General Grievous kills her for telling everyone that his back story was that he wanted to be a Jedi but couldn't so he made himself a cyborg.
 * WTF are you going on about last troper? Grievous never wanted to be a jedi, he was a Keelesh warlord who was involved in a shuttle crash arranged by Palpatine so he could turn Grievous into a more powerful cyborg that could lead the droid armies and match a jedi. Count Dooku had his brain implanted with a device that allowed him to wield lightsabers. Read the Episode III visual dictionary if you don't believe me (which is a lot more canon - orientated than the cartoon series).
 * Which is totally incorrect and seems to be a sign that the promo people Did Not Do the Research
 * It's also a joke, as far as I can tell.
 * It's a little of both, the character info on the Cartoon network site has Grievous's info as what I first posted it and as a joke.
 * Incidentally, they are taking Grievous's back story in Broad Strokes. Lucas had this idea where he was basically what the Cartoon Network site said, but Dave Filoni wished to respect the EU story and set the actual episode so he could be taken as one or the other.
 * Not that Filoni gives a damn about any other part of the EU...
 * Speaking of which, this troper is starting to get worried about that (see below.)
 * Apparently (and I have no source on this, I just heard it from a friend) there is a time skip within Revenge of the Sith - after Anakin and Obi Wan rescue Palpatine and before Padme drops the baby bomb on Anakin - which is the only time the series could logically take place.
 * Except upon typing and posting that I just realized it can't possibly be the case, since Dooku is alive in the series. ARGH!
 * There's also the fact that, if this troper remembers correctly, Anakin landing half of Grievous's ship and Padme telling him about the kid happen in practically the same scene.
 * This troper has heard that the series takes place during the other Cartoon Network Series in Episode 22 (second season) when the Republic was losing the Clone Wars (which explains why Anakin is a knight). They don't seem to be losing by as much, here. Why Lucas is committed to fitting 100 episodes within a gap in a cartoon short is beyond me. This bothers me because I don't really understand Asajj Ventress, if this is true.
 * If this was true, then how could someone explain Grievous' coughing since it was Mace Windu's force powers that crushed his lungs? Seriously, at this rate the continuity of this series will just inch itself out of the SWU itself.
 * This series takes place in 21 BBY, one year after Star Wars Episode II. They don't care if it doesn't make any sense with prior sources. For example, Grievous's cough is not caused by the scene in the original Clone Wars show and has no explanation (It was to be in link with the movie, in which he had had the cough for about a week. (The movie begins a week after Palpatine is kidnapped in Clone Wars.)) As for Anakin becoming a Knight, it happened right after the Clone Wars started, which may or may not mean he did not have all those adventures with Obi-Wan that were used as justification for his skipping the Trials in Clone Wars. They may have happened within the span of a single year: actually only a few months because the BBY system does not exactly mesh with the in-universe calender. The big problem with this series's place in continuity is that the Clone Wars only lasted for three years and that Lucas Arts decided to capitalize on the prequel trilogy by documenting the events of this war to the month. Then they decided, five years into this project, to make this show and include characters who were doing many different things: characters like Anakin have barely have a month in-universe without an adventure of some kind. The people who make this show decided to connect it to Revenge of the Sith and the film characters that are popular (and Jar Jar), which are not the same characters development-wise as they were at the beginning of the Clone Wars. There are many other discrepancies that are created by their inserting of this show, but they are far too numerous to list so I'll just do one more. You see Anakin's scar about his eye? He got that fighting Asajj Ventress in 20 BBY. Refer to the date I gave you at the start of this explanation. (Frankly, they missed an opportunity by giving him the scar. They could have omitted it for the series and re-released the comic issue where he received it as a special edition, thus making money. But that would have made too much sense to the fans of pre-TCW canon.)


 * What really bugs this editor is the fact that the battle droids have been turned into an entire armed force of Those Two Guys. In Episode I, they were an analogue to the then-non-existent Storm Troopers--a faceless, daunting army of soldiers. Sure, they had their comedic sound bites and were apparently the beta-test of the Imperial Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy when it was one or four of them, but as a mass they were a force to behold. Now they're just used as a cheap gag before being beheaded by a Jedi.
 * Yeah, it's like Jar Jar's personality got absorbed into the collective. Who the hell would program a droid like that? Were they hyped up on spice, death sticks, anything?
 * Rule of Funny.
 * Except it's, you know, not. Jar-Jar wasn't, and neither are Jar-Jarred droids.
 * It is if you imagine every OOM Commander droid as the same one, making "his" scream of "WHY?" when he gets thrown off a cliff by Ventress hilarious.
 * What's more is the fact that some of them apparently possess concepts of pride (Getting pissed when R2 sprays oil at them), and, judging from the screams of "OW-OW-OW!", pain. What the hell kind of sadistic programmer makes sure that a Battle Droid feels pain?
 * The kind that wants to make sure battle droids avoid pain-causing stimuli, which we can assume are programmed to be harmful things. In other words, exactly the same purpose pain serves in animal "programming."
 * No reason for it to be displeasurable, though. Especially because the droids can't seem to repair themselves.
 * Pretty good reason: if it's displeasurable, they'll make an effort to avoid it...
 * Word of God states the longer Battle Droids go without a mind wipe, the more personality/stupid they develop.
 * How does it make any military sense to program your Battle Droids with fear?
 * Or with the necessity to TALK to each other, for that matter? If they communicated with each other via coded electronic pulse (or even high speed blips at inaudible frequencies), they could convey everything they would need to say faster than with speech, thereby saving them from situations like "Oh no! It's a Jedi! We've got to--" (decapitated)
 * The Season One guide posits that most of the stupid ones we see are just repurposed B1s left over from Episode I that didn't adapt well to their independent programming. Doesn't explain why the new ones being cranked off the assembly line in Season Two are like that, but the Nightmare Fuel makes it more interesting, at least.


 * Same troper, different bug. In the TV commercials for the TV show, Ahsoka states that "if I have to cut down 100 droids... I will." Does she seem a little too eager to dive into wanton destruction? I thought Jedi were totally against that. Or am I wrong because droids are robots and don't matter?
 * Seeing as how her master is going to turn into a mass murderer she might have picked up a few of his traits.
 * And given what pushovers these guys are, are a hundred even a minor issue?
 * Given Obi-Wan's mixture of apathy and disdain for droids with him being a fairly model Jedi and that's she's taking lessons from Darth Vader in the making...
 * That's nothing. In a recent episode Ahsoka put a lightsaber to a prisoner's throat and threatened to "gut him like a fish", if he didn't talk. In the presence of a Jedi master no less. And while she was probably bluffing, there's no justification for the "I'll give you a merciful death!" line she gave the assassin a few minutes later. If she keeps it up, she has a good chance of turning evil before her master.
 * Like they said: she's taking instructions from Anakin Skywalker, who's already half Sith by the time Episode III starts. Plus, the Clone Wars themselves are said in the Episode III novelization to be turning the Jedi into something they were never intended to be -- soldiers, not peace keepers.
 * I remember reading that her species, Togruta, are a predatory species and more prone to aggression. Combine that with being trained by Anakin, and it's no real surprise she has trouble holding back her anger and aggression. Makes her wonder who's bright idea it was to give her to Anakin to train actually...
 * The idea might have been that Anakin would see the aggressive tendencies in Ahsoka, and, as her teacher, work to have her "correct" those tendencies. And, in so doing, Anakin would realize his own tendencies, and figure out how to deal with them himself. It could have worked, were it not for the whole "war" thing.
 * It's worth asking how she would respond to a different approach. Anakin gives her a lot of leeway, and that's not necessarily a bad thing. It's bad if she thinks that disobeying orders in battle is acceptable (as Bric said in "Clone Cadets", arguing on the battlefield is likely to get you killed), but it's good if it allows her to feel freedom, contentment, and gives her a sense that she is appreciated as a person. In "R2 Come Home" when Windu tells Artoo that he sees why Anakin puts such faith in him and tells him he did a good job, Anakin responds by saying "Heh. That's definitely more praise than I ever get." I'm not sure if he was joking or not, since in Episode II Obi-Wan never did anything but criticize him and yell at him. In the Geonosis arena scene, when Anakin tells Obi-Wan he was there to rescue him, Obi-Wan doesn't say "Thanks for trying." No, he sarcastically says "Good job." When Anakin got assigned a padawan, he might have remembered how frustrating it was to be shown so little respect and praise and to just be ordered around all the time, and might have vowed to treat his own student better. Now, what if she were trained by Obi-Wan instead? Would she be more likely to turn out like Anakin, to be just as fucked up? I think she would. I think that if Obi-Wan had just been nicer to Anakin, that Anakin wouldn't have had so much pent up rage and frustration to eventually unleash on the galaxy.
 * There are too many extenuating circumstances in Anakin's fall to blame it purely on Obi-Wan. Obi-Wan was knighted and given a padawan (with a ridiculous amount of problems, I might add) long before he was ready. Being strict was likely the only way to establish control of the situation, since the Council didn't have much faith in him or Anakin. The only guidelines he had for training Anakin came from Qui-Gon Jinn, who wasn't exactly the most amiable Jedi master to Obi-Wan (at least at first) because of the betrayal of his first apprentice Xanatos. Futhermore, we know that while Obi-Wan was critical, he was the only one who consistently defended Anakin in front of the Council. We know that both Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan really mellowed with age: compare the first Jedi Apprentice book with Qui-Gon in The Phantom Menace, and see how much warmer Obi-Wan is Revenge of the Sith. And, lastly, communication is a two-way street. There are concerns in Attack of the Clones that Anakin never airs to his master. You might say it's because he feared his concerns would be easily dismissed, but you can't solve a problem if you only vent it to the one person (Padme) who can't do anything about it. Yes, I think Obi-Wan could have done more to understand Anakin. Even if he was raised at the Temple and against forming attachments, he had anger issues in his youth too, and even deserted the Order at one time. But maybe that's why he's critical to Anakin: because he's seen where he's made so many mistakes, and he doesn't want Anakin to do the same. Maybe if Obi-Wan and Anakin had actually listened to each other more often, if Palpatine hadn't been poisoning Anakin against them, if destiny hadn't said so... it all might have been avoided. But you know how it goes.


 * And what is it with Ahsoka's fighting style? In the movie and the early episodes she clearly holds her lightsaber backwards - something we haven't seen any other Jedi doing (and I find it hard to believe she invented her own style). In recent episodes however, she only does it during dramatic poses and not the actual combat.
 * * coughstarkillercough*
 * Ahsoka's fighting style is known as Shien.
 * And in response to her using Shien less now, Word of God says Skywalker is trying to break her of it, which is more confusing when you consider one of the most well-known Shien users, Starkiller, was trained by Vader pretty much his whole life.
 * Could be guilt over whatever happened/will happen to Ahsoka.
 * OR whatever ends up happening to Ahsoka is at least indirectly caused by her being uncomfortable with wielding a lightsaber in its proper orientation. Vader later sees this as a liability in an apprentice and doesn't bother to correct Starkiller.
 * Also, there is a significant change in Anikin's personality between Clone Wars, and the Force Unleashed. In Clone Wars Anikin is still mostly a good person,who is training someone to be a galactic peace keeper, and so might be reluctant to teach his apprentice a offensively oriented combat style. By the time of the Force Unleashed, Vader is a mostly evil person, training an assassin to exterminate any remaining Jedi, so he would take no issue to training Starkiller in an aggressive, offense based form.
 * Backhand style is more for Rule of Cool than any proper usage in battle. It decreases your reach and invites you to get your saber pushed back in your face if you go to a lock. More to the point, try wearing a bathrobe and hold a stick backwards like Ahsoka does in the ready position. Hits your sleeve, right? Well, now try doing it with a BAR OF SUPERHEATED PLASMA, which is what a lightsaber is. Maybe Jedi just like setting their own clothes on fire.
 * However Shien exists for pretty much one specific purpose. Namely, deflecting blaster fire.


 * Not to mention the veiled Armed with Canon broadsides... And that's just the film. In some circle of hell, Karen Traviss is cackling with glee.
 * I'm sure Curtis Saxton is down there with her, cursing the fact his own stuff got deposed.
 * * Ahem* ZIRO! THE FREAKING! HUTT! THANK YOU AND GOODNIGHT!
 * Hey, Ziro had his place! Everybody knows George Lucas okay directors who listen to Lucas' nonsense can't make a Star Wars film without offending some minority group.


 * Why did they have to dress Ahsoka like that? She looks like one of those teen whores who have mommy and daddy wrapped around their finger. And she's supposed to be a Jedi in training! Seriously, what the hell?
 * She's not alone in the "slutty outfit" department; have you seen Aayla Secura? Although, at least she's an adult... maybe Dave Filoni's some kind of alien-Lolicon fetishist?
 * According to what I know about Torgrutas (Ahsoka's species) that is actually a pretty common look for their teenagers, I'm just surprised she wears shoes.
 * Ashoka comes from a warrior race that is migratory on their home planet. More conservative dress would be either be cumbersome for as much traveling they do, or else is a symbol of how strong and confident she is, taking on an army of battle droids with so little protection (not like armor seems to do much good in Star Wars anyway.)
 * Tell that to the Mandalorians. They're nomadic warriors as well, and they're pretty much encased in armor.
 * If it helps, Season 2 has her in a more covering wardrobe.
 * She IS an alien. Aayla Secura wears modest clothing by Twi'Lek standards, maybe the same applies to Ahsoka's species.
 * Not sure why that would make it okay? They're a fictional alien race. So instead of the writers making a teenage character that dresses like a prostitute, they created an entire race where all the teenagers dress like prostitutes... how is that better?
 * Because they realised that Real Life isn't rated G?
 * In sword fighting that is much more practical than any of the robes that the Jedi wear. Which would rather have your robe instantly catching on fire from the convection of super heated plasma or fighting in only a loincloth/bra and panties.
 * This show is aimed primarily at teenagers, who like Fan Service as much as everyone else, so having a teenage Ms. Fanservice is plausible. The Lolicon issue only comes into play due to Periphery Demographic.


 * I know I'm probably stirring a proverbial Colossus Wasps' nest in asking, but why does everyone hate on Ahsoka so much? I mean, yeah, she's not exactly the best character in the franchise, but she can't possibly be worse than Jar-Jar, can she? (Please don't kill me...)
 * You haven't been paying attention if you think Ahsoka hate is worse than Jar-Jar. And you don't know what hate is if you don't think this is better treatment than Jar-Jar would be getting if he were returning as a major character in a TV series as Anakin's constant companion and sidekick.
 * Most people just don't like the idea of Anakin having a padawan that nobody even mentioned before.
 * Especially since she has to die by the end. The successful training of a padawan is pretty much the last hurdle to become a Jedi Master.
 * And she has some rather annoying choice of nicknames for others.
 * It doesn't help that she comes of very much as a Creator's Pet. Remember that time when Dooku escaped from Anakin and Obi-Wan and Ahsoka proceeds to chew them out for it? And worse, Anakin and Obi-Wan just take it lying down? Bullshit, if Anakin had spoken that way to Obi-Wan in Episode II, Obi would have shut him up immediately, so it really grates to see not just Obi-Wan, but Anakin "lightning temper" Skywalker let this brat mouth off to them. Honestly, this show wouldn't surprise me if it had Ahoka show Anakin and Obi-Wan up by defeating Dooku single handedly.
 * Actually, having just seen "Storm Over Ryloth", one of the reasons I like the tv show better than the prequels is precisely because Anakin is not a Jerkass Jedi Master to Ahsoka the way Obi-Wan was to him in Episode II. In "Storm Over Ryloth", Ahsoka fucks up BAD and feels terrible about it afterwards. The episode description said something about Anakin having to "teach Ahsoka about respecting authority" and I was thinking "Oh, well that's just great, here comes another story where the Jedi Master acts like his position entitles him to show his Padawan horrible disrespect and basically treat him or her like complete shit. He's probably going to tell her that she has no business thinking for herself and to 'remember her place', which is just submissively doing whatever the hell she's told as though she's a god damned slave instead of a comrade in arms. I'm going to hate this." Turns out that whoever wrote the description wasn't paying attention to the episode; Anakin patiently explains to her why what she did was wrong, and that in a battle it's important for people to follow orders. He doesn't yell at her, because she already feels crappy enough. When she points out that he doesn't always follow orders himself, instead of biting her head off he says "All that means is that I understand what you're going through." Furthermore, unlike Obi-Wan in Episode II, he is interested in hearing Ashoka's opinions regarding the best course of action instead of being all like "I'm the Master, you're the Padawan, so shut the fuck up and do what I say." Finally, when she disagrees with him about whether his idea is a good one and tells him why she thinks it's too dangerous, his response is basically "After thinking about it, you made some good points, so I'm going to alter my plan a bit. I'm still going through with it though." If Obi-Wan had been this kind of Jedi Master to Anakin in Episode II, I would have enjoyed that movie a LOT more. As it was, almost all of the interaction between Obi-Wan and Anakin in that film frustrated me to no end.
 * At least in this troper's opinion, Ahsoka is far worse than Jar Jar. She's arrogant, smug and has a hard time knowing when to take "no" for an answer. That and I hate gratuitous Bumblebee characters on principle. I don't buy George Lucas' talk of there being a pressing need to explain why Anakin went from being reckless to being cautious in between episode's II and III. Honestly, I didn't even notice it that much. If Lucas had wanted to give that impression in Episode III's script, then I guess Tom Stoppard didn't do a good enough job.
 * Wait, what? Anakin became cautious in Episode III? So what about the whole opening sequence consisting of nothing but insane acts of daring-do? Skirting star destroyers, dancing among rockets, flying through explosions, ramming his fighter into Obi-Wan's, and so on and so fort? About the only non-reckless thing he did in the whole film was when he didn't charge at Dooku at first sight - totally understandable in light of the fact that when he tried that last time he got his arm cut off. Cautious my ass.
 * Compared to the debauchery that was Episode II, Anakin was far more cautious in Revenge of the Sith.
 * You'd think having a wife who loves him and worries about him would be explanation enough...
 * ...or the fact that that war has changed him. He's been knighted, perhaps Obi-Wan's teaching have finally sunk in. There is a three year gap between movies. Why is so unreasonably that, on his own, Anakin just grew up and matured?
 * I actually think Ahsoka's a great character. Considering that she's probably IS one of the older younglings, and with the war, people are probably being skyrocketed up. She's cocky and arrogant because she needs to be. In Gambit: Stealth, she says "I don't want to be the reason the Chosen One gets killed," and wouldn't you be cocky if you were thrown into a war zone with little to no experience?
 * Ahsoka's earlier arrogant and cocky behavour was at least partially just about disguising how afraid she was of diappointing Anakin. Also, by making her such a faulty character, they left plenty place for Character Development, which paid off during most of Season3 and esspecially in Season4.


 * In Duel of the Droids, shouldn't the Vulture droids have shields? Ahsoka jumps on one and slices off its... head... even though lightsabers can't even penetrate droideka shields. Also, their cannons seemed extremely piddly for starfighters. Starfighters are... starfighters, we see them blow things up doubleplusgood several times in the actual films. What's up with that? Were their reactors uncharged or something? It niggled at me, even though it came from an otherwise excellent episode.
 * Well, the shield might short out on continuous contact with the ground, much as droideka shields did in the ROTS novel upon contact with the ceiling. That, or its a lazy plot device, aka droid power cell charge.
 * Going by the Starfighter games, they don't have shields, since they have only one life bar there (shielded ones have two).
 * According to my Star Wars Saga Edition RPG, Vulture Droids have no shields. As for why they didn't do more damage... Maybe the droid starfighters didn't want to cause too much internal damage to the hangar bays... but considering how stupid TF droids are, it might be a stretch they'd have that consideration. I guess this is a case of Plot Yields, where the destruction is variant on the needs of the story.
 * RPG stats are notoriously unreliable. I'm going with power cells, and the fact R-3 didn't want to risk ending up extra crispy himself. Use doublethink!
 * Well, standard TIE Fighters are also shieldless in most incarnations, so Droid Fighters might be also. In fact, we saw Mace Windu lightsabring some Vulture Droids without shield interactions in the first Clone Wars series in the last chapters and it was awesome. I guess Ashoka doesn't get to get away with this because she's a Scrappy and Mace Windu is played by Samuel L. Jackson and is therefore Badass incarnate.
 * Why do people pull out the "Because that character sucks" card here?
 * There is a simple explanation as to why the weapons on the vulture droids seem less powerful; they are actually using smaller guns, the main weapons they use against other ships (i.e. the ones that do a lot of damage) are located in the wings, meaning their big guns are stuck pointed directly beneath them when in "walking mode" The real problem is, according to EU sources, they are supposed to have missile launchers where the small cannons are located in the episode.


 * Isn't Ahsoka underage, and all Ani-Ahsoka shipping child molestation?
 * Philanderous child molestation.
 * Not to mention adultery...
 * Two-Timing adultery!
 * Typical Fan Fiction; these are also the people who think the Master–Padawan relationship is a sexual one. Well, probably not the same people, since these people probably deny all instances of Ho Yay.
 * I have to ask this... is Ahsoka underage by her planet's standards? Maybe her species is well past puberty by 11.
 * Age of consent is different in Star Wars, the world galaxy of fourteen year old queens and eighteen year old Senators.
 * Given that we read about Ben almost losing his virginity to Tahiri at the age of 13, yeah.
 * Oh bloody hell, did you even READ the book? It got nowhere NEAR that point! You're just being purposefully ignorant now.
 * I'm just wondering what the hell when I see people pairing her with Luke.
 * Well if that were to happen wouldn't she be older than him?
 * By about 15-20 of your Earth years...MayDecemberRomance anyone?


 * I know it's rather late to ask, but why the hell do so many people on the Internet spell Grievous "Grevious"? You'd think he's been around long enough for it not to happen as much.
 * This Troper can list several people who actually pronounce it that way, even though they've seen the characters say it the right way. He takes every opportunity to correct them when they do that.
 * From what this troper can tell, 'grievous' is one of those words that gets misspelled/mispronounced a lot. It often pops up in spelling tests.
 * What annoys this troper more is when they spell Anakin Anikan. I once saw a pen name that was something like Iluv Anikan.


 * If the Separatists have boarding craft that can penetrate ship shields, why don't they just put bombs in them instead?
 * You assume droid programming gives them that much leeway.
 * What does droid programming have to do with anything? All they have to do is have their shield penetrating boarding craft burn through the hull, and then drop in bombs. This is one of those things you can do with a simple timing fuse.
 * It's an idea that several different things have had. I didnt see that eppisode but in Warhammer 40K its to steal a ship. The idea works like this you wouldnt pack your ship full of dynamite in case of a self destruct you would logically blow up the power source slash munitions dump. So you send a crack team of close qaurter fighters to capture and defend the bridge munitions room and engines to prevent them from causing self destruct automatically or by just shooting the room full of torpedos and using the cramped confines of a ships maintnence areas to force them to use alot of people to get through you. so conceivabnly you would do the same with clones armed with vibroblades and pistols.


 * Couple of problems with episode twelve. At the end of the previous episode, the Weequay tried to drug Obi-Wan and Anakin, but they guessed that their drinks had been tampered with and used the Force to swap them with some other Weequay. The Weequay are knocked out almost instantly and Anakin and Obi-Wan drink and are fine. At the start of the next episode, they wake up in prison and Obi-Wan concludes that they must have been drugged. What the hell? When did this happen exactly?
 * The other problem is at the end. Anakin has the leader of the Weequay captured, who asks if he's going to be arrested. Obi-Wan says no and makes Anakin let him go. Why? He lured them there under false pretenses, drugged them (somehow), held them for ransom and physically tortured them and Obi-Wan's just letting him go? Exactly what would be wrong with imprisonment? Okay, so perhaps his last comment about Count Dooku not being so forgiving is meant to imply that he'd rather have Dooku come and kill the guy instead of imprison him, but that seems more than a little too dark for a character like Obi-Wan.
 * I think Obi-Wan is going to cash in this favour later on, but the warning I believe was supposed to be that they better get the hell away, because Dooku is going to level the planet. As for how they got captured, it's All There in the Manual (read: the online comic tie-in). The bad guys
 * Imo, it's a really bad idea to put major plot points in an online comic, especially in a series this... um... less than consistent. And furthermore, aren't Jedi supposed to be able to resist poison?
 * Well so much for the idea that Obi-Wan was going to cash the favour in. The Weequay shows up again in season two bullying farmers for their crops and even kills a bunch of them. Those farmers would still be alive if Obi-Wan had just followed protocol and taken the bastard to prison where he belonged. Nice going there Obi-Wan.
 * Is this troper the only one that thinks that it's absurd to assume Count Dooku would get captured at all just for not having a lightsaber. This is someone, who after all, is one of the Galaxy's preeminent experts on Telekinesis, a duelist whom only Anakin, Yoda, and Mace Windu could beat, and has not just Force Lightning and Force Choke, but has enough knowledge of the force to tame a Krayt Dragon. One assumes that he would be able to Force pull his lightsaber back in time to block the shots he needs to and kill everyone. Or failing that, just kill everyone anyway. If Mace Windu can jump into the middle of an army of droids without his lightsaber, surely a master of Telekinesis can hold off a bunch of idiot pirates.
 * Nope, you're not the only one. One of the reasons (one of the many) reasons I gave up on this show was because of how badly the Jedi have been Nerfed. I know you need to inject tension into a story but jeez, these are people who can lift starfighters with their minds!


 * User:R Taco: What's up with the anti-pacifist theme that Defenders of Justice had going? It's one thing to try something new, but damn.
 * This bugged me too. I think they were trying to go for a "stand up for yourself" moral, but it came off as a "pacifism is for pussies" moral.
 * I didn't see it as either; I thought the message was supposed to be "stubborn adherence to tradition in changing times is a bad idea".
 * I think you all missed the giant subtext that my niece and nephew got. The little furry Lemur people are now going to be enslaved by the Empire for accepting the Republic's help.
 * Okay, that was far funnier than it should have been.

"Slick:"Isn't forcing us to serve as soldiers from birth wrong?."
 * In Hidden Enemy Slick's motivation about clone troopers being born as slaves (which was interesting and a nice bit of moral ambiguity) is just tossed out as less than a minute after he brings it up. I know that Anakin and Obi-Wan mention that sabotaging the mission was a step too far, but it just felt like:

Jedi:"No. THE END.""


 * The Jedi don't actually say anything about the whole 'serve as soldiers from birth' thing. All they complained about was the whole 'blow up clones to save them' thing. Anyway, they don't really have time to debate it; the Senate has approved the Army's existence and it's not like they have any other forces. They're making the best of a bad situation. If they didn't lead the army, somebody else would, and they might not be as concerned about the 'disposable clones' as the Jedi are. Don't assume the clone army is the Jedi's fault either; it was commisioned by a Jedi, yes, but one working on his own without the approval of the majority.
 * The rest don't seem to care... and they do bring him back for a trial. On the other hand though, conscious clones (especially in the early part of the war we're supposed to believe this takes place in) don't really fit.
 * What bugged me the most is that what could have made a very interesting plot for an entire episode (or even two) only shows up at the very end and is obviously not geing to be brought up again.
 * What bothers me is that the clones were stated in the films to specifically be designed to be completely loyal. They're basically slaves to authority. It's not the morality, it's the inconsistency that gets to me, though I can accept one or two bad eggs in the galactic-scale army.
 * "Hidden Enemy" proves that in addition to raping continuity (as Wook put it), this cartoon is guilty of general, grievous acts of Travissty.


 * Okay, this needs an explanation: General Grievous has long had a backstory in the Expanded Universe, but recently some official sites have shown a much different one. Long story short, in the original Grievous became a cyborg and started working for the Confederacy after a horrible "accident" arranged by Dooku; the alternate one is that Grievous surgically gave himself cybernetic parts in order to be stronger. Apparently, the newer backstory is what George Lucas (who usually ignores Expanded Universe stories), had in mind for Grievous, but Dave Filoni decided to use Broad Strokes and not directly contradict either story.
 * (continued from above) At first, this troper was satisfied with that. She hated the new backstory and was happy that the old one was still valid. But some people say that because the new one came from Lucas himself, it should be considered the real story. Now she's worried; at this point, all she has is two questions: Is Grievous's backstory really going to be retconned? Are the makers of the show going to care enough to straighten this out?
 * They're probably just going to keep it vague.
 * I don't recall anything about Lucas' veto of the backstory. I do recall something that Filoni mentioned that a simple shuttle accident didn't really justify why a proud warlord would submit so easily to another's rule. The idea he would exchange his services for the cybernetic enhancements to become a more dangerous foe makes a bit more sense. Grievous is also depicted as having a very antagonistic relationship with Dooku, frequently arguing over failures in battles.


 * I was bugged by the inability of any ship to dodge the Malevolence's ion cannon. The blast wasn't that big, yet in at least one scene a small ship is trying to outrun it instead of simply moving along any other axis and out of the way. Then again, Space Is an Ocean.
 * The disk... thing... is guided, and expandable. Which is why it can ionize a flotilla in one scene but be the same size as a spice freighter in the next.
 * And since when is an ion cannon a superweapon anyway?
 * Since when is a superlaser a superweapon anyway? Is it because it's attached to a giant reactor? Why, indeed it is!
 * ...guided? -Aimed- maybe. But the ion cannon on Hoth was much more logcal than the "big blob" fired here that should have been easily dodge (of course, TCW is hardly alone in this, see the final episode of Stargate Atlantis for a particluarly egrerious example of sitting there and taking it.)


 * Decoded episodes. "Did you know Anakin and Padme are secretly married?"
 * What?
 * Seriously, this troper read that and thought it should be common knowledge already.
 * What are you talking about?
 * "Decoded episodes" are a Pop-Up Video-esque reshowing of old Clone Wars episodes that reveal little bits of trivia during certain scenes. Apparently one of those bits of trivia was that Anakin and Padme are secretly married.
 * Perhaps not everyone has seen Attack Of The Clones or Revenge of the Sith. However, I'm sure they either Anakin or Padme have explicitly mentioned that they were secretly married when alone together.
 * That information was in 4th episode of season 1, so there hadn't been any space for Anakin and Padmé's realationship. It's likely that many of the new watchers didn't know about them. Episodes 1.22 and 2.04 make their relationship clear. (But then again, decoded episodes were shown after 1st season ended, so 1.22 had happened.)


 * During Downfall of a Droid and Duel of the Droids the whole plot revolves around the fact that R2-D2 carries republic secrets with him. He's a freaking robot, what stops him from just deleting the relevant information to stop it from falling into enemy hands?
 * Deletion should be one of the functions left in the hands of the owner, since it wouldn't be wise for a droid to delete precious data without confirmation. Imagine if a droid got pissed at you and deleted your banking records?
 * In most cases (civilian applications for example) I would assume that you were right. However, a couple of things come to mind: one, it was a military droid carrying very important information, two, Anakin is a genius as far as robotics go. He could've just programmed the function in. I simply can't believe that there would be no contingency plan in case something went wrong.
 * Military droids are supposed to routinely be memory-wiped for just this contingency. Anakin didn't, because of sentimentality. He probably wouldn't be the type to leave in contingencies to destroy the memory in case of capture, either.


 * Jedi are elevated to Master status upon the completion of their padawan's Knighthood trials. Since there's a huge deal in Episode III about Anakin not being a master, this means that either A) Asohka won't finish her trials, which seems reasonable considering the ridiculous excuse for a calm and controlled Jedi she's turning out to be, or B) The writers have finally said "Screw it" and will have her pass the trials for a happy, if plotholed, ending. Which direction do you think they'll take with this, and why would the creators build an entirely new character just to kill her off?
 * I don't think Jedi become masters just because their Padawans have become knights, do they? Ki-Adi-Mundi was still a Jedi Knight by Episode one, surely he's trained a Padawan or two. Besides, there's no reason why they can't kill her off. She was written in to highlight Anakin's maturity (however slight) between Episode Two and Three. If she gets killed off, it reinforces his "I need to save everyone" belief, making his fall to protect Padmé multi-layered.
 * It isn't automatic. Probably the strongest expression of the idea that it has to be earned is that Anakin is elevated to the Jedi Council in Episode III, but he is point-blank refused the rank of master -- in a situation where ordinarily membership of the Jedi Council carries the rank of master almost as of right.
 * Also note that Ahsoka is far too young to become a Jedi Knight. I don't know what the general age is, but 11-14 just seems way too young. Anakin didn't become a knight until his early twenties and even then, that was because there were limited numbers of Jedi and because he was the Chosen One. Obi-Wan didn't become a knight until he was in his thirties and considering he was decently skilled, I imagine he is more the rule than the exception. And since the Clone Wars series only covers what happened up to the start of episode 3, at which point the Order is destroyed, we can assume Ahsoka will definately not be acheiving knighthood. She's most likely either going to die (hopefully), or go into hiding.
 * Or maybe she'll simply change her mind about wanting to be a Jedi. It's surely not illegal for a padawan to quit, so if the writers want to force a happy ending on Ahsoka's story, they could always have her fall in love when she hits puberty, but choose not to live a lie the way Anakin did.
 * I think there may be complications if a padawan "washes out" after a certain point. It'd be a little risky to have someone who can craft lightsabers outside of the order, even considering the fact that only force-sensitives can uses lightsabers, not to mention, outside of the regimented structure of the order there are a lot more temptations to turn to the Dark Side.
 * The Jedi don't force people to stay in the Order. Look at Jolee from Knights of the Old Republic. Or Count Dooku himself was known as one of the Lost Twenty. Knights who had for one reason or another, left the Jedi Order, but had parted ways on more or less good terms.
 * Be that as it may, how easy can it be to leave if you've been a Jedi since the time you were an infant and were raised in the temple, possibly never meeting your family? If it's all that you know? Even if you're unhappy in the order, I doubt it's very easy to just turn in your lightsaber and walk away. And if citing EU stuff like KOTOR is fair game, then how about Roan Shryne from Dark Lord: The Rise of Darth Vader? Shryne was given to the Jedi by his father, without his mother finding out about it until it was too late. She was understandably upset by this and left the bastard. Shryne never met her until he was forty years old, and by then the Jedi had conditioned him to the point where his response was basically "You're my mother? Well, that's not important. Let's talk about something else. Please." And also, in Darth Maul: Shadow Hunter we learn of Lorn Pavan, whose was literally separated from his infant son against his will. Considering all of the Moral Dissonance we see from the Jedi in this tv show, stuff like this from the EU doesn't seem too far-fetched.
 * You know, you really shouldn't cite a article that contradicts what you said; according to it, he gave up his son voluntarily. And as for leaving, kids aren't forced to go into things like the Service Corps even if they flunk out or end up being too weak; they're allowed to leave if they wish, and make their own decisions. Is it perfect? No, but for the Jedi of the post-Russan order, it was what they saw as best. And if the alternative is having a bunch of out of control psychics who can kill you with their minds, I'll take the Jedi solution.
 * It's not a contradiction, because I didn't say that his son was stolen from him, I said that he was separated from his son against his will. Which is what happened; the Jedi said "Hey, can we train your son?" Lorn said "Okay, sure." The Jedi said "Great, he's a padawan now. That means you have to get the hell out of here and never see him again. You're fired." Lorn said "WHAT?! You never said anything about that! You bastards!" Paraphrasing, obviously. The Jedi got him to agree to something he'd never have agreed to if he knew the catch, the catch being that he could never see his kid again, which qualifies as being separated from his son against his will. As for "out of control psychics who can kill you with their minds", I can't see how that could possibly happen if nobody trained them. Luke was strong as hell in the Force, but he was never able to actually USE it until Obi-Wan taught him how. As for an example of an evil Force-sensitive: Alexi Garyn. He could have been a Jedi if they accepted him, and he actually wanted to be, but when he approached them they were like "No, sorry, you're too old now. Go away." So Garyn became a crime lord. I haven't read the comic book itself, but from what it says of Garyn it doesn't look like he was going around Force choking people all the time, and that was because he didn't have the training. It certainly wasn't out of any reluctance to kill people. So Force-sensitives are not a threat to anybody if they are never taught how to harness the Force.
 * I have a difficult time believing that the Jedi wouldn't tell him it what it entail, or that he wouldn't know about it (however, I haven't read the book). And there are a few examples of Jedi not doing well when they couldn't control their powers, like Streen, or naturally gifted people who could do stuff like Kar Vastor and Kajin Savaros (Kar was even able to beat Mace Windu). If there's a chance of any child turning into a potential Vader, I'd want someone to keep a eye on them.
 * Perhaps the council decides it was not a good idea to give Anakin a padawan (maybe he and Ahsoka make a complete mess of a mission). Ahsoka is from thereon trained by some other knight or master and noone mentions that because it is all a bit embarrassing.
 * It's generally stated that a master should have trained at least one Padawan to Knight status as a requirement of masterhood, not that doing that is an automatic promotion. The Jedi council promotes masters depending on various factors, and it's made clear that they don't like Anakin.


 * What bugs me is that there's a lot of situations where the Jedi conveniently forget their powers for the sake of Rule of Drama. Especially telekinesis. Someone's running away? Just stop him with telekinesis. Some McGuffin you absolutely need to take(or stop from hitting the ground, like in that virus episode)? Summon it to you with telekinesis. Armed enemies in front of you? Why don't ya just disarm them? This is especially apparent in the S02E02 where that blue bounty hunter outmanouvers Jedi in quite a few ways, but every single one could be solved with proper application of telekinesis(and in the end, it's in fact solved this way, but Anakin could've done this so much more efficiently). It's like a constant Forgotten Phlebotinum.
 * That's the problem with bounty hunters. Because they're supposed to be Badass Normal characters, the Jedi seem to mysteriously drop quite a few levels in terms of competence.
 * Interestingly enough, the big dramatic moments in the next two episodes were solved by telekinesis. Am I reading too much into this or do we have a One of Us in our midst?
 * And I was indeed reading too much into this as recently we got the Lightsaber Lost episode which should've been named A Tribute To Forgetting About Telekinesis. Seriously, Ahsoka thinks of slamming a guy into a wall and breaking a metal pipe with TK, but she forgets that she can just summon the damn lightsaber to her? She had like a billion occasions to do just that. The entire plot of the episode hinged on her repeatedly forgetting about an ability that she used at least twice in the very same episode. It was so damn obvious that I was expecting some kind of a Lampshade Hanging at the end which never came.


 * Why did Sidious need Bane to find a Jedi to open the stolen holocron? Holocrons are operated via the Force. Gee, if I remember correctly, there are three Force users who are members of the CIS, are there not?
 * Some holocrons are inhabited by the essences/spirits of past Jedi or Sith, called the 'gatekeepers'. They can sense who's a Jedi and who isn't, and are unlikely to impart any knowledge to someone who doesn't fill the criteria of an authorised user.


 * Is it just me, or is Cad Bane a Villain Sue?
 * Not quite. He's absolutely no match for any of the heroes in a one-on-one fight, and even though he gets away every time he doesn't always succeed in fulfilling his objective.
 * He just has a tendency for Crazy Prepared - combined with generally doing something that no one expects or having some leverage.
 * I originally thought he avoided this for the most part, considering he was no match for even Ahsoka at close quarters and she only lost 'cos she got cocky after defeating him. But for the first time I felt they fell into this trap when he manages to not only evade but defeat two Jedi Masters in "Hunt for Ziro". Not only does his presence make the two Jedi forget basic force powers but they get close to him on several occassions and still don't take him down. Now I can accept all this can be put down to skill, luck and his suicidal droid offering some distraction. But when Obi-Won finally corners him Cad actually picks up a lightsaber and briefly duels him it veers into the ridiculous. Not only does the bounty hunter hold his ground he quickly defeats one of the greatest Jedi ever. Using a lightsaber.
 * We must have been watching different episodes. The one I saw, Obi-Wan quickly knocked the lightsabre away...


 * In The Phantom Menace, there was a huge battle between the Gungans and the Droids. Basically Roman-style formation battle, there was one huge force field over the entire Gungan army, and each Gungan also had his own smaller shield. however, while the giant transporting vehicles did not enter the forcefield, the droids did. So you think, "OK, battledroids can walk through force fields". That makes the droids interesting. However, in Star Wars: Clone Wars, in one episode with "Lurmen" (Anthropromorphic Lemurs) you clearly saw Anakin, Ahsoka, Aayla Secura and some clones walk through the force field just as easily as the Droids did with no problem. So, what this means is that Force Fields can stop lasers, energy weapons and presumeably Lightsabres, and if these are the very same force fields as the Gungan subs they can also keep out gasses and liquids, but Metal and Flesh can go through them easilly. So, since we have all these force fields specifically designed to withstand plasma and energy based weapons but nothing solid, why not just use bullets? Or swords? Or circular saws? Seriously, this calls into question the very existance of vlasters and any kind of long-range non-projectile weapons! Suddenly Chewie's crossbow doesn't seem so bad, does it?
 * Uuuuuuuuuuugh. This is such a common misunderstanding... Okay, here's how Star Wars shields work. Fast moving objects can't pass through it. Floating vehicles cannot either. To get through, you need to be moving slowly. It depends on the type of shield, too. Space-born shields are completely impervious to both slow-and-fast moving physical objects, and need to be battered down with sheer firepower. Ground-based shields can't have this property though, because otherwise the shield would burn into the ground. Incidentally, the beams the tanks were firing in that sceen had physical components; you can see this from the explosions, which have shrapnel. Bullets, shells and other shrapnel would not be able to pass through shields, because they are moving too fast. Understand?
 * So, just further giving credence to the fact Lucas lifted a lot of stuff from Dune?
 * In addition to the explanations given so far, I am sure that being connected to the ground helps. So infantry (droid or not) will easily pass. And so will an AT-TE and other walking machines.
 * Also, Wookie Bowcasters are not crossbows! They're a type of blaster hand-crafted by Wookies. Why everyone automatically assumes it's a goddamn crossbow despite there being NO PHYSICAL CROSSBOW BOLTS, AND it being fired AT LEAST ONCE in Episode VI baffles me. Hell, just doing TWO FRACKING SECONDS OF RESEARCH ON GOOGLE should set it straight if you're too lazy to watch Rot J.
 * There are different types: the ones seen in the EU and Episode III where you have to be really strong to use it and it's basically an energy crossbow, or the type seen in the OT where it's just a blaster with bowcaster things on it. Neither is a literal crossbow as we know them though.


 * Was anyone else seriously bothered by the scene where Obi-Wan, Anakin, and Mace Windu essentially mind rape Cad Bane to try and get some information out of him? Windu already had a habit of toying with the Dark Side, and Anakin was pretty tainted himself, but shouldn't Obi-Wan at the least have said "Hey, this is some seriously Sith-like mojo we're doing here." Extenuating circumstances or not, there ought to be at least one or two lines that Jedi just don't cross.
 * I originally thought they were doing some intentional Moral Dissonance with that scene, but seeing as everything went all hunky-dory and it's never brought up again it just makes the heroes even more unlikeable. I would have liked a What the Hell, Hero? moment in there.
 * If you were paying attention, Ahsoka DID look rather freaked at the whole thing while she was watching; she didn't say anything about it afterward, though.
 * That scene was very interesting. You'll notice that the Jedi there didn't have any objections to using torture, just that it wouldn't work because Bane was too afraid of his masters for him to break.
 * That scene was probably meant to give some weight to Bane. It took three powerful Jedi to break him. The writers just kind of forgot that the Jedi would probably question such a decision a bit more.
 * While I'm not exactly defending the somewhat casual nature of their decision, let's not forget the lives of children were at stake. I see it as a "desperate times = desperate measures" sort of thing. Who would they be more concerned about? The children they swore to protect, or the bastard who kidnapped them and already killed one of their own Jedi previously?
 * Then, why is it worthy of an Imperial March for Anakin when he chokes Poggle the Lesser only to save Ahsoka? This is exactly what his masters were showing him to be right. Desperate measures in desperate times my ass, with this mentality they could have just sliced Dooku in half when they had him, as he was the head of the evil rampaging robot army that is currently destroying many lives.
 * It's worthy of an Imperial March because that is Anakin's theme song as Vader, and this is the first recorded use of Vader's signature move.
 * First in the show, anyway. He did it first in the Jabiim story arc in the comics.


 * Apparently Cad Bane has an Rapid Fire Idiot Ball Nerf Cannon as part of his equipment list. During the Holocron Heist, the Jedi see that the door to their incredibly valuable vault full of Mac Guffins has been cracked open. What do they do? All go the other way, without having someone keep an eye on the vault, despite the fact that Yoda and Mace Windu are already in the room they're going to investigate. Later on, Bane puts on a Clone Trooper's helmet, and sits within coughing distance of two Jedi, one of whom even says he can "Still feel him," and yet neither of them looks at the suddenly oddly-behaving Clone Trooper and uses their highly-developed telepathic powers to sense a stranger in the room. Maybe his species just emits Stupidity Pheromones.
 * ...or, they're used to Clone Troopers developing individuality and behaving outside the norm, and he's from a species that, like Hutts and Toydarians, is immune to telepathy.
 * If he's immune to telepathy, then they should have sensed his LACK of telepathic presence as compared with the clones. If he's not immune to telepathy, then they should have been able to feel him right in the room with them. Or (Fridge Brilliance?) the Force's ability to sense things is accurate inverse to the Jedi's distance from the target. Light years away, you can feel danger to a relatively small group (Yoda: "To Ilum, we must go."), but in the same room (i.e. hanging out with Palpatine), it's impossible to sense an imminent threat.
 * That's a bit much

"Narrator: "Diabolical defeat! The Republic victories outnumber their losses! Jedi have been unable to stop Separatist advances in the Outer Rim!""
 * Are the Masters on the Jedi Council aware of Anakin's forbidden marriage to Padme or not? If they are, why don't they call him out on it? If they aren't, why aren't they? They're all masters of telepathy and reading the Force, and Anakin's not exactly the king of subtlety.
 * Obi-wan eventually figures it out. Yoda may have as well. The rest didn't think of it. They just think they're... really good friends.
 * The novel indicates that Obi-Wan always had a certain suspicion, but pretended not to know out of friendship. As for the rest of the council, even if they can read minds (and I'm not entirely sure they can), why would they? I know they didn't have much faith in Anakin, but I can't see them reading his mind all the time just in case he happens to have married in secret.
 * If Yoda did know, what could he do? "Fired from the Jedi Order are you"? Not only would they lose one of their best generals in the middle of a war (not to mention a PR disaster) it would push Anakin very close to the dark side. I would think that would come to a "no good options" situation.
 * If they weren't even able to "sense" that Palpatine was a freaking Sith Lord...
 * It seems pretty canon (in the EU, anyway) for Sith to be able to mask their presence (like suppressing your Power Level in Dragonball Z?). In the other Cartoon Network series, it's mentioned that Asajj Ventress can do this and one would hope that Palpatine's Xanatos Gambit would include learning this ability before playing games with the entire Jedi Council.
 * Did they extend how long the clone wars lasted (3 years) without telling anyone, because those kids that Cut Lawquane and Suu had look like 5-ish.
 * Those kids were obviously from a previous relationship. Not that what the kids look like means much when they're near-humans.
 * Or, in the case of the kids, Cut's sped up aging could be genetic. Those kids might only be two, because they didn't look much older than four.
 * This line from the Opening Monologue from "Grievous Intrigue":


 * First sentence: They're losing. Second sentence: They're winning. Third sentence (and onward): They're losing.
 * Okay, that monologue is a bit confusing, but that happens sometimes when you're trying to go for a pulp-action narration that accompanies the visuals instead of communicating information coherently. Let me tell it slow and easy to understand. The Republic are losing in certain places, but they're mostly winning. The places where they are losing are in the Outer Rim. Understand now?
 * Turns out there was a "though" at the beginning of the second sentence and the second and third sentences are really one sentence. It was said kind of oddly, though.


 * Tom Kane some of the time. Sure, he does a good Yoda impression, but the opening announcer guy and Admiral Yularen sound identical to each other and his standard Cin Drallig/Imperial Officer/Starkiller's father voice. He's a good voice actor, but doesn't seem to utilize much range.


 * Why do the writers occasionally forget about the technology the Republic is supposed to have? Leaving aside all the boarding actions which completely ignore shields, or them completely ignoring that the floating star destroyers can shoot their cannons at land targets, the latest episode had them walk around a random planet looking for Grievous on foot. They flew in on giant floating pieces of metal and then started looking for him on foot. Couldn't they spare a couple of gunships to hunt down the commander of all the Separatist forces? Why did they not have any air support at all? Even the rebels on Hoth had airspeeders, and they weren't even an actual army. The writers do cool things like magnetic boots, remember that clonetrooper armor is actually armor, remember that an entire planet should have multiple fronts, and then forget basic stuff like shields and air support in favour of boarding actions, have the Jedi go off alone in one shuttle craft to a dangerous bounty hunter's home ground while they are supposed to be commanding an army, and then have a medical supply convoy that is supposed to resupply an entire army with only one transport. This is Star Wars, I don't mind a few Hollywood Tactics here and there, but these little details really get my goat.
 * Agreed, the sense of scale in the show seems to be seriously lacking. Part of that is the expense of creating new character models (which is why Quinlan Vos and Mas Amedda were missing in the first season, despite scripted appearances) and the other part is pure Plot Induced Stupidity. "Just send in two Jedi to follow a bounty hunter into his space station with no other support or troops? Sounds good!" "The Supreme Commander of the Confederacy is down there on the planet with only one way off? May as well go after him with a few ground troops!"


 * I am constantly wondering why the CIS invests in droids that are so incredibly poor in quality. I have seen battle droids forget what their orders are, argue with each other, and not understand coordinates.
 * I have also noticed that all droids have horrible accuracy, which does not make sense, as any piece of crap computer running a pirated version of Windows98 could at least hit a moving target whith 65-90% accuracy, which of course, makes me wonder why even the more advanced droids can't shoot very well.
 * The one thing I understand least about the CIS's strategies is the fact that they never use cover or anything esle, in fact, they stay in perfect parade formation at all times like fish in a damn barrel. To make things worse, they dont even bother to disperse or take cover when they get struck with artillery, and their underpowered tanks dont help much either. It does not matter how many units you have if they all have the reflexes of a dead man, the mobility of a wind-up toy, and the strategic skills of most of the Xbox live community.
 * The guide to Season 1 says that a lot of the droids are repurposed B1s from the TPM era which didn't react very well to having independent droid brains installed. There's a lot of stuff that doesn't explain, like why that seems to be the case with droids fresh off the assembly line, or why these modified droids seem to be the only ones we see, or why they would bother continuing this method if it makes all the droids act like The Three Stooges rejects, but that's what it says.
 * Not independent brain? So they are controlled from somewhere - makes sense given the battle of Naboo but why the bad guys don't know immidiatly that they were destroyed with the last 5 minutes of transmission?
 * No, they do have independent brains--they were installed after Naboo. The reason why they're so dumb is because the droid bodies didn't react very well to having brains.
 * Basically, this can be chalked off to the Rule of Funny. Remember Episode 1 of the prequel trilogy? The B1s were connected to a main computer, but they were still superior to an army of Gungans. Attack of the Clones still had them as fairly competent robot soldiers achieving victory by overwhelming the opponent with sheer numbers. B1 security droids are still ables to arrest Anakin and Obi-Wan in Revenge of the Sith, albeit briefly, but in The Clone Wars? BAM! They're forgetting orders, crashing into each other and just screwing up. The reason is because now they have to get chopped up for comic relief, because The Clone Wars is a series marketed at 5-year-olds to sell toys.
 * This troper always just assumed that smarter droids were exponentially more expensive. That the CIS has such massive numbers because they buy such cheap models most of the time. Notice how the smarter a droid type is, the rarer it seems to be.


 * One single line in the trailers for the pilot movie made me know for a fact that this series is absolute crap. Ahsoka saying "I'm not too young to be a padawan." Uh.. hello? Anakin was like, 8 when he went into training and even then they said he was too old.
 * Padawan is not first level of Jedi training. And seriusly that one thing is the reason that series is crap?
 * Padawans are choosen before they turn 13. That is why Obi-Wan was almost sent to the the Jedi Service Corps in the Jedi Apprentice series. What bugs me is how Ahsoka can be 14 and yet now only starting her Jedi training. If anything she's too old to be a padawan.
 * Well, apparently, Rahm Kota was freaking 18 upon first joining the Order, so I suppose exceptions can be made...

Still, calling this season as a whole about bounty hunters is a case of false advertising.
 * Season 2 featured bounty hunters as a its theme, and Cad Bane as a major Big Bad. Well, the season is over, and we only had like 7 out of 22 episodes with bounty hunters, and three episodes with Cad Bane. Not that the season was bad (in fact, it was very good), but I can't help to wonder the why of this...
 * I guess they don´t want to forget that the show is essentially about the war between Republic and Confederacy, and as for a war show I personaly like battles and spy missions into enemy bases instead of third-party hitmen to hire as enemys for an episode. So, from my point of view the season was 8 and a half episodes war and 13 and a half filler/bounty hunters with random monsters destroying Coruscant, the whole Duchess of Mandalore plot (that was one of the halve episodes because Dooku wanted to gain more troops to his army) and stupid Ahsoka loosing her lightsaber.


 * Out of all things Mace Windu could have said to kid!Boba's "I won't forgive you." they have him reply "You'll have to"? Uh... Smooth, Mace. I'm sure the kid's going to see the light now.
 * The way I see it, Mace is saying Boba is going to have to let it go before he kills more people. He could tell Boba that he killed Jango in self defence and how the other bounty hunters were lying when they said Jango was an honourable man, but without proof, there was no way Boba would believe him, so why bother trying?


 * So this Troper has only seen the first two episodes and some other random bits of later ones but based on this and the prequel movies, something has started to bug her. The clones are pretty much human warriors trained to their fullest potential. They have individual thought and minds of their own and judging by their different hair styles and armor modifications, try to establish themselves as individuals. Yet, they all see themselves as expendable and that, when the fighting is done, they can be left for dead if need be. This is something real life human warriors sometimes start to feel and in its wake, it usually results in depression, self-destructive behavior, and sometimes suicide. It is against general human nature to put yourself in harm’s way without there being a chance that you will make it through it and that your life is worth something more (for most people anyway). With the notion of being expendable ingrained into them from “birth” and with their emotions being human, one wonders why the Republic Army doesn't suffer from significantly high suicide rates as well as clones suffering from the crushing depression their eventual fate entails. If their purpose is to die in battle than what do the clones have to live for? Or better yet, what do they have to die for?
 * If their purpose is to die in battle than what do the clones have to live for? You answered your own question. Their purpose is to die in battle. It's all they've ever been taught or ever known, that they're made for fighting for the Republic, so with a couple exceptions (one episode does deal with a clone who calls BS on the whole thing), they know what their job is, and they're going to do it.
 * Why do they bother to save each other then? If they die, that was what they were supposed to do. The clones have a depressing existence. I'm wondering how they prevent themselves from seeing it all as futile and succumbing to depression when a lot of humans would.
 * Because they're also supposed to be good soldiers, and a good soldier is loyal to his other soldiers. They're going to die in battle, but they don't have to die pointlessly.
 * They're genetically engineered to be docile and loyal.
 * The EU books say that the troopers, being raised in a completely military world isolated from the rest of the galaxy, and spend most of their time outside fighting a war, can't really fathom what they're missing. It's like not having eaten candy you're entire life. Once you've tried it, you'll want more, but since you haven't, you really don't know what there is to enjoy about it. The books say that given a choice, clone troopers would rather stay in the army and live a life they're familiar with (or rather, the life they have flash-trained into their minds), fighting for "the glory of the Republic", because the point is they just don't know what they're missing that all of us take for granted.
 * Plausible. Still, part of their job involves interacting with civilians sometimes. So you'd think that a clone troopers might see a family spending the day together sometime and wonder what having a family of his own would be like.
 * This entire thing seems so damn wrong, I kind of admire the CIS for using robots. I mean, look at it. You create a human and then imperfectly turn its mind into that of a computer program through conditioning and forcible brainwashing. If that was in Real Life, these guys would be up for war crimes.
 * The guy who comissioned them and ordered the process be done? Well duh, the only reason he didn't is that Vader tossed him down a reactor shaft. The Kaminoans? I suspect Blue and Orange Morality and What Measure Is a Non-Human? is involved for them- remember, they're among the least human, mentally, of the Star Wars aliens, from what little we saw. And the best isn't the CIS or the Old Republic (especially considering that the CIS were all about Big Business Tyranny, and both were patsies of evil that were waay too easy for a villain to hijack- robots can be hacked), the best kind of army is the kind fielded by the New Republic and the GFFA- ordinary real everyday people with training. That's the only way you're going to get ace pilots, comraderie, and outside-the-box thinking anyways, to say nothing of loyalty to ideas rather than manipulable programming. Remember, the clones were just as much an evil Palpantine plot as the CIS.


 * One thing that bugs this troper is Ahsoka's appearance in relation to others of her species. All the other Togruta in the canon have had red skin and large patches of white over their eyes. Ahsoka, however, is orange, with small, stripey white markings. Also, Togruta typically have dark eyes, but Ahsoka's eyes are very distinctly and obviously blue. What.
 * She might be part of a different race of Togruta. Not all aliens look the same in the Star Wars Universe. She's young as well, maybe the white patchs come with puberty.
 * You're probably right and she's a different race of Togruta, but the puberty thing is disproved by a youngling extra in Attack Of The Clones. (Her name was Ashla, I believe, which is very close to Ahsoka, but that's an entry for another page )
 * Word of God explicitly states that Ashla is a separate character.
 * Yeah, all humans from the same planet look the same.


 * Seriously, what's up with the Mandalorians in this series? Throughout the entire Star Wars universe Mandalorians are Badass Normal characters like Jango and Boba Fett from Attack of the Clones and The Empire Strikes Back respectively, Canderous Ordo from Knights of the Old Republic, and most characters from the Karen Traviss novels, but in The Clone Wars the three-part episode putting Mandalorians in the spotlight poytrayed them as pacifists. This troper missed the TV release, but when watching a clip of the episode online featuring the Duchess of Mandalore he immediately stopped the clip before the halfway mark. What used to be a tough, gritty and resourceful warrior race was reduced to a bunch of space hippies represented by a Jedi-dating woman with an elaborate-yet-impractical hairdo sitting in a fancy room pleading for the Republic Senate to respond to her pleas for help. What. I know Word of God says that Lucas's original vision for Mandalorians was more like this but you can't just throw all continuity out the window to realize his vision. At least the pacifists are all Doomed by Canon.
 * Plus this portrayal of Mandalorians indirectly led to Karen Traviss's refusal to write the last book of the Republic/Imperial Commando series.
 * Yes he can. He owns the property. It's his. Anyway, they didn't throw out all details. They were retconned enough so that they had actual depth as a culture instead of being a one-note Proud Warrior Race thing. The whole Mandalorian Wars and Proud Warrior Race thing still happened in the past, but Mandalore became a more peaceful planet over the millenia since then. The plot of the episodes is about the vocal "Deathwatch" splinter group who want to return Mandalore to its Proud Warrior Race roots, wear the old Mandalorian armor, and wish to continue their battles against the Jedi and the Republic.
 * Okay, maybe he can, but that doesn't necessarily mean he should. When Lucas contradicts canon like that it's kind of a slap in the face to anybody who liked those earlier stories. I originally got into the EU books because Lucas Film itself touted them as the canonical sequels to the original trilogy, which I took to be just as good as Word of God. Years later, after I'd bought dozens of novels and become just as emotionally invested in those stories as I had been in the movies, Lucas goes and makes prequels which contradict a lot of the EU stuff, as if to say "Those stories you liked so much? Never happened as far as I'm concerned." I don't agree with Traviss on everything (such as her belief that Force-sensitives shouldn't be allowed to fall in love, or the fact that she's responsible for one of my favourite characters getting killed off), but I don't blame her one bit for walking away from the EU. What's the point of writing stories and fleshing out a culture if your work can just be undone and shit on like that?
 * YMMV, but sometimes a Planet of Hats is just better without putting in some unnecessary coats and saying they were the rulers of the planet for a while until later they were deposed again.
 * ...it's not a "rulers of the planet who were deposed later" thing, it was a cultural shift over a thousand years of peace. Deathwatch romanticizes the old warrior ways and wish to bring Mandalore back to its former glory.
 * ...which is somehow better? The important thing is that for no good reason the "New Mandalorians" are now officially the best-known and "official" Mandalorian faction by the time period of the show, which doesn't gel at all with anything else.
 * It's just weird, because you have Clan Skirata's brand of pacifism, where Mandalorians keep their armor, honor code and other warrior traditions, but will only fight for their own cause, to protect themselves instead of being just thugs for hire, which Boba Fett uses as Mandalore's foreign policy in the Legacy of the Force novels. And then you have Duchess Satine's brand of pacifism, which is to dress up nice, sit put, and completely refuse to fight at all, relying on the government for help and support. Even if Mandalore switched foreign policy that doesn't mean that they'd instantly lose all their military background and gritty resourcefulness seen in the non-The-Clone-Wars EU. From what we see in the books Mandalorians are practical and... well, have you seen her outfits? She's still a Mandalorian, not the queen of freaking Naboo.
 * Duchess Satine doesn't "dress up nice and sit up", she wants the Republic, and especially its Supreme Chancellor, to leave her people out of a war they want nothing to do with. And she's ready to fight tooth and nail to reach that goal, even if it means going through the Death Watch' terrorism, the Separatists' droids, Sidious' machinations and four assassination attempts.
 * Also, don't forget that the two factions of Mandalorian Warriors who fought each other in their civil war were apparently very good at slaughtering each other, and that Satine kicked the survivors out of Mandalore and on Concordia, probably to confront them directly to the results of their fighting.
 * Mandalorians aren't really a sovereign nation though, from what I understand, they are a large amount of clans that are linked by a common culture, with differences in each clan. In times of war, the clans band together under a chosen leader, Mandalore, and fight together, but a clan can choose not to acknowledge a Mandalore as Mandalore and stay out of the war without breaking the traditions of being required to follow Mandalore. Clans can be loosely or strongly affiliated with each other in times of peace, and no doubt have different opinions on galactic politics or how traditions should be followed. Mandalorian traditions date back to 7,000 BBY and span thousands of clans. Is it really that much of a stretch for there to be different fractions that came about over the millennia they've been around? There could be dozens more than the two we've seen, you never know.
 * Obi-Wan does mention that the Queen has a bit of a "My Way or the highway" attitude, and it's entirely possible that she's trying to enforce the major pacifism thing so that it doesn't just get tossed aside. The fact the Mandalorians had gone through a whole civil war which killed her family only twenty years prior doesn't help. She probably wants to avoid another.
 * They were doomed by cannon anyway "They will die a death that will last millennia, until all that remains is their code, their history, and in the end, the shell of their armor upon the shell of a man, too easily slain by Jedi." that... is exactly what happened to them. Another qoute that was true "Perhaps there will be no new age, Mandalore, no great Mandalorian crusade. Perhaps your people fought their last battle at Malachor V, and you have been dying ever since, a quiet death that will last centuries. And perhaps all that remains will be what I see before me: a man, wounded by a Jedi, encased in a Mandalorian shell, haunted by the thought of being the last of the Mandalorians."
 * As near as I can tell, the treatment of the Mandalorians was a direct Take That against Karen Traviss. Apparently she hacked off some of the writers in addition to the fans.


 * If clones are "programmed" to be loyal and obey without question, how did Slick manage to avert this?
 * No programming or training is ever perfect.
 * To be more precise, clones aren't robots. "Programming" here is more akin to indoctrination and strict control over what the clones get exposed to. While you can get a pretty high stability rate with such methods, it won't ever work 100% of the time, especially in the field.
 * My view is that all the clones are created the same way, but their life experiences shape who they become.

On the in-universe side, this behavior isn't exactly inconsistent with how they behaved in the films. As an insect society, it's quite likely the drones simply don't speak. Of course, there's probably a whole lot of explanation on that in some universe guide.
 * I saw "Landing At Point Rain" for the first time earlier this week, including the scene where the flamethrowers are turned on the Geonosians, and if you'll excuse the Incredibly Lame Pun I was bugged by that episode somewhat. We have seen tropes such as What Measure Is a Mook?, What Measure Is a Non-Human?, and What Measure Is a Non-Cute?. There could perhaps be a new one asking "What measure is an insect?" People step on bugs all the time and are disgusted by them. The Geonosians in this episode behaved more like bugs than people; the only human-like or intelligent traits they showed was the ability to operate weapons and follow orders. Also, people tend to have more sympathy for characters who speak their language than those who don't, which is unfortunate but true. In that episode, the Geonosians not only spoke no English but didn't even get any subtitles when they did speak...and only two of them ever actually said anything: Poggle, and the Geonosian who was spying on Ahsoka and Barris. Was this to prevent us from caring about them? Would people be less comfortable, I wonder, if it were not Geonosians being burned alive, but humans instead? Or a human-like species such as Twi'leks? Much as I hate to admit it, the Geonosian distressed bug noise they made when on fire was less disturbing to me than the sound of a human scream. Oh, almost forgot, people on the Republic side keep calling them "bugs". Fantastic Racism, anyone?
 * The simple answer is that they made it as brutal as possible without scaring their audience half to death. Could you imagine subtitled screams of "I'm on fire!", "It burrrrnssss!", etc. on screen? It'd be like playing Half-Life 2 with the auido reversed so you could hear the zombies bellow in pain. I'd like to think that today's media has done a good job desensitizing kids, but that'd be a bit too much.
 * (Assuming such guides are even canonical anymore...) But anyway, I'd have to question the "desensitization" argument here. Kids will... have a healthier attitude toward violence if the heroes set sentient beings on fire and none of the heroes care? Keep in mind that this was by order of the Jedi, an organization that allegedly uses pacifism wherever possible.
 * I literally burst into laughter during that scene. Never thought I'd hear a jedi master issue the command "flamethrowers".


 * Why all the complaints about the ARC Troopers in their eponymous episode getting bumped off so easily? Yeah, Colt and those other nameless dudes in the prototype Phase II suits were ARC's, but at the same time, they were totally new characters, only one of whom had a name. Given what's happened in the series so far, it shouldn't have come as a surprise that they'd end up as Red/Mauve Shirts. Now, if someone with an established reputation like Fordo, Alpha, or someone else of that sort were to show up, you can bet they'd be as badass as advertised, given the treatment so far of other "guest" protagonists. What I think was a bigger problem was how at the end of the episode, it's shown that a regular rank-and-file clone can actually be appointed an ARC Trooper if they show exemplary combat service; last time I checked, ARC's were BORN the way they are, given different mental programming to allow them to be more independent in combat. I don't see how a clone born from the normal "docile" template could possibly adjust (yes, I'm aware Commandos also come from that template, but they're trained differently from the start).
 * I thought it would have made slightly more sense to promote them in rank. When I saw the episode I thought they might be selected for a newly formed special task force or something. Alas they just made them part of the ARC troopers and ignored their established history in the process.
 * AR Cs are more specially trained clones. They don't necessarily have to have huge genetic differences. Since Fives and Echo were still rookies, it would make sense that they could be re-trained and deployed towards the end of the war. And even if they aren't as good as "true" AR Cs, the Republic needs commandos, so they could accept additional recruits. Besides, "Clone Cadets" made me think that they were already in some sort of semi-elite unit anyway, since final qualification required taking down more droids than any clone GI has been shown to beat in combat.


 * The mention of the clones being possible victims of slavery From a Certain Point of View reminds me of something that's bugged me about Old Republic Jedi. Remember the "Children Of The Force" arc, where they had infants who couldn't even speak (let alone make life decisions) scheduled to be taken to the Jedi Temple? Think about it: we are talking about people giving up their babies, and having those babies told what to do and what to think and what to feel from then on. Luke chose to be a Jedi, but with these babies that choice is taken away from them. And are they even allowed to see their parents after they begin Jedi training? If so, would they remember their parents at all?
 * I believe Jedi are discouraged from seeing their families, but not forbidden.
 * It depends on the specific circumstances of the Jedi in question. Ki-Adi-Mundi, for example, is even allowed to have several wives and children because of his species' low birth rate.
 * Jedi weren't always forbidden from seeing their family and starting their own, that came during the Great Sith War when the belief that emotions led to the Dark Side started. Until then, many children being raised by Jedi were often visited by relatives, and they kept in contact with their family through out thier lives. It is cannon fact that Jedi married and had families of their own before then. Also Corellian Jedi were notable for keeping family bonds and marrying, although the tended to stay in the Corellian Sector.
 * This is a commonly mentioned moral failing of the jedi. What I find odd is that in KOTOR the Jedi where allowed to have children, family, and loved ones but later they got rid of this despite the light side exile who cannonicly rebuilt the jedi order did have a love interest.


 * The "R2 missing"-two-parter of season one has quite a few things that I can´t really understand: 1. How did R2 go missing exactly? He probably stayed in the starfighter for some time but he can just eject himself and savely fly to the republic ships. Based on how fast he gets up during the end of the episodes when Anakin finally gets him back it shouldn´t have taken him that long to get to the cruiser and he could have surely outrun the Vultures Claw, R2 is very small and the Claw is very slow because Gha Nachkt doesn´t want to collide with some of the garbage. 2. What was R2s escape plan when he first tried to get away? He just went out of the cockpit and was promptly chased by the assassin droid that he trapped in the airlock and let out. R2 could have easily himself exit the ship through the airlock and then flown away from the ship or did he search for another way out? An escape pod would only be fast in the short run, R2 seems to being able to hold himself longer. 3. What was R3s mission exactly? As far as I see it he was only out to kill Anakin. So, why didn´t he just set Anakins fighter at the end of part 1 to collide with a star or a moon? Why did he go through all this trouble of letting the Vulture Droids shoot him down? Anakin even pointed out R3 would be destroyed, too, if the fighter explodes.


 * Why does the show ignore that Magna Guards have mechanism that when their head gets cut off the automaticly turn on their third eye on the chest? Anakin and Ahsoka beheaded them quite often during the show with them shutting down right at the moment. EVEN the goddamned guides specifically made to promote the show give this information although the show ignores it.
 * Fridge Logic: Perhaps that's specifically WHY the feature was added? Or perhaps auxilary combat damaged impaired the systems? Further brilliance suggests that they may of not put it in the torso because where do you think a slash from a lightsaber is more likely to go, the head or the torso, based on size ratio? Presume the Jedi is capable of getting past the Magna Guard's electrostaff defenses for this senario.


 * George Lucas supposedly banned the Cortosis sword to be used by Pre Viszla in "The Mandalore Plot" and let it being replaced by a regular lightsaber because now weapon should be onpar with the lightsaber. Okay, so why are then Magna Guard staffs okay to be used? Hondo Ohnaka duelled Anakin in "Bountyhunters" much the same way Pre Viszla Obi-Wan.
 * I believe Lucas didn't want a sword-like weapon that could stand up to lightsabers, to preserve the uniqueness of them.


 * Why on earth did Palpatine think it was a good idea to bring the Zillo beast to Coruscant for study? Could he honestly not see the possibility of it breaking free? Would it really have been so hard to take it to an uninhabited planet and study it there, minimising the risks? Seriously, while this show has improved a little, it really does mess up the characters an awful lot. Palpatine may be evil and devious, but he's not stupid. Yet the writers turned him into an idiot just to have a Godzilla episode.
 * Perhaps he intended for the Zillo beast to escape? A little more chaos and danger to keep the populace cowed and paranoid and ever more susceptible to manipulation?


 * Okay, so Dave Filoni says that we shouldn't worry about Ziro's sexuality since Hutts are hermaphrodites. Meaning that he's not only familiar with the EU canon regarding how Hutts reproduce, but acknowledges it. Then in "Hunt for Ziro", it turns out that Ziro has a mother and a father. Hutts only have one parent; a male Hutt becomes female and pregnant when they have a child, stays female for a while while raising the child, and then goes back to being male after the child can live on its own. (According to A.C. Crispin's books, anyway, which are some of the better EU ones out there IMHO.) Not only should Ziro not have two parents, but his mother should have been his father, since she should have reverted to being male by the time he was grown! Again, Filoni knows this. There was no reason they needed to put his father's tomb in the episode, since the diary could have been hidden any number of other places. I get the feeling that this was just done to rile up those of us who are fans of the EU. Oh well, I guess I ought to be grateful that they at least acknowledged the existence of Quinlan Vos in the same episode. If they do the same thing with Thrawn or Mara Jade (who Palpatine might kidnap while she's still a baby, which we've already seen him try with other Force-sensitive babies in "Children of the Force"), I'll be happy enough to forget all of the other contradictions. Probably.
 * It was only a small retcon; he probably just made it like real slugs. Two hutts mate, and both become pregnant as a result. Translation Convention will render "one who gave birth to me" as "mother" and "one who impregnated the one who gave birth to me" as "father", even though the "father" became pregnant with a sibling at the same time, so presumably in this retconned biology system, Hutts come in twins, who refer to their parents by opposite titles. Lets face it- sexual hermaphroditic reproduction instead of parthenogenic hermaphroditic reproduction is a very, very, very insignificant retcon.
 * Not to mention that, assuming Star Wars genetics works similar to ours, a complex organism is very unlikely to reproduce only asexually, since it would have no way to introduce genetic diversity (save for mutations, which unlike what X-Men taught us are very rare and usually harmful), which is key to survival in a changing environment. There are exceptions for creatures that reproduce extremely fast, like some insects, or live in very stable conditions, like at the sea floor, but the Hutts don't fit in either of these.
 * To be fair, this has happened before in canon. Presumably, one of the Hutts...spawns a Huttlet and the mate just acts like a parent, they can still be hermaphrodites.


 * In Attack of the Clones Jar-Jar is a sub-senator and is not as absent-minded as he was in The Phantom Menace. His proposition in the senate is appreciated and even helps the chancellor. Why is he a dumbass again in this show, which starts AFTER Episode II?
 * I'm guessing it's because Lucas thought "Oh, well most adults hated him, but this show is explicitly for kids (despite people being stabbed and set on fire and such), and I bet all the kids will love Jar Jar as a dumbass!" The sad thing is, I'm not sure he's entirely wrong--is there anybody here who was a kid at the time they saw Episode I? What did you think of Jar Jar back then? In any case, as an adult I think it's utterly moronic that anybody would put Binks in a position where he was higher in the chain of command than battle-tested and much more competent clone troopers, as we saw to be the case in "The Gungan General".
 * I was a kid when is saw episode One and hated its guts even then.
 * I had less empathy with him than with the other characters but he wasn't such a devil as some paint him to be. Also, the General episode wasn´t that bad. He didn't really command anyone, he was just there and the commander clone was more the commander than Jar Jar. Jar Jar just pointed on things that would help them, like the acid crater or the animals.


 * Why does no one use the Force? I mean you could play a drinking game with the times they should use the Force but don't... Droidekas? Force crush them! Guy stole your lightsaber and is running away? Use the force to pull it back!
 * Because then the episodes would end in five minutes. Plot Induced Stupidity is necessary to pad these things out.
 * Doesn't mean that they can´t write something like "got knocked out" or "the doors deadlocked themselves too fast to grab the baddie". They don´t even bother with handwaves.
 * That would still use up time, though, that much less for whatever else they're doing. Rule of Drama is in full swing here.
 * They could always just write better plots that couldn't be solved in five seconds...
 * It's not really the show's fault, the Force has always been a Game Breaker, even back in the days of the original trilogy and it's only gotten worse since then. A character that uses the Force to it's full potential will instantly become a God Mode Sue. If you don't believe it, just watch Star Wars: Clone Wars or play The Force Unleashed.
 * If not for the Rule of Cool, lightsaber combat itself would have become obsolete long ago. Even if you could justify it in the case of the conservative Jedy Order, the Sith, who are combat pragmatism incarnate, have no such excuse. Why bother with sword fighting when you can choke your opponent with one hand and electrocute him with the other? In the EU there's a Force ability for crushing your enemy's internal organs. Why would you ever not do that? If I were a Sith, you better believe I'd start every battle by pinching the other guy's major artery until he stops moving. That would be a pretty short and boring fight though. Even if you insist on using lightsabers, it makes much more sense to control them remotely with telekinesis, since you can strike and block with much more force than you could with your hands, plus you don't need to get near danger. And how come it never occurs to anyone to Force push the saber's activation button when they get in a saber lock. That would be a pretty elegant way to kill someone before they even realise how screwed they are.
 * Additionally, according to the Darth Bane novels, the first thing any (smart) Jedi or Sith does before combat with a force-sensitive opponent is put up mental defenses to block force powers. All those Force Pushes they use in their fights probably started as hurricane-force winds that would tear the flesh from their opponents bones if they didn't have defenses in place to dampen it.


 * Why is it that in so many episodes the republic fregattes or destroyers fly in triangle-formation and the one on the left side gets shot down? It happens ALL THE FREAKING TIME! Storm over Ryloth, Innocents of Ryloth, Missing R2 episode, Jedi Crash,... Are the droid gunners righthanded and always start from that side or what?
 * Battle Droids are in fact right-handed; note how they carry weapons. That aside, they may be programmed to respond to a similar situation the same way every time, which could explain it. Of course, the real problem is probably just the same lazy animator reusing scenes and altering them a little and from different angles.
 * Stock Footage.


 * Zabraks do not come from Dathomir.
 * Neither do humans.
 * But are the Nightsisters human? Definitely humanoid, but they're a lot more pale than any human being you'd find in the real world, excepting albinos of course.
 * I don't know about any hypothetical Nightsisters in the Clone Wars, but in their novel appearances (in The Courtship of Princess Leia and various Jedi-academy-related books) they are humans -- in fact, they're outcasts from the regular Dathomiri clans. Much is made of the fact that many of the Nightsisters were once respected members of society.
 * And behold, one episode later that problem was resolved.
 * So it was. Consider me not bugged any more.


 * So, you have now completely changed not only Asajj Ventress' backstory, but also her homeplanet and species...oh, and Darth Maul is really alive...Fuck you Katie Lucas.
 * Was that actually Maul? I don't remember her ever saying it was. Red face and same species =/= same guy.
 * Wookieepedia confirms it.
 * It's not like they have inside information, though at this point there would be a bigger outcry if it turns out it's not him.
 * Even if it is true, which admittedly it probably is, it's not like Maul's injuries couldn't be fixed by some handwave. Lightsabers cauterize, and maybe he found treatment. Long shot, but I'm sure they'll concoct a reasonable excuse.
 * Ok, the cauterization/treatment sounds reasonable, but he fell down a giant hole! I know Jedi can survive that, but when they do it, it's mostly by jumping, not falling...Where did that hole end anyway?
 * I'm pretty sure Jedi, though not able to fly (for very long anyway), can at least float if they put their mind to it. Assuming Maul wasn't too freaked out over his sudden problem of being a double amputee, he could stop himself if he put his mind to it. And really, if you're going to have a giant pit in the middle of the room with no guard rails, the least you could do is stick some repulsors in there to slow any moron who falls down. When it comes down to it, just look at the above. People complained that the species was on the wrong planet, and they covered it by the next episode. Maul ill have a good excuse, probably.
 * And he escaped the planet without the aid of his legs how exactly? Even if Palpatine saved him and gave him robot legs or something, he would have finished him after deciding to make Dooku his apprentice just to make sure he can't be traced back to him.
 * I could keep making excuses, but suffice it to say that it can be excused, which is the point. Never Found the Body is a trope for a reason. Even as a torso, the fact that we didn't see Maul die makes his return, however improbable, within the realm of possibility.
 * Ok, that's actually a pretty good argument. But was making him related to Savage Opress really neccesary? And why should he train him? Savage killed Feral with no problem, so why shouldn't Maul do the same?
 * That's why Mother Talzin gave him that talisman, I think. Zabrak Nightbrothers were raised in fear of the Nightsisters' magic, so Maul will probably not defy them, especially if he wants his survival to remain a secret. It's even possible that he was once Mother Talzin's mate and retains some loyalty towards her, since unlike most of the villains, she at least pretends to care about her subordinates.
 * As for Maul's survival...well hey, there's a non-canon comic out there where Darth Maul does survive and get robot legs, before going into hiding and resurfacing on Tatooine decades later to attack a young Luke Skywalker. Maybe that comic is canon now?
 * Ok, then, moving on to Ventress, why did Lucas Jr. feel that it was a good idea to completely rework her past in a way that was sure to piss off her fans...and laser bows? Really? How lazy is that? Even the damn string is a laser!
 * Look a little closer; the basics (Ky Narec, Rattatak, her master's death, etc...) are all still intact. The only real change is that she was now born on Dathomir, and grew up on Rattatak after the Siniteen slaver took her there. She was still trained by Narec, fought for justice against the Rattataki warlords with him, fell to the dark side after his death and took up his (albeit miscoloured) sabre...hell, Narec himself even appears in the episode, painstakingly patterned after his comic appearance! If nothing else, Katie does her EU homework much better than her dad does.
 * Maybe he does appear in the show, and maybe the basics are still there (except for the miscoloured lightsaber, come on, they couldn't watch the damn episode of Clone Wars?) But they still completely and unnesescarily changed her species and homeplanet. And on Katie, the other episode she wrote focused on her character from Episode III! Come on!
 * Why do you even care about complete trivia like that? She looks and acts exactly the same as before. If anything being a dark side which makes her a cooler character.
 * Ask any Simpsons fan why they hated "That 90's Show": Because it was completely unessescary and fucked up a lot of already established continuity.
 * Just adding here that a few crucial details from the original backstory are changed, such as the death of Ventress' parents.
 * Acutally, Darth Maul survived, from before this series even started. He attacked Obi-Wan after Episode III near the Skywalker's Home. I don't remember what happened to him after that, but he had robotic legs. You can google it.
 * That was a Star Wars equivalent of a What If story called "Old Wounds"
 * And why was it necessary to bring Maul back? I'd be more interested to see Sidious's old master alive since we never saw him die (although some fans say Darth Plagueis was Sideous's master, I'm not sure this was confirmed).
 * Didn't they bring Maul back for that one comic book where he dueled Darth Vader?


 * So hey... where did Ahsoka get that second lightsabre from? And why did they feel this wasn't important enough to actually show in the series?
 * Anachronic Order, remember? They can show it any time they want. And what, no ones wants to comment on how they riuned Star Wars forever by making the Force Zoroastrianism IN SPACE?
 * Maybe I would if I knew what is Zoroastrianism.
 * It's a religion that predates (and was possibly was part of the basis of depending on who you ask) the Jewish faith. It still is practiced today, mostly in Iran according to the people I know who practice it. Some more info for everyone who's curious' benifit.
 * I would say it's Force Taoism. With Pesudo-gods and all. There even was a Yin-Yang symbol on the floor during Anakin's "test". And Star Wars always had eastern religions IN SPACE.
 * Would I be shot for asking how a religion with actual deities ties in with the whole midi-chlorian thing?
 * Well midi-chlorian don't replace Force, when you peaople get that?
 * While I consider the idea of "Light Side vs Dark Side" as opposed to "Dark Side is corruption of the Force" both shit and overridden by higher canon of the movies, it is pretty clear, that the whole thing is mostly centered around what was going on in Anakin's head. And Anakin, as we know, did not, in his heart, really understood what going to the Dark Side really meant. By the way, dream characters being manifestations of Anakin's subconsciousness, explains those of their strange actions noted below, that aren't already explained.
 * What does God The Son need with a starship? I mean, really. This guy is practically THE WHOLE DARK SIDE and has near-limitless power. The Clone Wars is now officially Star Trek V.
 * I don't think that planet was an actual physical "place" in the conventional sense, or that it should have been taken as anything more than dream-logic in-the-force-realm allegory for warring wills and such, given the whole "just a dream" ending and having lasted only a moment. Him getting the starship represents the darkside spreading uncontrolled and unrestricted by the heros, not really an actual individual per se.
 * I did get that, I just didn't see why a spaceship, as the Son's (The Dark Side's?) real goal was to turn Anakin evil, not merely to spread (considering who ruled the galaxy right about then, that would be unecessary).
 * I think the spaceship was a MacGuffin. Not something he actually wanted, per se, but something to represent Anakin is fully on his side, an arbitrary end-goal for the symbolic fight to be over in such a way that the mortals would immediately understand. Asoka's sabatoging it in a way Anakin couldn't fix probably represents his heart not entirely having turned from their side, hence the need for a confrontation.
 * I think that's exactly it. The spaceship, though the trio didn't know it, really meant waking up from the dream/trance/force-realm: it's the finish line. If Anakin and the Son left the planet, then Anakin wakes up completely consumed by the Dark Side and, through him, the Son is now loose upon the galaxy. By keeping him from taking off, Obi Wan and Ahsoka kept the metaphysical game going long enough for the Father and Anakin to pull ahead of the Son and win.
 * The space ship was the least of that episode's problems. The whole arc's plot now makes zero sense with the reveal that the Father's death would take the Son's powers as well. Why did he not tell him that? That would have ended the whole conflict right there. And why did he bring Anakin there in the first place if the Son would no longer be a threat after his death? And that's before you get into the Son randomly deciding he didn't actually want his father dead while trying to kill him and Anakin joining the Dark Side to avoid a future where he joins the Dark Side. My only conclusion is they were trying to make his logic in Episode III seem sound by comparison.
 * The Fridge Logic seems to be this: Anakin accepted that the Dark Side was his inescable destiny, and was so horrified by the thought of becoming Vader that, to him, accepting the evil then instead of later (with later = black capes and breathing masks) was the Lesser of Two Evils.
 * Why the hell did the Mortis arc have to end up being All Just a Dream? It would have been simple enough to have it be more than a dream and work that into the episode.
 * It was All Just a Dream in the same way Luke's vision in ESB was All Just a Dream. It happened.
 * Obi-Wan's speech about honor at the end of the Citadel trilogy kinda has a bit of Moral Dissonance for me. So, the Jedi don't want to risk losing their honor, even if it gets billions killed? I know what they were getting at, considering that while he's talking, we are looking at the guy who would proceed to order the obliteration of Alderaan and numerous other atrocities, I just kinda wish Obi-Wan added "And then we risk becoming no better than whom we fight."
 * On top of that, it didn't make any sense for him to say that just then. Had Tarkin done anything morally questionable (yet)? Not really. Did the Jedi and clones do anything in this arc that had viewers thinking "What The Hell, Hero?!" Unless you count needlessly sacrificing the reprogrammed battle droids in a delaying action that gained them all of five seconds (and Obi-Wan clearly doesn't care about that), no. In other episodes they have, yes; burning Geonosians, torturing Poggle The Lesser, MindRaping Cad Bane...Obi-Wan's speech would have fit in just fine in those episodes. In this one, it just seems strange.
 * From the documentary in starwars.com, Tarkin is suppose to shot unarm Seperatist with Anakin and Obi-Wan as a witness. That was veto by Lucas. He claimed that it was impossible that both Jedi are going to let it slip. I guess that they didn't thought it through when they put the dialog.
 * You might need to look from Obi-Wan point of view. During these episode, Tarkin 'genius' is nothing more than an inform ability. He has some 'good' argument but most of them are just nagging. This make it possible that he got his rank by being 'friend' with Palpatine only. Therefore, when Obi-wan gave his speech about his honor. He probably means that "It sucks if we constantly need to take order from those bureaucrat who all-talk-no-work like him."
 * Aside from a great big whopping Karma Houdini moment in the Citadel arc when Ahsoka gets away with lying about being sent on the mission, what really bugs me about this is how Anakin and Obi-Wan don't seem to mind Plo Koon supposedly telling Ahsoka to go with them. Let's assume for a moment that Ahsoka had been telling the truth, that Plo Koon really had ordered her on the mission. This basically means he would have A) Interfered with a mission that he was not in charge of. B) Completely undermind Anakin's authority as Ahsoka's master. C) Added Ahsoka to the mission...without telling Anakin and Obi-Wan before the mission began! How the hell does this make sense? If Anakin and Obi-Wan truly believed Plo had done this, wouldn't they be calling him out on it? But no, Plo says he did authorise Ahsoka to go on the mission and the two of them seem to be totally okay with this. Personally, if someone had interfered with my mission, told a child I was responsible for to disobey my direct orders and do so without telling me before my life or death mission began, I would be very pissed off.
 * Ahsoka at least fessed up to Piell, which is supposed to be the point where she realizes she shouldn't have come. She also expected to get ratted out, but Plo Koon isn't that much a stickler to procedure as we've seen. Plus he seemed sympathetic at the beginning. As for not calling Plo on it, Anakin couldn't have, being of lower status, and while Obi-Wan could have, he wouldn't. Obi-Wan has demonstrated before that he generally just goes with the situation, his characterization in Episode 2 notwithstanding.
 * So Anakin's willing to talk back to the entire council in Revenge of the Sith when they don't make him a master, but whatever Plo says goes?
 * Anakin here has not yet reached that point. Remember, Anakin has made it a point in this series that while he will subvert the council's will if he feels it's for the best, he won't outright question or disobey them. Furthermore, Anakin's outrage in the instance you mention, ignoring the increasing dark side influence of Palpatine, was over the fact that the council bascially cheated him out of the recognition the position he had gained should normally give. Anakin was too short-sighted to see that he had't really earned it, of course, but his outrage in this instance is otherwise justfied. With the Ahsoka example, Plo is on the council and a friend of Ahsoka (Anakin knows this). If Plo says he added her, he can't call him on it.
 * You say yourself that Anakin was angry with the council because he felt he wasn't being given the recognition he deserved. So if he believes Plo told his apprentice to disobey him behind his back, wouldn't that feel like he's not being given recognition as a good mentor?
 * No more so than being saddled with her in the first place. Again, Plo is Ahsoka's friend, and Ahsoka had already expressed her discontent at not getting to go. Sure, it seems like Plo undermined his authority, but it's not so heinous that he would question him in the open.
 * Killing Even Piell? What the hell was up with that? it wouldn't have been bad if he was a character they made up for the show, but no, they had to use a character who appaeared in a book that's set at the end of the Clone Wars. God damn retcons!
 * Maybe they just felt like killing someone the more attentive fans would recognize. He isn't in Revenge of the Sith, after all, and the staff probably didn't read that novel.
 * Acording to Leland Chee, they did, as is usual with this series, especially season 3, they just didn't care.
 * Well, like pretty much everybody here you're a fan of this show, which is a different level of canon than the films. So let's say that Lucas makes another live action movie set in between Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith, Episode 2.5 or somesuch. Let's further say that in this Interquel, Lucas decides it would be really cool if an important Jedi got killed off, and decrees that the one to die will be Kit Fisto. Somebody says to Lucas "Hey wait, we already had several episodes of 'The Clone Wars' with Kit in them, and those are set chronologically later than this movie." Lucas responds by saying "So what? The tv show doesn't matter! Only the movies matter. Anything that happened in that tv show isn't canon." How do you think that would make fans of the tv show feel? Some might not care, but an awful lot of others would be upset, and I wouldn't blame them.
 * But Kit Fisto is killed by Palpatine in Revenge of the Sith...
 * Okay, bad example. Shaak Ti, then?
 * She was in the background during some of the council scenes in Revenge of the Sith. Could easily be swapped with some other Jedi for a future special edition and be killed in the show if Lucas wanted to, I think.


 * Why are there active senators and representatives from the Trade Federation and the Banking Clan serving in the Republic Senate? Isn't it public knowledge that they open supporters of the CIS? Most of the Separatist ships come directly from the existing Trade Federation Fleet for crying out loud!
 * Those powers have always played themselves as neutral, despite being nothing of the sort, and were generally careful enough to avoid fully allying with the Separatists. Certain individuals within the organizations did support it, yes, but the regime as a whole pretended not to condone such acts.
 * That is what Lot Dodd said. He forgets about the fact that "certain individuals" equals the LEADER of the whole Federation! There were battles on Neimoidia and Muunilist, did the Republic forget about them? And, like the earlier troper said, the whole CIS fleet consists of Trade Federation Cruisers & Command ships and Banking Clan Fregates & Destroyers!


 * (Warning: This is going to be a long read) Absolutely everything about the episode "Corruption" bugs this troper that I am not even sure where should I start.
 * (1) The entire plot is a case of You Fail Economics Forever. Smuggling and black markets usually will only exist under three conditions: Firstly, if the products that they trading is illegal; Secondly, if taxes imposed on the products are so high that it is deemed worth the risk to smuggle them in; Finally, if the products are not entering the market in large enough quantities to satisfied the demand due to government intervention such as a trade quota. In this case, the first reason is clearly not the cause of the problem (Seriously? The government banning bottled tea? What is this? Mega-City One?). Therefore, if the supply crisis was caused by the latter two reasons, then Satine has no one to blame other then her own government's policies. Even then, she can easily fix the problem by getting the government to just cancel the trade barriers for the time being. Sure, that might have a large impact on the government’s income, but in the story Mandalore is running out of basic supplies such as food and medicine! Government income shouldn't be a priority over starving citizens. All they really need to do is to declare Mandalore a free trade world and supplies will come pouring in.
 * (2) Continuing from the previous point, in the intro, the narrator said that the supply shortage was caused by the war which resulting in trade routes being too expensive to maintain. Lets just ignore for a moment that this makes the crisis totally irrelevant to internal corruption. This isn't the first time in the Star Wars EU in which smugglers run supplies for worlds that has been blockaded or cut off. In all other examples, they are portrayed positively. At worst, they are seen as True Natural and selfish good individuals that are in it for the money (e.g. Hylo Visz, and at best as outright heroic (e.g. Han Solo). And if Mandalore is really running out of basic supplies, why are they wasting time and energy cracking down on smugglers instead of, you know, encouraging independent traders to bring in supplies if the big trading companies will not do so? When talking to the council with Padme, Satine said that Mandalore shouldn't be relying on smugglers to feed their people, but there are three problems: Firstly, those people are only smugglers because Satine forced them to be that way; Secondly, if they are having a supply crisis, what is wrong with smugglers bring critical supplies to the people? Is it better for them to put the smugglers out of business and let the people starve to death instead? Finally, so Satine thinks that it is unacceptable for the planet to rely on smugglers, but it is perfectly alright for them to beg the Republic for free handouts. For a self-proclaim independent system, they have a funny way or showing it.
 * (3) To sum up the two pervious points, this episode is so Anvilicious to the degree that you can play a drinking game every time the words 'Corruption' or 'Greed' are used by a character. But anyone that have any basic background on macro-economics can point out that: First of all, the entire crisis have absolutely nothing to do with greed; Secondly, the entire tea poisoning thing is the result of Satine policies, not the cause of it. If she will just change her planet's economic policies, this problem will not exist at all.
 * (4) This was already posted on the YMMV page, after Satine and Padme found the tea diluting factoring run by the smugglers. She orders the police to burn the entire facility to the ground. Honestly, WTF was that for? She achieved absolutely nothing other then destroying any chance of finding records or documentation listing the co-conspirators plus taking out all the evidence. For a someone who claims she is going to trace down the smuggling operations to its roots, Satine seems to lack even the most basic common sense when it comes to criminal investigations.
 * Is anyone else a bit annoyed by the amount of Red Shirt deaths? Even if it is kind of expected?
 * What? It's war. It's right in the title. Of course people are going to die. How is that annoying?
 * It kind of bugged me in "Jedi Crash" that 3 random clone troopers just died, leaving Commander Bly and the Jedi alone(mostly). It could have been made a great origin story for Commander Bly.Maybe it's just The Worf Effect with the Maridun animals and what not. Why did those mastiffs leave Bly alone? They could have just made some random Mauve Shirt Commander, killed him, and made Bly one of a few survivors, then rank him up as Commander. It was just that one episode. Sure, other Red Shirt deaths are fine(especially "Lair of Grievous" where it's lampshaded), but Jedi Crash just took the cake as probably one of the more unnerving Red Shirt Deaths. So much potential for character development.
 * Bly is a marshal commander, that is literally the highest rank you can be in the clone army, he was probably that rank from the end of his training. Besides, what you suggested would probably warrant more retcons, and frankly that's the last thing this show needs.
 * I think This Troper is infected with Travissty.
 * It is/was still canon. I guess they would have done so if Bly were the main focus of the story. It wasn´t like season 3 when those two cadets became AR Cs, what symbolised them evolving in the army and becoming heroes. Bly was just some background character thrown in, him climbing up the ranks served no purpose to the story and they didn´t want people to be pissed of that about the change in canon from the "clone are trained with ranks already in mind"-thing (at least not that early).
 * I'm curious, in Pursuit of Peace, they mention they intend to make millions of new clones. Ignoring clone number issues, how is making new clones going to help? It takes the better part of a decade to grow and train a clone and they need them right now. Do they have spare clones lying around in case they ever need extras?
 * It seemed to me that they wanted to make the army bigger on average (like instead of 3 million clones at the fronts now 4,5 million). Clones are dying all the time and as it looks in several of the episodes, comics, whatevers set on Kamino like that they produce clones constantly anyway, ordering soldiers in waves doesn´t make any sense.
 * So... you're agreeing with my statement that ordering a bunch of extra clones is kinda pointless because it'll take 10 years to grow them, or that they have lots of extra clones on hand just in case there's a need to spontaneously ramp up production (meaning there are countless clones who may be trained from birth for potentially pointless reasons, unless the Kaminoans train them as mercenaries)?
 * The second. The clones are produced all the time so there clearly is no wave system like the Republic buying 3 million clones and when the new law from "Defenders of Peace" is passed they order a second wave with 1 million. In the time these clones need to be made the current army is already destroyed and the Confederacy rules the galaxy. The Republic didn´t plan that far ahead and probably thought the war would last more than only three years. If the war ended abruptly with the Republic winning they probably would have used the remaining clones much the same way as the Empire: As police and armies when the seperatist-remnants start to rebel again.
 * Something else that bugs me... In Senate Spy, Lot Dodd is immediately able to produce an antidote for a poison administered to Padme... they never specified the poison. How would he know what to give her? Couldn't Padme level murder charges against him for this... like, they have direct evidence that he was involved in a plot to kill her, not circumstantial evidence done through minions like he normally does.
 * Could have been a multi-/all-purpose antidote?
 * Ashoka Dual-Wielding. I mean, isn't supposed that Dual-Wielding is banned for Jedi, since it goes against their phylosophy of "fight for defend yourself or others, but not for attack"?
 * Since when? Jedi are not stupid and know that you can't just defend yourself but also attack to beat or kill enemy. In many places in EU are mentioned that, even Jedi Guardians are all about attack (just play KOTOR). And I don't understeand why Dual-Wielding is more attack and less about defense.
 * The first troper is not entirely wrong here. By the events of TCW, dual-wielding and using dual-bladed lightsabers were phased out of the Jedi Order because they were too violent and deadly. During KOTOR, this decision had not been made yet. If I remember correctly, this happened around the end of the New Sith Wars, or 1000 BBY. Clearly, the Sith don't give a crap. However, certain Jedi still practiced dual-wielding, such as Sora Bulq,, in a possible justification of this.
 * Then there's potential Fridge Brilliance. Maybe it's a hint of an upcoming Face Heel Turn. Let's face it, we all know that one way or another, Anakin and Ahsoka's friendship doesn't end on a happy note.
 * It may be possible that the Jedi Order tends to overlook some things during such giant galactic wars.
 * In the Season Four premiere, there were a number of things that made me go "Huh?" The first of which is that Anakin is able to deflect blaster bolts underwater. Even if he draws on the Force to speed himself up, is it really possible to move your weapon through the water that fast? I would think not.
 * Lightsabers don't have any weight, just the handle. You couldn't swing a sword like that, but a lightsaber would be easy to swing.
 * Maybe so, but wouldn't the water slow down the movement of his arm?
 * Somewhat, but not enough that he couldn't compensate.
 * I'm more annoyed they didn't animate bubbles of heat off the saber. Or even acknowledge that most sabers short out in water.
 * Anakin loses his helmet in a fight with a Quarren. He watches it sink further and further away as he holds his breath, and he swims after it. Why not just Force-pull it back to himself?
 * Probably because he had to concentrate on holding his breath, blocking blaster bolts, and fighting off melee attacks.
 * That he did, but we've often seen Jedi use a Force-push in the heat of battle where they had to worry about avoiding attacks. So you'd think that pulling would be just as effortless, and would perhaps take less effort than frantically swimming after the helmet. It would also only take a second or two.
 * Jedi almost universally stop to do a Force push, and that usually takes a moment. How long would it take him to concentrate on pulling an object through water with all that battle going around him? More chance he'd be shot.
 * Just how old is Dengar now? Was Han 8 when they had their swoop race or something? Or did all the stuff with him getting his head impaled and receiving cyborg parts not happen until after the Clone Wars?
 * This is another example of either George Lucas or his daughter (who wrote the episode) telling any fans of the EU in their audience that none of the stories they read ever canonically happened. It's frustrating.
 * Now hold on, that doesn't mean they can't fix it; look what happened with Boba Fett's original 1996 origin story. It took about a decade, but they eventually made enough retcons to bring it back into canon without conflicting the new stuff. I'm confident they can do the same with Dengar. It was only his age that was bugging me; he'd have to be, like, in his 50's or something by ESB now. But, then again, if Karen Traviss can have octogenarian Boba Fett running around training Jedi to fight their Sith brothers, I'm sure Dengar's no less lively.
 * I guess they could do something like say "Oh, that was actually Dengar Senior, and the Dengar who swoop-raced Han Solo is like ten years old or whatever just like Han at the time the show is taking place," or say "Oh, the Dengar seen in ESB modeled himself after this earlier guy because of his reputation," but they really shouldn't have to. I've said before and will say again that when The Thrawn Trilogy came out it was touted by Lucas Film as the continuation of the story and that fans were being given Episodes 7, 8, 9, and so on. Then Lucas went and made some more movies and now this tv show, and he goes "Actually, no, I'll contradict those stories as much as I want to because despite what I told you before, they don't matter. And I really don't care if this rubs fans who think they do matter the wrong way." That's the real reason we're seeing an adult Dengar (and one who is capable of lust, at that) in the Clone Wars, because both George and Katie Lucas just did not give a shit about the story established for him in the EU. If you asked George, he'd probably tell you that Dengar never raced Han, never crashed and got injured, never got rebuilt into a cyborg killing machine by the Empire, none of it...or that all of that stuff happened in some parallel universe. It's the same as asking why the majority of Mandalorians in the Clone Wars era are completely unlike the Mandalorians from the books, comics, and video games; there is no reason or explanation for it, other than "Those other stories don't matter, because they were not written by me, George Lucas."
 * To play Devil's Advocate here, as nice as it would be to have them honor every EU source, one cannot reasonably expect them to have read every single one (or looked it up on Wookiepedia). There's a lot of them, after all. I read the one about Dengar, but I honestly can't even remember the title of the book. If the writers went out of there way to make sure they didn't disrupt any continuity, they'd never get any work done. More importantly, they'd never get any cameos that cause just as much "hey, I know that guy" as "OMG they changed his backstory, grrrrrr!" And frankly, when you start out a series with Anakin getting an apprentice who disappeared in a mere three years, it's better to just not take these things too seriously.
 * And besides that, you gotta imagine Mr. Chee is hard at work trying to come up with some kind of fix right now. I fully expect Dengar's backstory to be retconned so as to make sense again by the time the next round of Essential Guides comes out, just like what happened with the New Mandalorians.
 * In fact, with the announcement of a new Essential Guide to Characters coming out in summer 2012, it's likely that we'll see closure on the Dengar matter pretty soon.
 * George Lucas has repeatedly called the Expanded Universe a parallel universe. I think the idea that the EU is the canonical expansion of the movies was a combination of miscommunication on some high level people and wishful thinking. I remember him saying about how there wasn't really a story after the second Death Star blew up, how Han and Leia got married, Leia probably became a senator, and Han is grilling burgers on a barbeque (I'd say no interesting story. The Empire probably didn't just roll over and take it, and there probably was years of mop-up, but the Empire never had the kinds of resurgence in his vision that it did in the EU).
 * And pretty much every time Lucas said that, Leland Chee replied, "No, they are the same story, keep listening for new Holocron updates". Lucasfilm clearly can't even agree internally on what is or isn't canon. I'm certainly not one to constantly put down George the way so many others tend to, but I'd say it's best for people to just pick and choose for themselves whichever version they want to follow...and I'm pretty sure the majority will go for Chee's version.
 * Actually, in 2006, Chee mentioned on the boards that there is a "Films only" and "Films and EU" world (he said that while he considers the "Films and EU" to be more official, he's openly admitting bias due to his position and that it falls under the opinion of the individual fan).
 * The latter is actually what I was referring to-- his preference for the "Films and EU" world, which seems to be the version most online fans accept. He's still in a position of authority within the franchise, so his words hold weight.
 * Yeah, but George Lucas seems to hold the other position, and by any right, shouldn't his word hold even more weight? I'm also more arguing against people who are aggravated with Lucas for not adhering strictly to the Films+EU vision like it's some sort of betrayal. This is despite Lucas publicly and repeatedly stating he never intended to (with statements like "parallel world" and "the Emperor doesn't get cloned"). This is in stark contrast to a previous statement where a troper is complaining Lucas said something along the lines of "Actually, no, I'll contradict those stories as much as I want to because despite what I told you before, they don't matter." I feel that position is disingenuous because Lucas never went back on his word. His word was simply that he never held the position that the EU was canon in his view in the first place. Despite this, people either missed, misinterpreted, or flat out ignored what he said in favor of what they'd have liked to hear him say, then got all bent out of shape because they say he was being inconsistent.
 * How did Savage come into possession of ?
 * Is there any reason at all why Katie Lucas is a writer? I mean, aside from nepotism? She writes episodes which are filled with retcons, has bad ideas (laser bow, seriously) and picks fights with the fans.