Hello and welcome back to yet another The Clone Wars review here on the Star Wars Report!
This week we’ll have not one, but two reviews (since I’m slightly behind on getting these out). First, we’ll cover Asajj’s epic bounty hunter team up in the episode “Bounty”. Then we take a look at Savage’s journey to find his long lost Sith brother in “Brothers”!
This episode we experience a big change of pace and mood from the previous episode’s dark and almost tragic events, in which Asajj becomes an outcast, after the separatists completely eliminate the Nightsisters with the exception of Talzen and Ventress. In bounty however it would seem we’ve goneback to a more basic Clone Wars formula. Our characters are required to carry out some objective and there are bad guys (usually droids) and the good guys win and save the day, right? Well, I found something different about Bounty, and it may have something to do with the fact that it has Dengar, Boba Fett, and Bossk, three of the most classic bounty hunters in the entire franchise. But it also has great character moments, a great situation for the characters we were presented with, not just Ventress, and finally some interesting character dynamics to add to the action, even if the tone reallydoes not fit anywhere near the episodes that we have lined up for the finale.
I think what I loved most about this episode was the western style of the story, especially with an “all-star” bounty hunter team. That’s like every Star Wars fan’s dream, to watch an armored Boba Fett and a witty Dengar protect precious cargo in a Star Wars version of a train heist. Add a rogue Sith Assassin and an army of ninjas and you’ve got Star Wars gold! I also enjoyed seeing how Ventress and Boba work together, with Boba trying so hard to follow in his father’s footsteps, but falling a little short (quite literally) when Ventress sees him basically as a bratty kid, hence her solution to the big problem of the “cargo” at the end. It just goes to show that Boba still has a long way to go to become a legend. I even think it makes the character that much better, knowing how much he’s had to mature to becomethe bounty hunter that we all consider to be the best by the time of the empire strikes back.
A big part of this episode was the dilemma Asajj was faced with towards the end of the episode. Her inner conflict of what to do with the kidnapped ninja-girl (for lack of a better term) was about the only relevant tie to the actual finale which really did strengthen the character of Asajj Ventress, I would say it even changed her. If you look back at season one, the episode where the traitor Capitan Argyus and Ventress spring I think it was Nute Gunray out of jail, she stabs him in the back in order to take all the credit for the job. However at the end of Bounty, she only takes her fair cut, when she could have easily taken the credits for herself, she even left Boba’s cut of the payment. I honestly think her selfishness of taking more money from the attackers was just to cover up her true intentions of wanting to do good. I’m just really excited to see where Ventress’s character will go in the future, now knowing that her storyis yet to be concluded, in fact, I think it may just be warming up.
My final thoughts on Bounty? It was a fantastic episode. They started with something that could’ve beenan average filler episode, and turned it into something much more. It is the biggest example of what I want to see in the Clone Wars. Great characters, great stories, new designs, and great action! This brings us to our next episode, Brothers, our lead up to the finale.
Needless to say that ever since January of last year, fans of the Clone Wars everywhere have been dying to know how and why Maul is back. Some, like myself, have been at least a little skeptical abouthis return, and concerned that his time in clone wars would negatively impact the character, and possibly even the Phantom Menace. I am here to say that there is no need to panic any longer. Maul’s introduction was really cool and lot different than I expected. While watching his arachnid like legs move him around the tunnels of Lotho Minor, I managed to almost forget that his possibility of survivinghis fall down that shaft was basically impossible, and was just drawn in by the crazed character on my screen. “This isn’t Maul!” I thought to myself. This could’ve been Maul, long ago but now he’s something different. A creature that has had only one thing on his mind for the past decade, revenge.
With almost Gollum-like ramblings in place of the silent Sith apprentice who only had a few lines in the entire Phantom Menace, he truly left me with a different outlook on Maul in the Clone Wars. I think we all sort of expected to see the same Maul as we saw in TPM, but I was not disappointed by their ability to take the character to uncharted areas and make something both intriguing and believable with his current state in that era, with the spectacular work of actor Sam Witwer behind Maul’s voice.
While I was very impressed with Maul in this episode, I was not too pleased by a lot of the other aspects of Brothers. There were times where I felt the whole episode could’ve been summed up in five minutes. All we really needed was the introduction of Maul, and possibly the first act in which the Jedi and theSith alike feel disturbances in the force, which could’ve easily been a part of other episodes. Savage Opress himself isn’t a character I’m really attached to, it’s more the story of Ventress, the Nightsisters and Maul that has me invested. And this episode was just useless to me for the most part. Savage talks to himself a lot, and his dialogue is pretty lame. Plus, “Morley” didn’t really help this episode in mybook, nor in anyone else’s book either from what I’ve gathered. He was a talking snake with a voice that made you cringe, maybe that was the point, but he could have easily broken the episode completely for some people. Brothers was a “get from point A to point B” episode in the strictest sense, there was no character development or any real conflict, just Savage getting angry and strangling people until he falls into a pit and meets his brother. Yes, we were introduced to some cool designs, and things along theway that might be used in the next episode, such as the fire breathers and the Junkers, but it was stillunnecessary and really didn’t need to be introduced with their own episode.
While I was mostly uninterested in what was going on in most parts of Brothers, Maul more than madeup for its flaws. Its purpose was to build up to the meeting of Savage and Maul, but honestly it’s been building up for over a year, I’d rather they just skipped the dots we can connect on our own and leave more time for Maul.
I guess that wraps up my review for this week! What did you think of either ofthese episodes? Also, what did you think of Maul’s return? Leave a comment below, we love reading them! Thanks for the support, and I greatly look forward to this week’s episode! Thanks again forreading and may the force be with you…always
-Ryan
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