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| Tuesday, November 18, 2008 11:56 AM |
| On the Viewer - Star Wars: The Clone Wars (Episode 6, "Downfall of a Droid") |
 by Fëanor |
The latest episode of the Star Wars animated series sees Anakin acting based on his emotions again, and thus getting himself and the entire Republic into trouble again (they really should have seen the whole Dark Side thing coming). In this case, Anakin comes up with a bold plan to defeat Grievous, which actually works pretty well until, in his desire to catch the fleeing droid General, he pushes his ship a bit too far and it busts apart on him, knocking him out. The battle is a success, and Anakin is recovered unharmed, but his ship and his droid (that being the famous R2-D2) are lost. Obi-Wan is pretty callous about the whole droid thing (his comforting words to Anakin are "droids are a dime a dozen"), and tells Anakin not to go running off trying to find R2, until Anakin reveals that he hasn't been wiping R2's memory the way you're supposed to, which means the little guy is loaded with Republic secrets. Obi-Wan therefore orders him to track the droid down right away, so off Anakin and Ahsoka go. They find a slimy scavenger trolling the battlefield, looking for scrap he can sell, and go aboard his ship hoping to buy (or steal) R2 back from him. Despite having clearly heard the droid's characteristic chirp while on board the ship, Anakin allows himself to be convinced that R2 is not there and leaves. But of course R2 is there, and the scavenger intends to sell the droid to Grievous for a big profit. When Anakin and Ahsoka return without R2, Obi-Wan decides that's that, the droid must be destroyed, so let's get on with our business. Anakin hates his replacement droid (and with good reason! The thing is either seriously defective or is actually deliberately trying to sabotage him), and is certain R2 is still out there, but that's where the story ends for now.
There are a number of things that bother me about this episode, and most of them are central parts of the Star Wars universe that have always bothered me. One of these is the way droids are treated. They're given personalities and feelings, but it's also common practice to constantly wipe their memories and to treat them as disposable tools. That's seriously f'ed up. It's also really creepy and wrong to me that the Jedi want all their members to have no attachments and to show no special affection for people or things. That's inhuman and a ridiculous thing to expect from anyone. Trying to force yourself to feel no passion and have no attachments is just going to twist you up inside and make you a really lonely, repressed, and messed up person. Which means the Jedi are a cult of super-powered insane people who are all bound to snap at some point. Not good!
The other things that bother me about the episode are simple logic problems and unbelievable character behavior. It doesn't make sense to me that Anakin would just leave the scavenger's ship after clearly hearing R2's chirp. Certainly he can do some kind of Jedi thing to track the droid down, or at the very least use the Jedi mind trick on the scavenger to get the truth out of him. It also doesn't make sense to me that Obi-Wan would be willing to just forget about R2 after only a cursory search by Anakin and Ahsoka. The droid is packed full of essential Republic secrets, and you're just going to assume he's been destroyed? What kind of General are you?
So yeah, definitely not my favorite episode - although I did really enjoy the fight with the assassin droids. We've seen that type of droid before in The Empire Strikes Back, but we've never gotten a chance to actually see them in action until now. Very cool.
Anyway, here's hoping they go back to focusing on the clones again soon! |
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