How I realized I was over Star Wars completely

[anarky]

In fairness, Marquand and Kershner weren't best known for a "meh" Star Trek film.

Neither is Abrams.

I should become a fortune teller and make lots of money, because I foresaw you contradicting me on that.

[Diabolical]

In fairness, Marquand and Kershner weren't best known for a "meh" Star Trek film.

Neither is Abrams.

I should become a fortune teller and make lots of money, because I foresaw you contradicting me on that.

Easy for you to say...afterward.

I don't like Trek, but the Abrams flick was something Trek had never been before: fun.
I saw it twice in theaters and several more times since then on dvd...something I never thought I'd say about a Trek flick.

[anarky]

Okay, JJL, please humor me.

I've noticed a lot of comments on FB about the latest Clone Wars episode, usually something like "Wow! I can't believe they did that!" or "That was awesome!" On the one hand, I don't care. On the other, I'm morbidly curious what the buzz is about, but don't want to ask people who are praising it because they know I dislike the show and tend to be dismissive.

So, what the hell happened?

(If you say that Darth Maul and Boba Fett teamed up with a robot that looked like Batman and they kidnapped Padme and forced her to wear a metal bikini and then Cad Bane had to team up with Ahsoka to save her and they did a duet voiced by Miley Cyrus and Justin Bieber that wowed Darth Maul and he let her go, well, that's kinda what I expected. )

[RoIIo Tomassi]

Chewbacca has secretly been a Sith Lord this entire time.

[Diabolical]

Sidious showed up and beat the fuck out of Maul and killed Savage Oppress (thank God) after the brothers took over Mandalore and killed some popular characters created for the series.
Its been pretty violent for a kids show.

[Senor JabbaJohnL]

Okay, JJL, please humor me.

I've noticed a lot of comments on FB about the latest Clone Wars episode, usually something like "Wow! I can't believe they did that!" or "That was awesome!" On the one hand, I don't care. On the other, I'm morbidly curious what the buzz is about, but don't want to ask people who are praising it because they know I dislike the show and tend to be dismissive.

So, what the hell happened?

(If you say that Darth Maul and Boba Fett teamed up with a robot that looked like Batman and they kidnapped Padme and forced her to wear a metal bikini and then Cad Bane had to team up with Ahsoka to save her and they did a duet voiced by Miley Cyrus and Justin Bieber that wowed Darth Maul and he let her go, well, that's kinda what I expected. )

As Diabolical said, the biggest "HOLY FUCKING SHIT" moment was the lightsaber duel between Sidious, Maul, and Savage, which was the best one in the show's history (I'd say "by a mile," but the previous episode's showdown between Maul and Death Watch leader Pre Vizsla was also spectacular). Aside from that, the whole episode was exciting, entertaining, and emotional, and it tied up loose threads that had been running through the last four seasons of the show, so it was immensely satisfying as a fan who's followed the show since the start.

Plot-wise, over this arc, Maul and Savage were trying to build a power base and operate as crime lords. After their pirate allies turned on them and Obi-Wan kicked their asses, they were discovered by Death Watch (who, in this series, wanted to return the planet Mandalore to its warrior past, and has been trying since Season Two when they were largely thwarted by Obi-Wan, whose former almost-lover Satine was the pacifist leader of Mandalore). After much plotting and betrayal, Death Watch regained control of Mandalore, and Maul became leader of the Death Watch, so Mandalore was supposed to be their operating base for their criminal empire. Sidious felt a disturbance in the Force once Maul got too powerful and he decided to remind the brothers about the rule of two, and then shit got cray.

On the surface level it could be easy to see Maul and the Mandos joining up as a fanwank, but it's been executed satisfyingly well (especially coming off of one of the most-reviled arcs in the series - but hell, you'd probably like that one ).

[Diabolical]

It was kind of cool to see Black Sun and the Falleen, although I was hoping for Xizor.

[anarky]

Granted, that's about the most badass way they could wrap up the Maul subplot.

Of course, it's been so fanwanky that such an ending is also the most "12-year-old's fanfic" way they could wrap it up as well.

BTW, does this mean all the stories in Visionaries are supposed to be canon now? I thought they'd already drastically retconned the Grievous origin away (and it, along with the story about Mon Mothma's son, was the only part of that comic that didn't suck ass).

[Diabolical]

Didn't the Visionaries story have a slightly older Obi-Wan?
Maul recently got newer, normal looking cyborg legs anyway.

[anarky]

Yeah, but the idea of a cybernetic Maul tracking down Obi-Wan on Tatooine isn't negated by what I've seen of and read about Clone Wars. If he is left in any position where he's not conclusively dead (let's be honest here and add the word AGAIN), then that story easily fits, the stupidity of it aside.

The only thing about that story that didn't suck like Slicker in a roomful of naked sailors was the attempt at explaining why Owen seems to hate Obi-Wan in ANH, but it sucked so bad that that slight non-suck of this is negated and overshadowed.

[Senor JabbaJohnL]

Yeah, but the idea of a cybernetic Maul tracking down Obi-Wan on Tatooine isn't negated by what I've seen of and read about Clone Wars. If he is left in any position where he's not conclusively dead (let's be honest here and add the word AGAIN), then that story easily fits, the stupidity of it aside.

The only thing about that story that didn't suck like Slicker in a roomful of naked sailors was the attempt at explaining why Owen seems to hate Obi-Wan in ANH, but it sucked so bad that that slight non-suck of this is negated and overshadowed.

No, the Visionaries story isn't on any level of canon and never was - those stories were all done by different people under the orders to ignore continuity and do whatever the hell they wanted. There, Maul was tracking Obi-Wan down but was always slightly behind. That's vastly different from him Maul living in squalor on a garbage planet for over a decade, being rescued by his long-lost brother (who, through dark magic, was turned into a hulking monster), using the same dark magic to be restored to health, and going about building a criminal empire before getting his ass handed to him by Sidious and presumably becoming his bitch boy. The design of Maul's first cybernetic/magic legs was taken from Visionaries (and those legs have since been destroyed and replaced with normal-looking ones), but that's it. (For some reason the Grievous origin was accepted as higher canon even though it probably shouldn't have been, given the intent behind the book - anyway, the active character in The Clone Wars is a far more interesting backstory than "uh, the same thing that already happened to Vader.")

Once you accept that Maul is back, the story is entertaining as hell. They've used him very well and believably so far, in my opinion.

[anarky]

Why can't he revert to the earlier legs and always be a step behind Obi-Wan after being left for dead at the end of Clone Wars?

[Diabolical]

Once you accept that Maul is back, the story is entertaining as hell. They've used him very well and believably so far, in my opinion.

Disagree. This whole Maul thing has been as stupid as Ahsoka.

I was far more entertained by the recent Droid arc more than the stupid youngling and Maul arcs.

I'm also still disappointed by the overall show, which should have primarily been the adventures of Obi-Wan and Anakin during the Clone Wars, with the occasional episode focusing on other Jedi or troopers or whatever. There was so much opportunity to really explore those two and develop the friendship/partnership that we didn't see much of in the flicks.

[Senor JabbaJohnL]

Why can't he revert to the earlier legs and always be a step behind Obi-Wan after being left for dead at the end of Clone Wars?

Because it's not canon and never will be.

Really, though, in TCW, his first new set of legs - after the spider-looking ones, which was evidently the Dark Side holding garbage to his body that manifested in spider legs (that's implied, not explicit) - were created by Nightsister leader Mother Talzin (with help from droid parts that had been destroyed in a recent battle) and they were destroyed by the pirates when Maul and Savage were trying to escape them. When Death Watch rehabilitated the brothers, Maul was given (what I assume to be) non-magical, fully robotic legs, and he lost the wristbands and neck brace thing that he had been wearing previously (and that he wears in the Visionaries comic). He COULD go back to Mother Talzin and ask her for some more of those ones, I guess, but he seems better suited to the normal-looking ones anyway.

I haven't read that comic in a while (since it came in the set with the Maul and Owen figures, probably), but I remember Maul killing Watto and the Polis Massans. It was like he was almost literally a step behind Obi-Wan, somehow tracing his path from the films. Dave Filoni said that George wanted to start killing off characters that had been created for the show but didn't appear in the films to wrap up those loose ends, which is probably why there were three high-profile deaths in this arc (and RIP the Twilight as well, which you may remember from your viewing of the Clone Wars film). So I find it unlikely that Maul will survive the series, especially now that Sidious has him under his thumb again.

Disagree. This whole Maul thing has been as stupid as Ahsoka.

I was far more entertained by the recent Droid arc more than the stupid youngling and Maul arcs.

I'm also still disappointed by the overall show, which should have primarily been the adventures of Obi-Wan and Anakin during the Clone Wars, with the occasional episode focusing on other Jedi or troopers or whatever. There was so much opportunity to really explore those two and develop the friendship/partnership that we didn't see much of in the flicks.

Do you still dislike Ahsoka's character at this point? She's retained absolutely none of her brattiness, annoying nicknames, or anything else that was bothersome from the early episodes. Especially going forward from Season Three's episodes where she was captured by the Trandoshans, she's grown so much as a character to where now I actually have to remind myself that she doesn't appear at all in Revenge of the Sith. Yes, it was initially odd that Anakin had a Padawan and yes, she was very annoying at first, but now she feels like an important part of the saga to me. Apparently the next four episodes are big ones for her.

I didn't hate the droid arc as much as the rest of the internet, but in retrospect it feels like a waste of a lot of time. Especially since R2-D2 and the other astromechs were all but ignored so we could spend a ton of time with Colonel Gascon and WAC and their forced shenanigans. I loved the youngling arc, though - it felt like old fashioned Star Wars and gave a lot of fun history to the Jedi and their lightsabers. And Hondo is awesome. I guess we just have different tastes when it comes to this show.

I agree there needs to be more Anakin and Obi-Wan, as well as more Anakin WITH Obi-Wan. The Rush Clovis episodes that were pushed out of this season were going to feature some character moments and touch on how much Obi-Wan knows about Anakin and Padmé, which I'm still looking forward to. I still think there have been good moments between the two of them - the show was originally going to be only about characters that weren't in the films at all, so I feel like the show we have is preferable to the show they could have given us. It will be interesting to see how it all ties together as a whole, but episodes like yesterday's show that they're not forgetting plots that were brought up years ago, which I really appreciate.

[anarky]

I object to the very existence of Ahsoka. Not in a fanboy "she ruint Star Wers!" way, but in a narrative fashion. There is simply no way Anakin could've had a padawan for such a long period of time without it coming up once in events as life-changing as we saw in Revenge of the Sith.

Given the age of Luke in the Visionaries comic, he wasn't literally a step behind Obi-Wan. Even if he was, Obi-Wan hasn't met the Polis Massans yet. Nor has he encountered Watto (which is probably how we would've found Owen, even though, now that I'm thinking of it, there's no logical explanation at all for how he did since he never met Watto at all).