Clone Wars Debriefing: "The Citadel"
Feb. 19th, 2011 10:36 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lazypadawanGo, Bulldogs!
Oh wait, not that Citadel. Instead of a Southern military-style academy, The Citadel in this show is a prison designed to hold Jedi. And the Seps are holding Evan Piell as an honored guest. It's up to Obi-Wan, Anakin, Rex and Co., and Ahsoka to bust him out.
It's simple, straightforward, and after the heavier and headier themes of the prior two story arcs, it may just be what the doctor ordered. As The Gleemo Blog put it in its review, it's a Season One adventure with Season Three animation. All of the classic Clone Wars elements are there: clones, battle droids, lightsabers, Michael Bay fireballs, derring do, torture, banter, narrow escapes, and movie references.
There's an interesting dynamic between Anakin and Ahsoka at the beginning of the episode. Anakin, due to what we know is his attachment issues and perhaps an effect of his experiences on Mortis, bans Ahsoka from the mission because it's too dangerous. Ahsoka sulks, then talks to Plo Koon, who reminds her it's Anakin's call but is clearly disturbed by the situation.
The plan to get into the prison is to get some battle droids who are now Artoo's "troops" (they're even painted with blue markings) to pilot a ship supposedly full of supplies. To hide themselves from life form scanners, Anakin comes up with the idea of freezing everyone in carbonite. Ah, so that's how he knows you can carbon freeze someone. Ugnaughts run the machines, which of course is a reference to TESB but now makes you wonder if carbon freezing is some kind of Ugnaught specialty.
The plan works brilliantly and we find out, once Artoo has everyone thawed, that Ahsoka has defied Anakin. He gets annoyed and Obi-Wan laughs at him. Ahsoka even throws it back in his face, in a nice way. Then, the rescue mission gets going. It's all pure excitement.
The commando droids turn out to be forces to contend with. They are tough, effective, nasty fighters. The action sequences, such as one where the heroes scale a cliff face earlier, and a Jedi/clones vs. commando droid fight in a corridor, are just as good as anything you'll see for $10 at the theater these days and nothing like what you find on television at all.
Evan Piell is rescued, and he sounds a bit Russian. He asks for some vodka and tells his rescuers they have to get the captain of Piell's captured ship from his cell. The captain has some valuable information. During the fight sequence that ensues, a big magnet is turned on and everything metallic gets sucked to the ceiling. This includes Anakin's robo claw, and unfortunately he is stuck right along with it. Then he gets a round of electroshock therapy.
Once they bust out the captain, it turns out to be none other than "Captain" Tarkin. No time is wasted before Tarkin and Anakin rub each other the wrong way. The whole thing ends on a cliffhanger...to be continued in two weeks. Bah!
The prison warden sounds like it's Christopher Walken, but it's really James Arnold Taylor. I hope he brought some Ricola for doing double-duty!
The animation is awesome. There are lots of little things to notice during the fight scenes, some of which happen so fast you have to really pay attention to catch them. Ahsoka for instance has some very fancy lightsaber moves.
And there were many other pitch-perfect moments, like Rex shooting out the camera or the warden having someone literally shoot the messenger.
My favorite pure adventure/action episode since "Landing At Point Rain."
Oh wait, not that Citadel. Instead of a Southern military-style academy, The Citadel in this show is a prison designed to hold Jedi. And the Seps are holding Evan Piell as an honored guest. It's up to Obi-Wan, Anakin, Rex and Co., and Ahsoka to bust him out.
It's simple, straightforward, and after the heavier and headier themes of the prior two story arcs, it may just be what the doctor ordered. As The Gleemo Blog put it in its review, it's a Season One adventure with Season Three animation. All of the classic Clone Wars elements are there: clones, battle droids, lightsabers, Michael Bay fireballs, derring do, torture, banter, narrow escapes, and movie references.
There's an interesting dynamic between Anakin and Ahsoka at the beginning of the episode. Anakin, due to what we know is his attachment issues and perhaps an effect of his experiences on Mortis, bans Ahsoka from the mission because it's too dangerous. Ahsoka sulks, then talks to Plo Koon, who reminds her it's Anakin's call but is clearly disturbed by the situation.
The plan to get into the prison is to get some battle droids who are now Artoo's "troops" (they're even painted with blue markings) to pilot a ship supposedly full of supplies. To hide themselves from life form scanners, Anakin comes up with the idea of freezing everyone in carbonite. Ah, so that's how he knows you can carbon freeze someone. Ugnaughts run the machines, which of course is a reference to TESB but now makes you wonder if carbon freezing is some kind of Ugnaught specialty.
The plan works brilliantly and we find out, once Artoo has everyone thawed, that Ahsoka has defied Anakin. He gets annoyed and Obi-Wan laughs at him. Ahsoka even throws it back in his face, in a nice way. Then, the rescue mission gets going. It's all pure excitement.
The commando droids turn out to be forces to contend with. They are tough, effective, nasty fighters. The action sequences, such as one where the heroes scale a cliff face earlier, and a Jedi/clones vs. commando droid fight in a corridor, are just as good as anything you'll see for $10 at the theater these days and nothing like what you find on television at all.
Evan Piell is rescued, and he sounds a bit Russian. He asks for some vodka and tells his rescuers they have to get the captain of Piell's captured ship from his cell. The captain has some valuable information. During the fight sequence that ensues, a big magnet is turned on and everything metallic gets sucked to the ceiling. This includes Anakin's robo claw, and unfortunately he is stuck right along with it. Then he gets a round of electroshock therapy.
Once they bust out the captain, it turns out to be none other than "Captain" Tarkin. No time is wasted before Tarkin and Anakin rub each other the wrong way. The whole thing ends on a cliffhanger...to be continued in two weeks. Bah!
The prison warden sounds like it's Christopher Walken, but it's really James Arnold Taylor. I hope he brought some Ricola for doing double-duty!
The animation is awesome. There are lots of little things to notice during the fight scenes, some of which happen so fast you have to really pay attention to catch them. Ahsoka for instance has some very fancy lightsaber moves.
And there were many other pitch-perfect moments, like Rex shooting out the camera or the warden having someone literally shoot the messenger.
My favorite pure adventure/action episode since "Landing At Point Rain."
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Date: 2011-02-21 06:10 am (UTC)....heck, it's never at all like he could do anything to evade it or steel himself against it in the slightest, he was in probably the most precarious and vulnerable of all positions right about then and I don't doubt as that bastard of a prison warden knew it, and was clearly and perversely revelling in it all the while (and did I mention just how much *grrrrrr*, incidentally?! :) ) which in turn, too, only made it ever harder and really just all the more distressing to see it being done to *him*, then, plainly put....seems the kind o' thing I'll just never be getting accustomed to and so as a result I'll just always be left *eeek*ing every which way and even fair covering my eyes and openly cringing into the bargain. :) But sitll, though, yeah, I guess somehow apart from any other considerations (!!!) there, it actually did strike me as a neato little bit of continuity there that once the magnet turned on, not only the weapons went up but then he was hauled into the air by his arm, at that....
It just seemed to me yet more most excellent attention to detail then, that they would, of course, full well be thinking of it and really make an especial point to touch on it just like they did back with "Zillo Beast", right, with the detonation of the proton bomb which sent that massive electronics-frying shockwave every which way and so not only did all the droids and even all the Republic and clone hardware and machines get momentarily frazzled and fried, understandable enough, ut then we even had that little glimpse of how it affected *him*, at that - even most briefly fritzed out his mechanical arm and had it sputtering and sparking a bit - which, of course, just like with what happened with the ceiling magnet and how he ended up pinned to the ceiling, hand-first, because of it - well, yeah, I guess it's naturally expected enough under the circumstances, makes perfect sense really....
And it's this exquisite attention to detail and how they're touching upon and incorporating even these marvellous little subtleties and yet treating them like they're just perfectly ordinary, and straightforward, and it's after all just what's liable to *happen* when you have giant electromagnets and electronics-frying proton bombs all over the place, let's say, and yet that they would make such a point of incorporating the "little things" like this, how maybe most others wouldn't necessarily think of it but, of course, *they* do....and surely we can but only love and appreciate them even more for it, too, because to my way of thinking anyway it only further proves the awesome and exacting attention to detail they take with the show in general - but also, just how much care they take with even the seemingly "little"st of things in particular. :D