Clone Wars In Review: 1x02 "Rising Malevolence"

In our ongoing mission to bring truth and light (of the really bright green variety) to an otherwise dark galaxy, the Death Star's PR team continue our weekly review of episodes of Star Wars: The Clone Wars.

Episode 1x02: "Rising Malevolence"

Moral: "Belief is not a matter of choice, but of conviction."

Actual Message: "It's okay to do disobey orders if you think your reasons are good enough."

 

The Seperatists have a new secret weapon. The Jedi Council send Master Platoon Plow Koon Button Eyes Predator Face to investigate.

Using all of his amazing Jedi precognitive and empathic powers, Master B.E.P.F. guides his ships straight into a Seperatist "trap", which here means "floating in space a very obvious way, making sure to have a red sun in the background so as to be particularly easy to spot".

Count Dooku and General Grievous fire the new superweapon, destroying the Republic's fleet and forcing the survivors to employ Standard Jedi Emergency Protocol #1: When in doubt, run away and hide out!

Very perceptively, and using all of their great knowledge of the Force, the Council think everyone is dead. Skywalker's skimpily dressed sassy Padawan Ahsoka Tano thinks there could be survivors, and she isn't afraid to sassily tell the Council. They wisely ignore her. In classic Anakin style, he then gives her a lecture about following orders, before promptly ignoring them himself and going to investigate.

While Anakin, Ahsoka and ubiquitous droid sidekick R2-D2 search the debris for survivors, Master Plutonium and three of his clone soldier friends encounter a group of droids who just want to talk/throw them into the vacuum of space. However, Master Protein & co. have a surprise in store for the poor droids and throw themselves into space first, presumably so they can put their lives in the maximum amount of jeopardy possible.


Apparently one handy Jedi ability is the power to survive the sudden decompression, lack of oxygen and extreme cold for extended period of time without a suit or any kind of breathing apparatus.

Improbably surviving the improbable space shoot out, Master Potpourri and friends are rescued by Anakin and Ahsoka just in time to put them in more danger when Grievous returns in his flagship and superweapon, the Malevolence. It fires on them but due to some fancy flying on Anakin's part, the Jedi narrowly escape, once again bravely fleeing another battle. 

Overall, a fun episode with some excellent action, with Skywalker's final escape from the ion cannon's blast being a particularly high point.


Score Sheet:
Jedi Deaths: 0 (but plenty of fun Clone Trooper deaths to make up for it)
Death Star Superlaser Nods: 4
Darth Vader Moments: 0.5
Disgustingly Feel Good Scenes: 2


Rating:

Love

Love is like a lightsaber:

It burns hot, cuts easily, looks fun in movies but usually ends with someone having no limbs face down in lava.

The 10 Jerkiest Things Obi-Wan Kenobi Ever Did

While the Rebellion would have you believe that Obi-Wan Kenobi was an excellent mentor, a highly-regarded General, and arguably one of the greatest Jedi Masters ever, the truth is, he was a bit of a douche. In fact, he was such a massive jerk that the hardest thing about writing this list was narrowing it down to just the ten jerkiest things he ever did.

10) Calling Darth Vader a "Master of Evil"

Although he's always been a smug bastard, Obi-Wan took it to a new level when he came face to face with his old apprentice and ex-BFF on the Death Star, calling him a "Master of Evil". Hey Obi-Wan Jerknob-i: when the last time you met, you cut off someone's arm and both of their legs and threw them in to molten lava, you don't get to make a call about who's evil and who's not.

9) Always cutting off everyone's arms

Look, we know we bring this up a fair bit but we really feel that it's a valid point because seriously, doesn't someone with amazing Force powers that include telekinesis, superhuman speed and reflexes, empathy and even limited precognition have A SINGLE BETTER OPTION FOR DISARMING SOMEONE THAN LITERALLY DISARMING THEM? 

8) Training Luke
Although Obi-Wan used the Force for loads of things, he used it most for backflipping like crazy on his opinions. As a younger Jedi, Obi-Wan didn't want Qui-Gon Jinn to train Anakin because he was "too old" for the training at age nine, but was only too happy to train Luke when he was 19. Why? No, not "out of necessity" Kenobi apologists,  but because when you're a hypocritical jerk you can make the rules up as you go along.

7) Not helping Luke on Hoth

Here's the scenario: Your friend has just barely survived a near-fatal crash on a snow planet and is now literally freezing to death. As a ghost who has "become more powerful than you can possibly imagine" by becoming One With The Force, do you:
a) Use your nifty ghost teleportational powers to go get help;
b) Do anything else in any way actually helpful; or,
c) Be a complete jerkbag and ignore the fact that the kid is dying of hypothermia and internal injuries and just give him his next set of marching orders?
You guessed it.

6) Not training Leia

As a child of Anakin Skywalker, Princess Leia inherited great Force powers equal to those of her brother, Luke. So why didn't Obi Wan decide to train her too? Surely two Jedi would have had a better chance fighting evil Sith Lords than one? The answer is simple: Obi-Wan didn't like girls. 
Here's how the Yoda/Kenobi Dagobah conversation actually went:
Obi-Wan: "That boy is our last hope."
Yoda: "No, there is another."
Obi-Wan: "Yeah, I was at the birth, genius. Remember? I just don't count girls."

5) Being a bad friend

So what if love is expressly forbidden by the sacred laws of your ancient religion that has allowed your order of warrior space monks to maintain peace for over ten thousand years? What's so bad about falling in love? What possible downside is their to a moody young Jedi Knight with narcissistic tendencies and a bit of a God complex marrying a career-driven cougar ex-Queen? If Obi-Wan was a better friend, he would have stood by Anakin's decision to be married instead of getting all judgey about it.

4) Not telling Luke and Leia about being brother and sister

We can forgive Obi-Wan for the oversight. I mean, finding out you have a long-lost twin brother or sister probably isn't a big deal for orphans, right? You can certainly see how that little detail might not come up in the many, many hours of conversation aboard a starship hurtling towards the sibling in question. Oh well, it's not like anyone got hurt, because it's not like there's any chance the twins would meet and develop sexy feelings for each other, right?

3) Lying to Luke about his dad

Admittedly, telling the kid you've spent the last 19 years creepily spying on/"watching over" that you were the one who attempted to brutally murder his father is a pretty awkward conversation but it's probably right up there in terms of pretty important information they might want to know before they make the decision to hang out with you. Some people are just weird like that.

2) Leaving Anakin to die

Friends argue. Sometimes they even come to blows. But it takes a pretty special kind of "friend" to cut off your arm and legs and leave you to burn alive in molten lava. Even accepting the fact that Anakin was in some small way responsible for causing the tiff, if you have to be that guy who de-limbs his "friend" and throws them into magma, at least do them a solid for old times' sake and put them out of their incredibly, incredibly painful misery.

1) Hiding the droids we were looking for

By hiding R2-D2 and C-3PO from the great and benevolent Galactic Empire, Obi-Wan was directly responsible for the explosion of the Death Star, which resulted in the deaths of more than 1.3 million people. Sure, maybe a few of them were a teeny bit evil, but what about all of the service staff, subcontractors, senior citizen tour groups, people shopping in any of the 178 beautifully appointed shopping malls, and the sweet, innocent children in the Death Star's 604 baby creches?

In conclusion, Obi-Wan Kenobi: total and utter bastard.

Hero or Villain

There has never been a villain who wasn't the hero in their own story, or a hero who wasn't the villain in somebody else's.

Darth Vader: Behind the Mask

Darth Vader: you know him as the Dark Lord of the Sith, He-Who-Brought-Balance-to-the-Force, Twitter royalty, hero to billions and perhaps the greatest icon of our time. But what is the man behind the mask behind the legend really like?

Death Star PR finds out.

DSPR: Lord Vader, thank you for taking the time to talk to us, we understand that you’re a very busy man.
DV: You may dispense with the pleasantries, PR lackey. I’ve just traced the rebels to their hidden base on Hoth. My skivvies are warming in the dryer as we speak. Fire away (no pun intended) before the buzzer sounds.

DSPR: You’ve taken to Twitter like a Jedi to failing. What do you enjoy most about interacting with your legions of fans?
DV: The chance to strike fear into the hearts of the denizens of this backwater little world one-on-one. There really is nothing like force-choking someone via a 140 character text message. The marriage proposals are nice too.

DSPR: Your fans number over 200,000. What do you put your popularity down to?
DV: I like to think it’s my unwavering commitment to the Dark Side, but the ladies know the real reason. The black leather, the heavy breathing, my command of the Force. I have these things in evil spades and they’re the same reason that girl you liked so much in high school didn’t give you the time of day. She was pining for Fonzie, while you were busy being Richie Cunningham.

DSPR: When you’re not tweeting or killing people how do you spend your time?
DV: I search the galaxy for my whiny-ass son, make back-room deals with turncoat scoundrels and do the occasional voice over work for CNN and TomTom to pay the bills.

DSPR: For some strange reason, some people seem to think of you as a bad guy. How do you respond to that kind of negativity?
DV: Just because I slaughtered all those Sand People and younglings people seem to think I’m this big baddie. Let me just say for the record they all had it coming, especially those lackey admirals that litter the floor around the Death Star cafeteria. It’s so hard to find good help these days.

DSPR: What do you think is the biggest misconception people have about you?
DV: People seem to think I do what I do out of anger, and let’s be honest, a lot of it I do. But what I’m really all about is simply bringing order to a chaotic galaxy. You have to have rules or society degenerates into a bunch of Mon Calamari with boom boxes on your lawn at 3am. All I’m doing is keeping the squid in their place, try and remember that.

DSPR: This question’s from Jake, 12, on Bespin, who asks, “What’s it like being the 2 I.C. of the Galactic Empire?”
DV: It’s pretty cushy, Jake. I get to work my own hours, hunt down Jedi dogs for fun and intimidate entire plants, like yours, into submission. Hope you’re enjoying the new tax on those Bespin Burgers I levied. Your dad just paid to have my cape cleaned and pressed. How does that feel?
DSPR: You wear so many hats, or should we say “helmets”. What aspect of your job do you enjoy the most?
DV: The inescapable fact that people love everything that comes out of my asthmatic mouth. Even the simplest words such as “What?!”, “Sister!” and my all-time favorite “NOOOooooooooo!” become legendary. It’s good to be me.

DSPR: What advice would you give to any young people out there with a dream in their eye and evil in their heart hoping to follow in your footsteps?
DV: Start small, a journey of a thousand dead rebels begins with one step. Bully a school mate into giving you his lunch money or take your friend’s football and go home. Work your way up by downloading songs and movies off bittorrent and before you know it, you’ll be my new Dark Apprentice.

DSPR: As someone who is an inspiration to others, who, or what, inspires you?
DV: Truth be told, Obi Wan used to inspire me a great deal. He was my master after all. I learned a great deal from him before he got all soft and holier than thou. I really didn’t blink a scarred eye when I sent him to join the Force. Nowadays I get lots of inspiration from this planet’s so-called ‘entertainment’. Between the Twilight saga and Jersey Shore there’s no shortage of evil in the world.

DSPR: Being the most powerful Force user in the Galaxy must be great. What’s the most fun thing you’ve used or abused the Force for?
DV: Mind tricks never get old. Let’s just say I never have to wait in lines at restaurants, sporting events or major theme parks. I’m like one big, evil Fast Pass.

DSPR: You’ve led a very full life. Any regrets?
DV: Just that whole force choking and accidentally killing Padmé thing. If I could go back, that entire incident could have gone a lot better I think. Yeah.

DSPR: Finally, tell us something about Darth Vader that most people wouldn’t know.
DV: Evil skivvies dry faster than normal. My shuttle awaits, and your time is up. This has been a pleasure and an honour for you, I know.
DSPR: That goes without saying, my Lord, but just in case not saying it would result in a Force Choke - it’s been a pleasure and an honour chatting with you, Lord Vader. Thank you for your time.

A Common Problem

The Death Star is a lot like having sex with Darth Vader:

It's cold, it fires quickly, usually only fires once and there's a lot of anger, tears and recriminations afterwards.