#chronological rewatch

[united-federation-of-trek]

two days and two nights:

[ninastarkov]

just watched rookies and the RANGE in that episode, on one hand you have one of the funniest moment in the show (rex: *pretends to be a droid* “roger, roger” cody: *facepalms* “this is never gonna work”) and on the other hand you have probably one of the best lines in the show (“do we take prisoners?” “i don’t.”) and three of domino squad die (😭). rex casually kills a giant eel in one shot and also rips the head off a commando droid. fives, after all his emphasis on having a name, immediately introduces himself by his full number bc he’s so in awe of rex and cody. cody’s reaction to what he thinks is rex killing a clone is “rex, what the heck are you doing?” and echo tells everyone he likes being on rishi bc he likes the time to read the regulation manuals. i need more clone-centric episodes (without them dying, please)

[loveclonetroopers]

The best part of every episode is after the republic wins and all the clones start cheering, when they start cheering and laughing and celebrating!! that's the best part.

[ninastarkov]

ok i started a chronological rewatch of tcw and got to “clone cadets” and besides that it made me way too sad that episode is exhibit a of why tcw is so good.

it has all the elements of good tcw in just one episode: humanizing the clones and emphasizing unity/brotherhood among them, giving us a look into the jedi, giving us little scenes and lines that come back to haunt us later.

shaak ti is a main player in this episode and i love her a lot. one thing i noticed is that not once in the episode did she refer to any of the clones by their number, which felt very purposeful bc some of them (hevy, droidbait, cutup) hadn’t even chosen names yet, and at one point i think echo(?) calls fives CT-27-5555 which is so unnecessary that it’s funny. other characters (ex. the bounty hunters that help with training) have no issue calling them by number. one of them especially, bric, is a prime example of the people out in the galaxy who see clones as objects more than anything. the other, el-les, cares more for them as people. they’re the opposites on the spectrum, their purpose to show a good side of humanity and bad, and work pretty well in that role.

also on shaak ti, at one point she meets with a kaminoan (lama su) and makes clear how the clones are people, not objects, to which this moron says “you jedi show too much compassion.” so much insight into two characters just from a line of dialogue. the portrayal of lama su shows just how little the kaminoans care for the clones—the clones are just products to them, which comes back into play once again in the chip arc with fives in s6.

twice in the episode, someone makes a speech to all the clones that are about to be shipped off to war. first time, it’s colt, an arc trooper. his speech is all about unity, brotherhood, working together for a common cause. the second speech is by shaak ti, right as all the clones are leaving kamino, essentially wishing them well. but after her speech, we get a shot of all of them marching out with ti standing alone in the middle. this, combined with music that seems mournful, is what got my attention. this should be a proud moment, and it is, but it’s overshadowed by the knowledge that all of these men are going to go fight and inevitably die. the music reflects that, and so does the image of ti standing alone, still, as the clones pass her by.

and on foreshadowing and scenes that come back to haunt us. someone on bravo squad (the good squad, making fun of domino) says “watch the dominoes fall” which made me s c r e a m because that’s exactly what we the audience have to do over the course of the show. honestly, if ahsoka and rex are the main characters of tcw, domino squad is right below them. also, towards the end of the ep, hevy gives 99 his medal, promising they’ll see each other again. of course, that never happens, and 99 and hevy both die in sacrifice for their brothers. 99 is another amazing part of this episode. he’s the one to push hevy to bring his squad together. without 99, hevy would have deserted and domino would have failed. again, brothers coming together.

(but also wtf was with cutup’s random accent???)

[ninastarkov]

the 2nd zillo beast episode is SO funny because it basically goes:

obi wan and mace: hmm, we’re worried about the chancellor’s decision to bring the beast to coruscant. we need someone to talk sense into him

obi wan: oh, let’s get anakin to do it. but he won’t listen to me, so i’m gonna get padme to come with me to convince him since they’re, uh, friends.

[ninastarkov]

the ryloth arc with boil and waxer and numa gets me every time—the way she calls them nerra throughout the ep and it means brother and all the clones call each other brother, and the way boil and waxer say they’ll be back to the person that calls them brother and they never get to go back—

[ninastarkov]

OKAY i’m watching holocron heist (s2 ep1) and cad bane says, “fortunately, our sith lord client has set us up with some help.” our SITH LORD client. so apparently sheev trusted cad bane to know that there was a sith lord out there besides dooku?? like, bane does anything for the right price—the jedi could have hired him and he’d just tell them all about the sith lord that’s been hiring him to mess with them that seems to have quite a bit of inside information hMMM

[ninastarkov]

ok the zillo beast episode has been nagging at me because mace windu is made out to be the hero for not killing the zillo beast, which by itself is great but ignores that fact that, in order for the beast to survive, a ton of clones had to die? it’s good to value the zillo beast’s life of course but it’s being valued OVER the lives of the clones and that’s never addressed so