A Long Time Ago, In A Galaxy Far, Far Away…

As was said in the previous post, this venture will be done in chronological order. For those unfamiliar with Clone Wars, it wasn’t released in chronological order, to begin with. Events are everywhere in this thing. For example, the movie is the last thing to happen in this arc, so all you Ashoka fans out there will have to wait for me to get to her.
There. That’s out of the way now. Let’s start this off with some new faces to the franchise.

New Faces

Admiral Wullf Yularen

An experienced Admiral of the Republic. He’s as by-the-book as they come and for good reason. He’s survived battles and lived to get to his current rank. And he’s the guy that they teamed up with Anakin. It might not make much sense at first, but they tend to balance each other out. Admiral Yularen is usually another voice of reason to counter Anakin’s brashness.

Admiral Trench

He’s a ruthless, nigh-unkillable Admiral who’s also spider guy! That means he’s totally Voyager’s faaavorite. (Voyager: *sharpens a kitchen knife* Heeeeh?) Ahem! This guy might be one of my favorite original characters to join the Clone Wars cast. And like the Terminator, he’ll be back… a lot.

Commander Cody & Captain Rex

Anyone who’s watched Revenge of The Sith knows who Commander Cody is. And now we get to know him a bit. He’s basically Rex’s brother in blood and attitude.

Rex is another new guy under Anakin’s command. Rex is a soldier, true and true. It’s mission first and everything else takes a back seat. Also, he uses two pistols. Gotta give him points for style.

Ahsoka Tano

Ah, Ahsoka. Strangely the one character with a lot of hate circling her, at least among people I know. Okay, here goes nothing. Look, Ahsoka is a good character she, like the rest of the main cast, grows drastically during this show. She might start off rough but just look at what she’s going through. She’s 14 years old and she’s being forced into a war. She’s got three years before the Clone Wars end, or seven by the show’s season count.

Rotta the Hutt

Jabba’s son and strangely an underutilized marketing opportunity. Seriously for a Hutt he’s kind of cute. (Voyager: Ahaha. Such strange taste…) …Shut up.

Ziro the Hutt

The flamboyant uncle of Jabba the Hutt. He also wants to gain political power over the rest of the Hutts. He’s one slimy worm.

Asajj Ventress

Ventress might be one of my favorite characters in all of Clone Wars. She’s from Dathomir, one of the craziest planets in Star Wars (Voyager: And one of the most confusing!) I mean… accurate. This effectively means she’s of the same race as Darth-friggin’-Maul. Which is a big deal much later on in this series. Other than her linage she’s as brash as Anakin but not as powerful… yet. And she’s also got a short fuse at the start of the show.

Recaps

Season 2, Episode 16

Oh no, the separatists have blockaded Christophsis, and are besieging the planet! What’s the Republic to do? They’re gonna send Anakin and Obi-Wan of course. Unfortunately, Anakin’s first attempt to break the blockade ends in retreat with Obi-Wan’s arrival. A new plan is formed around a stealth ship made to run the blockade and Anakin gets to pilot it. Yularen informs Anakin that they are fighting Trench and Anakin decides to take him out using the stealth ship. It succeeds.

Season 1, Episode 16

Obi-Wan and Anakin are ambushed… while staging an ambush. This leads them to suspect that one of their clones has defected to the enemy. Cody and Rex are called upon to find the traitor and take them into custody while the Jedi head to the separatist base. The traitor sets them up but his sabotage is found out. The traitor turns out to be Sergeant Slick and he’s apprehended after fulfilling his sabotage mission, leading into the events of the movie.

The Movie

Anakin and Obi-Wan aren’t having a good day. With most of their arsenal destroyed by Slick, the Separatists overpower them at every turn. By using their cannons, the only thing left in their arsenal, they manage to drive off the Separatists long enough for a lone shuttle to arrive with Ahsoka being the passenger. She gets them to call for help right as a new blockade wards off their support ships. Anakin and Ahsoka work together to disable the enemy shield generator just in time for the republic to break through with the support they desperately need.

Yoda arrives on the scene to direct Anakin and Ahsoka to head to another system to rescue Rotta the Hutt. All in a bid to secure the Hutt’s Hyperlanes for the Republic. Anakin and Ahsoka find the Huttlet with ease but Ventress shows up to stop them from getting away. Luckily she’s a bad guy and bad at her job so Anakin and Ahsoka escape anyway. During this, Dooku makes his move and convinces Jabba that the Jedi took his son. This prompts Padme to act and visit Jabba’s uncle Ziro. And then she gets captured by him after finding out he’s a Separatist.

After Ventress fails, Dooku convinces Jabba that the Jedi have killed his son and that he’s next. This leads to Dooku accepting the responsibility of protecting Jabba. And his droids shoot Anakin and Ahsoka down as they arrive. Dooku ends up in a showdown with Anakin but Ahsoka has the Huttlet. She gets attacked by three droids and has to fight for her life while Anakin escapes Dooku by stealing his bike. Ahsoka arrives just in time to stop Anakin from doing something he would regret and Padme saves both of them from Jabba.

Basic Character Analysis: Sergeant Slick

Slick is an interesting character in all honesty. He’s a clone that, like the others, has been made to be obedient and yet, he allows himself to get bought by Ventress. My only explanation is that it’s in his genetics. After all, Jango was a bounty hunter who was paid to do some rather terrible things. Why wouldn’t that carry over to some of the clones? Aside from that, he’s convinced himself that what he’s doing is somehow for the benefit of all his clone brethren. This seems to show he has some twisted sense of loyalty even when his own actions injured or killed some of his own brothers. That’s not the brainless thinking of a mind tricked clone. He’s rationalized his own actions for the greater good. That intrigues me, it’s too bad that this is the last we see of him.

Ahsoka, Anakin, and Obi-Wan’s Relationship

Not gonna lie, their team dynamic is great in the movie. We have Obi-Wan who comes across as a more experienced Jedi, which he should. Anakin is as brash as ever, even disobeying orders in favor of doing things his way, which usually works out for the best. And then we have little Ahsoka, stuck in the middle of their antics and a Master who doesn’t want her… at first, anyway. She grows a pretty thick skin throughout this movie and even manages to agitate Anakin in the process. Also, given Obi-Wan’s grin he’s the one that set the two of them up, proving he’s not just as Jedi Master… he’s a Troll Master.

Random Fun Fact: Admiral Wullf Yularen

This is far from Admiral Yularen’s first appearance. His true first appearance is actually In Star Wars Episode 4: A New Hope. He’s seen in the meeting with Tarken and Vader sitting at the table silently. Sadly he died when the Death Star exploded and originally that’s all we really knew about him.

Favorite Screenshot

Just that moment when Anakin outsmarts Trench. Such a good moment. And this shot is my favorite because of that. Plus the whole David vs. Goliath thing.

MVP: Ahsoka Tano & Anakin Skywalker

Ahsoka and Anakin where the best part of the movie and it was roughly three episodes by itself. Rex and Cody are awesome but they really only had one episode to themselves.

Conclusion

This first arc should’ve been the beginning of the show but for some reason, they decided to break it up and mix parts of it throughout the seasons. StarWars.com has an official list of the chronological order but they got part of it wrong. I’ll explain when we get to that part of their timeline. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this dive into the Christopsis Arc. I will be trying to do three of these a week so look forward to seeing more of these. Until next time Keep It Classy.