Anything You Can Do I Can Do Better

Alright, let me give a quick disclaimer: I was waylaid by my own two feet on my way to the local television set in my household. For all you ladies and, um, men who like to wear women’s shoes, just take off your damn high heels before running to catch the latest installment of Star Wars: The Clone Wars (now back in its regularly scheduled time slot of 9PM/EST!). All that is to say, I was two minutes behind when I tuned into the second episode of the Geonosis Arc, “Weapons Factory”. Subsequently, I felt disoriented during the entire episode, whether or not that was because I missed the familiar newsreel and Anakin and Ahsoka briefing their troops or if it was the episode as a whole, I’m not sure.

There were several interesting aspects about tonight’s episode, but what I came away with were two prevailing themes: sacrifice and faith. Yes, those are running themes throughout the show, but I really feel like these were telegraphed strongly this evening. Anakin’s proposed distraction, sending the clones marching in parade formation down the bridge, is one of the first examples of sacrifice in the episode, and what a sacrifice it is. Personally, I don’t think it’s Anakin playing fast and loose with the clones’ lives. It’s just another indicator that clones are becoming more commodity than human. We see the two padawans, Barriss and Ahsoka, willingly undertake a dangerous mission into the honeycombed, Genosian underground while their respective masters distract the Separatist forces. As the episode progresses, Ahsoka and Barriss dig themselves literally and figuratively into a hole. Faced with the inevitable annihilation of their forces should they choose to preserve their own lives, the two padawans make a decision that they believe will cost their own lives for the greater good. On the flip side of this, Anakin is unwilling to sacrifice his padawan for this mission. His attempts to keep her close to him are met with resistance and ultimately failure. What I saw as a more, refreshing theme was that of faith. We see the old SW adage weakness of “Faith in your friends”  evidenced in this episode as well. Though Anakin has no desire to see his padawan undertake this mission, no doubt remembering his own padawan experiences on Geonosis, he has complete faith that she would be able to complete the mission. In fact, more than once Skywalker audibly expresses his faith in her abilities. With his padawan as well as Luminara’s facing mortal peril, only his dogged faith in Ahsoka results in the padawans’ rescue. Ahsoka reciprocates his demonstration of faith telling Barriss that she knew her master, “would come looking for me.”

Juxtaposition was key in tonight’s show. Whether it was the master-padawan relationship between Anakin and Ahsoka and Luminara and Barriss or the partnership between the masters and padawans, it underscored the differences among the Jedi. Where Anakin and Ahsoka have a deeply personal and untraditional relationship that borders, to outsiders, on the disrespectful; Luminara and Barriss have a traditional and deferential teacher-student relationship.

My initial reaction to “Weapons Factory” was latter confirmed (at least to me). Side Note: I like things like this! The penultimate sequence was the first flag. Compare it to the Agni Kai duel in Part Three of Avatar: The Last Airbender: Sozin’s Comet. (Start the video around 7:25…) The muted sound effects and dialogue in conjunction with the musical score created a chilling visual and auditory effect. I was taken aback by how emotionally invested I was when this scene began. There were other little things reminiscent of ATLA as well: the “impenetrable” city, Barriss “drilling” into the Geonosian HQ, or something else my tired brain cannot remember. All in all, if I’m not reading too much into the episode, I enjoyed the little nods to Dave and Giancarlo’s past animated television series.

Another thing that I love about this series compared to the Tartakovsky micro-series, is the use of plausible Force feats. We see the standard  faire: speed, jumps, agility; but as Bryan pointed out we saw a diverse and incredible use of Force skills in “Weapons Factory”.  The Force enhanced upper body strength blew me away. ALSO, let’s discuss a little something. Was emotion used to fuel the force-aided rescue of the padawans? Hmmm? Just throwing that out there. It’s not as if Anakin is necessarily “dark” by this point. So what exactly is the definition of an emotional force user? I think we’ll be seeing a lot more of this in the coming episodes, and what degrades Anakin to where he is fully susceptible to the influence of Palpatine.

OH, I REMEMBER WHAT I WANTED TO TALK ABOUT!!! Okay, so EU Alarmists should run for the hills about now… Alan Dean Foster’s Approaching Storm? Yeah. You’re going to harp on this one for, like, years. Also, the MASH in Space books. Basically, I’ll just retcon the hell out of this for you: Barriss is not Anakin’s age. But, guess what this does set up! Go on, guess! Alright I’ll tell you, if Barriss is only slightly older than Ahsoka and is a Jedi Knight by the time of ROTS, then it stands to reason that Ahsoka may be as well. Suck on that, haters.

Also? I don’t care what any of y’all say… Ahsoka is not going to die. Sure you can rationalize it, but I won’t believe it. If by some snowball’s chance in hell we see her corpse on the season finale, I’ll chalk it up to sleep deprived hallucinations and pretend it never happened. So there.

Tune in next week for Part Three of the Geonosis Arc and enjoy these stills from “Weapons Factory”!

There is no I in TEAM. Did you see what I did there?

I long to start a "No Violence Against Ahsoka" club. Any takers?

I have nothing witty to say other than "she's silently judging you, Barriss."

Group Hug