FILMEDGE REVIEWS THE CLONE WARS EPISODE 3.02 'ARC TROOPERS'
— AIRDATE 9.17.10
The war wears on, and the Republic is pushed to its breaking point. Support for the Jedi Knights and their noble cause comes in the form of valiant clone troopers — steadfast defenders of peace and justice, even as the Jedi falter and the might Republic begins to crumble. Joined by familiar faces and confronted with deadly new threats, these everyman heroes lead the charge into a transformative new season of Clone Wars adventures — where alliances will be tested, truths will be questioned and galaxy-changing secrets will be uncovered to shake the very foundations of the STAR WARS universe. The next chapter of STAR WARS: THE CLONE WARS begins with a must-see two-part premiere, airing at 9:00pm ET/PT Friday, September 17th on Cartoon Network. Episode 3.02 ARC Troopers is a sequel to the Season Three episode Clone Cadets.
Fighting a war tests a soldier's skills, defending his home tests a soldier's heart.
Separatist attack! After the destruction of the Republic outpost on the Rishi moon, General Grievous and Asajj Ventress plan an attack on the planet Kamino, home of the cloning factories. Meanwhile aboard a Jedi cruiser, Jedi Knights Anakin Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi examine an intercepted message from General Grievous...
SYNOPSIS: Anakin and Obi-wan watch the intercepted transmission between Grievous and Ventress referencing the Separatist attack on Kamino to stop all production of clone troopers. Kenobi is unpleasantly surprised by the Separatist's illogically bold plan, but all Commander Cody and Captain Rex care about is the threat to their home world. Anakin assures Kamino will be protected and tells the clone officers to join the 501st and return to Kamino.
Grievous and Ventress confer on their plan to attack both the clone manufacturing facility and the trooper barracks at Tipoca City, as assigned by Count Dooku. Ventress prepares her forces for phase two of the attack as her squidship travels submerged in Kamino's oceans on route to Tipoca City. Greeted by Shaak Ti and Lama Su at a landing platform, Kenobi, Skywalker, Rex and Cody arrive at Tipoca with a Jedi cruiser full of clone troopers ready to defend the city and its clone population.
Inside the cloning facility, troopers Echo and Fives recall their days as young cadets and meet Clone 99 who remembers both his clone brothers on sight. 99 asks if Hevy is with them, but they explain with somber pride that Hevy sacrificed himself on the Rishi moon to save their lives. Dealt a blow by this news, 99 removes Hevy's medal to show them. When Fives explains they've returned to defend Kamino against a Separatist attack, 99 asks how he can help his brothers. The two troopers exchange smiles of pride in 99's devotion to service — after all these years apart, 99 still remains a part of Domino squad in his heart.
As Grievous' fleet arrives at Kamino to face off with the Republic blockade of defending cruisers and immediately commences attack. Laser cannons rip through the narrowing space between the battling fleets and Anakin leads a squad of fighters off Tipoca to join the fight in orbit. As the fighters engage the Separatist fleet, direct hits rip loose part of their hulls which drop into Kamino's oceans below. Shaak Ti and Kenobi puzzle over why Grievous deliberately sacrifices his transports to save his command ship, since this limits his invasion force. The falling debris is actually more squidships dropping reinforcements to join Ventress and her forces. She orders aqua droids to assemble the submerged assault craft. Anakin presses the attack in orbit, but Kenobi insists the space battle is a distraction from the true Separatist goal. Kenobi takes a ship down below and finds the aquadroids prepping undersea assault craft for a surface attack on Tipoca City.
As Kenobi signals Anakin to return to the surface, aquadroids attack his sea speeder and he bails out, grabbing onto a passing aiwha and escaping to the surface. The Separatist squidships led by Ventress attack Tipoca City's massive domes, drilling into the structures. The troopers, including Fives and Echo, return blaster fire as the ships unleash squads of aquadroids in the city in a deadly battle. Ventress disembarks from her ship, heading to her assigned targets of the clone factory and barracks. Amid a hailstorm of blaster fire, 99 resupplies the clones with weapons at great risk to his own life.
Obi-Wan and Anakin repel a dwindling number of aquadroids, too few to effectively overtake the entire city — once again, Kenobi senses this assault is a diversion from the true target. Obi-Wan sends Anakin to protect the DNA chamber while he searches for Grievous. At a nearby platform, Fives and Echo repel dozens of aquadroids as 99 arrives with ammo supplies. 99 spots a squad of battle droids outflanking them and Fives destroys them with a grenade just in time. Out of the smoke a group of young clones emerges, cut off from the others on the way to the barracks. 99 volunteers to lead them to safety.
Grievous' battle droids and Ventress catch a squad of troopers in a crossfire and kill them. Ventress ask why they don't just destroy the clone DNA rather than collect it, but Grievous reveals the Separatists have plans to use the clone DNA for their own purposes. Meanwhile 99, Fives and Echo lead the young cadets to momentary safety in the barracks, but they're now cutoff from support without a plan of attack. Cody and Rex arrive, insisting they all will join together despite the cadets' incomplete training — deep down, they're all the same soldier, brothers bred to defeat the Separatists and defend their own kind at all costs. 99 volunteers to go to the armory to get more weapons and ammo for their attack.
Near the command center, Shaak Ti uses her lightsaber and skills in the Force to easily defeat a squad of aquadroids and calls out to press their offensive to gain the advantage. Far from the distracting battle, Ventress enters the DNA chamber and retrieves a cannister containing the clone genetic templates. Anakin cuts off her escape and the two ignite their lightsabers, ready to duel. Meanwhile, 99 and the troopers reach the armory and stock up on ammo for their counter-assault.
As Grievous and his battle droids corner some defending clone troopers, Kenobi engages Grievous in their own lightsaber battle. Anakin and Ventress clash sabers as he attempts to steal back the DNA cannister from her belt. Grievous knocks down Kenobi, assuring him that Kamino has fallen and their duel is useless, but Obi-Wan Force-hurls him down the corridor with a armor-crunching crash. Grievous scurries away in escape and Kenobi rises to pursue him.
In the barracks, the troopers draw a squad of battle droids down the corridor and into a trap as the young cadets emerge from their sleeping tubes above to blast the droids in a crossfire. Anakin and Ventress continue their ferocious duel. Obi-Wan races out to to an exterior landing platform, but Grievous climbs up from under it to corner Kenobi, his two lightsabers whirring like buzzsaws in attack. Back in the barracks, the clones are down to one grenade and 99 goes to get more. He hobbles back to the armory, insisting he was bred to be a soldier like his brothers and this is his mission. But he can't move fast enough to avoid the droid's fire and is shot in the back. He dies in the corridor, shocking Fives and Echo out of fighting for a moment until Shaak Ti calls to reassemble in the main hangar to cut off the droid retreat.
A squidship crashes against the platform, interrupting Grievous' attack on Kenobi who falls off into the turbulent ocean. Convinced the Jedi is lost, Grievous flies off in a shuttle pod then Kenobi rises into the scene on the back of his friendly aiwha to safety. The troopers destroy the retreating droids and several squidships, one of which almost crushes Ventress and Anakin amid their continuing duel. Anakin uses the Force to grab the DNA cannister from her belt, but when Ventress tries to steal it back a trooper catches it in mid-air — the trooper squad and Anakin have her cornered on the platform edge. Before Anakin can order the troops to execute her, Grievous swoops down in his pod and Ventress jumps up to hitch a ride in escape. Both are clearly infuriated to fail in their clone-destroying mission.
The young cadets momentarily celebrate their success in repelling the droid invasion, but Fives and Echo mourn the loss of 99, a true brother in arms. Commander Cody and Captain Rex officially promote Fives and Echo to ARC Troopers for their bravery defending their clone homeworld.
REVIEW: The willingness and facility of THE CLONE WARS' creators to jump around the timeline of events for dramatic effect pays off extremely well in ARC Troopers, bookending the introduction of Clone 99 and his valiant sacrifice for his brothers, Fives and Echo in particular. This sequel episode, set after the events of both Clone Cadets and Rookies, also flips the script on the concept of defective clones — at least as far as Domino squad and 99 are concerned. While 99 bravely proves he's a loyal, true soldier at heart, his physical deficiencies leave the issue open-ended for the series to explore looking ahead to untold events between EPISODES III and IV.
More importantly for now, director Kyle Dunlevy and writer Cameron Litvack crafted a very emotionally satisfying episode to cap the series' Season Three debut, striking the perfect dramatic tone of the Republic's heroic victories amid great peril that the war could favor the Separatists with one crucial failure. While the Jedi and clones are vulnerable to sneak attacks by overwhelming forces, Grievous and Ventress continue to illustrate the weakness of Sith-inspired aggression in their pointless bickering over which is the more powerful leader under Dooku. The Jedi fight with honor for universal justice without self-interest, while the Separatists and Sith crave power purely out of selfish desire and greed. Of course, these larger battles and individual confrontations all mirror the internal struggle Anakin is destined to embody within himself, and this series exists to witness and experience all the small choices Anakin makes along his path to his eventual fate.
As noted in our previous review of Clone Cadets, Season Three's slogan is Secrets Revealed and the first one uncovered is this uncertain future for the Jango Fett-patterned Clone Army. By itself, this question could be a rather dry, intellectual theory for uber-fans to discuss in philosophical terms, but the finale of Season Two and this third season opener have posed the question in solid character-based terms through Boba Fett's emergence as a displaced, orphaned clone who feels no connection to his brothers, contrasted by 99 who remains devoted to his clone brethren with his last breath. These may prove to be the two extreme outcomes of the clone race dilemma, with the eventual truth of their future resting somewhere in between, but it's hard to argue with how the series effectively dramatizes this new plot point. While viewers can expect to see much more of Boba Fett in future episodes, the introduction and all-too-soon departure of 99 will make him one of the series' favorite and most memorable characters. Repeated kudos to the character designers and voice actor Dee Bradley Baker for their unique and winning addition to the STAR WARS galaxy of heroes.
The episode also boasts plenty of battle action with deadly results this time to raise the stakes over its prequel predecessor, as acrobatic lightsaber duels span Tipoca City amid furious blaster battles between clones and droids. Though fans know that a duel between Anakin and Ventress or Kenobi versus Grievous cannot end decisively yet, their action setpieces are staged quite effectively with advantages being gained and lost as the ongoing destruction of Tipoca City rages around them to increase the danger to all combatants. It's quite interesting that Anakin gains the upper hand when the clone troopers help corner Ventress, forcing either her surrender or execution and emphasizing the value of the clones as a tactical advantage over reliance on battle droids. Her escape on Grievous' convenient pod fly-by may be demanded by STAR WARS canon of future events, and it can't help but feel like a cheat in the episode's resolution, but it's worth noting that Ventress was doomed otherwise. For now, the clones continue to win the day and preserve peace and justice in the galaxy along side the Jedi against all enemies.
Season Three starts off strongly by elevating THE CLONE WARS to greater heights of action, drama and increasingly satisfying STAR WARS storytelling. Both Clone Cadets and ARC Troopers set a challenging standard for upcoming episodes to meet, but if this beginning is an indicator of the episode quality we can expect, the third season will be the series most creative and exciting yet!
ANALYSIS: Mythology questions about the future of the Clone Army encounter another twist as Grievous tells Ventress that she cannot simply destroy the clones' DNA templates because there may be another use for them. This implies that the retrieval order came from Count Dooku himself, and apparently Ventress was not told of this secret element of the Kamino attack plan.
Of course one expects double-dealing from a Sith Lord like Dooku, and it's not uncommon for leaders to keep their subordinates in the dark about select details and orders on a need-to-know basis. But this surprise revelation by Grievous exposes a much larger strategy which surprises both Ventress and viewers: not only does it underscore Asajj's relentless bickering with Grievous over who has better earned Dooku's trust, it also implies that Dooku may be flirting with his own secret plans to hijack the Clone Army for the Separatist cause, or engineer his own clones to bolster his forces.
Was this deception engineered like the entire Clone War by Darth Sidious, or might Dooku secretly attempt to turn the Separatist Army and a new Clone Army against the Republic and his own Sith Master? Or perhaps was such a potentially traitorous move the incitement for Palpatine/Sidious to turn his attentions on finding a new Sith apprentice in Anakin Skywalker, which then plays out in Dooku's execution to open EPISODE III? What is most promising about raising and confronting such questions is that THE CLONE WARS is not only tying into plot points and events from the feature film trilogies, but that George Lucas and Dave Filoni are now actually creating new incidents and character arcs which the existing films will now seem to reflect back upon if one watches the entire STAR WARS saga play in chronological order. In effect, THE CLONE WARS is quickly evolving into its own mega-sized EPISODE 2.5 between ATTACK OF THE CLONES and REVENGE OF THE SITH, and the show creators are devising a growing list of reasons making it more relevant to the story and plot of the larger events in STAR WARS history.
Though we cannot forget that despite STAR WARS's epic scale, it's story boils down to the lives of the Skywalker family. In this episode, it's quite telling that Anakin was going to leave the execution of Ventress up to the clone troopers, who were defending their homeworld and the survival of their race against Asajj's devious plan to destroy them all. Justice would have been served had the clones killed her, but it's also an important step along Anakin's difficult path that he chose moral justice over personal vengeance. Good news: the tug of war between good and evil continues in Anakin Skywalker for another season.
GO BACK TO OUR REVIEW OF EPISODE 3.01 'CLONE CADETS'
GEORGE LUCAS AND DAVE FILONI ANSWER QUESTIONS ABOUT THE CLONE WARS SEASON THREE
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