Star Wars: Safespace
"Star Wars: Safespace” is a positive force for long-time fans and the Swarsy curious. Free of gatekeeping, judgment, and negative Star Wars theories, we break down a different TV episode or film from the Star Wars franchise each week, in a relaxed, easily accessible atmosphere. This is your Star Wars safe space to learn more about a galaxy far, far away, with people who love Star Wars, even if they don’t always like it.
Star Wars: Safespace
Clone Wars Rewatch-Season 4: Episodes 1-3
Be prepared to swim across the tumultuous waters of the Mon Cala Civil War! This week, we explore Prince Lee Char's development as he navigates through both personal and political struggles during a dramatic battle with the Quarren. The episode highlights how alliances shift and the stakes rise when war erupts underwater.
• Introduction to the new season and expectations
• A overview of the Mon Cala Civil War storyline
• Key character introductions: Prince Lee Char and Admiral Ackbar
• The dynamics of underwater combat and species interactions
• The emotional growth of Lee Char as a leader
• Moments of humor amid the chaos of war
• Riff Tamson's brutal role as a villain
• The significance of the Quarren and Mon Calamari conflict
• Next week’s preview of additional Clone Wars episodes
Follow us on social media @TheSWSShow. Once we get our poodoo together, you'll find show clips, behind-the-scenes shenanigans, Star Wars news, memes, updates, and more!
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Coming up this week brutal fishy battles and frustration carnage. No gee, thank you autocorrect, but I knew what I wanted to say. Take two Coming up this week brutal fishy battles and crustacean carnage. It's the Clone Wars, seasons four, season four, episodes one through three. I swear I've done this before. All that and more on your Star Wars Safe Space. Stick around Already off to a bumpy start, but that's okay, that's all right. Howdy Star Warriors, welcome to Star Wars Safe Space, your non-toxic, low-sodium Star Wars show. That doesn't make you feel bad for not knowing that Prince Lee Char was named after Charlie Tuna, the cartoon mascot for the Starkist brand. So, whether you're a hardcore fan or just a little swarzy curious, this is your Star Wars safe space. Welcome. We are the circle of nerds and we do absolutely love Star Wars, even if we don't always like it. So let's meet the crew. Shadowware, let's pop this window open right here and from parts unknown, it is T to the O-D-O-D-O-D-O.
Speaker 2:Welcome back to the galaxy. Everybody Look forward to starting season four. Let's go.
Speaker 1:And the pilot of the infamous Parma Flyer. It's Crash.
Speaker 3:How are you guys doing? S-foils in ready to roll.
Speaker 1:Love it, and I am, tommy D. You're just a little more than slightly obnoxious. Star Wars know it all. What are we doing here? Well, our mission is to watch all of the canon Star Wars films and TV shows in actual chronological order, not based on the release, but the actual chronological order. Not based on the release, but the actual chronological order, breaking them down, connecting the dots and learning more about star wars and maybe even a little about ourselves. So a word of warning to all you would be star warriors there will be spoilers. You have been warned. You have been warned. So before we get rolling, do we have any news or anything? I thought we did, but I I don't remember, so I'm gonna say probably no, no, no, no no news is good news, I guess.
Speaker 1:So when it there, we go. That's, that's our news. Crickets, nothing. Um. Skeleton crew just wrapped. So if you uh haven't heard our podcast on that, please go check out skeleton crew review right here on this very channel that you are watching or listening to us on right now. It was a hell of a ride, great series. If you haven't seen it, give it a shot. Um, absolutely worth binging. So every episode is out right now disney plus. Please go watch it. It is by far, in my opinion, the greatest star wars television show in the history of the franchise, except for, maybe, the holiday special and, uh, that's my, that's my hill and I'm gonna die on it. So there you go.
Speaker 1:So what are we talking about this season for our show? We were talking about season four of the clone wars, and good, googa mooga. Do we get started off hard like we jump into a war, people are getting sauced left and right and people are dying harsh. People are dying harsh. However, in this, this arc that we're going to be talking about, it's the, uh, the the moncala civil war. First three episodes. I have to say, being a seafood lover, as I'm watching these episodes, I was constantly hungry, like maybe, maybe that's insensitive. I'm insensitive to the plight of the Mon Cal people.
Speaker 3:However, I they were making me kind of hungry, so we should have recorded the set of Red Lobster, is what you're saying.
Speaker 1:That's a great idea.
Speaker 2:George named them after food. This is his fault.
Speaker 1:It is. It is. Yeah, there was actually. What is his name? I had it pulled up here. Phil Tippett, the guy who designed Admiral Ackbar, did indeed name the Mon Calamari after a lunch of calamari salad that he had had earlier in the day. So that is a fact. The Mon Calamari race was indeed named after food. So you gotta love it. You gotta love it. So let's talk about this.
Speaker 1:This is season four and we've, uh, we've talked about it a little bit, um, on our our past seasons of of this podcast. Uh, and we've kind of been building up to season four because we know, for those of us that have seen it, we know that things do get a little bit heavier as we, as we start to progress, um, in the series. We've only got, I think we've only got one more, maybe two more full seasons. I think I think season five this is this might be the last full season, to be honest um, because everything's been 22 episodes up to this point, um, and then, yeah, season five is 20 episodes, season six is 13 and then season seven is 12 episodes. So we are, uh, we are very quickly closing in on the end of the clone wars here and it it's man, it's just going to start getting crazy.
Speaker 1:I'd like to talk about these three episodes, this Civil War. Initially it was really an underwater war. I mean, really, this is going to be boring. Action packed. Action packed a little bit of political intrigue, some, some light torture. Um, people being imploded to bits what the fuck like I I've seen this before, but I just re-watched them today. Um, I forgot about that, like, so you know what? Let's? Let's just start there. Let's just start there with with riff. Um, that guy riff tamson his little, his little blades with the implosion detonator on it. That's harsh.
Speaker 3:That's a brutal way to die for an underwater species and it's interesting. I don't know if, tony, you thought this too or you picked up on this. I think this is the first time in star wars history we've seen war or anything really happening in an environment where the humans had to adapt to their surroundings. Moncals can function in air. Uh, gans zuck is a species. They're supposedly from a gas planet. They wear masks to live in our world. This is the first time I think we've seen humans having to wear. Spacewalking is one thing, but to operate on Mon Cal you have to wear scuba gear, deep-sea scuba gear, as we find out with Padme, somebody decides to bite your face mask and put a crack in it. Unless you have a gunk in handy, you're in trouble.
Speaker 1:Unless you've got a a gungan to talk to on that.
Speaker 3:Gungan, that you know. Spits flex seal, you know put some, put some, some.
Speaker 1:gungan, I don't know what, what, what is? Is it Gungan?
Speaker 3:I don't know what is it he?
Speaker 1:called it.
Speaker 3:Bukasi Gungan waterproofing.
Speaker 1:That's why we supposed to look at it. Yeah, it is, it's Gungan Flex Seal. I love that. I just so, overall, what are your thoughts on this story arc? I thought it was pretty interesting. I thought, not going to lie, I thought Lee Char was was gonna die um, because I haven't seen this in years, I have not seen the story arc in many, many years and for some reason I thought that he was gonna. Like he ended up sacrificing himself. But, spoiler, he doesn't. He survives.
Speaker 2:So thoughts, thoughts, thoughts we're kicking off I thought it was a really great, uh great storyline. A quick, you know, immediate, just jump back into action, you know, um, I mean, I guess my biggest takeaways are uh, it looks to me like ahsoka's done some major leveling up between going into the season because new lightsaber doing yeah, and that's a much, much like. I'm sorry, you know, you got kit fisto there who apparently can breathe underwater, just fine. You got anakin there and I'm pretty sure that her kill count beat both of them like she was running her shit.
Speaker 1:Yeah, snips don't play no, snips does not play. There was that when, um, she had this little spin move at one point, like she like dropped down, spun around and took out I think it was droids she took out like sex droids all at once, yeah yeah, yeah, um, but yeah, people like moncal and quorin were. They were in gungans as well. I mean, they were getting sauced left and right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we do need to add. We do need to add one to the, to the clone count who, who I decided to name Sharkbite, sharkbite.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, exactly, yeah, exactly, um at first it looked like he was getting bit on the ass initially, but it looked like got him on his leg, did he? Do we know if he died? Do we know if shark bite who ha ha died?
Speaker 2:I mean if, if not even if the bite didn't kill him, that broke his suit and he's gonna be drowning like he's definitely gone.
Speaker 3:Yeah, maybe he depressurized potentially and can we just, you know, going back to the gungans, another great thing about this this there's. There's a lot again a little political intrigue. Uh, we're going to find out in this season early on. We're seeing hints of the separatists going after specific worlds and playing off of the cultural differences.
Speaker 3:The Quarren and the Mon Cal thing was covered in the micro series, but I think this is one of those cases where Dave did it so much better than just a quick five minute. Let's just throw a lot of droids and a lot of fish guys at each other. You had the Quarren, you had the Mon Cals, you had the corn. You had the moncals, you had the gungans come in. I like the fact that when the republic runs out of troops this is the first time we've seen the republic go we need a native again. This goes back to the having to adapt your surroundings. It would take too long to outfit a regiment of clones right, but you have species out there in the republic who can fight in water. We need to enlist their help and I think this was a great. I know on this show we kind of get a little down on Jar Jar about how silly, but this was a great chance for the Gungans and Jar Jar to shine, in that they're fighting on their turf now.
Speaker 1:Right, yeah, right, right, right. And you know, and interesting too, crash, you brought up, you know, seeing um, seeing this, this, this rivalry, uh, this cultural rivalry, rivalry between the the quoran and the moncal, and we did see it in the micro series, um, but it goes back to 1987. I recently found out, like uh, in one of the uh the source books, the star wars source book, um, in 1987 it was depicted that the two, the two, shared a planet and were were always at odds. So this is, this is a long, a long, long reaching war, um, but it was, it was very, uh, very interesting seeing the dynamic between um leechar and the and and um captain akbar, I, I really, really respecting the, the prince's authority well, you think about he really.
Speaker 3:You know leechar literally was looking for a father figure. He just had his father murdered. Yeah, as this war, it just falls into his lap. And you know akbar captain akbar did a great job of mentoring somebody in a crisis without overshadowing. Or maybe you know behind, you know the man behind the man kind of thing which would have been an easy trap to fall into. You know, with a young prince, prince, we've seen this in history, in other stories, where the people who run the army might sort of tell the leader of the kingdom here's what you do, these are my men who fight for you. Do what I say. Akbar was a great role model for Lee Char.
Speaker 1:You've got to think that's going gonna carry on as we find akbar later in life right, absolutely, and I I like there was, um, there was a moment, I believe was in the second episode, um, where, uh, or was it the first? When did they, when did they release the, the giant, the squid, the jellyfish, the, the Medusa?
Speaker 3:The Medusa they. They dropped them at the end of the first episode.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:They, they retreated, and then they dropped the Medusa's and then they brought out the, the squid ships, later. That's right, that's right, that's right.
Speaker 1:But it was interesting because, uh, you know akbar, like you said, really did a great job mentoring him at that time. Because you know he said hold fire until the prince orders the attack. And akbar knows, he knows when to fire, he knows that the optimal moment, but instead of calling it himself, he discreetly looks over his shoulder and says prince, now you know and, and allows the prince to give the order, um, and, and thus really showing him that respect. And that's I was, because we really don't see akbar a lot. You and everybody just knows him. You know it's a trap, you know that's what we get, and in the first episode he's like it's an attack, which I thought was great. That was a nice little nod.
Speaker 3:Just think about the fact that you know Darth Vader and Admiral Ackbar fought together in this war, you know. And then later on, you know, we don't I'm I'm guessing Ackbar doesn't know who Darth Vader is. You know, really. But this was kind of a throwback to last season, introducing a young Tarkin to Anakin, where we know Tarkin grew up sort of exploiting that partnership to his advantage. You know, you know the idea of you put your admiral akbar action figure next to your darth vader action figure and go buddies.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no one would have thought of that no, and that's and that's a great point too. It's, you know, you don't like when you initially watch the episode. You don't, you don't really think about that, you don't really think. You know this is Darth Vader and Admiral Ackbar, who will eventually be facing off against one another. Ackbar eventually sends Vader's flagship into the Death Star. You know, I mean you know, almost two decades later, you know, after this moment, when they're fighting side by side, and it's just, it's a deep cut, it's a deep cut Even in the American.
Speaker 3:Civil War you know Robert E Lee and a lot of the Confederate generals. They were formerly from the US Army. They knew the US General. So in a Star Wars setting you would think when Luke says you fought in the Clone Wars, there were people from the same side and this also plays into the Separatists. People sort of correlate the Empire to the Republic and this is also lays into the separatists. You know people sort of correlate the empire to the Republic and the separatists to the rebellion. But there were people kind of crossing teams between wars and this is just one of those rare instances where we have, you know, the leader of the one.
Speaker 1:You know army is also no, and it's, it's nice to see it's and that's another. It's like if you've never seen star wars, this is a great way to watch. The clone wars is in this chronological order. Some people would argue against, but if you have seen star wars, I think going back and watching it again in this order and then drawing those parallels, I think it really, it really kind of enriches the entire experience. For me anyway, it does. You know you're seeing like again, I thought that you know Anakin and Tarkin. You know on the, what is it the?
Speaker 1:prison the Citadel. That was great. I mean, that was really that mutual respect that started forming between the two. And then it just makes you wonder about the the first time we see them together on the big screen, you know, in the new hope, and you know Tarkin's kind of like calling the shots, almost like, uh, vader's more enforcer than Sith Lord at that point, which you know, initially that's what george intended, you know, but um, but then it makes you wonder was, was that just tarkin? You know that was a role that tarkin was playing. You know, obviously vader was the one in charge there. But you know, maybe, maybe Vader was allowing Tarkin to to play that role in front of his officers.
Speaker 3:And conversely, you know, akbar technically knows Luke and Leia's mom fought with her too, you know, and there's, you know, and later he served with Leia in the rebellion later he served with Leia in the Rebellion, mm-hmm, and it does make you wonder if it may be somewhere that we just haven't read it yet.
Speaker 1:But did Ackbar know? Did Ackbar know about? I don't think anyone knew about the twins. I don't think that was at all common knowledge.
Speaker 3:Really there's a post-Return of the Jedi book where a New Republic senator outed Leia's parentage to Darth Vader. So eventually it does become public knowledge that she is Vader's daughter.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 3:Does that mean that the world knows who Vader was Right? Clark Kent to Superman?
Speaker 1:I don't know, but you know, from darth vader to leia, it eventually becomes public knowledge right, and I think vader was one of those, one of those, like you know, worst kept secrets. You know, amongst, probably, the imperial officers. I'm I'm positive more people knew that vader was general anakin skywalker. I'm I'm positive more people knew about it because you know clone troopers talk. You know the uh, the um god, what were those guys called? The attendants? Those weird creepy guys that would hang out with palpatine? You know entourage, you know they talked, they whispered in certain circles, so I'm pretty sure that you know. And also to keep people, you know exactly where he needed them to be. I'm sure palpatine, quote unquote, leaked that information. You, you know he used that as currency, he used that as leverage and Darth Vader's true identity.
Speaker 3:I bet Thrawn knew. Thrawn probably knew, you know. When they gave Ahsoka's bio and he saw that she was trained by Anakin Skywalker, he knew exactly what that meant and what type of personality that meant and there's no way he could have worked that closely with Vader and not known. All right, you can assume an identity and change you know, call yourself by a different name, but I know who you are.
Speaker 1:Thrawn's. Thrawn is so smart I mean he's he's really freaky, scary smart. So if, if he didn't piece it together um, if he didn't piece it together, then I would be very surprised if he didn't know. But I didn't actually watch every episode of Rebels, so I'm really, really looking forward to that. We're going to be hitting that once we're done with the Clone Wars, so I'm looking forward to that. So I don't know how often thrawn and vader interacted during rebels, so that I'm not aware of, and I don't want to be aware of it because I want to. I want to find out. As far as I know, vader only made one appearance in rebels and that was that the most epic appearance of vader, arguably floating down, standing on his tie fighter. Okay, come on, come on player. Come on, come on pimp. I mean, like, do you really? You did not have to come in like that, you did not have to do that. I can't wait to watch it again.
Speaker 2:It's such a good scene is that the one where where you see his cape billowing, which shouldn't even be able to happen in space?
Speaker 3:well, they're on a planet, they're in an atmosphere on a planet.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, they're, they're in it. And you know what, if I were, if I were vader, I would use the force to make my cape billow, because why?
Speaker 2:not like I wouldn't care I wouldn't care.
Speaker 1:I wouldn't care if there's if there's atmosphere or not.
Speaker 3:I'm gonna use the force to make it look even cooler than you'd have a mouse droid with one of those beyonce fans that just makes the hair wherever he goes. Just walk down the hallway with the hair, the cape flow and beyonce style right, why not?
Speaker 1:um, all right, so we're way off track. At least we're still talking about star war, so I guess there's that. Um, so we've got the? Uh this, this mon cal, this water war, um, as they're calling it, and um, we get to see these really really cool new species. Um, and uh, riff tam and the uh their car card, car, car don, car, car don, car car don. Is that right, car, car don I don't think that's right yeah, I don't know they.
Speaker 1:they mentioned it. They mentioned the shark people. They were creepy, they were bad dudes and the way that he was killing people, he was really inflicting damage with no weapons.
Speaker 3:And just the nature of their species. You can see the shark tendencies the way they they they fought in honda. You know, when they execute somebody they circle around them first and like kind of throw you off which one's going to strike. The sea world junkie in me was like just loving the, the metaphor and the symbolism of that species invading another water world's planet. Basically, the Quarren thought they were literally joining the Separatists to take control of their planet and the first thing you find out is oh hey, the shark people decided nope, this is ours.
Speaker 2:We had a side deal with.
Speaker 3:Dooku and we're the boss, so we got screwed right away.
Speaker 1:And we're seeing more of that from dooku. You know we didn't get a whole lot of that in the first three seasons. We knew that he was, you know, a manipulative bastard, but you know, now we're really starting to see just how far he's fallen. You know, like at one point you could accept him as an anti-hero as well, but he's just, he's just so far gone. At this point, you know, he's again willing to enslave multiple species, and it's not even about restoring, you know, peace and order to the galaxy or the republic.
Speaker 3:Now, it's just it's not about fair share. It's about I'm in control and they're and my master gets the, you know the final say on everything anyways right.
Speaker 1:Um, so there was at the the last, the last few moments of riff tamson. Um, it was a very cool jaws moment. Um, I don't know if you guys have seen Jaws, I assume so he had the, he had the little the explosive on him and he's swimming and you know, you've got the prince shooting at him and missing. And it was just. I assumed that they did this on purpose, but it just reminded me of that last scene in Jaws, with Jaws has got the fuel tank in its mouth.
Speaker 3:They even did the big explosion and you hear the shark. I think they in Jaws they refer to it as like the Godzilla sinking into the ocean, the head floats by. It was a great symbolism metaphor for a water battle. Jaws is an iconic water battle between a man and a shark. So of course, when you're going to blow up an evil shark dude, you go for the Jaws. Smile, you, son of a bitch.
Speaker 1:Smile you, son of a bitch. I really wish that was a missed opportunity. Mean, I know, I don't think, I don't think lee char would have said obviously not smile you, son of a bitch. But I mean he could have said maybe that would have been too much on, too on the nose, you know, you know, smile you nerve herder or something. I mean, you know, you know, I I don't know, but uh, I feel like that was a missed opportunity they really could have. But they, they, they put the the little subtle jaw jaws not in there. So I mean I guess we can't be bad at that. But overall I think these were three pretty good episodes, um, pretty good way to kick off season four. What do you think, god?
Speaker 3:oh, I was gonna say great, great start, um nice to see, uh, again a different style of of star wars combat, you know, underwater I I'm curious. Yeah, we know they, they have a. I don't know if there's literally a SEAL team for the Republic of Clones that literally trained for water battles on Kamino, or do they have to get special training? Do the Jedi, do Padawans get training on how to do extended deep sea diving on Mon Calhoun? I don't know, but it was an interesting kind of peek at a different world that we have not been exposed to live action, animated. You know it's been covered in the books but anybody can. You can kind of visualize that in different ways. To actually see them functioning in water worlds was kind of fun absolutely couldn't agree more.
Speaker 2:It's always fascinating, you know and I do appreciate that we that we get things like this, where we didn't get that much in the movies, where again it's a vast galaxy, there's thousands of different planets and they're not all going to be planets like Earth, they're not all going to be land-based. So I really do appreciate getting a deeper look at that.
Speaker 1:I liked seeing the variation on the Clone Trooper armor. I loved seeing the Clone Scuba Troopers. I thought that was really, really cool. What was the commander's name? I don't remember now. They said his name a few times. I yeah, he had some really cool markings on his shoulders monk, commander monk monk.
Speaker 1:I kept thinking like the, the tv show monk yeah, um, yeah, and he served under under kit fisto. Um, yeah, really cool, like, uh, really cool markings, um, they look like, uh, like a kraken head or something. But, um, you know, and speaking of kit fisto, let's talk about this guy. He is such a cool jedi, he is such a cool dude. Um, on the side of one of his uh, uh, one of the gunships that uh, you know for for the company that he commands, there's a, there's a painting you know how they all have the nose art on some of the gunships. So there's a painting of a bomb that looks like Kit Fisto and an arabesh on the side of the ship. It says service, with a smile, because of Kit's iconic smile, like we saw it in what Attack of the Clones?
Speaker 3:Yeah, it was the first time you saw him fighting. He's got this big grin on his face. It became a fan favorite.
Speaker 1:I'm glad that we're getting more of him because he is such a cool, cool Jedi. Unfortunately, you know spoiler alert, spoiler alert.
Speaker 3:I guess he doesn't make it it doesn't do well in hallway fights he does not do well in hallway fights.
Speaker 1:He should have just stayed underwater and he would have been. He'd have been better off. You know something else I, when I was watching the episode, I was wondering Apparently, all of the water in the galaxy is the same composition? Because Gungans, monkow, quarrens, the Rift Shark creatures. Yeah, everybody can breathe Nautilans, because I think kit fisto's a nautilin. They all can breathe under any water, apparently. So salt water, fresh water, doesn't matter.
Speaker 3:If you're an aquatic species in star wars, you're just good to go on any planet I think it's like we talked about that other thing where, like every planet has like one major population center and that's where I think you know, oceans are oceans and I guess maybe the quality of the water I guess would vary on the environment. You know, if you can survive New York smog versus, like you know, middle of the prairie kind of fresh air, I guess that that's about as much variation as you're going to get.
Speaker 1:I mean like, okay, so Gungans, right, I assume that the lakes surrounding feed and they're in a lake. I mean that's not saltwater, presumably. I mean I don't know, I don't know, maybe it is, but maybe it's not even saltwater. You know we're tied to our earthly ideals, you know. So maybe there is no saltwater in that galaxy, maybe it's just water.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:If you can breathe in one, you can breathe in any of them.
Speaker 2:So to me the bigger thing is the apparent number of species in the star wars universe that can breathe on both in water and out of water.
Speaker 3:Just fine, all of them except us, you know, except us humans yeah, yeah, I yeah.
Speaker 1:That's a great point, tony, that's. I mean, like every, every single aquatic species that we've encountered is good to go, any water type and dry land as well.
Speaker 3:How far have you guys gotten into Mandalorian?
Speaker 2:We're all seeing all of it.
Speaker 3:I do think there's one episode where they I forget which one it was, but they start off on a Quarren ship.
Speaker 3:I think it was a Quarren ship. The captain was in love with a Mon Cal but she had the portable tank and the bridge. It was almost like here. Yes, you can breathe in the atmosphere with all these humans, but to be more comfortable the captain gets their own private jacuzzi. I thought that was kind of interesting Because I've heard it and again some of the older lore and books and stuff. You know, ackbar keeps his quarters almost like a steam room or a humidifier.
Speaker 1:It's like his own little fish tank right His own little private fish tank. Yeah, looks like his own little thing, right, his own little private fish tank. Yeah, yeah, sorry, I was more about, uh, about commander monk. Dude's cool and I don't. I don't know if we got any more of him, I think that's it. We just, we just get him in the water wars and that's it. I mean, I guess he doesn't need to show up anywhere else. He survived, though I don't think he died.
Speaker 2:If he did, they didn't show it. They didn't show it.
Speaker 1:So, anyway, so great few episodes, and so for this season, what we were talking about doing, we're going to really separate the episodes based on their arcs. So if it's a three episode arc, a four episode arc, we're gonna. We're gonna work all that out. So, um, the next one coming up is gonna be interesting because we're gonna be doing, uh, what episodes? Four, five and six, I believe. Yeah, so we have, uh, we have so much good stuff coming up. This is such a fun season. Um, I don't know what else. What else can we say about, uh, one through three here, the water war for me, there's two key things that I thought were interesting.
Speaker 2:First off, just the arc of Lee Char, you know, going from Prince, who isn't ready, to Prince who's accepting all of this upon his shoulders and knowing that he's got to work with who's supposed to be his enemy in order to save not just his people but everybody. And also just the fact that I haven't seen the micro series so I'm not familiar with that. It's one of those things of okay, so you have a planet and mancala. You have two main species mancala, mari and the corn. Right, just by names alone, you have this thought in your head of well, the corn must not be treated equally if, if you know, the planet's named after the other species, like that's going to be a whole thing, sure.
Speaker 2:So to me it made total sense that, okay, you know, I can understand why the corn are are, you know, want to break off and and do their own thing, if not take over the planet for themselves. But to see that they weren't really treated I mean, at least from what we've seen in the episodes they weren't really treated as unequal, they were just not in leadership, right. And to see Lee Charikot come and say hey, listen, I'm here to lead all of my people, not just my species. You know, that's something that I really wish we had more of in our society, but that's a different conversation.
Speaker 3:And Star Wars is a morality tale at its heart and I think that's a good lesson to take away from the show. The Mon Cal, the Quarren in general sort of get a bad rap because the first time we saw one he was in Jabba's Palace. So you know, the 80s kid mindset is that all Quarren are bad and there have been a few exceptions in some of the Rogue Squadron books and you know they try to sprinkle. But there's sort of this stereotype that Quarren bad, mon Cal good.
Speaker 3:Right stereotype that Quarren bad, mon Cal good, and in this story arc it really. You see that it's not that the Quarren are bad, they just maybe wanted a little bit more for themselves. And Dooku exploits that. That's just like he did with the Death Watch on Mandalore, just like he does everywhere else. The Separatists go, he finds division and he picks a side and he plays them against each other.
Speaker 1:Right, and also for fans, for long-time fans, you know. I think the first and only time we really see the Quarren on screen is in Jabba's palace. Is that correct? I think? And at that point the guy was a squid head is in.
Speaker 2:Jabba's palace.
Speaker 1:Is that correct? I think yeah, and at that point he, the, the guy, was a squid head, so it you know, and you know we've been, we've been given that. You know that's. You know that's the narrative that we were told. You know, if you're hanging out in Jabba's palace, you're a bad guy. So we're seeing a Quarren in Jabba's palace and then we see Admiral Ackbar leading the rebel fleet. So that narrative has been ingrained in us from the very beginning. Mon Cal good, quarren bad. And so now it was nice to be able to see a little bit more of that different sides of that narrative and, uh, you know, kind of cleaning it up a little bit and seeing the, seeing them come together. You know, as you know, two species that share a planet. So I thought that was pretty interesting.
Speaker 1:Good, uh good episodes um, the next one's coming up. I'm just, I'm just looking over I'm sorry I shouldn't be looking at anything because it's really distracting me but, um, yeah, episodes, uh, what we're gonna do four, five and six, uh, yeah, we're gonna get, uh, we've got a couple, uh couple droid episodes, right, but we've got, we've got some grievous action going on as well, coming up. So I think we're going to have some really, really good episodes, and this season it just is so good. It's just so good.
Speaker 2:And then, starting with episode seven, we talked about that on the preview episode, where we you know we kept talking about umbar umbar is really a turning point for the show yeah, it is, and and for the audience it's a very it's when things start getting dark, both literally and figuratively yeah, yeah, and I, I think, I, I think, you know, calling the planet umbara was was not a mistake, you know, we know that that is uh, what is that?
Speaker 1:that's, I think, latin for, for darkness, maybe. I think I think that's like from umbra umbra, yeah, so, yeah, so I mean, it's like it's not just like you said, you crashed. It's not just that the planet is dark, but the series itself does really start to take a darker tone, especially as we start, uh, looking ahead to some of the other, the other episodes a lot of, uh, a lot of stuff going on. We get to see more of ahsoka's growth throughout all of this, which is great. Um, she's not in her little tube top outfit anymore. She's actually putting on some clothes and growing up and, uh, it's, it's gonna be a fun ride. I'm looking forward to it. So, oh man, I love the clone wars and I apologize to all of our viewers and listeners because I'm like, I'm like seriously, just looking at all the stuff that's coming up and I'm just not even paying attention to the show.
Speaker 3:Yeah, like I told you earlier, I was, you know, to the past couple of seasons. I've been sort of going off. I do a lot of rewatches I watched from like season one through the end. I've got these most of these episodes down pat. It was fun to kind of new season from the beginning of this season and move forward Because it's so fresh in your mind. You remember what it was like when it first aired versus binge watching them now streaming or on Blu-ray shared versus, you know, binge watching them now streaming or on blu-ray. But you sometimes you gotta remember you know we get into some of these bigger arcs. You know they may go for three, four episodes. That's almost an entire month right and hype, and you know people talking about it online and it was just good, good tv great tv, great tv.
Speaker 1:This is you TV. This is some of the best storytelling in the franchise comes out of the Clone Wars, and the Clone Wars give us so many great stories and characters that we do end up seeing in live action and you really see as we start getting into, like you know, the mandovers. You know we see dave drawing more inspiration from the eu and from you know his own clone wars to pull into live action. So, and we've got a second season of Ahsoka coming up pretty soon Um, I guess that's news. Um, ewan McGregor is going to be reprising his role as Obi-Wan Kenobi in season two of Ahsoka. So that is going to be interesting. That is going to be very, very interesting. So I'm I'm assuming they're going to do it as a flashback. Um, I mean because I mean in the current timeline. I mean you know everyone did so. They might have to do it, but they've already done you know one flashback thing.
Speaker 3:So this de-aging technology does wonders you know, they've got a, an actress, to play a younger ahsoka. They could do, you know. You know they did it in a sort of a four spirit realm memory in ahsoka, where she sees her you know, hayden christensen in the animated clone wars anakin costume interacting with her. The son says we can't get Ewan to do the same thing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and he's I mean Ewan is still more than spry enough to play even a Clone Wars era Obi-Wan Kenobi. Oh yeah, he could absolutely handle it All right. So let's go ahead and get you set up for homework for next week. So next week, please watch the clone wars season four, episodes four, five and six, and, of course, catch up on all of our past episodes, which I promise you are better than this one, because I'm less distracted. Um, I'm just excited. I'm sorry. I'm excited for this season. This is my favorite season. Well, no, season seven is my favorite season. That one. No, season 7 is my favorite season. That one is just. 7 is a heartbreaker all the way around.
Speaker 1:Anyway, be sure to tell your friends about us, tell your enemies as well, and give us a watch, give us a listen, and we've got to do some obligatory pimping. You can see all of our listeners. You see tony is wearing some of our merch right there and you can pick some of that up yourself at circleofnerdscom slash merch for all of your fun. Swarzy nerdy needs, um. And, of course, check us out on all the social medias at the sws show and be sure to subscribe to the podcast and our YouTube channel, if you're into that sort of thing, and if you check the website, you can see our roadmap for this season, you can see exactly which episodes we're watching, and because we are really strictly sticking to a chronological order, this time we've kind of we're, you know, doing things based on what Dave was doing the last few seasons, but this time we kind of were, you know, doing things based on what dave was doing the last few seasons, but this time we're we're sticking to it.
Speaker 1:Um, we do have a little, uh little, tales of the empire sprinkled in here this season for us too. So, uh, absolutely, please, please, check that out, and we may be, I don't know, by the time this comes out, because this episode should drop on Tuesday. Is that going to be? That'll be after the alleged TikTok ban? Maybe, but I heard that that's going to be another two hundred and seventy days.
Speaker 1:We might get a reprieve. We might, we might, we'll see. So we'll see. But check us out on TikTok. We're, we're doing most of our stuff on TikTok, so we've got a lot of clips there. We're putting clips everywhere, but mostly we're doing we're we do more stuff on. Tiktok and we might beok over to red note. So at the very least I'll make an account. I'll make an account, put it up over there and we'll say hi to our chinese friends and uh and and star wars fans over there there's plenty of them over there, of course, of course, and I guess we would be like the uncles, we would be like their star wars uncles.
Speaker 1:I think that's like a, that's like a term of endearment that, uh, chinese culture uses for, uh, you know your, your, you know your elders. So we're, we're the, we're the elder star wars fans, so we'll see, we'll see what happens, we'll see what happens, but anyway, uh, that is going to be uh, something interesting, I think. So we'll see what happens there. Do you guys have anything on the way out?
Speaker 3:no, that's all I got this is a good launch point for the season and I think we're in for some good times.
Speaker 1:I agree. I agree 100%. I know we're in for some good times.
Speaker 2:I know it's not. I know it's not Clone Wars, but if y'all have not seen Skeleton Crew, go watch it.
Speaker 1:Yes watch Skeleton Crew. Binge it now, right like right now. Know it's not clone wars, but if y'all have not seen skeleton crew, go watch it. Yes, it's great skeleton crew. Binge it now, right like right now. The episodes are like they're all out. They're all out, watch them, no excuse. Call off work.
Speaker 3:Call in sick to school it's cold outside, don't go, you know yeah, don't go see what goes on anyway.
Speaker 1:Stay inside. Instead of reading a good book, watch a good tv show and skeleton crew is that good show. And, of course, for your homework, again watch episodes four through six of season four of the Clone Wars. So that is going to do it for us this week. Thank you so much for tuning in and, of course, as always, a very special thank you to our active duty service members and veterans for their service and sacrifice to this great nation of ours. And, as always, star wars warriors, remember if no one does anything nice for you, do something nice to yourself and we will see y'all next week. I'm trying to push buttons so I can time this out. All right, we'll see y'all next week. Bye you.
