Week 4 - Rookies, R2 Arc

Rookies is an episode a lot of casual viewers or even critics seem to praise. It's no doubt a stronger episode from S1, but it didn't hold up quite as well as I expected. Maybe later clone episodes like ARC Troopers and Umbara affect this, but I tried to judge this episode individually. The story is very cool and having Rex and Cody work together and display their unique personalities was good. I also liked the introduction to the Commando Droids, and the Separatist threat did feel real, even though this episode continues a losing streak for Grievous.

Animation looked a little bad at times, but maybe it was difficult because the Rishi Moon is a physically dark setting. The interactions between the characters were fun, and with the previous watching of Clone Cadets, Hevy's death had a bigger impact. Cutup and Droidbait were still pretty expendable though, except for their few lines in the beginning.

I'll give Rookies a 7/10. Still a solid episode, but it wasn't quite as good as I had remembered.

Given that some of the films had mild language, I guess they figured it'd be fine to include a little in TCW. But besides this episode and one of the Ryloth episodes, they stopped that I think.

I haven't watched the droid arc yet, but I'm guessing it was something they liked early on in production. The movie included it, but I'm not sure if it's used anywhere else. Although the music is kind of cool and works with their respective scenes, it doesn't really feel like Star Wars to me.

I agree. The fact they make an episode about something so crucial to the war that isn't a battle is a great change of pace. It's also something believable and very enjoyable versus something like the S5 droid arc that wasn't as essential or realistic.

Rookies has always been a top episode of season 1, I would give it an 8/10. It's weird though how in chronological order Arc Troopers takes place so far away when Ventress was already on Kamino, not sure if that was a slip up when making rookies or Ventress was actually on Kamino for a really long time. Come to think of it I don't think Ventress appears at all in season 2, and her last season 1 appearance (Hidden Enemy) takes place before the movie.

Its kinda interesting how for the opening narrations because they didn't have enough content released they had to use clips from future episodes, like there was clips from Lair of Grievous in the opening of Rookiees.

Also never noticed that Anakin mentions Balmorra from SWTOR.

It would make more sense if Rookies took place after Cloak of Darkness and that would imply that she could have been on Kamino for all of Season 2.

It’s hard really to know to what to say about Rookies as it’s been talked about so much and is hard to forget since it set up characters that recurred throughout the whole show. I will say that it doesn’t perfectly line up with “Clone Cadets.” Like the line about clones being put into service before their training is complete makes little sense now. This episode is regarded as one of the best and it probably is still up there as far as standalones go. But we would see a lot better in arcs as we got into the show. I don’t know why Grievous had to be in this. Yes, I know he eventually is part of the attack on Kamino but it’s kinda strange that we have him in six straight episodes. The Commando Droids were undoubtedly cool and were a much needed addition to the show. But also cool how it’s the Battle Droids who end up being the greater challenge. The episode is not as great as I remember, feeling rushed in parts, but it is still the best we’ve seen in the rewatch so far. 7/10 I would’ve given it higher when it came out but I want to leave plenty of room for what’s to come.

I’m not sure if Downfall of a Droid is a fan film or an episode that had a $10000 or less budget... the animation looks particularly bad in this episode and at times it looks like something done on Microsoft paint. The voice acting is like really bad, honestly I’m not sure why Rex sounded so weird at times, like it wasn’t even Baker voicing him. Only voice actor that did good in this episode was Matthew Wood.

Oh and there’s barley any traditional Star Wars music used which is why it comes across as a fan film that wouldn’t have the rights to the music...


I guess one thing I reflected on though was that TCW season 1 actually kinda feels like Rebels season 1 in some ways, almost the entire season is connected. You have all this grievous stuff for the first 10 episodes just about where Anakin and Kenobi are hunting him and then it even flows fairly well into the second half with more Anakin, Kenobi and Ashoka adventures. Idk it just has that feel where everything is connected more so then other seasons. Ambush and Hidden Enemy are like the two exceptions, take those out and it’s basicslly the Anakin, Kenobi and Ashoka adventure for 20 episodes

Actually adventures of Anakin, Kenobi, Ashoka and Padme since she’s featured prominently in season 1 as well...

Yeah I feel there are inconsistencies in the animation. This looked worse than some of the previous episodes. It looked like cutscenes from TCW video game tbh. At the end Anakin was missing an entire piece of his tunic and it was very obvious and weird.

But otherwise this is a very fun episode for me. Anakin is really cute and I kinda like how there is an interconnected story about hunting Grievous. I feel like they reused that shot of him escaping in his fighter from Destroy Malevolence lol

Idk fun episodes with some production flaws. Maybe it was one of the first episodes they animated even if it was released later on

Kinda wish they would’ve continued with having an interconnected story. It was nice how most of the episodes could be related to the war effort. They moved past doing that later on

After watching Downfall of a Droid, it's amazing to see how far the animation in TCW has progressed. The animation here is pretty bad, but that's mostly because I'm used to the later seasons. However, this episode's animation was still very poor even for S1 standards.

I kind of agree with Newan that this episode almost felt like fan-made due to the weak animation and music selection. The story itself is okay, but it's far from exciting. I don't get why Grievous put so much effort into getting R2 though. Did he know it would be valuable, or was he just guessing that because it was paired with a Jedi that it might be important? That part of the plot was always a bit odd to me.

Ahsoka has some of her most annoying moments in this episode, and the other characters all seem off as well. Grievous was made out to be menacing in the opening crawl, but this episode really undermines that idea unfortunately. Definitely my least favorite episode of the rewatch so far.

I think TCW had a good balance. I liked the earlier seasons giving us a more interconnected feel, but I also really enjoyed when the series chose to move beyond just the war effort and focus on other aspects of the galaxy during the conflict in later seasons. That's when the show gave us some of the best stories. It also allowed for more diverse stories to be told and more characters to share the spotlight beyond the main few.

The droid arc kind of serves as a buzzkill for the nostalgia of watching S1 again. Even if the other episodes aren't amazing, they're at least pretty decent quality so far. I can't say I hate this arc, but these episodes are among my least favorite of the entire series.

Downfall of a Droid: 3/10
Duel of the Droids: 4.5/10

Droid arc: 3.75/10

I got more nostalgic by these episodes tbh. When I think TCW I think of these early episodes