Week 15 - Corruption Arc, Assassin, ARC Troopers

Oh Sphere of Influence isn’t in this batch, that’s actually a good episode imo. As was Supply Lines.


Assassin is ok cause of Aurra, Arc Troopers is decent. But I remember every episode quite well, I remember every episode of Rebels too despite only watching many once.

Next week is the Senate Hostage arc right?

Only time Alderaan is in the show although the image is from the end of ROTS.

Hope I can catch up on these soon. College is annoying.

Unfortunately, The Academy isn't an improvement. I think a really interesting twist would have been to make Satine a traitor, even though that would deprive us of her emotional death with Obi-Wan later on. Anyways, it was somewhat obvious Almec was a traitor in this episode, especially since he gave off a weird vibe in Corruption. It's also strange seeing Ahsoka teach cadets about her age, especially on topics I feel like they are old enough to already know.

The cadets weren't annoying, I mainly just found them boring. It was nice to see Ahsoka interact with "peers", but this episode didn't do too much to improve her character. The resolution was also really easy, making it seem like there was no serious threat the whole time. Getting a look at the prison was cool though.

Finally done with some pretty intense shit at school. Reviews incoming.

The pacing for ARC Troopers is good, given it covers so much. This is probably the second best battle episode of the show so far after LAPR, and Grievous and Ventress both feel like solid threats. I really enjoy the setting of Kamino, and it's kind of interesting how it wasn't raining most of the time. That was probably to make animation less of a hassle, but not a big deal, since it's mostly indoors anyways.

99's death is fitting, but it seemed a bit reckless for him to want to sprint down a hallway where all the droids were shooting. His reaction to Hevy's death was also a good touch. It's a bit odd though that Shaak Ti is still on Kamino after all the time that passed since Clone Cadets.

Even though this is a very good episode and it's unique in some ways, I feel like parts of it play out a little too obviously. I'm not sure how to put it, maybe I'm just in a weird mood right now, yet while this episode has a lot of good elements, something about it feels like it's missing. I guess it's also possible that while I enjoyed the episode, it's not quite as "epic" as I remembered years ago, and that's why something feels different. Regardless, I still liked this episode very much. 8/10 for me.

Corruption is fine. I really didn't like it when I first saw it but now I really don't have strong feelings either way. It's definitely something different and I don't mind a slow story, but it doesn't do it exceptionally well. And some of Satine's dialogue was bad. She kinda just annoyed me in this one. Like the captain fucking took a bullet storming the warehouse and now you're threatening to falsely testify against him unless he destroys evidence? What the hell? But I did like seeing more of Mandalore and the opening especially looked good. That's about all I have to say. Good concept, meh execution. A 5 is average so I'll give it a 5/10.

Assassin is another slow one but better than the last two, plus better use of Ahsoka's theme. I did appreciate how it seemed to have subtle continuity from the last one as it looks like the council is congratulating her for Mandalore. One thing that kinda bug me is how repetitive it is. We've already seen a dangerous bounty come after Padme. We've already seen someone have dreams about Padme dying. Although its weird that Yoda seemed to encourage Ahsoka here but then tell Anakin to let go of Padme. The thought came to mind that seeing Ahsoka's visions proved right but seeing her eventually defeat them may have inspired Anakin to go as far as he did in ROTS. Also it was cool to see people with Leia hair and to hear her theme. Alderaan was cool to see and they did a good job in making it feel really peaceful. One more thing that annoys me is how this episode takes place before Hostage Crisis. I know it has to because of Ziro but it takes a lot of the punch out of defeating Aurra if we know she escapes quickly, especially since this is the last time we saw her in release order. But enough complaining. This episode's a pretty good improvement even if it still doesn't shoot that high. 6/10.

Baker's background characters really stand out and it bothers me. Too many diverse characters sound too similar, and given they all happen to vocally resemble a clone, it's even weirder.

Corruption and The Academy are both pretty boring... Thought it was really weird Satine ordered the warehouse to be burned down how is that helpful? She was acting kinda psycho at the end tbh... Also I don't really like how almost all the politicians are action heroes... It's weird. And it's very repetitive having everyone Satine knows betray her.. oh well.

Something exciting would've been to show some sort of epidemic on Mandalore.

I think ARC Troopers works a bit better when viewed in release order. Honestly, the episode doesn't give 99, Echo, or Fives as big of a role to play. I think without seeing "Clone Cadets" right before you can almost forget it's their arc. The battle itself is pretty good but the setting doesn't allow for the heights of LAPR. This is probably Grievous' weakest post-S1 appearance. It just isn't that exciting to see him vs Obi-Wan and not much new is added here. Kinda the same with Anakin vs Ventress. Both are pretty tensionless and the only interesting moments come at the end. Colt and Havoc go out in some pretty lame ways so idk. Also Rex and Cody just randomly show up where they're supposed to. I don't know. I still really like this episode but it's easier to see its flaws now. Also Fives isn't all that interesting when Echo is still there. Still a cool epiosde though and certainly better than what we've been seeing, just not really as good as I remember. 7/10

There’s also some cameos like Leias robes from ANH and some OT music

Assassin is alright I guess. If I was Padme I would've been mad at Ahsoka for being so annoying though... And why wasn't she believing Anakin when he was having dreams in ROTS when she's witnessed something similar

But Aurra was low key looking like a snack 😜😫💦🍑

I think we should've gotten like a 3-4 episode arc on Alderaan would've been cool to see the rest of the planet and not jus the inside of one building

One thing I will say about Assassin is that the music is killer. Some really good tunes came out of this one. It's also insightful to dwell further on the whole premonition aspect of the Force. Throwing in Alderaan doesn't hurt things either However I'm surprised Padme doesn't take the whole assassination threat even more seriously, considering she's been a recent near victim of it before. Hell, it's not even mentioned Again, we're stuck with another decent episode. The political thriller idea is okay, but weirdly, despite being a one-shot, this story kinda drags. We're also left with a pretty weird conclusion with Aurra. Not only does she get out and make a small time appearance later on, she also winds up unceremoniously killed by way of the name-drop easter egg in Solo. As villains go, she gets some bizarre handling.

Ah, now ARC Troopers is much more like it. The first half is simply excellent, though I kinda wish we saw where all those octopus ships went. Their numbers kept changing throughout the episode I noticed The big problem for me is how all the Fives, Echo and 99 stuff felt a bit tacked on. What's more, Grievous needs to hire himself a new script writer. His dialogue is becoming a synonym for repetition. Then there's the elephant in the room, where this is Ventress' only appearance between some pretty vast gaps. My only guess was that they were seeing her as too much of a female Grievous in her role and took her in a new direction later on. Complaints aside, this is some of the best season 3 offers, though another episode might have served well in padding it out some more.