The Clone Wars Weekly Roundup

A good Sith Master imparts bits and pieces of Dark Side knowledge to his Apprentice.  This practice serves to make the Apprentice a more valuable tool for his Master’s will, and prevents the Apprentice from learning all his Master knows and quickly attempting to murder him.  At the same time it builds up the lust for more knowledge and power in the Apprentice as he seeks to learn what is being withheld.  In many ways we fans are like that Apprentice, we receive dribs and drabs of information regarding the Clone Wars, and sometimes what we see is just enough to get us really excited without revealing much substance.

This week the Sith Lords at Lucasfilm confirmed the premier date for Season Four of The Clone Wars and posted a new extended trailer that shows us some clips we have seen before but also reveals a brand new story arc based off of a comic book.

As we speculated in our July 27^th Roundup based on the Canadian Premier of TCW, we learned earlier this week that Season 4 will premier in the United States on Cartoon Network on September 16^th as well.  The premier will be a one-hour special showing the first two episodes of the season, which are the first two parts of the three-part Mon Calamari arc.

If September 16^th sounds familiar it should, it is the same day that the Star Wars Complete Saga Blu-ray set will be released.  It will be a busy day for Star Wars fans and in the interest of the Nation’s economic productivity, we should probably just make it a Federal holiday now because there will be lots of distracted geeks that day.

While the official StarWars.com Episode Guides for Season Four Episode One and Two are not yet posted, we did learn the episodes titles.  Episode 4.01 is “Water War” and Episode 4.02 is “Gungan Attack.”  I’m an intrigued as too what the Gungan’s from Naboo would be doing on the Mon Calamari home world.

Accompanying the announcement we also got an extended Season 4 Trailer.

There is a ton going on in this trailer and what looks to be a glimpse of multiple story arcs. The caveat is that it always seems like these trailers are coming from the entire season when usually they are cleverly cut from more like 4-5 episodes.  To my eye, it looks like we have around four story arcs taking place and I am not sure where all the scenes fit in yet.

My best guess at this point are; Arc  1: Mon Calamari arc, Arc 2: Umbara/General Krell arc, Arc 3: Death Watch/Lux arc, and Arc 4: Slaves of the Republic arc.

Finally it looks like we are getting a heavy dose of the Mandalorians that we expected in TCW.  I love the Japanese influenced architecture, it’s the Samurai Mandos., err Death Watch I mean.  I would assume this arc involves, the Lux, Ahsoka, and Starbuck-Mando clip that we have previously seen.  It also looks like Pre Vizsla got a new set of armor.

The Slaves of the Republic arc looks to be epic.  It includes the two best lines of the trailer, Darth Sidious appearing via hologram to Count Dooku aboard Dooku’s ship, discussing the history of Sith Empires being built upon slaves.  The other line is Obi-Wan cautioning Ahsoka to keep an eye on Anakin because of Anakin’s inability to let go of his past, i.e. slavery.  It also looks like we get a Clone Wars interpretation of the Zygerrian species, minus the red hair and wielding lightwhips in this arc.  Anakin and Ahsoka look ticked off at the Togrutans being enslaved.  It looks like I am going to have to get my hands on Dark Horse Comic’s Slaves of the Republic comic this fall to compare it to the show.    It also appears we get Anakin rescuing a Princess of some sort.

Where do Asajj Ventress and the Nightsisters fighting battledroids and Grievous fit in? Where does the Anakin versus Dooku battle take place?  What are Ahsoka, Anakin and R2 demolishing?  Where does the speeder bike chase fit in?   Aaron Goins has some great in-depth analysis and speculation that you can read here.

Later this week look for my break down on the best and worst from The Clone Wars Season One as we build up to the Season Four premier September 16^th.

Until next time, keep your Buy’ce on and your blaster handy.

– Pete

 

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