Hello and welcome back to another exciting Star Wars: The Clone Wars review! This week, when a Togrutan colony starts negotiating with the separatists, Obi-Wan, Anakin, and Ahsoka are sent to the colony to investigate. When they arrive, the only inhabitants of the planet are Droids, slavers, and bombs set to blow up the entire city, and the colonists with it! Read my review for Kidnapped below.
Having departed the Umbara arc, and finally knowing the whole story of what happened to Krell and the 501st, we are taken to an adventure of a completely different nature and atmosphere. Instead of the dark and mysterious forests of Umbara, we now arrive in a peaceful, elegant city of the Togrutans. Not to mention it’s completely empty, which adds an awesome layer of creepiness to the episode. The buildings resembled a lot of the Togrutan traits and features, and made this episode look very appealing to the eye. In addition to brilliant designs for the colony, both the Republic and the Separatists had some new machinery on the battlefield. When the Jedi first arrive on the planet, we see a new addition to the speeder bikes, a side car. Not that it’s a huge deal or anything, I just thought it made for a cool fight scene to have Ahsoka be fighting the commando droids while still flying through the city at quite a fast rate. Probably the more effective and interesting design was that of the sniper droids, which look like Droidekas with a blast shield over its face instead of a shield generator. (It’s really cool to see that they’re making variants based off the same model droid.) Still, I can sense that we’ll be seeing a lot more of these in the future, which makes me glad that there are finally droids that can actually cause problems for a Jedi. Also because it really makes me want a Clone Wars version of Battlefront even more.
Speaking of causing problems for Jedi, the fight scenes in this episode were fantastic! Not only did we see Anakin and Ahsoka have to work together while being pinned down by snipers and while racing against the clock to defuse the bombs, but Obi Wan in a hand to hand fight with a slaver!? This episode puts our Jedi heroes in almost every possible combat type imaginable, all in twenty-two minutes. With anything from fighting droids, to speeder bike chases, to giant monsters, and to the best part of the episode, Obi Wan’s fight, (Which, with no lightsabers or force powers I thought was a great introduction for Obi-Wan this season.), the strong point of this episode is definitely the action. Most of the fights had me on the edge of my seat wondering what was going to happen, and if the slaver was going to get away. (On a side note, I thought the slaver drew a lot of inspiration from the 16th century Spanish and a little from the Cathar, cat-like species from the Knights of the Old Republic series.)
Kidnapped also felt like an episode that was meant for foreshadowing the future of the arc, and its characters. Several things in particular felt this way, one being that this arc is going to be revolving a lot around Anakin in the coming episodes, judging from what we know about his past and how he feels about slavers. You know something bad is brewing immediately when you hear that imperial march theme in the background! And although we didn’t see a whole lot of Anakin tuning into his darker side this episode, as soon as they encounter more slavers you just know that it’s going to get worse. Also, another point I kind of missed on my first watch of the episode was Yoda’s hint about a possible connection to the rise of the Sith using slavery as a tool. Now, when I think of that, and how this arc connects to Anakin’s past, it makes me wonder whether the slaves are just a tool to turn Anakin to the dark side, not just for labor purposes. I can’t wait to see this unravel as the arc continues!
Kidnapped was a very good episode. It had excellent action, the start of some character development in our main character, and a decent story. A great start to a new arc! What did you think of this episode? Did you love it? Hate it? Let us know by leaving a comment below! I think that wraps up my review, thanks for reading and may the force be with you…always!
–Ryan
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