The Clone Wars Season 5 Episode 3 Review

Hello and welcome back to another The Clone Wars review here on the Star Wars Report! This review is will be reaching you after the next episode has already aired, so this will be a good opportunity to look specifically at what will be important for The Soft War that aired just a few days ago. So, let’s dive into the episode and find out what worked, what didn’t, and what has changed over the course of the arc so far! This review is about the episode Front Runners, where the rebels test their tactics inside occupied Onderon, trying to gain enough momentum to free it from Separatist rule.

A War on Two Fronts ended with the rebels infiltrating the capitol city of Iziz, planning on taking the fight to the droids. This episode begins with the rebels doing just that, and continues throughout most of the episode. During all this, they keep bringing up the need to gain the people’s support, which seems to become the main issue for the next few episodes. If you remember last week I talked about introducing the fine line between revolutionaries and terrorists, and now by watching the episode, I thought it was very cool how they handled it. They’ve infused the two to be one and the same. The fine line between what these rebels are, terrorists or revolutionaries, depends entirely on how they are viewed by the people of Onderon. It creates not only a conflict between the rebels and the Separatist government, but also a political struggle between the new king, and the old one. Who can better gain the will of the people when the two forces are colliding in the streets of Iziz?

Since we were introduced to those political struggles in the episode, we were also introduced to the former King Denup, as well as the new king. Hearing just the perspectives of Denup as opposed to the king’s almost typical totalitarian king type personality made it a little more interesting than the usual discussions with Separatist leaders. Denup was able to sum up the ideals of the episode nicely, making most of his views about the “will of the people” on deciding who wins, rather than personally objecting to the new king’s rule out of rage, or even accepting total defeat.

Most of the ongoing character arcs such as the situation between Lux and Ahsoka were not in the forefront of the episode, but there’s really one thing I would like to point out. I liked seeing that Anakin was relating with Ahsoka, and showed that he understood what she was feeling by offering his wisdom. Ahsoka has grown so much as a Jedi that it’s rare that we see the Jedi teacher in Anakin much anymore when on a mission with his padawan. It also shows that there’s still room for Ahsoka to develop and learn. I sure hope there are more moments like these in the season, it worked very well.

Lastly, I have been loving the designs for the people of Iziz. They have a very Roman feel to them, especially with Rash. Nothing says supreme ruler like designing a character that looks like Caesar. Random thought: the rebels really stood out compared with all the citizens, which was quite odd. You would think they’d be spotted immediately as rebels since they’re the only ones wearing armor on a planet where the civilians all wear a similar type of non-armored clothing. Even if the droids can’t distinguish them, the citizens should probably be able to.

And that’s going to wrap up this review! All in all, I liked the episode; it built on some cool things that we’ve never really delved into before here and there, but overall I felt like not enough major events happened that really impacted the story arc. I know this is a week late, so looking at the other episodes we’ve seen so far in this arc, what do you guys think of Front Runners in comparison? Let us know by leaving a comment below! Thanks for reading, and may the Force be with you…always.

–Ryan Zasso

Ryan Zasso first entered the Star Wars fan community in early 2010 with the podcast Fanboy’s Guide to the Galaxy. Interested in doing Star Wars related writing, he began writing for the Star Wars Report in 2011.

https://twitter.com/TheOneZasso

 

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