Destroy Malevolence – Clone Wars episode 1.04

Blue pomposity.

“A plan is only as good as those who see it through.” This from a man who openly defends Jar Jar Binks.

Destroy Malevolence.

The Republic fleet is pursuing the battered Malevolence. Smoke and flames rise from the ship because in Lucas’ universe, there is atmosphere everyfuckingwhere. Kenobi’s Star Destroyers are dealing heavy damage, but Plo Koon still whines about needing reinforcements.

Dooku says…

It's a trap!

It’s a trap. Padme and C3PO are enroute to Planet Trap, but come out of hyperspace in the middle of the Malevolence firefight. Activate tractor beam, Grievous says, and the trap has been sprung.

Padme holograms the Republic bridge to continue firing despite her predicament. She doesn’t want to be a Separatist bargaining chip. Anakin wusses out and orders the fleet to stop firing. This always bothers me. Anakin is supposed to be a tragic hero who falls. But he never does anything heroic. He’s just a whiny brat. Yoda is heroic. Padme is consistently heroic and self-sacrificing. Anakin has always been a selfish, unheroic twat.

Padme gets the ship to overload. It blows up to give us time for robot hijinks. Ugh, robot hijinks. You know what I would prefer to robot hijinks? Not that you asked, but I’ll tell you anyway: dead air. I would prefer to sit in front of a blank screen rather than see another “Roger, roger” gag.

Back to our unheroic hero: Anakin has no plan whatsoever to save Padme. Naturally, Kenobi joins in, because hell, why should we expect him to do something characterful like be the voice of reason? Nope. I think the writers just play with action figures and then write an episode based on whatever nonsense the action figures are doing. Pew pew! Let’s go do something that goes against all our Jedi training! Okay! Pew pew!

Given how big the Malevolence is, Anakin and Kenobi find Padme in hilariously easy fashion. Padme overlooked that the Malevolence hyperdrive is almost fixed, so the adventure continues.

Meanwhile, C3P0 is separated. His character has been completely rewritten. Instead of The Odd Couple verbal sparring with R2D2, C3P0 is now clumsy physical comedy. It didn’t work in Attack of the Clones. It doesn’t work here either.

Grievous and his battle droids trap Kenobi by the hyperdrive room. Kenobi plays bowling with droidekas and escapes. Says one battle droid, “That was impressive.” Grievous hits him. It’s a funny moment and if they used the bot banter more sparingly like this, the bots would be more successful as comic relief.

Anakin and Padme reach the ship and Anakin says he will “hotwire” the ship. I have no idea what that means. It’s a painful anachronism. Grievous pursues Kenobi. They fight. Finally. Kenobi gets away. Our heroes all meet up and they fly off. Uh…the Malevolence’s tractor beam doesn’t work anymore?

Padme mans the gun while Anakin pilots. Says Kenobi, “She seems to know her way around.” Did he just call her a slut? Anakin had reset the Malevolence’s navicomputer, so it flies right into a moon. Grievous gets away in his own ship.

To the next episode Rookies, or back to the episode guide.