The Star Wars The Clone Wars episode “The Lawless”. Best Star Wars since The Empire Strikes Back? Hyperbole?
The Lawless
No spoilers here.
At about minute 9, I was stunned at how the story went. The entire series and the tone it started with in the beginning was a feint. Despite some pretty juvenile episodes, most of the series has been an exercise in solid storytelling in the Star Wars universe. We expect the filmmakers to pull their punches because of several issues: this series is on Cartoon Network, and the prequel movies had Jar Jar Binks.
However, it has shown us violence that provided emotional release at some parts, like when Commander Jet’s troops burned dozens of Geonosians alive… onscreen… and we see the Geonosian aflame and shrieking in agony; we’ve seen innocents shot with blaster burning right through their torsos; we’ve seen Ahsoka leap, spin and decapitate four Mandalorians.
We’ve never seen the emotional roller-coaster brought on by “The Lawless”. If what happened in the episode not at the same emotional level as “No. I am your father…” then it should be pretty close, based on what has come before beginning with the introduction of Mandalore and Death Watch in season two, and the return of Darth Maul in season four.
As a bonus cherry on top, we get the best choreographed lightsabre fight ever on the series, Darth Sidious versus Maul and Savage Opress.
Let me say that if there is no executive network meddling and the such, I am confident that Supervising Director Dave Filoni will not disappoint us when he ends this series and segue into Revenge of the Sith. I really don’t expect the story of Ahsoka Tano to end well.
Check out the first official Star Wars The Clone Wars Google Hangout that took place right after the first airing of the episode, featuring Filoni and some of the voice cast of the series.
