Originally this was not going to be the season premiere episode but it turned out to be a good idea to start season 5 with “Revival,” since it ties up the Darth-Maul-Returns arc and sets things up for the next stage of his involvement on the show.
Maul and Savage are on the loose, causing trouble. They realize they need more than lightsaber skillz; they need money and minions. But Savage, who’s not really a Sith, is focused on the “Wow, money” part of it while Maul, who is an awesomely trained Sith, is focused on getting revenge on Obi-Wan. It doesn’t take long for Maul to make it clear who’s going to be the boss. With that little understanding, Maul and Savage offer to pay off a crew of Hondo Ohnaka’s pirates to join them. They head out to Hondo’s HQ on a planet called Florrum to take over.
However, Obi-Wan and Adi Gallia are hot on the horned hermanos’ trail. In fact when the Jedi arrive on Florrum, Maul’s upset because it’s too soon in the game. Maul and Savage are forced to drop everything to fight Obi-Wan and Adi Gallia. Unfortunately for Miss Gallia, Savage manages to kill her. I think the expanded universe had a different ending for her, so expect the usual outrage over “continuity.” In any case, it explains why Gallia was nowhere to be seen in ROTS.
Obi-Wan and Hondo must become allies to survive the “horny-headed maniacs” and a pirate gang insurrection happening at the same time. Obi-Wan manages to battle both baddies with his lightsaber and Gallia’s, maiming Savage in the process. It’s cool because you can see the wispy green magic smoke when both Savage and Maul are injured. Remember, both had been healed by Mother Talzin’s dark magic.
While Savage and Maul live to fight another day during sweeps, both of them (especially Maul) realize their plans for revenge and galactic domination weren’t going to come easy. Maul overestimated his ability to intimidate unknown quantities like pirates into permanent loyalty, since Hondo was able to win back his men. Obi-Wan might have had to flee the last time but he’s still a powerful enemy. If you ask me, the luckiest break Maul has had all along is that Obi-Wan never seemed to have Anakin around during their confrontations. Now both he and Savage are broke, alone, and without Talzin around to use her hocus pocus.
At the end of the episode, Obi-Wan briefs Yoda, Mace Wind, Anakin, and Palpatine on what had happened on Florrum. Palpatine pooh-poohs the danger Maul and Savage present, basically saying, “Aww, just leave him alone, he’s no big deal.” Yoda dismisses Maul as just a personal vendetta and figures Dooku’s the real problem. I say, why doesn’t this make Palpatine look suspicious to anybody? The show ends with Palpatine leaning on his desk, sneering wickedly to himself. TFN’s Eric Geller seems to think Palpatine/Sidious is fine with Maul and Savage causing trouble and tarnishing the Jedi’s reputation. It is interesting to note that many of the “regular” folks who had encountered the destructive duo thought they were Jedi.
Maybe so, but as those preview clips revealed, Sidious ends up confronting the two of them. I think he pushed the Jedi out of the way so he could deal with them himself when the time was right. The last thing Sidious really wants is a former apprentice going rogue, violating the Sith Rule of Two, and mucking up his plans. Especially since Maul could very well tell somebody, “Guess what? The Chancellor’s really another Sith and this whole war’s phony!” Maul hasn’t shown any desire to be loyal to anyone but himself.
The animation rocks and the music was fantastic. Hondo is becoming the show’s resident Lovable Rogue, kind of like a Jack Sparrow without the drugs. He got all of the best lines too.
It always seems like five years passes in between seasons, so seeing fresh Clone Wars on t.v. again is a welcome thing indeed. Seeing it on Saturday mornings will take some getting used to. We’ll see if it sticks.
Tags: Clone Wars
September 29, 2012 at 4:47 pm |
“horned hermanos”…love it!
As for the “continuity” factor, I guess that’s one of the reasons why I’ve never kept up with the Clone Wars tv show, having read all the books and comics (plus the other Clone Wars animated series) that came out before although some episodes are fascinating. Lucasfilm has yet to release an all new Clone Wars timeline so maybe one day it’ll all be explained.
September 29, 2012 at 8:01 pm |
I’ll be waiting until this is online, because 9:30 in the morning is too damn early for me to wake up and watch something. Well, I might manage when “Korra” comes back, but still, I’m miffed that what was for me a perfectly good 8pm Friday timeslot has been taken away.
September 29, 2012 at 8:40 pm |
Oh, look at that. I found it. Nevermind.
To be honest, I still have an unnerving sense of how much this is playing directly into basher fan-fiction dreams of what the Prequels “should’ve” been. “Look, it’s Darth Maul alive, and being a badass! Look, it’s a whole army of Mandalorian supersoldiers, just like all those Boba Fett action figures promised!”. It’s to the credit of Filoni and the whole “Clone Wars” crew that they can not only deliver on the potential of using these things for fun, but also in ways that make sense to the overall story and themes of “Star Wars”.
That last scene between the Jedi and Palpatine really hammered everything home– the place the rogue Sith have in Sidious’ plans as another distraction, the Jedi’s policy against attachment and “making it personal”. Again, I’m reminded how often the show is just taking every element that was already there in the Prequels and serving them up to the same basher fanboys, getting them to enthusiastically praise the same things they were complaining about. All according to plan…?
September 30, 2012 at 12:07 pm |
It feels like five years in between each episode.
Another home run for The Clones Wars crew. LOVED everything about this episode. The way they killed Adi, nice touch.
I can’t wait from them to get back to Maul’s arch.
September 30, 2012 at 2:33 pm |
I think Bob is right… this all does play into more opportunity for prequel bashing. But really – it was such, such a s-t-r-e-t-c-h to bring back Maul. And it smacks of kowtowing to those bloodthirsty fanboys who wanted TPM to begin with a teenaged Vader primed for his first of many force chokes or any other mayhem. They really don’t want that lost innocence anywhere near Vader. Those fanboys – they love Maul because he’s a great villain and he slashes, dices. Personally, I think ignoring his rather complete “death” via a rather emphatic sliced in half action by Obi-Wan weakens TPM, big time. And strengthens my perceptions that fanboys have clout with LFL, and George himself, which is really sad.
September 30, 2012 at 7:29 pm |
Bringing Maul back does stretch credulity to say the least. A friend noted that Maul shouldn’t be more powerful or a better fighter because it contradicts what Lucas says about Vader losing power in the Force because most of him is mechanical. That said, the writers and Sam Witwer try really hard to make it work.
October 1, 2012 at 5:16 am
I don’t think it weakens TPM at all. I say the more Maul the merrier.
How he was keeped alive I think all boils down to Palaptins saying “he could even keep the ones he cared about, from dying” which Hopfully they’ll touch apone later in the season. Maul mess up bad. Sidious probally keeped him alive to suffer for his mistakes. I dont think he anticaped Mother Talzon to interfear with Mauls suffering. Since ROTS I had gotten that impression with Vader, that Sidious was keeping him alive. And Vader was a lot more messed up then Maul.
October 1, 2012 at 7:08 am |
I think they’re trying to please everyone with the Clone Wars. He’ll they brought Boba back, overrated character IMO, after he got digested. Why not Maul? A far superior character.
October 1, 2012 at 1:55 pm |
Hate to shamelessly plug, but I’m in the game now too: http://nilbogsstorybookland.blogspot.com/2012/10/clone-wars-501-revival.html
Clone Wars is one of the few shows I actually do prefer to watch online because of the way they edit out the commercials, I can’t even see where they’d possibly go.
October 1, 2012 at 2:04 pm |
It did make me roll my eyes when it was announced that Maul was coming back, but I think that after growing up reading comic books—where a character’s death is nearly always temporary—I just took it in stride.
I know what Lin means about the “bloodthirsty fanboys”; they were the guys in 1999 that would ransack toy stores for Darth Maul and Darth Maul alone; he was like the apex of “kewl badass” 90′s characters for them…but I think he works well on TCW as a reminder of Darth Sidious’ ruthlessness, and how quickly he’ll discard his apprentices when someone better comes along (Maul>Dooku>Anakin>Luke).
October 2, 2012 at 5:01 am |
Gotta admit, I rolled my eyes when I first heard they where bringing Maul back too. So far I’m very happy with the results.
October 9, 2012 at 10:24 am |
Why is Darth Maul still alive?