Top 100 Star Wars Characters 40-31

These characters, as we move forward, have more and more influence to the events of the saga as a whole. 

To see previous parts of the list, click here: 

http://thestarwarsdefender.blogspot.com/2013/02/the-top-100-greatest-star-wars.html 

here: http://thestarwarsdefender.blogspot.com/2013/02/top-100-star-wars-characters-90-81.html

here: http://thestarwarsdefender.blogspot.com/2013/03/top-100-star-wars-characters-80-71.html

here: http://thestarwarsdefender.blogspot.com/2013/03/top-star-wars-characters-70-61.html

here: http://thestarwarsdefender.blogspot.com/2013/05/top-100-star-wars-characters-60-51.html

and here: http://thestarwarsdefender.blogspot.com/2013/06/top-100-star-wars-characters-50-41.html

The Lawless Review

Man, that was some episode. I'm going to have to restate my previous comment from ''Shades of Reason'' because THIS episode was the one closest to Revenge of the Sith in tone and emotion in the entire show.

Darth Maul had quite the plan to enact his ultimate revenge on Obi-Wan. The sad part was that ultimately his plan worked, and he killed Satine right in front of him. I was on the verge of tears when I saw Satine tell Obi-Wan how she had always loved him and the look on his face clearly showed how he felt. I really feel Obi-Wan's pain now and I really hate Darth Maul at this point. Especially due to the fact that Maul has killed both Kenobi's Lover and his Master.

The incredible thing was that Obi-Wan showed no signs of hatred to Maul, and tried to understand why he had become the bad person he was. It clearly highlights how similar Luke Skywalker is to Obi-Wan when he faces a similar situation in Return of the Jedi and faces Palpatine,  contrary to Anakin, who can't control his emotions and acts much more severely when Padme dies.

Once Maul realized that he was feeling the presence of his Master, his look of fear was clearly highlighted. Not only was Sidious shown to be incredibly powerful in the Force, we saw that no matter how sadistic Maul is, Sidious is the incarnation of the devil. I was left wondering if Mother Talzin's magic was just some kind of an illusion after Savage died and he reverted to his original state. That leaves us with the million dollar question: What will Sidious use Maul for now? Help him hunt down Talzin? Have him duel Darth Tyranus/Count Dooku to see who is the most worthy apprentice? I guess we will have to tune in Season 6 to find out.

It also brings to question: what will happen to Bo-Katan after the Republic goes to Mandalore to reorganize the planet? We found out somewhat shockingly that Bo-Katan and Satine were sisters, which I hope their relationship is further addressed in future episodes.

The only thing that I didn't really like was that it was made a bit too obvious in the episode that Sidious and Palpatine are the same persona. I guess some kids who haven't seen Episode III and think that Palpatine is still a good guy might have changed their mind. Otherwise, it was a fantastic episode, one in which made me have more respect for Obi-Wan, my favorite Star Wars character.

Shades of Reason Review

The plan is now sprung into action. Black Sun, the Pykes and Savage attack the ports of Mandalore in  a plot to make Death Watch look as the heroes of Mandalore, and poor Duchess Satine be seen as a weak one. And it worked. Brilliantly. 

Ultimately I guess that one of the reasons George wanted to set this episode up in the first place, was to use the conquest of Mandalore by Death Watch as a foreshadowing element to what will take place in Revenge of the Sith. Pre Vizsla is seen by the people as some type of hero, similar to how Palpatine was seen as a hero after he had supposedly been ''scared and deformed'' by the Jedi. At the end of the day, however, Vizsla's rule comes to an end, thanks in part for his foolish pride, and for not killing Maul when he had the chance. 

Savage acted less like an idiot, as he had in the previous episode, and did more impressive things this time. Maul on the other hand, did the predictable thing: He realizes that he can't rule Mandalore, in great part because he looks too much like the devil, and is going to scare everyone else, so he needed someone to act as his puppet ruler, in this case, the corrupt Prime Minister Almec. And now that Darth Maul is the current Mandalorian, his character has risen to an even more ''cool'' state. 

The fight between Pre Vizsla and Maul proved to be one of the best we have seen so far, and despite the fact that Vizsla is a great warrior and sword fighter, he simply is no match for a Sith Lord. He died somewhat honorably to be honest, and what let to his downfall was his pride. Bo-Katan comes to her senses and realizes that she doesn't want to be ruled by a monster like Maul, and decides to rebel against the Maul Mandalorians. I don't know why, but I have a feeling that Bo-Katan is becoming too much like Ventress, in the sense that they are both female characters how are changing for better. 

Duchess Satine's wish to have Mandalore free of corruption and war ultimately led to the fall of her own government. As much as I like the character, she simply should have foreshadowed the takeover of Death Watch, and should have armed herself when she had time. However, I don't want to be too bad with the Duchess, and we do have to recognize that she was smart in not underestimating Maul's power, unlike Bo-Katan. 

As far as tone and emotion is concerned, this episode has been by far the closest we have been to Episode III. It's only a sign that this war and this show, are coming to a close. 

The Expanded Universe: alternative universe on the way?

Adi Gallia was killed by Savage Opress. Even Piell died in the Clone Wars. Asajj Ventress left Count Dooku. The Mandalorians are different now.

What do all of these events that have taken place in The Clone Wars have in common? They all have overwritten events that had previously taken place in the Star Wars Expanded Universe. The fans have revolted over such minor things, that have perhaps declared a comic or two as ''non-canon'' and created some inconsistencies with other previously established works. Now, a new trilogy of Star Wars lies on the horizon, in a time period which is heavily convoluted with so many things it's not even worth tracking what has transpired since Return of the Jedi. With the story treatments coming from George Lucas himself, that entire time period faces the near-certain inevitability of being no longer part of the Star Wars canon. We are talking about nearly 200 comic books and novels combined. If the fans get upset because Adi Gallia was killed by Savage Opress and not General Grievous, imagine what will happen now? 

The problem ultimately doesn't lie with George, even if many will be and are angry at him because he ''allowed so many novels and comic books to be written and now wants to make movies that will render those irrelevant.'' George has every right to do what he wants with his own universe, whether you like it or not. The writers of the EU have the privilege to be playing in George's playground, not the other way around. Perhaps the opening crawl of Episode VII will say something like ''The galaxy has been at peace since the Battle of Endor'' and will render that part of the EU as non-canon, or it will throw it into an alternative timeline. Who knows. It's not my universe to decide. 

The important thing to point out is that many fans have moved on from the films and have established the EU as something as sacred or even more important, than the movies. They have delved themselves so badly into the EU to the point in which they no longer read or watch something for fun, but are instead preoccupied that it won't adhere to the continuity. 

Star Wars used to be about having fun for these fans, but now that they have immersed themselves so badly into this fictitious universe that they take everything that happens in it too seriously, as if they were Christian fundamentalists who take everything from the Bible as literal. They are literally stabbing themselves in the back for being too immersed into every single product that comes out of Lucasfilm. 

That is a great part of the reason why I have only read 2 novels of the Expanded Universe: Labyrinth of Evil and Star Wars: Darth Plageuis. I like to read things that have some sense of relevance to the films, or watch a show that also has some sense of relevance to it. That's a great part of the reason of why I have little to no interest about what the novels depict happens after Return of the Jedi. 

I guess that also one of the main reasons why it seemed to make some sense to continue making books and comics depicting the events after Jedi was because well, back in 1983, the ending with Yub-Nub didn't exactly give sense to what had transpired in the galaxy as a whole, nor with the main characters. The stories of Luke, Han and Leia, could have continued with Thrawn as the bad guy. But ever since 1997, 2004 and the release of Episodes I-III, you get the sense that Darth Vader's redemption becomes the act of the fulfillment of the prophecy of the Chosen One, and that the Sith should have never returned. You also get the sense that if even in the most backwater and criminal planet of the galaxy, Tatooine, they are celebrating the death of the Empire, then that means that almost every planet in the galaxy manage to liberate themselves from the Empire. Besides, the simple fact that both the Jedi Temple and the Galactic Senate are present when Coruscant is shown, must imply the fact that democracy has returned to the galaxy. So ultimately at the end of the day, the stories that take place after Jedi are basically a complete contradiction to everything settled down here. 

The EU after Jedi is written by so many different authors, that the direction of the story goes off in a strange sense. By the time you get to New Jedi Order you are beating on a dead horse, and by the time you get to the Legacy comics, the formula of the films is so xeroxed and repeated it's not worth even paying attention. It's better to see things the George Lucas way and think that none of that ever happened. 

But now that the long speculated sequel trilogy is lying their, to be released in 2015, you go back to look at the EU post ROTJ, floating around, contemplating whether the hateboy's wet dream, and my worst nightmare, might have a chance of coming true. The good thing is that George hasn't given the bastion yet, and the next film is on the way of being an original story taken from his story treatments. So if you add up that with the fact that in his universe, non of the post-ROTJ EU ever happened, then, we have the likely chance of seeing a film that will not only stay true to what was previously established in the Star Wars films, but also take the story of Star Wars into a place we haven't seen from George Lucas's universe. 

An alternative universe might be helpfull in getting both George's film into the screen, while at the same time controlling some of the rage of the hateboys. What do you guys think? Share your thoughts below. 

Eminence Review

Play time is over, friends. The shroud of the dark side has fallen.

Seriously, though, besides the fact that I just quoted Yoda, this episode came down to be one of the darkest in the Clone Wars. The allegiance between Darth Maul and Pre Vizsla comes down to be one of mistrust and betrayal, since their only common goal is to exact vengeance on the Jedi, in particular Obi-Wan. Vizsla doesn't understand exactly what Maul's plans are. And why should he? He only cares about taking back Mandalore, and a Sith would be useful in order to get him rid of the Jedi who could prevent his wish from coming true, in particular Obi-Wan. On the other hand, Maul is a Sith- a villain who is always unhappy and only wants to get more and more stuff because he can never be satiated. He wants to not only kill Kenobi, but also create an army of the criminal underworld and take control of Mandalore in order to have himself control of the Neutral Council of Systems, in order to have a third party that can rival the Republic and the Separatists, and compete with his old Master in the game of galactic domination. Brilliant plan, isn't it?

One thing that does come to mind is, how and why did Death Watch find Maul's escape pod and decide to open it to see what was in their? The only logical explanation(s) are the following: 1, it was pure coincidence., or 2 the much more logical one, this was a setup by Mother Talzin. How she managed to trace the Death Watch into Darth Maul is anyone's guess, but it would make sense given the interest Talzin has with the Sith Lord.

Another thing I'd like to point out is that Savage acts too much like a moron. I mean, seriously. At least Darth Maul can control his anger and not beat up and destroy the droids that are repairing you in the first place!!!

Jabba was also kind of laughing when he was forced to join with Maul (like he always does). Bo-Katan is pretty skeptical about the Sith, and the fight between Embo and Savage was freakin awesome. I wonder how many times the Black Sun will be forced to replace its own members. It was also interesting to see the new concept of the Pykes.

Duchess Satine is in for an unpleasant surprise.

The Clone Wars First Half of the Season Review

Moving  away from all this Episode 7 speculation, I think it's time to talk about how the First Half of Star Wars: The Clone Wars Season 5 went. We have been comprised so far of two 4 part arcs, the Onderon arc and the Young Jedi one. Onderon proved to be an exciting arc, one in which we got to see the predecessors to the Rebel Alliance. The irony in all of this, is that it was Anakin's idea to organize the Rebels and train them in order to fight back the Separatists. Some saw this as showing Anakin's continuous descent towards the dark side, but I disagree: I think that it showed a great part about how Anakin managed to setup the path to his eventual redemption. One thing that did leave me confused was the fact that Ahsoka's relationship with Lux wasn't really taken forward from what we had seen in A Friend In Need. However, Steela's death might have been done on purpose in order for Lux and Ahsoka's relationship to actually flourish.

The Young Jedi arc opened up to see the interesting aspect about hoe the Jedi built their own lightsaber.  The addition of Huyang and the pirate Hondo made everything more interesting. Seeing Hondo drunk was all the more hilarious, and seeing General Grievous shine in this arc was even better. The Grievous vs. Ahsoka was a pretty intense, yet even match when considering the fact of how her fight was with Grievous way back in Season 1. 

I got to see at that point how the Season opener, Revival tied in to the destruction of Hondo's base. The return of Darth Maul and Savage Opress was what the audience was expecting from the get-go, and that episode proved to be one of the brilliants of the show.

Then came the Droids episodes which...many fans complain about. To be honest, the fans that don't want Star Wars to be a kid's show annoy the crap out of me, do to the fact that they forget that large parts of the Star Wars movies are told from the droids point of view. Seriously, will the stop complaining and enjoy the show? 

Secret Weapons proved to be a good episode, but it was really A Sunny Day in the Void, that struck me. Colonel Gascon's moment of despair and existencial questioning was one of the most philosophical of the show, without any Jedi involved in it, and the scene where the flock of birds come running and Wack ends up riding one of them was compelling, particularly when the bird did a kind of friendly gesture to Wack. What's funny of this is the fact that Wack is a droid, and it gives a theme of Animals and Robots, that I think has never been touched upon before. It was a scene that showed the innocent side of Star Wars some fans wish wouldn't exist. 

It was a very good first half, to say the least. I'm looking forward to seeing Gregor and Darth Maul return in the other half!!!