Clone Wars Roundtable: S2 : Ep. 16

==Panelists==
*Jason Swank
*Jimmy Mac
*Billy Mac
*Noah Albrecht
==Topics==
*Noah Albrecht discusses how he came to work for Lucasfilm
*Jason's "Tale of the Tape" includes an explanation of how this episode's production and broadcast numbers weren't synchronized.
*The gang briefly mull over the status of this episode as a prequel to the Clone Wars movie.
*Discussion from Noah Albrecht and a listener about the similarity between sound effects in this episode and in the film Predator.
*The guys talk about whether the Admiral Trench character design is too "out there" for Star Wars 
*Jason brings up the notion of the "Star Wars echo" — or how perfectly ordinary dialogue lines take on different meaning because they've occurred in Star Wars before. This week's principal echo: "mercy mission".
*Jason invites Billy to compare the plot to other works of cinema. Billy then ran through some visual and dialogue similarities to films such as Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and All the President's Men and Das Boot.
*The guys ruminate whether there's precedent in the SWG for cloaking devices. The discussion morphs into the gang discussing the question of what obligations Filoni and Lucas have to the Expanded Universe, and whether the cloaking technology in this episode contradicts anything in the EU.
*Jason posits the notion of this episode being an homage to Star Trek II: The Wrath of Kahn. He notes not only a similar structure to the basic tactical problem Anakin faces, but also notes there were a couple of musical cues taken from the second Star Trek film. It's unclear whether the other participants in the discussion are quite as appreciative of all this Trek in their Wars, as they try to nudge Jason back into the universe under discussion.
*The gang concur that the technical achievements of this episode, particularly when it comes to character close-ups, provide a level of detail not possible at the time of the Clone Wars movie. Thus it's a narrative prequel, but a technological misfit. Noah gives his expert opinion as an animator on the improvements in the series' animation up to this point.
*Anakin's travails in this episode are analyzed against his overall journey to the Dark Side and back. To what extent can ends justify the means? Can we learn anything from this one event about the wider pattern of Anakin's life?
*The gang discussion the implications of the fact that Yularen had directly discussed Anakin's military tactics with Palpatine, and how that makes Yularen's brief appearance in Episode IV play slightly differently.
*The guys wonder whether The Clone Wars is internally inconsistent on the matter of Yularen's attitude towards Anakin.
*Jimmy Mac enjoys the way that Bail Organa was given lines reminiscent of both Sio Bibble from Episode I and Leia from Episode IV. The gang agrees that it never gets old that Obi Wan is our "only hope."
==Significant quotes==
*(Imitating Dave Filoni): "Hey guys, every time we come to the 16th episode, let's really screw with people and make it a total prequel." - Jimmy Mac
*"Expectations are the root of all unhappiness" - Billy Mac
Category:The Clone Wars Roundtable Episodes