Tag: jedi

Star Wars: Rebels Review

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It’s Star Wars time once again! In this post we’ll be going over the tv show Rebels, which ran for four seasons in 2014-2018. 

This was one of the first pieces of media aired after Disney bought the rights to the Star Wars franchise, and I’ll admit I didn’t really care about watching the show when it originally aired. You know how it is; I was 16 at the time and didn’t want to watch any “kid shows”. 

The first time I watched this show was two or three years ago and while the first half of season one was more lighthearted and childish, I quickly ended up loving the series. It did a lot to expand the world of Star Wars. 

The show introduced a lot of new planets and history, and it added a ton of new aliens and animals to the universe that made Star Wars feel more alive. 

There were smaller animals like Loth-cats and the larger Loth-wolves, to the giant space traveling whales called purgill. One of the main characters in the show was also a never before seen alien. 

The Characters

Ghost Crew

The main characters we follow in the show reside on a ship called The Ghost. They’re a small crew of rebels fighting against the Empire. 

Ezra Bridger

A young boy who was born on the planet Lothal the day the Republic became the Empire. He was living alone for a few years in a radio tower because his parents were taken by the Empire. 

Ezra’s introduction reminded me a lot like Aladdin, but he quickly became his own person, growing and learning how to stand up for himself and his friends, and learning how to become a Jedi. 

Kanan Jarrus (Caleb Dume)

The first time we saw this character in the timeline was in the first episode of The Bad Batch. He was running away from the clones after his Jedi master was killed by them. 

Years later Caleb changed his name to Kanan, and joined the Ghost Crew. When they met Ezra he was reluctant to train him, but they eventually became close allies and friends and Kanan sacrificed himself for his Ghost family.

Hera Syndulla

Captain of The Ghost and partner of Kanan. She was previously seen as a child in The Clone Wars and The Bad Batch fighting the separatists and later the growing Empire. She basically has never known a moment of peace since introduced. She did end up taking the role of the mom of the squad, but her most loyal friend is her droid Chopper. 

Chopper (C1-10P)

I don’t believe we ever see it, but it’s explained sometime in the show that Hera found Chopper in the Clone Wars as a child. His Y-Wing ship crashed and she rescued him and fixed him up. To her, he is very loyal because of that. To enemies, he’s a menace, and to allies he’s mischief. 

Garazeb “Zeb” Orrelios

The tall alien in the group. He’s one of the last of a species killed by the Empire. Roommates with Ezra and friend/prankster to Chopper, he’s the muscle of the group.

Sabine Wren

A young Mandalorian who went to the Imperial Academy and invented different equipment, but left once she learned what the equipment was being used for: as a weapon against her own people. She now focuses on art and fighting against the Empire, and lots of her artwork is seen throughout the show. 

Imperial Characters/Antagonists

As this is a kid’s show, there are a lot of recurring characters in it and repeat villains. The following are some of the most memorable. 

Agent Alexsandr Kallus 

Remember the ISB from Andor and Jedi Survivor? Agent Kallus works for them, however we don’t really see any of the bureaucrats like the previous entries. Kallus is probably the main villain of season one and part of season two, before defecting and helping the rebels fight the Empire. 

Grand Inquisitor

We briefly saw him in live action on the Obi-Wan Kenobi show. He’s the one in charge of all the other Inquisitors, and the main villain in season one. He fought Kanan in the finale, and lost. Instead of continuing to fight he decided to fall to his death warning them of what was coming (Darth Vader)

Maul

Back again from the Phantom Menace and The Clone Wars, Maul has pretty much lost everything and is hiding on a Sith planet. He is reintroduced as an old hermit who asks Ezra for help getting into the Sith temple, and quickly changes his demeanor after being discovered by Ahsoka and Kanan. During the battle at the temple, he blinds Kanan. He appears in different episodes afterwards, trying to convince Ezra to join him as his apprentice. 

Grand Admiral Thrawn

After the Grand Inquisitor and Kallus, Thrawn is the main villain in the series. He’s an incredibly smart blue alien, and no other of his species have we seen. He dissects the culture of his enemies like artwork and history to study them and learn their military tactics, which makes him very valuable in the Empire’s intelligence team. He becomes focused on stopping the rebels before they grow too large, and the rebels only end up stopping him when they do something completely unexpected. 

Favorite Episodes of Mine

Season One Episode 10: Path of the Jedi

Struggling with teaching Ezra, Kanan took him to a Jedi Temple hidden on Lothal. There isn’t much direct conflict in this episode, but it’s very character driven by having the Jedi master and apprentice learn how to work better with one another. 

Season Two Episode 17: The Honorable Ones

This one I really love. The Ghost Crew investigates the planet Geonosis, which appears to have no life signs on it. Them investigating alerts the Empire, and after a brief fight Agent Kallus and Zeb get stuck in an escape pod and trapped on a frozen moon overnight. They put aside their differences until help arrives and Zeb goes home with his found family, and Kallus goes home to his empty room. It’s the starting point of Agent Kallus’ defection.

Season Three Episode 15: Trials of the Darksaber

Earlier in the series, Maul escaped the gang and left the Darksaber. It’s a lightsaber made by Mandalorians and used as an icon to symbolize leadership in the society. Sabine found it and this episode tracks her journey learning how to wield it. This is another character driven episode because the conflict is internal. Sabine doesn’t want the authority the blade signifies, because of the issues she has with her family. Eventually she opens up and accepts her past traumas instead of hiding them, and I think this episode has a lot of good character moments. 

Season Four Episode 10: Jedi Night

RIP Kanan. This episode pretty much is the start of the finale of the series. Hera got captured by Thrawn and is being held in the capitol building in Lothal, and the Ghost Crew has to rescue her. Kanan is oddly calm throughout the episode, as if he knows what’s coming. They end up rescuing Hera and running to a fuel refinery and the Empire’s Governor shoots at them blowing up the fuel. Kanan sacrifices himself and force pushes them all away while holding the fuel’s explosion back. Just for one brief moment, he regains his eyesight and sees his family. This is a really good and sad episode. 

Final thoughts

The show Rebels did a lot to expand the world of Star Wars. I have a lot of Star Wars merch on display in my apartment and surprisingly a good amount of it originates from the Rebels show. It is very kid friendly in the first season, but after the starting bumps it really found its place in the lore, and created something special. 

Still wild that this was the show Disney produced after canceling The Clone Wars that originated on Cartoon Network, but they eventually finished that series too. 

The next few posts will be all movies, and I want to try to finish up Return of the Jedi before the end of the year, so keep an eye out for our next topic: Rogue One. 

Star Wars: Andor (SEASON ONE) Review

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Welcome back to another Star Wars television show. Today we’re talking about one of my personal favorite shows, Andor. It ran on Disney+ for two seasons in 2022 and 2025. 

At the time of making my original timeline, season two had not been released yet, so in this post I’m only going to talk about season one. I do highly recommend watching the whole series though because it is very good television. 

So without further ado, let’s get started fellow Andorians and Starwarsians.

Cassian Andor is a rebel, but he didn’t start out fighting for the rebellion against the Empire. As a young child, he was living on an isolated planet called Kenari. 

At some point, the Empire invaded the planet to mine the resources out of it. A mining accident happened later, leaving all the children of the planet orphans when the Empire abandoned them. 

Scrappers discovered the mining wreckage and Andor, and ended up adopting him and secretly removing any evidence he lived on the planet Kenari. 

Cassian becomes anti-Imperial after his adopted father is killed, and at one point tries to find his lost sister. Two local cops confront him and try to get him to pay the “toll” for coming by, and things get heated and one of the cops is killed. In a panic, Cassian kills the other one and runs, and this is the initial plot point of the show. 

Cassian Andor’s rebel path was pretty much set after that moment. Before we get into that, I want to talk about most of the characters we see in the show. Many of them have their own stories whether it’s for or against the Empire. 

They can be categorized in a few different boxes related to Andor: Friends and Family, Rebels, and Opposition. 

Friends and Family 

Maarva Andor

The adoptive mother of Cassian. Probably the reason for Cassian’s rebellious nature. Lives with Cassian on a mining planet called Ferrix and is very outspoken against the Empire. 

Clem Andor

Killed before the plot of the show. Was trying to stop violence at a protest but was blamed by the Empire for starting it and hanged in town square. 

B2EMO

The Andors’ friendly robot. A loyal droid to friends who speaks with a stutter, and often is nervous, but always follows through with helping his friends. 

Bix Caleen

Cassian’s close friend and ex. Lives on Ferrix as a mechanic and is secretly in touch with a rebel radio contact who sometimes offers jobs against the Empire. 

Brasso 

Another close friend of Cassian. Scraps old ships on Ferrix and often volunteers to take care of Maarva when Cassian is away. 

Rebels

Luthen Rael

Luthen secretly runs a communication service to supply funding and puts various rebel cells in many jobs against the Empire. He has the mindset that the goal is what matters and that there will be casualties in the war. His public persona is that of an antiques collector living in Corusant. This helps him with the cover of traveling a lot for antiquities when in reality he is traveling for a mission of some kind. 

Kleya Marki 

Luthen’s right hand. She runs the antique shop when Luthen is away, and also runs communication and coordination on different rebel jobs. 

Mon Mothma

Probably the secondary protagonist in the show. Mon Mothma is a senator for the Empire who is very outspoken against corruption and secretly funds Luthen and other rebels. She is a mother and a wife to another senator who she married in an arranged marriage. 

Her husband lives the fancy life as a partner to a rich Imperial senator while Mon stays with him just to keep up appearances. 

Throughout the first season, she is struggling to come up with more money for the rebels because her current source of funds is running dry. She reached out to an old childhood friend who was a banker to help her find some money, and his solution was to introduce her and her daughter to a rich mob boss and his son who was thinking about bringing back the tradition of arranged marriage. 

Opposition 

Syril Karn 

Syril is a hardcore Empire supporter and believes in the sanctity of the system. He initially was a local cop investigating the death of two fellow officers. His commander told him to ignore the murders. Saying they were corrupt and they probably were in the wrong place at the wrong time. Syril didn’t listen, however, and discovered it was Cassian Andor who killed them. 

Syril set up a raid on Ferrix to try and capture Andor, while lying to the Empire that he has his superior’s support in order for them to send Stormtroopers. The raid was a failure, however, and Andor escaped while the Empire decided to remove all the local authorities and put themselves in charge. Syril was fired and forced to go live with his mother in Corusant. 

Dedra Meero

Dedra is one of the Empire’s brightest rising stars in the ISB. As mentioned in a previous Star Wars post, the ISB is a government agency within the Empire who secretly monitors and assesses threats to the Empire. If a rebel group is forming they will step in and stop it. 

Dedra is still somewhat new to the ISB but she is loyal to the Empire and seems to be willing to cut corners to find what she wants. Some of her coworkers aren’t happy with that because she is investigating planets the others are in charge of and has no interest in protocol. 

She questions Syril over what happened on Ferrix and they eventually become a couple after Syril seeks her out. 

Andor Season One Storylines

The show spent a few episodes each following a certain storyline for Andor’s rebellion awakening. Starting out as just a guy looking for himself to make extra money, to someone who would risk it all to stop the Empire and save who he cares about 

Heist Storyline 

The first job Andor took under Luthen was a heist on the planet Aldhani. Andor gave the group he joined for the heist a fake name under Luthen’s advice: Clem, the name of his adopted father. 

The plan: Steal the quarterly payroll of the sector, which is over 80 million credits. Including Andor it was a team of 6 with another inside man at the Imperial base. 

Soon on Aldhani is a giant meteor shower that occurs every three years. The locals go on a trek through the mountains to their sacred site to see the event, which happens to be where the Empire built their headquarters. This was easy for the heist team because the locals were escorted by troopers, so half the squad dressed as troopers while the rest went out to eliminate the communications to prevent backup being called in. 

The heist went through after a few months of planning, but not without problems. Some Imperial troopers did fight back once they discovered what was happening, and while they did escape, their man inside was killed, and one of the rebel squad members was crushed by the money in the escape. He had an impact on Andor because he gave him a manifesto he wrote, and it eventually got through to Andor to fight for others instead of himself. 

Before that, however, another man in the rebel squad suggested to Andor that they could both leave with the money and make their own way. Andor shoots him immediately and leaves with the money he was promised for doing the heist. If he could just go and lie to anyone, there’s no way Andor could trust him. 

He goes back home and tries to convince his mom to go away together with his money, but she decides to stay on Ferrix. 

Prison storyline 

This one is probably my favorite arc of season one. 

After leaving Ferrix, Andor went to live the private life on a vacation planet using the alias Keef Girgo. He was walking around the beach when some people getting chased by stormtroopers ran past him. After looking around him another trooper stopped him and arrested him for looking suspicious. Andor claimed he was just a tourist but he was arrested and sentenced to six years in jail on a planet called Narkina 5. 

The jail was one of many built into the ocean going down multiple levels. When Andor first arrived, he was introduced to the rioting deterrent: an electric floor. If it was set up to the highest setting it could fry everyone standing on it unprotected. 

His cellmates were already working, as it was a labor prison. As he learned what to do, each table was responsible for hitting a quota, and the lowest performing table is fried. The lowest performing floor as a whole is also fried so the floor lead, fellow prisoner Kino Loy, is responsible for making sure all the other prisoners fall in line. 

Andor was almost immediately checking his surroundings and trying to find a way to escape, and Kino was discouraging it because he was close to the end of his sentence. During all this they were trying to finish all the work their sentence required. 

One day they found out that the Empire killed an entire floor of prisoners. The reason? A prisoner who just finished his sentence was relocated and sent to another floor to do more work, meaning they were never planning on releasing anyone. The Empire is planning on working them until they die. And one person on Andor’s floor did, which empowered Kino and the floor decided that they were going to attempt to escape or die and no longer work. 

During the introduction of the next prisoner onto the floor, they grabbed the guard and Andor flooded the bathroom. The guards in the other room activated the electric floor and it shorted out the power, allowing the prisoners to escape the work room and head to the warden’s office. They freed all the prisoners and opened the doors to let everyone out, but Kino froze because he couldn’t swim and the prison was in the middle of the ocean. Andor was pushed out by all the running prisoners and that’s the end of the prison arc. 

Sidenote: it’s later revealed that the prisoners were building pieces of a large space station. 

Revolution on Ferrix storyline 

The final plot point in season one is where the citizens of Ferrix fight back against the Empire. 

While Cassian Andor was in prison under the name Keef Girgo, the ISB was in search of him to question him about the recent rebel activity. Andor’s mother, Maarva was also dying. 

The Empire has removed all the local authorities and taken over, and captured Bix while she was attempting to reach her rebel contacts. 

Bix was held under interrogation and tortured for information. Not physically, but an Imperial scientist found audio from dying alien children who they found could work as torture to break their minds. 

Luthen also spoke to his team about eliminating Andor due to being a liability and for what he knows, so everyone was coming to Ferrix, Andor included for his mother’s funeral ceremony which was a parade to the town center. 

The people of Ferrix had enough of the Empire at this point and fought through the barricades. Andor used this as a distraction to get Bix back, and they all escaped to the shipyards where Andor met Luthen again, and decided to finally join the rebel cause and work for Luthen.

This concludes season one of Andor.

Final thoughts 

I think this is currently one of the best Star Wars shows. To talk about the rise and fight of fascism is absolutely important these days. As I said previously, I will not be talking about season two during this marathon, but I highly encourage everyone to watch the whole show.

Tune in next time to see a group of rebels instead of focusing on one, in Star Wars: Rebels. 

Star Wars: Jedi Survivor Review

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Cameron “Cal”  Monaghan “Kestis” is back once again in Star Wars Jedi Survivor. 

This video game takes place roughly around the same time as the Obi-Wan Kenobi show, and 5 years after Cal’s original adventure in Jedi Fallen Order.  Within those 5 years the original gang split up. There wasn’t a falling out, but rather everyone split off to do their own thing. Merrin left to explore the galaxy, Cere left to find remnants of the Jedi order, and Greez left to settle down with his own place. 

Cal continued to fight the Empire in different ways, and we meet with him working a job for Saw Guerrera in Corusant. 

He’s “captured” by some people to collect a bounty and they bring him to the lower levels of the planet to a senator looking to make a profit and gain influence with the Emperor. Cal’s capture was a ruse, however, and the group was all working together to access secret files the senator had. Their victory didn’t last long though. 

The inquisitors found them after a distress beacon went out, and all but Cal and his new bestie Bode were killed when they tried to escape. Cal fled on the Mantis, which was badly damaged in the chase, so he took it to Greez to get it fixed. 

Welcome to Koboh

Greez owns a cantina on the planet Koboh, it’s a frontier planet full of miners and raiders, and has a rich history in the far past of the Old Republic. 

As the ship is repaired, Cal and BD-1 explore the planet and learn a bit of its history. 

History of Koboh and Tanalorr 

A couple centuries ago the Old Republic Jedi used Koboh as a base for experiments on Koboh Matter and studying the nearby rift in space they called the Abyss. 

The two Jedi in charge were Santari Khri and Dagan Gera. Dagan somehow found a way through the Abyss and at the center he discovered a planet he named Tanalorr. Dagan and Santari invented a compass to travel through the Abyss safely after Dagan’s trip, and they decided to start building a Jedi temple on their newly discovered planet. 

After a while the Jedi Council were invited to view the planet, and vote on making it official that Dagan and Santari taught the trainees at the temple in Tanalorr. 

Dagan didn’t trust them, however and was quick to react angrily when they decided to leave the planet. Invaders had also arrived to attack the Jedi, but the aftermath of that attack is unknown. 

Dagan started to turn against the Jedi after the decision to leave Tanalorr, and Santari had one last chance to talk to him to bring him back to the light, however he was determined to start a war against the Jedi. Santari sliced his arm off, and put him in stasis on Koboh, and the way to Tanalorr was forgotten after that. 

Cal’s Discoveries

While exploring Koboh, Cal used his powers to discover the history of Tanalorr, and decided to try to rediscover the planet to use as a sanctuary for people trying to escape the Empire. 

There were complications, though, because on Koboh some raiders, led by an alien called Rayvis, have taken over. They demand everyone on the planet to obey them and their droid army. Thankfully, Cal successfully defended the cantina from them. 

During his explorations, Cal found a disabled Old Republic droid named ZN-A4 (Zee) and reactivated her. See helped Cal with her knowledge of the Old Republic, but her memories of how to get to Tanalorr were erased.

Unfortunately, Cal also reactivated a cryo-tube holding a one-armed Dagan Gera. He awoke centuries after Santari Khri froze him, and declared war on the Empire. The raiders were searching for him as well, and when Cal awoke him, Rayvis came in to collect him and fulfill a centuries long blood oath to serve him. 

This is when the conflict of the game truly begins.

The rest of the Old Republic equipment was inaccessible for them, so Cal and team decided to look for Cere, who was leading an outpost of The Hidden Path on a desert planet called Jedha.

The Hidden Path was briefly shown on the Obi-Wan Kenobi show, where they were hiding and moving Jedi and people who were against the Empire in an Underground Railroad-type system. In Jedi Survivor, this branch of the Hidden Path is trying to collect and preserve ancient Jedi artifacts and traditions before the Empire destroys them all. 

Cal meets Merrin on the way to the secret temple, and they reconnect during a sandstorm. They have to evade the creatures living in the desert and the Imperials occupying the planet. 

At the secret base, they meet BD-1’s old owner and Cere’s old Jedi teacher, Eno Cordova. I thought that during Jedi Fallen Order he was dead. We never saw him in person so seeing him here was a surprise for me. 

They led Cal and Merrin to a nearby Jedi temple that had people investigating the history of the Old Republic and might have clues to how to go through the abyss on Koboh. Unfortunately, the Empire has entered the temple and brought a super drill to destroy it, so the two had to quickly go and rescue the people trapped in there. 

One giant cinematic drill fight later, most of the team were rescued and Cal has his next lead. 

A lot of the story/gameplay at this point has a lot of traveling back and forth between Koboh and Jedha. 

To summarize:

The gang traveled between Koboh and its moon to unlock ancient temples, figure out the history of Koboh and fight the raiders on the way. Zee was taken at one point and Cal had to rescue her with help from Bode, and later they traveled back to Koboh’s moon to fight Rayvis to find Dagan Gera. Rayvis lost and wanted a merciful death in battle, which Cal obliged. They figured out where Dagan was, Cal and Bode fought him and collected the surviving compass to travel through the abyss. 

Back to Jedha, the compass was given to Cordova to unlock it and the group had a relaxing break by the fire before the next day. 

BETRAYAL 

The next morning the Empire had found the Hidden Path base. Bode called them in and stole the compass. He killed Cordova in the process and Cal chased him down before he escaped. Bode revealed he was a Jedi now working for the Empire. 

Darth Vader himself arrived at the base in the meantime, and fought Cere in round two after the original fight in the Inquisitor base years ago. Vader won after a long battle, killing Cere. Cal was angry and swore to find Bode. 

The Mantis crew found Bode’s tracker, and located him on a secret asteroid base for the Imperial Security Bureau (ISB). Think space CIA. 

It’s revealed that Bode had been working for the ISB for years since Order 66. To survive, the administrator had kept him hidden, but Bode would have to work for him to keep his daughter safe. 

Cal tore through the asteroid chasing him, tapping into the dark side of the force for the first time. Merrin was the only person able to bring him back and calm him down while Bode escaped again.

They went back to Koboh and found a new way to get through the abyss, which Bode had traveled to with his daughter. 

They opened up an old laboratory and sent out a beacon to guide a ship through to Tanalorr 

TANALORR

The Purple Planet. 

The Mantis crew finally arrived and went to find Bode. They found his daughter by her outside an old Jedi temple and she led Cal and Merrin to him. 

They tried talking him down but to no avail, and they fought, eventually to Bode’s demise. It’s ironic in a sad way because Cal used the blaster Bode gave him to kill him. 

They held a funeral for the fallen on Tanalorr, and Cal had promised to Cere’s grave that he’d keep fighting.

Game Notes

The story is a lot because it’s way longer than any movie or tv show. It’s also very compelling because the player runs through the story instead of just watching it. 

There’s a lot of bonus side content not even mentioned in the story. One thing though is that giant evil frog from the last game had a kid. 

The world exploration is much larger and the map is much easier to follow thankfully. 

Customization is also revamped. No longer can you customize the Mantis, but Cal, BD-1, and the weapons are all customizable and you can change the hairstyle and facial hair for many combinations.

Gardening is also back! In the previous game, you could collect eight different seeds during your travels to plant a small garden on the ship. Now you can collect seeds anywhere because the rooftop of the cantina has an entire garden you can use. 

Also in the cantina there’s a ton of different characters you can talk to, and if you visit them multiple times you can find new interactions and have their personal story progress.

 

Also FISHING!

To round off this discussion of Jedi Survivor, let’s go back in time to an old post I’ve written on here, and use the official scoring method to rank the fishing in the game. If you need to look at how the scoring system works, you can click the link here.

Meet Skoova Stev. The local Koboh fisherman. Cal meets him when traveling through the planet, and recruits him to run the aquarium in the cantina. There’s multiple locations to find him fishing while exploring, and each time he talks about his rich backstory. 

If you need a recap of how my fishing grading system works, you can check out the first post I wrote describing it here. 

So without further ado, let’s crunch the numbers. 

VARIETY OF FISH: 3

There’s a total of 12 fish species that can be added to the index and aquarium

FISHING LOCATIONS: 2

While 12 different fish species aren’t bad, each fish is found at a different location, meaning there are 12 different fishing spots. No two fish species are found in the same fishing hole. The hardest part of fishing is to find the locations themselves because sometimes they’re hidden behind locked doors or you have to find a way to jump cliffs to get there. 

FISHING CONTROLS: 4

You don’t technically do the fishing in this game, you have to find Skoova, talk to him, and he catches the fish, so the controls are pretty easy in that regard. 

KNOWLEDGE: 5

When you initially talk to Skoova he says something like “Aye laddie, today I’m fishing for the legendary ______ fish” so you are fully aware of what fish you’re getting, and there is a little bio you gain when it’s caught. 

RELAXATION: 5

You know, after running around different planets fighting the fascist Empire and different hostile creatures, there is something calming about jumping around and finding Skoova and listening to his tale. Like a calm eye in the hurricane of the Empire. 

EDIBILITY: NONE

All fish are collected and added to the aquarium in the cantina. If you listen to Skoova’s story throughout the game, you’ll understand why you wouldn’t want to just hunt the fish for fun. 

OVERALL SCORE: 19/25 

Not too bad! If the score was less than 10 I don’t think I could recommend playing this game. 

This is a really fun game with a great story, and there should be a conclusion to it eventually I’m definitely going to play when it comes out. 

The fall of the Jedi era is just about over and we are turning to the rise of the Rebellion. 

Turn in next time when we go through Andor!

Star Wars: Obi-Wan Kenobi Review

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Welcome back to the Star Wars show!

In this week’s episode we talk about the Obi-Wan Kenobi series which aired in 2022. 

This storyline takes place just a year after the Solo film, and has absolutely nothing to do with Han Solo. 

Instead, we focus on the character of Obi-Wan and his life after Revenge of the Sith. The show takes place over six episodes, which in reality seem to be cut up parts of a full length movie. I feel like if they got rid of a few scenes this could easily be a 2.5 hour movie instead because the episodes are not cut up by stories, but rather one large cut up story. 

The Plot

We find Obi-Wan living in Tatooine in a meat packing factory. Keeping his head down and avoiding any kind of trouble. 

He really does hide from conflict because when Inquisitors (click here for some history) come to visit hunting Jedi, he leaves behind the Jedi who is hiding from them. 

Why is he hiding instead of fighting? He’s got Luke to protect!

Obi-Wan took Luke to Tatooine to be raised by his aunt and uncle and he secretly watches over him to keep him safe. 

Luke’s Uncle Owen doesn’t want Kenobi near him, thinking he’s going to draw in danger, while Kenobi thinks he’s keeping him from danger. 

Meanwhile…

Luke’s twin sister, Leia, is living in royalty thanks to her adopted family the Organa’s. She’s getting ready for a ceremony and decides to hide away during the boring parts. It looks like she has a bit of a rebellious personality. 

She plays in the forest where some bounty hunters are waiting and they kidnap her and take her off the planet. 

Bail Organa reaches out to Kenobi asking for his help in finding her, and he heads to a planet called Daiyu, full of neon lights and underground crime. 

He finds Leia eventually, and reasonably she doesn’t trust him at first because would you trust a random person saying that they know your family and will take you home?

The two find a way off planet after meeting a smuggling gang, but find out that Leia was kidnapped so an inquisitor, the Third Sister, could get Obi-Wan out of hiding and take him down. 

They escaped on a ship and arrived at a farming planet, where they needed to find a group called the Hidden Path. It is an underground organization that is full of Jedi and Jedi supporters who are hiding from the empire. 

Darth Vader finds out that Kenobi is hiding among them and goes to the planet himself to find him. Kenobi has some ptsd after fighting with Vader in Revenge of the Sith, but after a brief encounter he escapes but Leia is captured again by the inquisitors. 

Leia is taken to Fortress Inquisitorious and Kenobi has to sneak in to get her out. 

Just as a reminder: Cal Kestis snuck into the fortress just 5 years earlier, and both of these jedi snuck in by swimming underneath and going in through a tunnel. You’d think after the first time they’d beef up the security. 

Kenobi was able to find her before being tortured, and snuck her out using the “classic” method of hiding her in a trench coat. Seems to work. 

They eventually escape with the Third Sister being blamed for it, and Vader strips her of any power with the inquisitors. 

Vader goes after Kenobi while the Third Sister goes back to Tatooine to find out why Kenobi was hiding there. 

Vader and Kenobi have a final duel against each other where Kenobi learns to remove his grief over losing his friend Anakin. 

The Third Sister, meanwhile, has located Luke Skywalker, and his aunt and uncle have both fortified their farm to protect him. 

The Third Sister gives up on the pursuit because she sees a helpless Luke who reminds her of herself when Anakin went to kill all the Jedi. 

Obi Wan returns to Tatooine after the duel with Vader, and he and Luke’s adopted family reconciles with each other. The end. 

Thoughts and opinions on the show 

This could’ve easily been a movie instead of a six episode series. 

Kenobi didn’t really do much in the show besides reacting to events he’s in, it feels like he’s just being pulled along a story instead of making his own actions. For a show with your own name in the title, I think you should be the one making most of the decisions. 

Obi-Wan Kenobi was more of a secondary character in parts of this. 

I did enjoy the parts with Kenobi and Vader. He clearly had ptsd from order 66, but I do think they could’ve done more on it. 

Maybe we’ll see more of Kenobi later on, but that’s the end of his show for now. 

Stay tuned for next time when we go over our next video game!

Star Wars: Jedi Fallen Order Review

kneisguy1 Comment

Hello there and welcome to another Star Wars timeline discussion.

It’s video game time!

In this post we’ll be talking about the first video game in the timeline, Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order. 

The game takes place about five years after Revenge of the Sith and the purge of the Jedi Order. Our protagonist: Cal Kestis. 

Cal is currently a nobody working as a scrapper on a garbage planet. He works with a bunch of other scrappers disassembling Republic and Separatist ships from the Clone Wars. 

He and a buddy were taking apart a newly delivered ship when their platform collapsed and Cal had to use the force to slow down his friend’s fall and save him. 

Using the force and being a Jedi is illegal now and the Jedi police immediately find out there’s a Jedi in the scrapper guild, and the Inquisitors came in and rounded everyone in to investigate. 

Inquisitors and What They Do 

Inquisitors will be popping up a lot in stories between trilogies. They are former Jedi/force users who have been kidnapped and tortured/brainwashed to hate and capture Jedi as a dark side police force. 

There are a lot of them and I’m not sure of all the members, but their leader is the Grand Inquisitor who is ordered by Darth Vader, and the GI trains all the other Inquisitors. There is a lot of in-fighting going on between the members trying to move up in rank, but each one has a designation like 3rd Sister, 2nd Brother, etc. In Fallen Order we meet a few of them, but focus a lot on the Second Sister. 

She finds out there’s a Jedi working as a scrapper and rounds them all up for investigation. Cal’s friend is killed and he is outed saving the others, and the story begins with him on the run. 

A small crew on a ship called The Mantis rescued him and told him that they’re trying to bring back the Jedi Order. The pair of travelers, Greez and Cere, take Cal to various planets and meet various people to follow the path of Cere’s old master who created a list of force-sensitive children. 

Cere
Greez
Bogling
BD-1

Cal meets a little droid named BD-1 on the first planet they visit. They quickly become best buds and explore the galaxy together to unlock the vault that has the list. Cal also needs to restore his attachment to the force in order to make it through all the challenges he faces. 

My first challenge I faced in the game was this giant evil frog on the first planet. 

Oggdo Boggdo

This stupid giant frog is the hardest boss in the game and I just fell into his cave. Fighting him is so hard and I died about 15 times. 

I decided to stop trying for now and continue the game. Maybe my upgrades will beat him later 

Cal’s Journey

It’s hard to tell a completely linear story with this game because there’s a lot of different planets to visit and there’s not a specific order to go through them. Sometimes even you had to pause and move on to visiting another planet to work on your Jedi skills before coming back stronger and exploring more of the planet. There are only 5 explorable planets including Bogano, so it isn’t too overwhelming.

Zeffo, Kashyyyk, Dathomir and Ilum are all the other planets that are explorable in the game, and Cal visits each of them multiple times to explore more of the planets and regain his abilities in the force. 

Introducing: Merrin the Nightsister

Merrin is one of the sole survivors of the Nightsister massacre on Dathomir. She uses magic and necromancy to revive her dead sister’s to try and persuade Cal from leaving, but he is determined to complete his quest. 

Merrin is currently working with another former Jedi who survived the purge: Taron Malicos. Malicos is persuading Merrin to not allow any outsiders, and he alone can restore her planet. 

Cal discovers him and they fight after going to Ilum and building a new lightsaber. Merrin helps him and joins the crew of the Mantis.

Finale

Finally, Cal has regained all his skills and is ready to collect the holocron. While visiting the vault again, he had a vision of the possible future where he would train a new generation of Jedi, and the Empire would find them all and exterminate them. He snapped out of the vision to find the Second Sister confronting him. She took the holocron and ran to deliver it to Darth Vader. 

That part doesn’t matter. What matters is I’m fully leveled up and ready to fight that stupid frog again. 

This time I’m unstoppable and he cannot win. 

Now fully leveled up Cal went off to stop the Inquisitors. He snuck into their fortress underwater and fought his way to the holocron. He and the second sister fought until he was able to talk her down, but Darth Vader showed up and killed her. Cal was not strong enough to fight him, and all he could do was run. 

With the help of all his new friends he escaped the fortress and took the holocron. In the end, he decided to destroy it in order for no one to use the list of names against them. 

Thoughts On the Game

The game itself is fun! Some hard combat at times but the exploring is fun if you don’t look at the map. 

Seriously, don’t look at this. Can you read anything from this??

There were a lot of different collectibles in the game that I enjoyed. There were seeds you could plant in the ship, and there were other items you can discover and scan for more information on the world. 

And customization was limited, but Cal is the poncho king and has a ton of options. You can also customize the colors of your ship, but you’re away from it long enough that you won’t really get to see it much. 

And that concludes the first video game! This was a long-awaited post because it took a long time for me to write. Honestly with a game where I have to travel to many places multiple times it was hard to figure out what to write about. 

It’s been almost a year since I started this project, and I do plan on finishing it, so stay tuned for the next post about movies again!

Source: https://www.youtube.com/@TheBusinessGamer

Star Wars: The Bad Batch Review

kneisguyLeave a comment

Hello there and welcome to another installment of the Star Wars timeline marathon. This time we’re talking about the three season television show “The Bad Batch”, which ran from 2021 to 2024. 

Originally introduced in the final season of The Clone Wars, they are a crew of “defective” clones, hence the name. They aren’t built like the standard clones but they each have unique enhancements and skills that make them differ from others. The crew is Hunter as the leader, who has enhanced tracking, Tech as the tech guy, Wrecker as the muscle, Crosshair as the sniper, and Echo who was added at the end of Clone Wars as he was turned into a cyborg by the Separatists. 

The show takes place soon after Revenge of the Sith and the extermination of Jedi from Order 66. In fact, the beginning scene is the crew of the Bad Batch and their perspective when it went down. 

They didn’t receive the orders to kill all Jedi like the other clones, and were very surprised and confused when the clones turned after working together with the Jedi seconds before. 

They didn’t participate. The Jedi master was killed, but Hunter chased after her padawan and secretly let him go. Crosshair was frustrated that they weren’t following orders. 

After Order 66, the clones were ordered to return to their home planet Kamino. There they learned more about the start of the Empire, and started to see what the end of the war meant. 

Enter Omega

Omega is a unique clone that takes an interest in the Bad Batch. She is also a direct unedited female clone of the original Jango Fett just like Boba Fett. She has also noticed that the place has changed since the Empire took over. 

She tries to let the Bad Batch know, and when they were tasked with hunting insurgents against the Empire, they discovered that it was just civilians they were ordered to kill. Hunter refused to do it, and when they returned Crosshair reported them. This eventually makes the crew minus Crosshair to run to escape the Empire with Omega. 

Most of the rest of the season has the crew trying to find their place in a post-Clone Wars world, and not get caught by the Empire since they now basically adopted Omega. The Empire is wanting to capture her for some secret cloning project the Emperor wants. I won’t spoil the rest of the series, but a majority of the episodes are its own story of them trying to survive, with a long arcing plot centered on Omega.

Favorite episodes – 

Season 1

Kamino Lost: S1 E16

This is the season finale of the first episode, where the clones start to learn what the Empire has in mind for them in a post-Clone Wars universe. 

This is part 2 of a 2 part storyline, in which the Empire’s Vice Admiral Rampart has just ordered his ships to fire on and destroy the cloning facilities and entire city of Kamino. 

The Bad Batch and Crosshair were still in the city when the Empire opened fire, so they had to find their way out and back to their ship before they drown. 

I really like this episode because it focuses a lot on what the season was building up towards. Since Crosshair and the gang split, there was a build up of confrontation between them that culminated in this episode. Crosshair admits in this episode that he stayed with the Empire because he thinks following orders, no matter what they are, will help him earn a place in the Empire and feel important. Wrecker tells him that they’d always welcome him if he decided to leave the Empire and join them. 

By the end of the episode, The Bad Batch escapes on their ship, and Crosshair is left in the wreckage waiting for the Empire to find him. 

Season 2

The Outpost: S2 E12

A Crosshair-focused episode. He is assigned to join a Lieutenant Nolan who hates clones to visit an icy planet to find and stop insurgents from stealing cargo their base is holding. 

A clone named Mayday is holding the fort with just a couple other clones who survived the recent ambushes. Nolan reprimands him and takes charge of the base, ordering them to guard the mysterious cargo. 

Crosshair and Mayday work together to repair parts of the equipment they have with the gear they can salvage. The Empire has not delivered any equipment Mayday requested. 

The base got attacked and cargo was stolen. Crosshair and Mayday were ordered to go recover it. They find the base of the insurgents and discover that the cargo is new equipment and armor that Mayday could have used if the Empire cared. They get caught in an avalanche and Mayday is injured. Crosshair drags him back to base and begs for a medic to save Mayday. Nolan refuses because “clones are expendable” and they didn’t come back with the cargo. 

Nolan enrages Crosshair, and he shoots Nolan before passing out due to his injuries. He wakes up in a cell in an unknown location. 

I really like this episode because it humanizes a really serious character and shows the start of growth he will have in the series. 

Season 3

Juggernaut: S3 E12

The final episode I will talk about in depth as a favorite of the series is Juggernaut.  

A bit of background for this episode: in season two, Vice Admiral Rampart was condemned to prison because the public found out about the destruction of Kamino after saying it was a freak storm. At the end of season two, Omega was captured by the Empire and held in a secret location where a scientist was running tests on clones for the Emperor. A lot of season 3 is about The Bad Batch trying to find that secret location. 

Juggernaut is a fun episode because The Bad Batch has to reluctantly break out Rampart from prison because they think he knows how to get to where Omega is being held. It’s a very action packed episode where they steal a tank and drive it into the prison as they’re escaping. 

Meanwhile, Omega finally discovers what they have been testing: they have been trying to recreate clones with high midi-chlorians which are essential to using the force. Omega is a clone with the highest M-count they’ve seen. She also discovers that the lead scientist has force sensitive children being tested on in a secured vault. 

I do encourage people to watch this show. The characters are very fun and the episodes are a mix of fun action and drama in a changing political landscape that is approaching fascism in the Empire. It was hard coming up with a single episode to list with each season because there were a lot of great ones. 

That’s all for this Star Wars post, but tune in next time when I talk about the first video game on the list. 

Star Wars: Tales of the Jedi Review

kneisguyLeave a comment

Happy New Year everyone! In case anyone was worried, I have NOT forgotten about the Star Wars timeline marathon. A lot has happened in the last few months; I moved states in October! Right after that, holiday work got INCREDIBLY busy and I had almost no time afterwards with work and unpacking. 

I have been watching a lot of shows though! I’m finally able to get to writing again so keep an eye out for a bunch of different posts while I catch up on writing!

With that little update out of the way, let’s get on to talking about Star Wars: Tales of the Jedi

Episode Two: Justice

Episode 2 is actually the earliest episode in the timeline, so I watched that first when we got to it. It takes place years before The Phantom Menace and features Qui-Gon Jinn and Dooku, as student and jedi teacher. The two visit a small village where a senator’s son was being held captive, and they were tasked on negotiations to free him. 

While meeting with the farmers, Dooku sees the status of their lives and understands the reason why they kidnapped the senator’s son to be heard and receive help. 

The color tone is fantastic in this episode because it’s all dull browns and greys, making the mood grim throughout. Unfortunately, the political system the Jedi are in made this complicated. The senator’s son is released and promises to help the farmers, and the senator himself is promising “justice”. This signifies the start of Dooku’s disappointment with the current political system. 

Episode Three: Choices

Another Dooku episode taking place a few years later. Qui-Gon is now longer a student, and is now teaching Obi Wan according to some dialogue in this episode. 

This time, Dooku is visiting a planet with fellow Jedi Mace Windu. A Jedi Master was killed on this planet while escorting a senator. Windu wants to take the body and head back because that is what they were told to do, but Dooku wants to investigate how they were killed. It turns out, there’s another corrupt senator on this planet! He’s been selling land to outside parties and the people living on the land are upset. The senator’s guards killed the Jedi and were going to force the senator to go with their demands to take back their planet. 

Dooku sympathies with them and is upset with the system as well, while Windu is someone who follows the rules. They capture the rebels and head back to their temple, where Windu is offered a promotion to a council lead, while Dooku is left thinking about what he wants within the Jedi order

Episode One: Life and Death

Opposite of Dooku’s storyline, here we see the introduction of Ahsoka’s. The colors are all vibrant and the mood is hopeful instead of dire. This episode isn’t as character driven as the other episodes, but it shows the early days of baby Ahsoka before she became a Jedi padawan. She was with her family and a large wild cat had captured her after hunting with her mother. Ahsoka was not harmed, however, because she used the force to calm the cat, and the cat took her home. 

Episode Four: The Sith Lord

This is the last of Dooku’s story, which takes place just after The Phantom Menace. Qui Gon has died, and Dooku is distraught. There’s a female Yoda called Yaddle in The Phantom Menace, and she is never seen after that movie. This episode shows what happens to her. She follows Dooku to a hidden location in the city, where she finds him and a mysterious cloaked figure speaking with him. This is the evil Sith Darth Sidious, and he is convincing Dooku to leave the Jedi and join him because the politics have become corrupt and Dooku is tired of fighting the system within the system. Yaddle tries to plead for him to come back, but Dooku ends up killing her and joining the dark side. 

Episode Five: Practice Makes Perfect

Back with Ahsoka this time and this episode is showing her training and Anakin’s teaching methods. She was displaying her lightsaber skills in a dojo against robots. Anakin was not impressed by it, thinking that it’s too predictable. He took her to a warehouse where some of his clone troopers were waiting, and he set up a test for her to block shots that they fired at her. 

It didn’t last very long. The clones used stun and got her in just a few seconds.

After she recovered, she tried again. 

And again. 

And again. 

She kept trying, getting knocked out, and then back up and eventually she lasted about 5 minutes or so. The episode ends with a scene from the final episode of The Clone Wars, where Order 66 was occurring and she had to actually use the training of avoiding clone fire to survive. It’s a neat callback to the Clone Wars show and helps explain how she survived. 

Episode Six: Resolve

The final episode of this show takes place years after The Clone Wars and Order 66. Ahsoka is in hiding because the Jedi are being hunted. She’s on a planet as a farmhand and at one point, a stack of hay bales get knocked over and almost crush someone. She secretly uses the force to move them out of harm and tries to avoid being seen helping.

One person does notice and contacts the empire, and an Inquisitor arrives. 

Inquisitors are trained by Darth Vader to hunt down Jedi in hiding and kill them. This one is looking for Ahsoka and is not aware of who the Jedi they’re looking for is. The Inquisitor is no match for Ahsoka because she was also trained by Vader before he became a Sith. She easily defeats him and decides that she doesn’t want to hide anymore and joins a growing rebellion against the Empire. 

And that concludes the Tales of the Jedi series! The first post of the year. I have some more series and writing to catch up on, and then we’ll finally be into the original trilogy. Keep an eye on the Star Wars post hub page for the next update where I’ll be talking about The Bad Batch.

Star Wars: The Clone Wars (Series) Review

kneisguyLeave a comment

Remember when I said in my introduction post that I’d hopefully complete this project in August? Clearly that is definitely NOT happening. I am a little further in though! And today let’s talk about the longest series in this franchise marathon: The Clone Wars.

This tv show ran for seven seasons for over 12 years. Seasons 1-5 were shown on Cartoon Network and season 6 was presented on Netflix from 2008 to 2013.

In 2012 Disney bought the rights to the Star Wars franchise, and then in 2020 they aired the final seventh season on Disney+.

The show had multiple episodes and branching storylines, sometimes featuring the jedi, the clones, senators, droids, and a few episodes featuring former villains from the films. In some episodes, the show challenged the meaning of hero and villain, and tried to redefine and show it’s not always black and white.

That’s war for ya!

In this review post I will not be talking about each storyline as a whole, but rather one or two episodes from each season and why I liked them.

So without further ado, let’s get into…

Season 1:

Episode 15 – Trespass

As a whole, Season One was a bit slower compared to other seasons, but that’s to be expected.

I really liked the episode Trespass because although there were clones in it, and a war, this episode actually had nothing to do with the Clone Wars at all. Anakin, Obi-Wan, and clone Captain Rex the moon of planet Pantora who’s local government asked for assistance.

The bases created by the clones and the opposing Separatist army have both been destroyed by an unknown third party, so they need to investigate what happened. It turns out that the ice moon in inhabited by some humanoid spider-people, and the chairman of the planet orders the jedi and clones to start a war with the natives to remove them from the moon they “own”

That doesn’t happen and the chairman tries to start a war, loses and gets killed from injuries, and the more sensible Senator Chuchi takes charge and brokers a peace between the people.

This is probably my favorite of the season because the enemies aren’t good vs evil, but rather it’s a grey area where both peoples want to live.

Season 2:

Episode 8 – Brain Invaders

This episode finishes up a storyline where the Republic destroys a droid factory on Geonosis. Remember that planet from Attack of the Clones? The planet where the Clone War began and Anakin lost a limb?

This episode does not take place on the planet. Instead, they are leaving the planet at the beginning and taking a captured Separatist general Poggle with them. Ahsoka and fellow padawan Barriss are tasked after the battle to escort a medical frigate to a station to provide supplies.

What no one knew at the time, was that there was an alien species on the planet Geonosis that hatches from an egg and worms its way into your brain for mind control, and a clone on that ship got infected and secretly brought aboard more eggs.

The invasion is stopped because they decided to turn off the heat in the ship and super-freeze the worms saving everyone who was infected.

What makes this episode notable is when Anakin hears of his padawan’s distress, he goes to the prison cell they kept Poggle to get information on how to save her. The last interrogation with everyone in the room didn’t work, but we see for the first time in the show a darker side of Anakin, because he uses the force to choke the war prisoner, torturing him to get information.

For an organization dedicated for peace, it seems pretty violent to get to that point.

Season 3:

Episode 4 – Sphere of Influence

Chuchi is back! Our girl is still doing things within the senate, and has asked Ahsoka to help with finding the new chairman’s kidnapped daughters.

Somehow this series so far have every good episode feature Chuchi, and you know what? She deserves it.

The storyline in this episode, similar to S1 Trespass, does not have a plot that is related to the Clone Wars at all, but it is such a good storyline. The new Chairman, Chairman Papanoida, is a badass. While Chuchi and Ahsoka explore a Trade Federation ship to see if one of his daughters is being held there, the Chairman walks right into Jabba’s Palace on Tattoine. Jabba is the gangster leader of maybe a quarter of the galaxy, and this guy just walks in, demands an audience with a bounty hunter he discovers is the one who kidnaps his daughters, then goes out to beat him up until he reveals where they are.

Both daughters get back home safe, and Chuchi can do no wrong. Papanoida is a badass dad too and from what I recall, he doesn’t show in any later episodes.

Season 4:

Episodes 7-10 – The Umbara Arc

Pong Krell is the worst. Fuck Pong Krell.

I can’t pick a specific favorite episode for this season unfortunately. The Umbara Arc is the best storyline in the season going through four episodes, and you kind of need to watch them all to enjoy it best.

In this storyline, Anakin has to return to Corusant while his clone squad led by Captain Rex are trying to capture a planet called Umbara. He leaves his soldiers under jedi general Pong Krell.

Krell is awful. From the start of his leadership, he only talks to the clones using their designation number, not their chosen name. He then changes the entire attack plan and creates one that makes all the clones vulnerable and exposed to an attack themselves. Any attempt to question his orders is met with an intimidating speech, and a threat of arrest for mutinous behavior.

In the final episode of this storyline, it’s revealed that Pong Krell was intentionally sabotaging the clone army, and killing them off with his plans. All so he could hope Sith master Dooku would notice and take him on as an apprentice.

The clones were finally able to capture him and one loyal clone who felt the most betrayed killed him in his cell.

This was a dark series of episodes and great clone-centered story.

Season 5:

Episode 12 – Missing in Action

This was the third episode in a four episode storyline that focused on the droids. In this episode, the lost droids and their tiny leader find a town on an isolated planet, and need to find a ship to go home after a secret mission to invade and capture Separatist data.

The group meets an amnesiac clone named Gregor, who is working as a busboy for a diner. With the help of the droid group, he regains his memories and helps send them home.

Episode 16 – The Lawless

Okay so there’s a few episode in this season tied for my favorite, so I wanted to list them all.

Earlier in the series, it is shown that Maul, the Sith that Obi-Wan sliced in half at the end of the film The Phantom Menace, is actually alive. His brother, Savage, finds him, and helps restore his sanity.

During this episode, Maul attacks and takes over the planet Mandalore, and the planet’s leader (Duchess) requests Obi-Wan to come help. Unfortunately, due to some rules of war, he is unable to officially act in this manner, but he secretly gets Mandalorian armor and goes to the planet to help liberate it.

Maul ends up killing the Duchess and Obi-Wan is heartbroken. He leaves with her, and then secretly Maul’s former Master Sidious arrives at the planet and takes him down because he is a liability to his plans.

Episode 20 – The Wrong Jedi

Ahsoka is accused and put on trial for a bombing that occurred in the Jedi Temple. She is innocent, but no jedi other than Anakin take action to try and find evidence to save her. Anakin finds out that it was Padawan Barriss (Remember Season 2?) who bombed the temple and was willing to let Ahsoka take the blame.

She was found innocent and the jedi offered her place back into the order, but she was left not trusting them anymore, and decided to reject the offer, leaving Anakin alone and beginning to question the Jedi.

Season 6:

Episodes 1-4 – Clone Conspiracy arc

This storyline follows the clone soldier Fives who was investigating why his friend suddenly turned on his jedi commander and killed her. He found out there are microscopic control chips put into every clone, and something happened to his friend where the chip drove him to kill jedi.

Fives became more and more paranoid though the storyline, not knowing who to trust and not knowing who knew about the control chips. Chancellor Palpatine agreed to see him, but wanted to do so privately. It’s unknown what was said, but it caused Fives to attack Palpatine, and made him a fugitive on the run.

The story ends with him being killed, somewhat relieved he doesn’t have to panic or have nightmares of the conspiracy anymore.

What did Palpatine tell him?

Season 7:

Episodes 9-12 – Siege of Mandalore arc

Season 7 released in 2020 on Disney+. It consisted of 3 story arcs: the introduction of the unorthodox clone squad The Bad Batch, the story of what Ahsoka was doing after she left the Jedi Order at the end of season 5, and the final arc of Mandalore, where Ahsoka goes to fight Maul, and Order 66 is activated.

All of the final episodes were fantastic. They take place in parallel to Revenge of the Sith, where Sidious takes control of everything and orders the clones to kill all the jedi. Ahsoka’s clone team receives the order just after they capture Maul, and Rex tries to fight it.

Ahsoka saves Rex by removing the control chip, and the two escape to the ship’s hanger while using Maul as a distraction.

The last 20 minutes of the final episode are so beautifully done because once the ship gets destroyed and starts crashing on whatever planet they’re orbiting, there is no dialogue at all. The show just uses the sound effects from ambient noise and the musical soundtrack for the last 20 minutes.

The final shot was a time jump where Darth Vader was looking over the wreckage, assuming there were no survivors. It fades to black and all you hear is the iconic breathing.

Those are all of my favorite episodes in the series, but it ran for seven seasons and there were a lot of other fun ones I didn’t mention, like the bank arc in season six.

Next up is the third film Revenge of the Sith, and if the final episode here is any indicator, there is going to be some deaths.

Star Wars: The Phantom Menace Review

kneisguy1 Comment

I have completed the first movie in this timeline marathon.

Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace is celebrating its 25th anniversary this year. I won’t be talking much about the history of the movie, because when it was released in 1999 I was two years old. In this review I will briefly talk about the plot of the film, and then go into key parts that can affect the franchise as a whole.

I do want to address that for some of this timeline marathon I have the physical copy of the movie/tv show/game. If there’s something I enjoy I personally want to get the disc of it to keep and watch offline instead of streaming sometime. For Episode 1 I have a DVD of it, and included in it is an extras page that says there’s unique online special features. I can’t use is on an Apple Macintosh or on my regular blu ray player, but someday I might figure out what online special features there are.

The movie starts off talking about taxes. A group called the Trade Federation has created a blockade around a planet to protest (?) paying higher taxes on the galaxy’s government, The Republic.

Two Jedi: Qui Gon Jinn and Obi Wan Kenobi were sent to negotiate ending the blockade. It does not end well, and the Trade Federation invades the planet with a droid army.

To be completely honest, I don’t get how a blockade around the equator works. Couldn’t the people on the planet go around where there isn’t a blockade, then move to their original landing spot once they’re in the atmosphere?

I’m going to quickly type out the plot points for the rest of the movie. There’s going to be some details I miss, but these are the key moments in the film:

Gungan!

The two Jedi sneak aboard an invading ship to get to the planet Naboo and meet a frog-like creature called Jar-Jar. He leads them to his underwater city, where the other frog-like people (Gungans) give them a ship to go to the above-water city and rescue the Queen.

Podracing!

The gang has to emergency land on a sand planet called and find parts to fix the ship. They don’t have the money! However: they meet a young slave boy named Anakin there who tells them about this upcoming race. They enter the race and he won with his homemade pod racer. The group of travelers win the parts to fix their ship, and wins Anakin’s freedom as well.

Citys!

The team goes to the Republic capitol, Coruscant, to tell the government about the invasion on Naboo, and to get Anakin tested for Jedi school. Unfortunately, neither of those tasks work out. The Senate is stuck on procedures, discussions, and voting instead of actually taking action to do anything. As for Anakin, the Jedi Council decided that despite his high test scores, he is too old to start training to be a Jedi. Jedi take young kids before they become attached to family to help limit their emotions, and Anakin grew up with his mother, so they thing that’s a problem.

War!

Queen Padmé goes back to her home planet to help stop the invasion. She meets with her neighbors the Gungans, and together they form an army that will fight the droids on land, in the palace, and in space.

Anakin sneaks aboard a ship and flies to the spaceship that controls the robots, and on land the Jedi meet for the first time a Dark Jedi: A Sith named Maul.

This is pretty significant to the timeline marathon because in the previous Young Jedi Adventures series, there were no Sith in existence. The most those Young Jedi had to face were pirates, not evil Jedi with the same abilities as them.

Qui-Gon and Obi Wan were fighting to survive this battle, and unfortunately Qui-Gon did not survive. He was stabbed by Maul, and Obi Wan immediately avenged him by cutting Maul in half and throwing him down a shaft.

Up in space Anakin was able to successfully destroy the control station, and all of the droids shut down. The battle has been won.

Although they defeated the droids and Maul, the Jedi are left to wonder where he came from. Obi Wan has also been tasked with training Anakin to be a Jedi, so we will see how that plays out in the next few things to watch.

Favorite Scene

Since this isn’t a television show, I can’t just talk about my favorite episode of the series. I can however say that my favorite scene is probably the podracing scene. Going fast takes skill and Anakin really shows how great of a pilot he is in this scene.

The announcers are probably the best background/side character in this movie. The two headed brothers(?) talk about the events in the race, one in regular language, and the other in an alien dialect.

I think this scene also helps create an expansion on the galaxy in Star Wars. What do people do for fun? What sports do they have on planets since stuff like football and baseball are Earth sports.

Racing is universal. Kachow.

When I finished watching the movie I remembered that earlier this year I downloaded a video game for my Nintendo Switch called “STAR WARS EPISODE I: Racer”. It is quite possibly one of the worst names of a video game I’ve seen, but it’s a pretty fun racer so far.

I turned it on for the first time recently just to try it out, and so far it seems pretty easy to win races. I’m not sure why Anakin and the others in the movie were struggling to beat Sebulba.

I didn’t want to play as Anakin Skywalker during the game. Mostly for the same reason that I never play as Mario in a Mario Party game, but we all know from the movie that he won the race. This game starts at Anakin’s winning race, and then travels to other planets for the racing circuit.

Also, just look at his model in the game. Ugh.

All the other characters are aliens, and are some of the goofiest looking creatures with the silliest names. I won 1200 Truguts for first place as well. What are Truguts? Money I think? Hopefully.

I may continue this game as I go just to see how far in racing I can get. I can upgrade my speeder to get faster and control it even better, and maybe since in my game Anakin never won the race, the future movies and shows will all diverge into a fractured branch and it will alter the course of the timeline marathon.

That is all I have for timeline media number two: Episode One. The names and titles in this series will get even more confusing as we go I’m sure.

Star Wars: Young Jedi Adventures Review

kneisguy2 Comments

I finished the first show on my Star Wars timeline marathon! Young Jedi Adventures is a show for toddlers and families that released May 4 2023. Before watching this I didn’t realize this show is only a year old. The last episode released this year in February. I think that means there’s a possibility for season 2?

The show features the main 3 Jedi in the first Episode: Kai Brightstar the human, Lys the purple haired alien, and Nubs the blue teddy bear alien. In the first episode they leave the temple on Coruscant to visit the outer parts of the galaxy. They leave with a young pilot named Nash to live and train on their new temple located on Nash’s home planet: Tenoo.

The Jedi land and immediately have to save a diner from some pirates harassing and stealing supplies. This is Taborr and his crew of a robot and young alien pig. More on them later.

The Young Jedi go on many Adventures during all 25 episodes. They face many different trials and villains: Taborr and pirates, wild animals, eco-terrorists, other pirates, and some self-made conflicts.

My favorite recurring villain has to be the chicken-man alien, Raxlo (Haley Joel Osment). He appears in only three episodes, but his villainy is a joy to watch.

Raxlo first appears in episode six: “Forest Defenders”. He is seen cutting down an entire forest with a machine, becoming the opposite of the Lorax. He wanted to cut down the wood and sell it for money. The Jedi stop his machine, and Raxlo escapes to figure out a new business plan.

He then appears in episode 13: “Tree Troubles” where he blocks off water that is supporting the ecosystem of a tree, to be able to mine the hardened sap that formed underneath the tree. He was again defeated by the three Jedi.

The third and final appearance Raxlo has in the show is in episode 19 “Raxlo Strikes Back”. In this episode, he is now visiting a snow planet the Jedi frequent, to melt the snow to mine the rare gems underneath. The problem with melting the snow is that there are some space walruses who lay their eggs in the snow, and if it gets too warm the eggs will never hatch.

I really enjoy Raxlo because in this final episode he gets redeemed. He’s trying to make a profit to sell the gems in this episode, and his machine is stopped and the snow comes back, but the nice thing is that the people on the planet help him find a new place to dig for the gems. A place without space walrus eggs. After this episode I don’t think he’ll come back as a villain again.

There are redeemable villains in the show, and some who probably will be bad forever.

My least favorite episode has to be episode 11: “The Ganguls”. Nash the pilot has her new speeder stolen by a kid working for a gang of pirates. The pirates operate in a nearby town, and it is revealed that they have taken over the town and scared the residents into submission.

My problem is that the gang consists of three pirates total. I have no idea why the town of 15 or 20 shown people are afraid of three loud pirates, and that they even threw the mayor out of town.

The Jedi kids show up to town and convince the townsfolk to stand up to the pirates. I know this is a show for toddlers and creates life lessons for them, but come on..

There were some really nice episodes that I enjoyed in the series. One of them involved a recurring pirate villain Taborr. Taborr is a kid pirate who often tries to steal things from people to make a name for himself and get respect from the other pirates.

In episode 12: “Off the Rails”, Taborr and his small group of pirates try to rob a train taking logs of wood to a nearby village to build homes for them. Kai and Taborr fight and the train car they’re on disconnects from the rest, and they need to work together to not be stranded on the tracks.

I enjoyed this episode because when Taborr learned that the logs were going to help peoples’ homes, he had a change of heart and decided not to steal from the Jedi. Taborr was the first villain the young Jedi fought in the show, but in this episode it seems like there was more to him than just being a bad guy, and the Jedi learned that not everything had to be solved with fighting.

I think my absolute favorite episode of the show has to be episode 23: “The Caves of Batuu”. Kai had doubts about himself and wanting to be a perfect Jedi after failing to complete a trick with his lightsaber, and the Jedi Master he was training under took him to some nearby caves to clear his head.

This episode was done really well because there were no villains in it, just self-doubt. The Force took Kai through multiple visions in the cave to learn who he is and who he wants to be. For an episode that only runs for 11 minutes, I think this was the best was to show the mystical side of Star Wars for kids.

The show ends with episode 25 “The Prince and the Pirate”. Taborr is focused more on in this episode than the Jedi, and this episode runs the entire 30 minutes. A new space station called Starlight Beacon is officially opening the day they visit, and Taborr wants to steal the dedication plaque to make a name for himself and get respect. The young Jedi confront him, and I won’t spoil how it happens, but in the end it seems like Taborr does have a change of heart and seems to change his ways.

Starlight Beacon does open and the dedication plaque gets placed where it belongs. The group of friends watch the ceremony and are excited for what is to come in the future.

According to the Wookiepedia info on Starlight Beacon, two years after the grand opening of the station, Starlight Beacon is attacked and blown up by some terrorists to the Republic, and the space station is destroyed. Many people die, including some Jedi who help evacuate the station. I don’t actually know if there is a season 2 or 3 planned for this show, but hopefully the kids never come back to this station.

Overall, I thought the show was a good introduction for kids to get into Star Wars and learn some good life lessons along the way. If you have a kid or enjoy watching shows for toddlers, I think this would be a good selection.

I will be continuing my Star Wars timeline marathon, so be sure to check back on the main page for any updated when I finish something and write about it!