Star Wars: Young Jedi Adventures: Season 1: Story 20: The Growing Green Danger
What is it ? : The Young Jedi are in a class on the world of Langsha-Raang studying botany, something Nubs shows a natural talent for. They are shown how sunlight effects various plants, some requiring lots to grow, others requiring shade to avoid growing too much. As the class ends the teacher awards Nubs a pouch of seeds, telling him that he will need to think about the needs of each seed, however he drops the seeds and when he gathers them back up he accidentally gathers a seed from one of the fast growing plants, a grumble vine.
Back on Tenoo, Nubs plants the seeds and they prosper in the sunlight, however the Grumble Vine doesn't grow while it is completely submerged in the soil, so Nubs thinks about it's needs and uncovers it, and it grows rapidly taking over the temple garden.
It becomes a menace as it's tendrils extend as far as the temple walls and begin to cause them to crack, so the Young Jedi warn everybody to evacuate and try to hold back the plant with their lightsabers.
Nubs accidentally covers one of the vines with a blanket and it stops growing, and he realises this plant needs moderation to grow properly, so despite the plant grabbing his friends, he struggles back to the seed and shields it from the sun with the blanket, causing the it quickly shrink, withdrawing it's tendrils and returning to normal plant sized.
The return the seed to their teacher who congratulates Nubs on his knowledge of plants, and apologises for the mix up with the seeds, and as Nubs shows her the rest of his garden and how well it's doing, droids repair the damage to the temple.
High Points : A nice story without a villain or neer-do-well to drive the story forwards, just an error growing out of control. I especially liked that the Young Jedi try to solve the problem as Jedi try to solve all problems with their lightsabers, something with totally failed. I also liked that Nubs was allowed to be the knowledgeable one, rather than Lys for a change.
Low Points : While the plant growing to enormous size due to sunlight I can accept, although it does make me wonder why this plant hasn't taken over most worlds by this time, imagine the fun it would have on Tatooine. I cannot accept the way that it shrinks when it's seed is covered, the vines don't shrivel and die, they shrink back. Where does all the mass for the vines go?
So what do you really think ? : Another absolutely fine episode of Young Jedi Adventures, and one which allows Nubs to be the main character for once, as although there are three main characters in this series, Kai mainly takes the lead, with Lys being allowed from time to time, as they are the two comprehensible characters. But in 20 episodes, this is the first time that Nubs has been allowed to be the focus of the episode, which is great, as they've found plenty of opportunities to let him sit out episodes.
Final Words : So the message of this episode seems to be "different things have different needs"? Which seems to be a very different lesson to most episodes, but I suppose a not less valid one.
Score : 8/10
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