Star Wars: The Clone Wars: Season 5 Episode 10: Secret Weapons
What is it ? : The Separatists are using a new type of encryption which the Republic cannot break, so they've come up with a plan to steal one of the encryption modules from a droid command ship using a group of droids.
So R2-D2 and some other droids, including QT-KT (seen later in The Force Awakens), are commanded by a Colonel who was at the battle of Geonosis. The Colonel is less than a foot tall, and his involvement at Geonosis turns out to have been helping use the topography of the planet to the Republics tactical advantage.
The droids get modified for this mission, modifications which include a command room built into the head of an Astromech for the Colonel to use.
They travel to the command ship in a captured enemy shuttle, and after some problems caused by the droids not being used to their modifications, and the loss of the droid which the Colonel was inside, they gain access to the vault of the Encryption module.
The Tactical Droid in charge of the ship arrives, having noticed the problems the droids have caused, and there is a skirmish in the vault, the team pulls together and manage to defeat the Tactical droid and it's escort, and then slip off the ship while the Battle Droids are looking for the organics which caused the problems.
High Points : This episode grew on me, and I genuinely enjoyed it by the end, while I knew the Colonel who was unlikeable and uncaring at the start would redeem himself, and the bumbling and incompetent DUM pit droid would prove himself, I actually quite liked the two characters by the end of the episode.
The fight in the Encryption Module room was pretty exciting, even if Gravity doesn't work that way, and made a good climax to the episode.
Low Points : Although I mentioned above that I quite liked the Colonel and the Pit Droid by the end of the episode, the fact that the entire episode was those two, and a bunch of Astromechs speaking droidspeak, meant that for much of the run time, the only speaking characters were two dislikeable ones.
I found the episode to be quite preachy, the Colonel who doesn't value the droids learns to value them by the end, and through them he finds bravery and courage. Such a life lesson I'm sure.
The humour throughout was weak, the pit droid walks into a wall because he's pushing ahead (another life lesson), and he often makes a fool of himself. The brave Colonel from the battle of Geonosis is tiny, etc. I found it all fall a bit flat.
As mentioned above, Gravity doesn't work that way or at least a lack of it doesn't work that way, during the fight against the Tactical Droid and it's escort in the Encryption Module room, the droids turn the gravity off to gain a surprise, which was cool. However they kept messing up how a lack of gravity works. The Tactical droid, floating in Zero-G kept pulling R2, using his enhanced turbo thrusters, away from the Encryption module. Where R2 should just keep pulling the Tactical droid around, also R2 really shouldn't keep burning those thrusters, as he'll just keep accelerating and go smashing into the ceiling.
As the end of the episode, the Droids slip by a patrol, as the Battle droids don't consider them to be a threat, as they're looking for organics who they presume have set off the alarms. At this point the Colonel is hiding by clinging onto the back of one of the Astromechs. They have a laugh at the Battle Droids, and then head off across the landing bay. With the Colonel completely visible as he rides atop one of the Astromechs, as squads of battle droids march past them.
So what do you really think ? : The episode really grew on me, starting with the bad humour and the obvious preachiness, but I ended up quite enjoying it by the end. Not one of the best, but worth a watch.
Final Words : This was an okay stand alone episode, but I'm dreading the fact that this is the start of yet another four part story. Fingers crossed it grows as well as the last one as I remember having similar feelings to that one.
Score : 7.5/10
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