Star Wars: Young Jedi Adventures: Season 2: Story 35: The Search for the Missing Dunnels
What is it ? : Lys Solay is showing the other Young Jedi, Zotti, how to ride a Dunnel, a large horselike creature, through the forests of Tenoo. She explains that Dunnel are slightly skittish, so it is important when riding and handling them to be calm.
They arrive back at the Jedi Temple to stable the creature, but while locking them away Lys is summoned by Kai to deal with another escaped animal. She explains the procedure to locking the doors to Zotti, but he is distracted by the animals and being summoned to lunch that he fails to lock the doors properly, so the Dunnels escape.
Lys and Zotti come back and discover the missing creatures, and take another Dunnel to follow their tracks to retrieve them. They find them, but three people have found them first, who intend to use them to rob a train, refusing to return them.
The scare away Lys and Zotti's Dunnel, and race off. Lys demonstrates being calm to befriend the Dunnel, and they give chase, finding the thieves racing along next to the train.
The thieves leap their Dunnels onto the top of the train, and Lys gives chase, confronting the thieves when they disembark the Dunnels to rob the train. She ignites her lightsaber and fights the thieves, which scares the Dunnels, and Zotti has to calm them, and they leap onto the Dunnels and jump them back off the train as it approaches a tree which is too low for anyone to stay on top of the train, so the thieves have to jump off into the water below.
Back at the temple, Zotti ensures he locks the doors properly, and he and Lys take the opportunity to ride some other Dunnels. . . .
High Points : A nice little Lys story, but it's a bit routine, Lys and animals is very much a trope by now, and I'd have preferred to see some new aspect to her character. But what is done here is nice, and at least doesn't have Jedi Masters sending kids into danger, instead just having them learning to ride.
Low Points : So, a few episodes ago, Lys was telling Draiven Bosh off for keeping animals captive, yet here she is fine in rounding up the Dunnels when they escape from their captivity. Is keeping animals wrong, or is it okay when she does it?
And when she teaches Zotti how to handle the Dunnels, she tells him you have to be calm to handle them, but the thieves don't seem excessively calm, and the Dunnels are absolutely fine being ridden and handled by them. I really thought that was going to be a plot point, that the thieves would lose control of their mounts as they weren't being calm, and that would be the lesson to Zotti, but nope, the thieves are immune to Lys's teachings on animal handling.
So what do you really think ? : It was a fine episode, I do like the design of the Dunnels, even if the plot didn't make a huge amount of sense (how were the theives planning on robbing the train until they found the dunnels, remembering they had only the time it took to ride to the train to make arrangements?).
Final Words : And the lesson of the episode, by nice and calm around animals to not spook them, unless of course you're a train robber, then you'll be fine.
Score : 7.5/10
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