Star Wars: The Clone Wars: Season 1 Episode 4: Destroy Malevolence
What is it ? : The final part of the Malevolence storyline, the Malevolence is limping away from the Medical centre from the last episode, pursued by three Venator Class Star Destroyers commanded by Obi-Wan Kenobi, Anakin, Plo-Koon and Ahsoka. The sheer size difference between the Malevolence, means that the damage that they are capable of doing is being repaired as quickly.
Grievous updates Dooku as to the situation, who informs him that Sidious has arranged for a hostage to be delivered to him to stop the attack on the Malevolence, and give him time to repair and escape. Meanwhile, Amidala, having been told by Palpatine that the Banking Clan wants to discuss leaving the Confederacy and rejoining the Republic, comes out of hyperspace in the middle of the battle, and is tractor beamed aboard the Malevolence.
Anakin and Obi-Wan head aboard the Malevolence, using the usual Jedi tactic of walking into trouble and hoping that hitting stuff with Lightsabers will help, rescue Amidala, sabotage the Malevolence's navicomputer, meaning it crashes into a nearby moon as Grievous flees aboard his starfighter.
High Points : Well, at least some of my points from other episodes seem to have been addressed, with Dooku only appearing as a hologram, allowing Grievous to be chief bad guy for this story.
Low Points : This episode is a bit of a mess, the Battle Droids are back to being ineffective comic relief (one can't even put a fire out without launching himself into the air with the water pressure), who would use such an awful army?
The space battle consists of the Malevolence slowly running away with smoke and fire belching out of it, while the three Star Destroyers slowly follow shooting at it, neither side is using fighters, the Destroyers only momentarily target a vulnerable part of the larger ship, there's no decent action here.
As mentioned, the Malevolence is belching smoke and fire, but in all the scene aboard, including ones of the massive areas internally used for transferring cargo, there's no damage, no signs of these huge fires, in fact Grievous notices at one point that Amidala has pulled some cables out of a control panel, while there's supposed to be critical damage throughout the ship, but there's no signs of that at all.
Amidala was told to go to a certain system to speak with the Banking Guild, but just happens to come out of Hyperspace mere meters in front of the Malevolence, which is involved in a chase. The chances seem remote, and it was just far too convenient for the plot.
Oh, and I'm starting to think C-3PO may be indestructible, in this episode he gets hit by what I can only describe as a speeding train, and doesn't even get dented. In The Empire Strikes Back, he got shot, and just came apart but wasn't damaged.
So what do you really think ? : Was massively disappointed with this episode, it's far to focussed on being for kids, the faults in it seem to be due to not enough time being spent. If the space battle had more time spent it could have been just more than ships shooting at each other. Amidala's capture by the Malevolence could have been told better with more time, this is the first episode that felt that it needed more time, because as it was it just felt slapdash and thrown together.
Final Words : Not a total disaster, but a big, big disappointment after the great couple of episodes which came before it. Hopefully next episode will be a return to standard.
Score : 6/10
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