Star Wars: Young Jedi Adventures: Season 2: Story 12: Mine and Ours
What is it ? : The Young Jedi are levitating a crystal into position on the world of Ootoo Prime, the miners there have opened a new mineshaft and are holding a celebration displaying all their most valuable crystals. They have invited nobility from across the galaxy to join them, and asked them all to show off their most valuable crystals as well.
Princess Inaya arrives, and is glad to see the Young Jedi, and speaks about how she's happy to attend but would be more happy to be working on an engine, and the Jedi explain to their Ootoo miner friend, Ayva Ackler, that Inaya is an accomplished engineer who built her own ship.
Prince Cyrus Vuundir arrives as well, and it becomes clear that him and Inaya know each other, but she doesn't like him because he cares more about physical valuables than people. But the two of them agree that they'd rather see the mines than stay at a stuffy formal event, so the Young Jedi and Ayva take them on mine carts down into the mines.
As they travel, Cyrus spots some golden crystals and diverts the cart into a side passage, so Kai, Inaya and him end up in a cavern with large golden crystals. Cyrus decides against warnings to take one of the crystals from a wall, which opens up a hole and a swarm of small insects fly out. They rush to give chase but their mine cart malfunctions, so while Kai tries to contact Ayva, Nubs and Lys, Inaya and Cyrus work on fixing the cart. Inaya is surprised that Cyrus is good with machinery, and he reveals that he has a workshop at home, that his parents don't approve of, and she gives him an admiring glance as she shares that experience.
The two fix the cart as the others arrive, and Ayva explains the insects are Armored amberflies, which eat crystals. When they are in their nest they are calm, but when they are out they will consume all crystals they encounter. To attract the amberflies, Inaya attaches her bejewelled tiara to the light on the front of the cart, the light refracted through it attracts them, but Cyrus accidentally activates the cart sending it towards the main chamber where all the crystals being displayed are.
Arriving they find chaos, as the insects are swarming around the exhibits and the guests, all wearing crystals. They decide the Crystal they were levitating at the beginning is the largest, so they will attract the insects to that, and take them back to their nest, which they do, although by the time they get back almost nothing of the crystal remains.
They levitate it back into the nest, but some are distracted by the jewel on Cyrus broach, which he throws into the nest to get the insects back inside, plugging the hole with the gem he originally took. Inaya is impressed, Cyrus giving up his valuables to help others?
The return to the main chamber, and the miners celebrate the Young Jedi and the Young Royals who helped save the day, and for his part Ayva gives Cyrus a gemstone from the new mine, which he is impressed by, before Nubs realises he's hungry so they all go get snacks.
High Points : The part of this episode which sticks in my mind is the budding romance between Cyrus and Inaya. The two are both rebellious royalty, both into engineering, something that Inaya hadn't realised before, so she finds this young man she has been annoyed by in the past due to his love of physical riches, now attractive due to his similarities to her and his more caring nature. It's almost an extra reward for Cyrus if he continues down this path of redemption, that he will have someone to be close with.
And a very minor other point, in this episode one of the dignitaries visiting the mines is an Ithorian with a beard, and I really appreciate the fact that his beard runs down the front of his face, between his two mouths. Really liked the fact that they took into account the fact that Ithorians have two mouths.
Low Points : The Armored amberflies make no sense whatsoever, insects which are calm as long as they remain in their nests? So how do they get food?, how do they found new nests?, and how do they consume crystals which mass more than their bodies without getting any larger? and why when they consume crystals is a crystal used to block them inside their nest?
So what do you really think ? : A nice return to Ootoo Prime, the site of an adventure from season one, so continuing the process of building up the universe of the Young Jedi, with more places and people we've seen before. But as I said above, for me it was the budding romance between Cyrus and Inaya, it allowed both characters to grow, and in fact this entire episode Cyrus never uses his Taborr Val-Dorn persona at all, so all we see is the real him.
There's a strong chance that the writers will make Cyrus blow this relationship at some point in the future, to "punish" him for his behaviour as Taborr, to give the watchers a lesson in behave well or you'll lose your friends. But giving him something to live up to, someone that he'll want to be heroic and kind and generous for, really would give his character some chance at growth.
Final Words : A solid little episode, which I enjoyed a lot more than many recent episodes, probably because it does feel like part of a growing world and storyline, rather than just another unrelated and therefore unimportant adventure.
Score : 8.5/10
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