Star Wars: Young Jedi Adventures: Season 2: Story 17: The Wild Aklyrr
What is it ? : The Young Jedi are riding their Dunnel Steeds to the village of Aklyrr Bend, where they are to meet their bounty hunter friend Ansen Strung. Meeting up with him they ask him what trouble he is having, and he explains he has been given a bounty for capturing an animal, the Blue Aklyrr, but he cannot find it.
Lys instantly thinks that the name of the village matches the name of the creature so asks a villager about it, who tells her that they haven't seen one in a while, but they eat the Teega leaves in a nearby clearing.
Ansen accompanies them on his speeder bike towing a large cage to the clearing where Kai notices a leaf which has been nibbled. They track down a Blue Aklyrr, but it nimbly escapes them.
Lys comes up with a plan to lure it into a gulley where it cannot escape, and their plan works, with Ansen capturing the creature in the cage. He takes the cage to meet his employer, and when they arrive the Young Jedi discover it is the collector Draiven Bosh.
They convince Ansen that Draiven doesn't intend the best for the creature, only caring about adding it to his collection. So Draiven takes the Aklyrr and sets his droids to force Ansen and the Young Jedi away, congratulation himself about adding it to his collection without paying for it. The Young Jedi leap into Draiven's ship using the Force, while Ansen uses his rocket boots, and Ansen confronts Draiven, who is outmatched and ends up dropping his weapon.
So Ansen and The Young Jedi take the Blue Aklyrr and release it once more, returning to the village, where Ansen explains that he needed the money to repair his ship, but the villagers to thank him for not taking the Blue Aklyrr their village is named after, help him repair it free of charge.
High Points : While the storyline in this one is straight forwards, and is repeating elements of previous episodes, the one think that stood out to me from the beginning was the cinematography. This episode uses a lot more high camera angles than most episodes, showing off the entirety of the village of Aklyrr Bend as they arrive, and showing the forest from above as they track the Blue Aklyrr. These are really nice looking shots, showing off the virtual sets they've created, and showing that the sets are much bigger than they need to be for the scenes within them, but also making the world seem so much larger and more expansive.
Low Points : As mentioned about, this episode does seem very derivative of previous episodes, we've seen Draiven Bosh before, we've seen Ansen Strung before, and only recently we've had episodes telling us about mistreating animals and taking animals and plants away from their natural environment.
So what do you really think ? : I continue to find it amusing that the episodes teach about taking animals from their natural environment, without actually being bothered about the main characters eating animals. Treatment of animals is a complex issue, and the simplistic view that this series presents, doesn't do the issue any justice at all, although that would probably come across as overly preachy (having Lys for example explain she is a Vegan/Vegetarian because she can't bring herself to eat the same animals she loves so much). But that just makes me think they should be avoiding these issues to a much greater degree than they are, or making the villains more villainous (so having Draiven within this episode want the Blue Aklyrr merely for it's pelt, or making it more clear that this species rare and is nearly extinct).
Final Words : Another, absolutely fine, episode. The camera angles are brilliant, but the storyline isn't anything major or new. And while it's nice to see both Draiven Bosh and Ansen Strung back, it'd be nicer if they'd had a storyline which had added to their characters rather than just having them show up.
Score : 8/10
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