The Idiocy Strikes Back

I know it's been a while since I posted anything out here, but I feel this needs posting.

It is season premier season in the television world and that means two things to me: the return of How I Met Your Mother and the continuation of the Clone Wars.

While the former was amazing and everything I could have hoped for, the latter was a bit disappointing. This is so for several reasons and I shall spell them out for you now.

This new season is kicked off showing the civil war going on on the planet Mon Calamari. Or Dac. Or whatever name they want to make canon right now. This is a side war going on during the Clone War between the Mon Calamari (fish-people like Admiral Ackbar) and the Quarren (squid-people) as they battled for dominance of their homeworld. It was depicted in the Genndy Tartakovsky animated Clone Wars series in grand fashion. Jedi Master Kit Fisto swoops in with a battalion of clones and helps repel the Quarren assault. It was really well done and played well with the whole storyline.

Enter, the current CGI Clone Wars story. It starts with Anakin and Padme' sitting in on a Mon Cal parliament meeting discussing the recent assassination of the king and rise of his heir, the teenage Lee-Char. Here is where the problems start. The prince/new king sounds like a 1980's Ninja Turtle. I don't expect much from the voice actors in this show, but come on.

That detail is minor compared to what came next. Things go downhill, We learn that the Quarren are getting support from the CIS and that the Mon Cal are no match, even with clones and 3 Jedi on hand. So what does the Jedi Council do? They look for a nearby system that has an aquatic race with a standing army. Naturally, they play the Joker wildcard and call in none other than the Gungans from Naboo. Let's ignore for a moment the fact that they called in the Gungans for military support and look at logistics.

The council specifically states that they do not have time to outfit another squad of clones for aquatic combat and so they would need to call in someone close. Naboo is on the opposite side of the galaxy from Dac. Take a look at the map. The green circle is Dac. The red is Naboo. As a point of reference, the blue arrow is pointing to Coruscant. If you sent and already assembled strike force of troopers toward Dac, they could suit up on the way and be there before you even got the Gungan army into the same ship! Ok, so assume that they would have to manufacture more aquatic combat gear and thus it would take longer. Naboo is still so far away! Anyone who has played KOTOR knows of a little planet called Manaan where live a race of fish-people called the Selkath. On the map, the pink arrow is pointing to this planet. It is half the distance between Dac and Naboo. The Selkath have an army and some pretty awesome weapons. Now, Manaan is a neutral system in the whole war and stayes pretty much to themselves, but you have to ask: Would you rather have to convince an army to join you and actually stand a chance? Or would you rather call in the Gungans?

The final episode of this arc is up now. I'm gonna go see how badly they botched it...