This week’s Clone Wars, ‘Hunt For Ziro’, represents what it probably the end of the arc of Ziro the Hutt in The Clone Wars. He’s been busted out of jail by Cad Bane and has been delivered to the Hutt Council, where he’s put in prison. He’s promptly broken out by Sy Snootles (of all people) and taken on journey, followed closely by Bane and Obi-Wan Kenobi and Jedi Quinlan Vos.
This episode had just about anything I could want in an episode of Clone Wars.
It opened up with an hilarious nod to Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, with Sy Snootles singing a Huttese equivalent of Willie Scott’s Chinese version of ‘Anything Goes’ and gets straight into a chase.
This episode offered us insights into a lot things I was curious about, a lot of things I wasn’t so curious about but glad to know, and plenty of other stuff in between.
First off, this gave us a glimpse of the Hutts and their homeworld Nal Hutta, which reminded me of a swampy Blade Runner version of New Orleans. The musical numbers were loud (and surprisingly sexy), the music and flair was that of a cool jazz, and it hearkened back to both the original cantina band music and Sy Snootles’ original Lapti Nek number. And it doesn’t bother me one bit that she was involved romantically with Ziro the Hutt.
Obi-Wan and Quinlan Vos are on their trail, and Vos is considered by his peers to be crazy. He reminds me of a mix between Qui-Gon Jinn and The Dude. He even quoted The Dude once (That’s just your opinion, man.) He was a fun character and I’d like to see more of him, just like I’d like to see more of Cad Bane. Their fight was most impressive and doubles my respect for Bane and his skills. It also makes my respect for Obi-Wan drop a little… How many times does he get beaten to a standstill by a Bounty Hunter like Bane or Jango? And what was so different about General Grievous in Revenge of the Sith?
There was much to do made behind Gardulla the Hutt’s appearance in the series, but I really couldn’t care less about that controversy. (On a sidenote, the reason my review was so late was because I was attending a writers retreat, four or five of us got together to critique each others prose. One of the attending writers was Aaron Allston, who writes Star Wars novels for Del Rey, and he offered me his perspective on it, explaining that anyone who plays in the EU knows that they’re playing with Lucas’ toys and know that George can back up out of the driveway over the toys at any time and they don’t take it personally, fans shouldn’t either.)
The thing that I was by far and away the most impressed with this episode was the animation. The cloth moved beautifully, the costumes were incredible (the girls with Hutt masks were fantastic), the alien creatures moved believably, the Gammoreans were some of the coolest looking characters the show has ever had… It was just top notch across the board.
And the way the show is starting to connect the prequel era with the classic era always puts a smile on my face.
Overall, this was a strong episode and better than at least most of this season, so far. The story wasn’t as well paced as I would have liked to see, but the impressive animation and fun of the opening was more than enough to make up for it.