Well, this is the arc we’ve all been waiting for, the episodes that begin to wrap up the last season finale and bring us one step closer to Darth Maul.
Dooku decides that now is the time to exact his revenge on the traitor, Ventress, who is hiding out on Dathomir with Mother Talzin and the rest of the Night Sisters. He sends General Grievous and a massive invasion fleet to Dathomir to exact his revenge.
This episode is all out war between the Separatists and the Night Sisters, with Asajj Ventress caught right in the middle.
And, as the title implies, the battle is a massacre, but not without a few surprises, the most notable being the creepy use of zombies.
Since this episode was battle scene after battle scene, it’s pretty easy to see that this is but the prelude to a much larger conflict and story that will unfold over the next three episodes. The story had some fascinating elements in it that felt very new for Star Wars, starting with the Haitian magic vibe from the Night Sisters. They’d always been a little bit non-traditional in their use of the force, but they’ve flat out risen the dead and created a voodoo doll that crippled a Sith lord across the galaxy. It was an incredibly new way of doing things and, since we’ve not seen that sort of power before, it really took me by surprise.
This episode also had some very Apocalypse Now moments to it. First off, the agent orange style weapon on the AAT, but for some reason (and I can’t quite put my finger on it) General Grievous reminded me so much of Robert Duvall in that movie it was crazy. Perhaps that was just subconscious because of the “smell of napalm” on Dathomir.
I was struck by the absolute brutality of the show this episode, too. It was refreshing. Things were at stake, lives were being lost, and it lived up to the title of the episode. It truly was a massacre.
I will be honest, this arc and the last she was in, has really made me come around to really liking Ventress as a character. She’s flawed and more than one dimensional. When I saw her on the micro-series originally, she was just a one trick pony playing a single emotion. And that’s sort of how she started this series. She was playing one note and now she’s utterly captivating as a character.
And as far as the zombies are concerned, I could very easily see very young, maybe pre-school age kids shocked by the imagery, but the only words out of the mouths of my children when the zombies began pouring down from their graves was, “Cooooool.”
From a technical level, the staging and animation of characters was top notch. This episode simply couldn’t have been accomplished in the first two seasons, and maybe not even last season. They keep adding element after element to their arsenal, soon they’ll be able to remake a Star Wars movie with everything they can do. Everything on that animation and model level was incredible, from General Grievous’ cape (and lightsaber dueling!) and the amount of characters on screen all the way down to the Super Battle Droids coming out of the troop carrier and the evil movement of the zombies. It was all just turned up to 11.
And the lighting effects in this episode were incredible. Everything with the green mist was stunning to watch. The effects of the boiling kettle over to torment Dooku (and even his voodoo doll) were almost tangible. I could almost feel the heat and the sweat bubble over on my forehead, too. And the lighting in Dooku’s chamber? Especially that first shot with Grievous walking up to it in the green shadows, it was just breathtaking.
This episode really worked for me. It was harsh and brutal, the craftsmanship behind the cinema and the storytelling was in top form. And the Separatists won. They didn’t just win, this was literally a scorched earth victory.
But I really don’t think we’ve seen anything yet. Maybe I’m getting my hopes up too high, but I really think March 9th is going to be a major turning point for this show, and it wouldn’t have been possible with this episode.