Jedi Master Pong Krell will go down in the history books as one of the least compassionate Jedi generals in the history of the Jedi Order. He’s hard headed and not a very good strategist.
His strategy is very much like General Mireau’s in Stanley Kubrick’s brilliant war film, Paths of Glory. Like Mireau (played with delicious hatred by George Macready), Krell knows exactly what he wants and he doesn’t care how many men die in the reality of the battlefield to obtain it. I was convinced that the third segment of this episode would begin with him ordering the clones through the frontlines regardless of the situation and that he would order the clones defending the mouth of the gorge to fire to the rear of Rex’s men to prevent further retreat.
Krell is that much of a sonofabitch.
And I really like it.
I think this episode was vastly superior to last weeks, even though we couldn’t have it without the setup provided. And I think Krell himself wouldn’t have succeeded without an equal amount of setup. Krell is commanded by Obi-wan Kenobi to take an air base supplying the capital city as quickly as possible. There are a few possible routes, but he sends Rex and his men right up the middle in a full frontal assault. He might as well have ordered them into a sausage grinder for all the good they were doing against the Umbarran millipede tanks. But the only thing that allowed his plan to work was the fact that Rex and his team had trained under Anakin Skywalker, who had taught them to think much more creatively than if they’d been assigned to Krell from the get go.
It’s very telling that Krell is assigned to this assignment at all. Where’s his army?
Oh, right. He ordered them to their deaths.
This was a very challenging episode for the clones. They’re more than happy to march into battle with a sensible plan, even it means their death. But give them a plan with no sense to it and no chance of survival? See how quickly they rebel.
It’s the challenges of the clones dealing with the fact that they have to acknowledge they were bred to die in the name of the Republic, but don’t want to do it for no reason, that makes this episode so damned compelling.
But even if this episode wasn’t so compelling, it was damn pretty to look at. Every frame of animation that takes place on Umbara is dripping with paint and brushstrokes, every moment able to be framed in a museum. The lighting schemes, the trees, the constant mist, the use of motion, it was all incredible.
I was particularly impressed with the camera moves in the first third of the episode, floating through the battle making you feel like you’re there. In fact, I found myself cringing every time we saw a clone brutally killed at the hands of the Umbarrans… And come to think of it, I did the same thing when the clones shot a wounded Umbarran, too. More than any other episode of the show (and certainly any of the movies) this might have been the most brutal installment of visual storytelling ever committed to film, save Order 66 and the death of Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru.
Dee Bradley Baker needs to be congratulated. He voiced no less than a dozen different clones in this episode and each one was unique. He’s really shining in the role and I can’t wait to see how things boil over in this arc.
But there was still fun to be had. In the last third one of the clones lets out a classic line from A New Hope (“I prefer a good fight to all this sneakin’ around”) before stealing enemy ships they have no idea how to pilot. It added a much needed bit of levity to the episode.
Overall, I think this episode is structurally superior to last weeks. We were told the objectives, what was at stake, where and why, very clearly right at the beginning. The clones took action after action to make it happen, escalating the tension and the action as each thing they tried failed to work.
This episode was turned up to 11 across the board and I’m glad we’ve got two more episodes left on Umbara. Especially since I really feel like Rex and his men are on a collision course with Krell. And they’ve foreshadowed a confrontation beautifully, with the fire in Krell’s eyes and Rex clenching his fist…
I like where things are heading and I hope Walter Murch comes back to direct more episodes of the show.
