Episode: "Clone Cadets"
Series: Star Wars: The Clone Wars
Season 3, Episode 1
Original Air Date: September 17, 2010
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In "Clone Cadets," Hevy, Cutup, Droidbait, Fives and Echo are in training as Domino Squad. They are most definitely not the star pupils of the operation. They don't follow orders and don't trust each other enough to work together. As a result, they consistently fall short of other squads in their training exercises. In an important macro-narrative development, it is suggested that the group's shortcomings result from the gene pool running shallow after Jango Fett's death. We also meet 99, a malformed clone who serves as another reminder that the process does not always go exactly to plan.
In some ways, I feel like the prequel undermines the "Rookies" story. Part of the magic of the earlier episode is the fact that the five troopers involved are presented as ordinary soldiers, neither unusually good nor exceptionally bad. Caught up in a sudden crisis, they must rely upon training and instinct in order to prevail. Then again, perhaps their shortcomings would explain why they were assigned to such a remote outpost in the first place. And the underdog element has some appeal of its own.
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I'm not sure enough people watched Clone Wars for it to really influence the audience; however, the fact that they had focused so much on the lives of troopers may have influenced the creators.
ReplyDeleteThere's definitely a contingent of devoted fans, though. A particular group of 7th grade boys in one of my classes comes to mind. The prequel generation was groomed to see Stormtroopers in a different way. Sympathy for the common soldier is a more powerful cultural force in the 21st century than it was in the late '70s/early '80s.
DeleteInteresting observation on the civilian response to common soldiers. I think media has often portrayed the singular struggle of a small band of warriors with compassion, but you are right that I had a different response to the stormtroopers in Episode II Attack of the Clones vs. any of original three. It's been too long for me to really remember any of these episodes, but I sometimes catch a Clone show on Disney XD. Featuring any of those?
ReplyDeleteA lot has changed in our culture in the decades since. Even in 1983, the US was still recovering from Vietnam and its disastrous PR impact on the military. War films such as Deer Hunter and Apocalypse Now drifted toward bizarre and creepy rather than realistic accounts. Platoon (1986) was the game changer. Then, of course, the first Gulf War brought such considerations out of the historical and hypothetical realms back into our living rooms. Stormtroopers as mindless killers was no longer so palatable.
DeleteI assume the Disney XD episodes are this same series.
I had a different view of the clones. Possibly my view of what a clone was or is. Especially when Obi Wan finds them the first time. They acted as one. It is , for me, unusual to see them with such different personalities.
ReplyDeletecheers, parsnip
Yes, there is also the matter of genetic engineering becoming a far more prominent issue in the 21st century.
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