"Star Wars: The Clone Wars" (television show) - season 1, episode 5 - Rookies - June 2023 review

"Star Wars:  The Clone Wars" (television show)

season 1, episode 5 - Rookies

"The best confidence builder is experience."

Because of the war between the Republic and the Separatists, the clones are being forced into joining the battle before they have completed their training.  Great, so not only are they created for the purpose of being cannon fodder anyway, but now, they're being tossed in there without being properly trained.  And they don't even have life experience to fall back on to know how to handle situations.  This is getting worse and worse.  No one told me that I'd be so triggered by clones!

Hmm, different kind of battle droids and not super battle droids.  Commander droids, they say?  Grievous' droids infiltrate the station where the clones are bored and complacent.  Wait, how did they cut the door open like that?  What weapon do they have?  Cause that looks like what a lightsabre would do but they don’t have a lightsabre.

This is just the first step for Grievous.  He wants to take over this station because then he'll be able to attack Kamino so that no more clones can be made, and the Republic won’t have new troops to join the fight.

Captain Rex and Commander Cody (That means Rex is in charge, right?) happen to have an inspection scheduled for the station.  That whole interaction with the droids pretending to be clones sure sounded like an homage to the scene in Star Wars where Han pretends to be a stormtrooper and telling the officers that they're all fine, here, now, thank you, how are you <wince>.  The masquerading droid ends the conversation with "roger roger".  Umm, clones shouldn't be saying that, so that should have been a bigger clue to Rex and Cody that something is off, but they probably haven't had conversations with Separatist droids or heard them talking to each other, so they wouldn't know that.

4 clones managed to survive the attack and escape to the outside.  They see Rex and Cody arriving and want to try to warn them.  The clones trick the droids into opening the door by pretending to be a droid in a clone trooper outfit.  When the droid wants them to remove their helmet so the droid can see their faceplate, the clone trooper ducks and then we see a droid head, and then we see that one of the other clone troopers is pretty much holding the head on a stick in front of the camera.  One of the other clone troopers puts his face in his hands and laments that this is never going to work.  Ahh, but they underestimate how dumb a droid, especially a battle droid, can be.  We laughed so much at this scene that I had to pause it, rewind it, and watch it again!  Brilliant idea!

When the one clone stayed behind to try to fix the detonator to destroy the base, I knew he was a goner.  He sacrificed himself to the very end to fulfill his mission, for the good of others.  This show is killing me with how they're portraying the clone troopers.  I might not know them individually, but I'm sure feeling each of their deaths.