October 3 2008




Episode Guide: Rising Malevolence

Episode Air No: 2
Production No: 7

Director: Dave Filoni
Writer: Steve Melching

Episode Brief: An attack by a devastating new Separatist weapon leaves Plo Koon & his Clone Troopers struggling to survive until Anakin & Ahsoka can find them.

All Hear This: HoloNet News Returns

HoloNet News has returned as a tie-in to the The Clone Wars television series. It's not coming back as text, but rather as audio. Free MP3 downloads.

HoloNet News @ Starwars.com
[download] SW_holonetnews_01_2008-10-02.mp3

What's it like to live in a galaxy at war? Back in 2002, Lucas Online sought to answer that question with HoloNet News, a news website set within the Star Wars galaxy. For weeks, the site tracked important news and events, becoming a favorite among detail-oriented fans, but then was suddenly "shut down" as the emergency of the Clone Wars erupted.

HoloNet News returns online in an all-new incarnation. Now, regular installments will keep galactic news junkies abreast of news and opinions from the far-away galaxy, but rather than read the news, you can hear it. As a tie-in to the The Clone Wars television series, HoloNet News has turned into a downloadable MP3, available both here at StarWars.com, and on iTunes. Some news bulletins will be standalone stories. Others build upon and explore the events of the television series. Some offer clues as to upcoming episodes. Expect the show format, hosts, and even points-of-view to change as the series continues. After all, it's a big galaxy.

This first episode is a discussion panel program entitled "A Galaxy Divided." The roundtable talk show is examining the reports of General Grievous' mysterious new superweapon. It occurs before the events of "Rising Malevolence," the second episode of The Clone Wars airing this Friday.

To download, right-click this link here and save the mp3 file locally.

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Ambush: Everything that needs to be said has already been. Awesome to see Original Trilogy style Yoda along with the Zen aspects of the force. The SuperBattleDroids finally have voices and the lightsaber rotoscoping effects were standout.

Another interesting aspect is of course The Phantom Menace influence over the episode. From the obvious Toydian presence to the Trade Federation BattleShip to even the music. One thing I would like to seen is a more formidable Ventress when she faced Yoda at the end.


Rising Malevolence: The Grievous BattleShip was one of the leaked "DarthFriday" concept images from back around this time in 2003 and it was nicknamed the Shark Ship then. The craft was dropped from Revenge Of The Sith but reappeared in this years Clone Wars. The huge steamship style "paddle wheel" is actually the energy-disableing Ion Cannon. whoa!

Another concept that was lifted from Revenge Of The Sith was the whole falling out of the ship into zero-gravity space sequence(s). Speaking of which the BattleDroids get some kills under their belt using this method. The episode sorta has creepy vibe because of the energy zapping weapon shutting down ship's power and clone death by space suffocation methinks - very eerie.

Stand out performances were of course Plo "Plo Kool" Koon and the Clone Troopers. Plo got to put his breath appartus to work. It was interesting to see Fett Clones as Imperial Officers and the introduction of some sort of Space Trooper. Grievous gets a nod for best supporting performance.

A weak point and I hate to pile on here was the Anakin and Ahsoka banter - although it was drowned by the overall awesomeness of the episode. The BattleDroid banter in both episodes was actually sort of cool. In Rising Malevolence, after one of the successful kills, one of the BattleDroids started humming a tune on the way to killing their next set of Clones.

Love that silhouetted intro to the Malevolence.

The Abregado system reminded me of the Death Star's trash compactor in A New Hope. Awesome environment. And yeah, the destruction of those three escape pods and the officers getting sucked out into space were kinda unexpected and pretty brutal.

I don't know how I feel about the statement of the theme at the start of the episodes. They're clearly trying to add some vitamins and minerals to the show for the younger viewers, which isn't unusual given the nature of Star Wars, Lucas' involvement in certain educational projects, and the content of many interviews with the guy. I don't have the experience of watching this with any children, so I don't know how much of that they'd come away with (did I when I was younger?), but if it has to be there it's probably best that it's pinned on at the beginning which keeps the main characters from having to explicitly mention it at some point in the episode, or at the end like so many shows often do, which would only make the banter even more grating.

Oh, and it's good to see Force telepathy back (when Ashoka senses that Plo-Koon is still alive)!

The text reminded me of the random war quotes whenever you die in Call of Duty 2.

Well, it's certainly better than a random section at the end with Yoda saying "Now you know. And knowing, half the battle is."

I do like the quotes. They provide a measure of depth and context for each episode. Not that the episodes wouldn't have depth without the quotes, but it's a solid way of establishing the context of the narrative -- and demonstrates that these Clone Wars stories aren't just action set pieces (even if the action is still a primary draw).

I don't mind the Anakin-Ahsoka banter too much - it's good for the kids as long as it's kept in check. The battledroid stuff should be toned down for an episode like this. It's a pretty dark episode that works extremely well; then the hunter droids make light of it all. It didn't detract, but it could be toned down a tad.

Plo Koon is awesome. The clones are awesome. Anakin is way cooler in the clone wars series than he is in the movies (far more like Luke). Love his B-wing type ship (I didn't see the movie, so all of this is fresh to me). Keep em coming. I'm diggin it.

http://starwars.com/video/view/000692.html


Check out the Clone Wars video section at Starwars.com! There's a preview for the third episode, "Shadow of Malevolence," and brief episode commentaries on the past two episodes.

Both episodes are now streaming at starwars.com

That episode needs a shrine, in the form of a thread.