Star Wars: The Clone Wars - Shattered Review

TCW "Shattered"

"I wish I was good at something other than war." - Bo-Katan Kryze

"Shattered" shows that The Clone Wars as a show is good at something other than war. This measuredly paced episode generates an atmosphere of dread and foreboding centering around one event: Order 66.

As Ahsoka and Rex are en route to Coruscant with a captured Maul, soon-to-be-Emperor Palpatine gives the fateful Order. This allows the show to confront head on the idea of Order 66 as a tragedy for the clones. In Revenge of the Sith, the galaxy-wide kill order against Jedi is exclusively seen from the Jedi perspective; the clones are plot devices. But The Clone Wars has spent seven seasons showing humanity and individuality in clone characters. In a way the whole show has been building to this final indignity, when the clones' autonomy and free will is short-circuited. A tragedy for the executed, yes, but also for the executioners.

Kevin Kiner's score goes a long way to establishing a mood of dissonant unease. His eerie melodies, utilizing synthesizers in extremely Blade Runner-esque patterns, eventually give way to a rendering of John Williams' Order 66 music from Revenge of the Sith that gave me chills. As Ahsoka de-programs Rex with help from industrious droids, hope returns to the narrative.

"Shattered" is almost meditative in its unflinching embrace of one idea. So it is more like a tone poem than a dynamic epic. Heavily atmospheric, the tragedy of Order 66 is further unveiled here. 7/10.

Canon connections:
- Ahsoka is directly embedded into the end of the "I sense a plot to destroy the Jedi" scene from Revenge of the Sith.
- Ahsoka chooses not to send a message to an Anakin whose turn to the dark side is imminent.
- When Ahsoka and Maul hear Anakin's fall through a disturbance in the Force, audio from the movie is used, but Anakin voice actor Matt Lanter is also given the opportunity to offer his interpretation of the "What have I done?!" line.
- There's an astromech droid named Cheep, who resembles and sounds like Chopper from Star Wars Rebels.
- Maul gets his equivalent of the Darth Vader hallway massacre from Rogue One.
- There are a few echoes of exact dialogue from the films. The phrasing "hunt down and destroy the Jedi Knights" used by Obi-Wan in A New Hope is a Rex line here. "More to say, have you?" is said by Yoda both here and in The Phantom Menace. And "The Jedi are keepers of the peace, not soldiers" is spoken by Ahsoka, after Mace Windu said almost exactly that in Attack of the Clones.