Welcome back to my series “Why I love Star Wars”. This is a series that was inspired by reading Ken Napzok’s Why We Love Star Wars: The Great Moments That Built A Galaxy Far, Far Away, a countdown of the top 100 moments from Star Wars that made him love it all, including canon stories from every medium. As I was reading this book, I found myself thinking of some of my own favourite moments and wanted to discuss them.
While there are certainly some films that I do not like as much as others, every movie has some wonderful moments that I would always say outweigh the bad, so for that reason I wouldn’t say that I hate any of the Star Wars films. With the way that too much Star Wars talk has gone down a dark hole in recent years, hopefully reminding ourselves of the great moments and focusing on the positives will help the fandom recover.
Why I Love Star Wars:
- A New Hope
- The Empire Strikes Back
- Return of the Jedi
- The Phantom Menace
- Attack of the Clones
- Revenge of the Sith
- The Clone Wars
- The Force Awakens
- Rogue One: A Star Wars Story
- The Last Jedi
- Solo: A Star Wars Story
- The Rise of Skywalker
- The Clone Wars seasons 1-6
- Rebels
- Resistance
- The Mandalorian
Unlike in the book, I will not put the moments in any specific order (I do things like that enough in my Top 10s!) as the order would probably change on every viewing. With all the movies now covered, I have enjoyed doing these so much, I have chosen to carry this on to cover the series. Today I will be looking at 12 episodes I never thought we would actually get: Season 7 of The Clone Wars
Beware: this will contain spoilers for season 7 and potentially previous seasons!
I made the call to keep season 7 separate to the previous 6 seasons for a couple of reasons. Firstly, it’s been so many years since season 6 that technology has come on and taken the show to a new level, which would make it hard to compare fairly. Secondly, between Maul, Ahsoka, Mandalorians and clones, I could have probably picked 5 moments from the final arc alone!
Wrecker v Crosshair
From Episode 4: “Unfinished Business”
The Bad Batch arc gave us a great moment as it was coming to an end, as it highlighted the rivalry among members of the Bad Batch, specifically Wrecker and Crosshair. After Wrecker got the chance to pulverise a corridor of battle droids, they continued through the ship, with crosshair placing a number of reflective pads down the length of the hallway they just came down, which battle droids are flooding into. With 1 shot, Crosshair takes out all the droids as his shot reflects off the pads all the way down the corridor. While this is in itself a cool moment, Wrecker’s reaction of complete disbelief just adds to the moment, especially as Hunter tells him that he’ll beat Crosshair next time, only for Crosshair to immediately goad Wrecker that he won’t. It’s a great character moment for both Wrecker and Crosshair – whose cutting personality has often left him seeming a little unlikeable during the arc – and very reminiscent of Legolas and Gimli’s competitions in The Lord of the Rings movies. I really hope we get more of this rivalry during The Bad Batch.
Infiltrating the listening post
From Episode 1: “The Bad Batch”
If ever we wanted to see how far the technology had come between season 6 and season 7, this scene showed it. In what is designed to be a 1-shot sequence, we infiltrate the listening post along with Hunter, Wrecker and Tech. I love the way how the camera feels like it’s being carried by a fourth member and showing their perspective, so it doesn’t just follow behind the trio, but moves amongst them and even moving down different hallways to create the next shot, before making its was around the outside of the room as the trio take out the droids in the middle. It’s a great way to highlight how well Clone Force 99 work together and sends a message to the viewer that we are in for some great action in this final season.
Order 66 begins
From Episode 11: “Shattered”
As someone who knew the basics of what Dave Filoni had originally intended for the final arc before The Clone Wars was initially cancelled and had also read the Ahsoka novel and seen the season 7 trailers, I had a pretty decent idea that Order 66 would begin while Ahsoka was on the Star Destroyer, but the hints were there through the arc for other fans to keep the events of the episode in line with the events of Revenge of the Sith. Even I couldn’t have imagined how incredible the beginning of Order 66 would turn out to be! Seeing Ahsoka feel a disturbance in the Force while hearing the events of Mace Windu’s death and Anakin’s fall directly from the movie was a brilliant move, perfected by Anakin’s line of “What have I done?” switching to Matt Lanter, the voice of Anakin we associate with Ahsoka. And then to have Rex’s hands shaking and a tear rolling down his cheek as he tries to resist the programming forcing him to shoot Ahsoka brought so much emotion and tension to the moment, which certainly didn’t let up in the next moment as Ahsoka had to hold off the clones while “Anakin’s Dark Deeds” plays… It’s not easy to keep a dry eye through these moments!
Ahsoka v Maul
From Episode 10: “The Phantom Apprentice”
The climactic lightsaber duel of the season certainly lived up to expectations, even if it ends up playing out very differently to in the Ahsoka novel. While the fighting styles of both Maul and Ahsoka both feel different in this fight, I still think that it was a great idea to have Ray Park and Lauren Mary Kim choreograph this duel and perform it in motion capture as it leads to some amazing sequences and shots. The quips from each of the pair are on point and a double-bladed lightsaber vs twin lightsabers creates a great dimension, along with the location of the throne room and then the rafters above the city, while I like how Ahsoka holds her own but technically loses the duel, only to take advantage of Maul’s anger and overconfidence to capture him.
Finale & Epilogue
From Episode 12: “Victory and Death”
The finale and epilogue of the series have no dialogue, but they don’t need any to hit the perfect note. Having survived the crash of the Star Destroyer, we see Rex preparing the Y-wing in order to fly away, until he looks back towards the ship, where Ahsoka is standing over the graves for the clones that they were able to find. The camera pan over the helmets on the graves is already emotional enough, but seeing it land on Jesse’s helmet just takes things to a new level considering how long we have followed his journey. And then seeing Ahsoka drop her lightsaber before leaving says more than any dialogue could in that moment. Asif that wasn’t enough, the jump forward in time and introduction of Darth Vader in The Clone Wars animation was a brilliant move, tying the ending into Rebels with Vader finding the saber and seeing a convor flying overhead. Finally, the ending shot of the clone trooper helmet with Ahsoka-inspired paint design and Vader’s image reflected in the visor is the perfect ending to a show that introduced such great characters as Ahsoka and the individual clones, while giving us the depth behind Anakin’s fall to the dark side.
What are your favourite moments from season 7 of The Clone Wars?
Thanks for reading. May the Force be with you.
The Canon Padawan 