Star Wars: The Clone Wars episode 16 review

Episode 16: The Hidden Enemy

WARNING: This review contains spoilers that may ruin your enjoyment of this episode.

You might want to concentrate closely as this week’s episode of The Clone Wars acts as a prequel to last year’s theatrical release of the animated series. Though, judging on how many people actually went to see it, it shouldn’t really be a problem. And, for fans of the show, it looks like Season Two will be doing more flipping around the timelines, acting as an anthology as opposed to a narrative story.

I digress. The Hidden Enemy refers to one of the Clones – there’s a turncoat in their midst. Accompanied by the Jedi, the gang find themselves bested by Battle Droids due to some sneaky action by one of their own. They realise quickly and put some detective work into action whilst Obi Wan and Anakin do battle with bad gal Sith, Asajj Ventress.

The lightsabre ‘duel’ between the Sith and the Jedi is quite spectacular with some well choreographed moves (if you can do such a thing with CG) and, as always, spot-on direction. In particular, the reveal of the advancing Separatist army on Christophsis, just when Skywalker and Kenobi think they have Ventress cornered, was worthy of the films themselves.

Indeed, the final fight between the Clone ‘brothers’ was pretty graphic with some severe bone-crunching action. And this is where, as has been the case in the past few weeks, we are presented with some more thoughtful ideas behind the nature of the war being fought.

Once safely reprimanded, the ‘rogue’ Clone (I won’t say who!) claims he was striking a blow for all Clones saying, “It’s the Jedi who keep my brothers enslaved. We do your bidding, we serve at your whim.” Cripes! For the first time in the saga, the audience is confronted with the uncomfortable fact that these sentient beings are slaves. The word ‘brothers’ certainly evokes a modern interpretation of events.

The Clone Wars seems to be muddying the waters, and I do not mean this in any negative at all, of the nature of the war taking place. For us older viewers, it’s already a bit sketchy trying to remember who’s who, but I congratulate the makers heartily on facing up to some tricky issues whilst creating beautiful visuals paired with nerf-herding excitement. And there’s a double-bill next wee., Whoo-hoo!

Check out Cameron’s review of episode 15 here.