Club Jade

Time to see what the rest of the galaxy thought of last week’s episode of Star Wars: The Clone Wars: ‘Shadow Warrior’. You probably already know how much I liked it from my review here on Club Jade. But what did other people think of the Grievous-skewering, Gungan-possessing, Anakin-zapping, something-spoilery-happens episode?

• Eric at TheForce.net was in a quandary on this episode: He liked it, especially the Gungan stuff, but found many flaws in the story’s logic, most of it in the rushed ending.
• IGN gives it a 7/10, getting some good laughs out of Jar Jar but the ending was too rushed. One worry was the placement of this episode right after the Mon Cala arc showing the Gungans clearly on the side of the Republic.
• Peter at LightSaber Rattling found the beginning and ending weak, but found the “nuggety center … delicious” and calls Rish Loo is new favorite Gungan.
• Den of Geek found ‘Shadow Warrior’ “baffling” and “childish” and felt that this episode plopped us back into the same story as the Mon Cala arc.
• Bryan at Big Shiny Robot pulls together the Kurosawa and The Phantom Menace connections but feels like it ended “far too swiftly” to make it a top-tier episode.
• The HD Room goes 8.9/10 for ‘Shadow Warrior’ and points out that Anakin and Grievous both use arrogant tactics, and their “unwise actions ultimately cancel each other out, but neither is able to walk away from the episode under their own power.”
• Find Your Geek gives it a 9/10 in a lengthy review, and likened the meeting of Jar Jar and Grievous to the convergence of the paradigms of The Phantom Menace and Revenge of the Sith.

Common themes in the reviews: ‘Shadow Warrior’ excelled with the Gungans and Grievous in the middle act, but the ending with the capture of Anakin and the prisoner exchange was rushed.