[TV] The What Animation Are You Watching Thread 2!: The Sequel!

Santa Inc

Saw the first ep on a lark and was NOT impressed. Just a bunch of tacked on cursing from what I can see so far. Might watch more, but I don't know.
 
I finished the newest and final season of F Is for Family. Not bad, but the ending is kind of a downer. Maybe the finale is just a truthful portrayal of life in the '70s. Towns like Rustvale were getting creamed left and right, and blue-collar workers like Frank were completely helpless in the face of deindustrialization.
 
Every once in awhile, I'll try watching the Star Wars: The Clone Wars cartoon. I keep hearing how it's this amazing show. And every time, I'll watch a few episodes, and quickly lose interest. As of right now, I'm on Season 2, Episode 18, the furthest I've reached so far. And I think I've realized why it fails to engage me.

See, the Clone Wars is one giant, diabolical scheme by Palpatine/Darth Sidious. He orchestrated the original trade embargo that kicked off The Phantom Menace, which created the Separatist movement. He controls Count Dooku and General Grievous. But he also orchestrated the creation of the clone army, which creates the titular Clone War. And the clone army are led by various Jedi generals.

In other words, literally EVERYONE on both sides of the war works for Palpatine, whether they know it or not. Every victory for the clone army is another foothold for the future evil Empire. We know this. We knew this when the Clone Wars cartoon started. And yet, many episodes portray the clone troopers as heroes. Victories against the Separatists look like this big victory. New planets join the Alliance, likely with a clone trooper regiment stationed there. You know, the clone troopers who we all know would eventually become storm stroopers.

In other words, the entire show is about seeing the bad guys win, battle by battle. And every single Jedi that goes along with it are COMPLETE MORONS. Obi-Wan, Yoda, Anakin. All of them. It's hard to root for them when they're played for patsies. We've already seen them fail miserably at the end of Revenge of the Sith.

Not to mention they keep making me want to care about the clone troopers and why should I? They're canon fodder. Storm troopers and clone troopers have always just been faceless canon fodder to be cut down by a lightsaber or a blaster. Why should I give two shits about three or four literally identical guys?

And honestly, I find prequels era of Star Wars dull. It's all posturing politics about alliances and it's all crisp and clean. What I liked about the original trilogy era is the griminess. Ships breaking down because you're working off spare parts. Half of it was just about surviving under the boot of a fascist empire. It had grounded guys like Han Solo putting hoity-toity guys like Obi-Wan in their place and not into their bullshit. And the prequel era of Star Wars is sorely lacking a grounded character like Han Solo to roll his eyes at all of the nonsense. It's like having a party full of paladins without a rogue to challenge them.

And yet I keep watching all of this show, thinking it might get better. But it's just so dull.
 
Last edited:
Every once in awhile, I'll try watching the Star Wars: The Clone Wars cartoon. I keep hearing how it's this amazing show. And every time, I'll watch a few episodes, and quickly lose interest. As of right now, I'm on Season 2, Episode 18, the furthest I've reached so far. And I think I've realized why it fails to engage me.

See, the Clone Wars is one giant, diabolical scheme by Palpatine/Darth Sidious. He orchestrated the original trade embargo that kicked off The Phantom Menace, which created the Separatist movement. He controls Count Dooku and General Grievous. But he also orchestrated the creation of the clone army, which creates the titular Clone War. And the clone army are led by various Jedi generals.

In other words, literally EVERYONE on both sides of the war works for Palpatine, whether they know it or not. Every victory for the clone army is another foothold for the future evil Empire. We know this. We knew this when the Clone Wars cartoon started. And yet, many episodes portray the clone troopers as heroes. Victories against the Separatists look like this big victory. New planets join the Alliance, likely with a clone trooper regiment stationed there. You know, the clone troopers who we all know would eventually become storm stroopers.

In other words, the entire show is about seeing the bad guys win, battle by battle. And every single Jedi that goes along with it are COMPLETE MORONS. Obi-Wan, Yoda, Anakin. All of them. It's hard to root for them when they're played for patsies. We've already seen them fail miserably at the end of Revenge of the Sith.

Not to mention they keep making me want to care about the clone troopers and why should I? They're canon fodder. Storm troopers and clone troopers have always just been faceless canon fodder to be cut down by a lightsaber or a blaster. Why should I give two shits about three or four literally identical guys?

And honestly, I find prequels era of Star Wars dull. It's all posturing politics about alliances and it's all crisp and clean. What I liked about the original trilogy era is the griminess. Ships breaking down because you're working off spare parts. Half of it was just about surviving under the boot of a fascist empire. It had grounded guys like Han Solo putting hoity-toity guys like Obi-Wan in their place and not into their bullshit. And the prequel era of Star Wars is sorely lacking a grounded character like Han Solo to roll his eyes at all of the nonsense. It's like having a party full of paladins without a rogue to challenge them.

And yet I keep watching all of this show, thinking it might get better. But it's just so dull.
It's a lot easier to find sympathy for the Clone Army in general after the finale of Clone Wars, as well as after Rebels and The Bad Batch. If you're having trouble watching ALL the series (and yes, there IS boring filler), here's an abbreviated list of what I'd consider to be important or good episodes. I'm dividing by season. Some are presented out of order, mostly because an earlier episode directly matters for the rest of them. Episodes with a * are important multi episode arcs for the given reason.

S3E01: Clone Cadets
S1E05: Rookies
S1E09: Cloak of Darkness
S1E10: Lair of Grievous
S1E11: Dooku Captured
S1E12: The Gungan General
S1E19: Storm over Ryloth *1
S1E20: Innocents of Ryloth *2 Asoka Development, Important for Rebels
S1E21: Liberty on Ryloth *3


S2E01: Holocron Heist
S2E02: Cargo of Doom
S2E03: Children of the Force
S2E05: Landing at Point Rain
S2E06: Weapons Factory
S2E07: Legacy of Terror
S2E08: Brain Invaders
S2E10: The Deserter (Important for The Bad Batch)
S2E12: The Mandalore Plot *1
S2E13: Voyage of Temptation *2 - Start of Mandalore multi-season arc, introduction of Death Watch, important for The Mandalorian
S2E14: Duchess of Mandalore *3
S2E17: Bounty Hunters (Not REALLY important but fun and Akira Kurosawa inspired!)
S2E20: Death Trap
S2E21: R2 Come Home
S2E22: Lethal Trackdown

S3E02: ARC Troopers
S1E22: Hostage Crisis *1
S3E09: Hunt for Ziro *2 - Related
S3E10: Heroes on Both Sides *1
S3E11: Pursuit of Peace * 2- Good Padme arc
S3E12: Nightsisters *1
S3E13: Monster *2 - Ventress development, one of the best three parters
S3E14: Witches of the Mist *3
S3E15: Overlords *1
S3E16: Altar of Mortis *2 - Raises some good questions about the Force that other media echo
S3E17: Ghosts of Mortis *3
S3E18: The Citadel *1
S3E19: Counter Attack *2 - Directly referenced in The Bad Batch
S3E20: Citadel Rescue *3

The series in general starts getting WAY darker from this point on

S4E07: Darkness on Umbara
S4E08: The General
S4E09: Plan of Dissent
S4E10: Carnage of Krell
S4E14: A Friend In Need
S4E15: Deception
S4E16: Friends and Enemies
S4E17: The Box
S4E18: Crisis on Naboo
S4E19: Massacre *1
E4E20: Bounty *2 - Ventress Development
S4E21: Brothers *1
S4E22: Revenge *2 - Must sees, Important for rest of Clone Wars and Rebels

S5E02: A War on Two Fronts *1
S5E03: Front Runners *2
S5E04: The Soft War *3 Good Asoka focused 4-parter
S5E05: Tipping Points *4

S5E01: Revival
S5E14: Eminence
S5E15: Shades of Reason
S5E16: The Lawless
S5E17: Sabotage *1
S5E18: The Jedi Who Knew Too Much *2
S5E19: To Catch a Jedi *3 Culmination of a lot of plot lines, important Asoka stuff, end of Cartoon Network run.
S5E20: The Wrong Jedi *4

Start of Netflix Season

S6E01: The Unknown
S6E02: Conspiracy
S6E03: Fugitive
S6E04: Orders
S6E10: The Lost One
S6E11: Voices
S6E12: Destiny
S6E13: Sacrifice

Disney+ final season

S7E01: The Bad Batch *1
S7E02: A Distant Echo *2
S7E03: On The Wings Of Keeradaks *3 Bad Batch 4-parter, ends storyline of Clones first introduced in S3E01: Clone Cadets
S7E04: Unfinished Business *4
S7E05: Gone With A Trace *1
S7E06: Deal No Deal *2 Asoka focused 4-parter. Could skip if you want, but I think it's important development for her.
S7E07: Dangerous Debt *3
S7E08: Together Again *4
S7E09: Old Friends Not Forgotten *1
S7E10: The Phantom Apprentice *2 Resolves Mandalore arc, is what Asoka was doing during most of Revenge of the Sith.
Maybe watch Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith here?
S7E11: Shattered *1
S7E12: Victory And Death *2 Finale of Clone Wars


That's still a lot of episodes to get through, but it cuts most of the non-relevant episodes. If you're still up for more, I'd suggest jumping into The Bad Batch before Rebels, if only because Rebels occurs much closer to the original trilogy.
 
By “cartoon” I thought you meant the Cartoon Network series that came out in the early aughts. It took me a while to realize you were talking about the other series.
 
Every once in awhile, I'll try watching the Star Wars: The Clone Wars cartoon. I keep hearing how it's this amazing show. And every time, I'll watch a few episodes, and quickly lose interest. As of right now, I'm on Season 2, Episode 18, the furthest I've reached so far. And I think I've realized why it fails to engage me.

See, the Clone Wars is one giant, diabolical scheme by Palpatine/Darth Sidious. He orchestrated the original trade embargo that kicked off The Phantom Menace, which created the Separatist movement. He controls Count Dooku and General Grievous. But he also orchestrated the creation of the clone army, which creates the titular Clone War. And the clone army are led by various Jedi generals.

In other words, literally EVERYONE on both sides of the war works for Palpatine, whether they know it or not. Every victory for the clone army is another foothold for the future evil Empire. We know this. We knew this when the Clone Wars cartoon started. And yet, many episodes portray the clone troopers as heroes. Victories against the Separatists look like this big victory. New planets join the Alliance, likely with a clone trooper regiment stationed there. You know, the clone troopers who we all know would eventually become storm stroopers.

In other words, the entire show is about seeing the bad guys win, battle by battle. And every single Jedi that goes along with it are COMPLETE MORONS. Obi-Wan, Yoda, Anakin. All of them. It's hard to root for them when they're played for patsies. We've already seen them fail miserably at the end of Revenge of the Sith.

Not to mention they keep making me want to care about the clone troopers and why should I? They're canon fodder. Storm troopers and clone troopers have always just been faceless canon fodder to be cut down by a lightsaber or a blaster. Why should I give two shits about three or four literally identical guys?

And honestly, I find prequels era of Star Wars dull. It's all posturing politics about alliances and it's all crisp and clean. What I liked about the original trilogy era is the griminess. Ships breaking down because you're working off spare parts. Half of it was just about surviving under the boot of a fascist empire. It had grounded guys like Han Solo putting hoity-toity guys like Obi-Wan in their place and not into their bullshit. And the prequel era of Star Wars is sorely lacking a grounded character like Han Solo to roll his eyes at all of the nonsense. It's like having a party full of paladins without a rogue to challenge them.

And yet I keep watching all of this show, thinking it might get better. But it's just so dull.
If you find it dull, don't watch it, it's ok not to like something and not everything is for everyone. I liked the clone wars, but I can certainly see how others won't, and it's hard to justify saying "yeah but it gets really good in the second half" when that's a ton of episodes away.

In regards to everyone being on the bad side, that's kind of the point. There are no good sides in war, and no one comes out of war unchanged and uncorrupted. It's the war itself that lets palpatine win, which side comes out ahead is irrelevant (especially since he controls both sides). It's through war that the republic and the Jedi sacrifice their convictions, and it's through war that Anakin grows into his own and shapes his world view
 
Clone wars is worth the slog, and there is definitely a lot of filler that needs to be cut. It does make the first trilogy movies much more viewable though. They always felt so rushed, and the clone wars added what was needed to make you actually care about anakin.
 

GasBandit

Staff member
I had a similar discussion with Emrys about Inuyasha.

"Man, that takes me back. They really did that series justice in the end."
"Should we watch that?"
"Oh dear god no, I wouldn't put you through all the filler of the first 80% of the series."
 
I had a similar discussion with Emrys about Inuyasha.

"Man, that takes me back. They really did that series justice in the end."
"Should we watch that?"
"Oh dear god no, I wouldn't put you through all the filler of the first 80% of the series."
I've watched that show out of order scores of times in my youth, and almost all of those bedamned arcs could've gone in the place of any other arc.
 
Finished Santa Inc and...its NOT the worst thing I've ever seen honestly. Some of the jokes aren't the best, either not landing, too much set-up, or a LITTLE to crass/offensive, but I've seen worse adult animated series. I wasn't sure about seeing it all the way through due to audience scores...until I realized the bulk of complaints were for it being "Woke", and insert logical conclusion here.
 
A New Wallace & Gromit Movie Is Coming to Netflix. The new movie, due out in 2024, will be directed by Wallace & Gromit creator Nick Park, and Aardman’s Creative Director for the franchise, Merlin Crossingham. (Gizmodo)
 

GasBandit

Staff member
Watched the first few episodes of Arcane. So far I am not liking how much the plot relies on headstrong idiots doing idiotic things despite common sense and elder advisors all telling them "don't do that."
 
Watched Disney's Tangled.

Pretty decent movie, very of the era that it released for Disney movies but overall I really enjoyed it. But uh.. did Tarantino direct this?

There's an awful lot of emphasis by the camera on bare feet. Rapunzel spends the entire movie barefoot and the framing is always certain to show you this, complete with a zoom in establishing shot to show that her toenails are painted.

It's fucking weird
 

GasBandit

Staff member
And if some lame-o adult starts yelling at you about “responsibility” & stuff, just turn your Walkman up louder and keep blowin‘ stuff up! Radical!

—Patrick
Yeah, seems about right.

"X is off limits, it's too dangerous"
"I can do it! I'm 13 years old and smarter than every adult, so we're gonna do X! Then they'll see they can trust us with stuff because we completely and knowingly disobeyed direct orders!"
"Ooh yeah! And I'm 10 years old, so logically I must be EVEN SMARTER THAN YOU and can do the things YOU tell me not to!"
"Yeah, well I'm a college student and I saw something neat happen once so now I'm convinced I can safely build the magical equivalent of a nuclear reactor in my apartment, I just gotta keep it on the down low because the universally respected and beloved head of my educational institution thinks it's too dangerous, but obviously by dint of youth and 'wanting it more,' I am smarter than him..."

Cue the explosions and massive loss of life.

"We all literally learned nothing! Let's DO IT AGAIN!"
 
Yeah, seems about right.

"X is off limits, it's too dangerous"
"I can do it! I'm 13 years old and smarter than every adult, so we're gonna do X! Then they'll see they can trust us with stuff because we completely and knowingly disobeyed direct orders!"
"Ooh yeah! And I'm 10 years old, so logically I must be EVEN SMARTER THAN YOU and can do the things YOU tell me not to!"
"Yeah, well I'm a college student and I saw something neat happen once so now I'm convinced I can safely build the magical equivalent of a nuclear reactor in my apartment, I just gotta keep it on the down low because the universally respected and beloved head of my educational institution thinks it's too dangerous, but obviously by dint of youth and 'wanting it more,' I am smarter than him..."

Cue the explosions and massive loss of life.

"We all literally learned nothing! Let's DO IT AGAIN!"
 

GasBandit

Staff member
Finished Arcane.

Eh. It was ok. I really dislike it when a series ends a season on a cliffhanger manufactured out of what should be the dramatic climax of the arc. It feels like trying to take hostages when negotiating more seasons and not releasing the hostages even after your demands have been met, at least not for many, many months.

I suppose it's also inevitable that I would be unenthused about a LoL series that focused on the characters that had the least of my interest. VI and Jinx are the self-insert avatars of people who think they could go on a murderous rampage any moment but struggle to summon the courage to ask for extra ketchup packets.

Maybe next time tell me the story of how Miss Fortune toppled Gangplank. Or literally anything having to do with Veigar, that would be extra hilarious.

Also "Noxus Noxus Noxus But in Noxus if this was Noxus We aren't Noxus!" Impressive they didn't manage to even mention any of the other 8 nations even once by name.

Boy they really decided to crank the cognitive dissonance to 11 for the mental pretzel that is Jayce, huh.

Did Heimerdinger SO dirty.

#ForcefullyRetireYourDongers

I will admit, it did give me a small, tiny, eensy weensy urge to try LoL again for the first time in years... which quickly dissipated once I looked up the changes they've made to the champions that I used to use during the interval. And then of course I remembered what the LoL community was actually like, too.
 
Last edited:
Eh. It was ok. I really dislike it when a series ends a season on a cliffhanger manufactured out of what should be the dramatic climax of the arc. It feels like trying to take hostages when negotiating more seasons and not releasing the hostages even after your demands have been met, at least not for many, many months.
So true and a huge peeve of mine. Honestly, any show that does not plan to have a real ending for each season and instead has a cliffhanger drives me crazy. You never know if the show will actually continue.

One of the worst offenders I can remember in recent memory was the first ThunderCats revival in 2011. It was actually not that bad of a show, and attempted to be a more mature take on the series with a long narrative spanning the whole thing. Issue is, they ended the season only half way through the adventure and even had a huge betrayal, like they were assured to continue in another season, and then Cartoon Network cancelled it, so we just got dumped half way through the whole narrative like reading a book only to find out half the pages are blank. That show will never have a payoff now.

It's okay to want to have more seasons, but keep each season self contained in its own narrative.
 
Last edited:
I'm watching more Clone Wars and I'm starting to get into it. The Season 3 finale, with Asoka and other younglings hunted was a lot of fun. And the Season 4 opening story with the underwater planet has been a blast.

People have said the show gets better eventually. Am I at that point now?
 
Top