Clone Wars Chapter 21

"Chapter 21" is the twenty-first episode of the Star Wars: Clone Wars animated television series, and the first episode in Season Three and Volume II. The episode originally aired on Cartoon Network on March 21, 2005.

Synopsis
A customized Low Altitude Assault Transport/infantry speeds across the surface of Hypori. On board the gunship, a squad of Advanced Recon Commandos prepare their weapons for attack. A jamming signal prevents their detection by an army of B2 super battle droids surrounding a crashed Acclamator I-class assault ship. The gunship drops a cluster of thermal detonators, armed on standby, among the droids.

The troopers disembark, their commander&mdash;Captain Fordo&mdash;detecting three life signs. Two of the ARC troopers go after the nearest two, while the rest follow Fordo to the third reading; the transport is flown skywards to open fire on the approaching battle droids. As the troopers exit a tunnel, they encounter General Grievous, who is in the midst of a vicious lightsaber duel with Jedi Master Ki-Adi-Mundi. Just as he disarms Mundi and prepares to finish him off, they both notice the clones, who unleash a barrage of blaster fire at the cyborg. Grievous flees the attack, climbing up the wall and onto the ceiling. As Grievous leaps down and quickly kills four of the troopers using two of his lightsabers, the commander calls for backup. The hovering LAAT/i breaks into the area and opens fire on the General with its blasters and missiles, which he evades.

"No, we must pursue!"

- Ki-Adi Mundi

Fordo orders his men to retreat, despite Ki-Adi-Mundi's initial insistence that they pursue Grievous. Two Jedi, Aayla Secura and Shaak Ti, have survived the attack by General Grievous and are recovering on board the LAAT/i. Meanwhile, Grievous takes a lightsaber from the seemingly lifeless body of K'Kruhk and adds it to his collection.

The ARC troopers detonate the explosives, destroying hundreds of droids. General Grievous watches the transport head into space, musing that they have only delayed the inevitable&hellip;

On Coruscant, Yoda has a vision of the nine-year-old Anakin Skywalker and the late Qui-Gon Jinn on Dagobah. Qui-Gon tells Anakin he must face his fear by entering the Dark Side Cave, and to trust in the Force.

At a meeting of the Jedi High Council, Ki-Adi-Mundi tells his fellow council-members of the defeat on Hypori. Since the Jedi numbers are spread so thinly, the Council decide to promote Anakin Skywalker to full Jedi Knight status at Obi-Wan Kenobi's request, despite protests from Master Oppo Rancisis.

Anakin walks through crowds amid the lower levels of Coruscant, surveying the surrounding people, including many non-humans, with suspicion. He thinks a hooded figure is following him, so he races off. At the entrance to an alleyway, he grabs the mysterious figure and ignites his lightsaber before realizing his pursuer is his beloved wife, Padmé Amidala. They share a kiss and, thinking they have been seen by a passerby, Anakin rants that they should not have to hide their love. Padmé reminds him of his duty to the Jedi Order and that she'll always love him. He jokes that Padmé does look good in the dark and they kiss again, though this time they are interrupted by C-3PO, who is clad in brand-new, gold-colored coverings. Anakin claims to be impressed; most impressed.

Anakin is called by Obi-Wan to the Jedi Temple, but he arrives late, interpreting his being summoned as a prelude to another scolding. Kenobi reminds his Padawan that he is no longer a child but must still follow his Master's orders. Anakin retorts that Obi-Wan is "no Qui-Gon Jinn."; this saddens Obi-Wan visibly and Anakin immediately regrets his hurtful comment, apologizing. Master Kenobi forgives his student and then shows him to a dark room, where Obi-Wan and the other Jedi Masters surround Anakin and ignite their lightsabers. Yoda knights Anakin, cutting off his Padawan braid, which C-3PO later presents to Padmé, which she happily stores away with her Japor snippet for safekeeping. In return, Padmé gives R2-D2 to Anakin, the droid showing the new Knight a hologrammatic recording of Padmé presenting him the gift and accepting his own. Anakin smiles at the sight and reaches into the hologram with his mechno-arm as if to hold her in his hand. He and R2 then board his Actis-class starfighter and leave once again to serve together in the Clone Wars&hellip;

Voice cast

 * Padmé Amidala, Adi Gallia and Shaak Ti .... Grey DeLisle
 * ARC Captain and ARC Trooper .... André Sogliuzzo
 * C-3PO .... Anthony Daniels
 * Kit Fisto and General Grievous .... Richard McGonagle
 * Qui-Gon Jinn .... Fred Tatasciore
 * Obi-Wan Kenobi and Agen Kolar .... James Arnold Taylor
 * Ki-Adi-Mundi and Even Piell .... Daran Norris
 * Oppo Rancisis .... Fred Tatasciore
 * Anakin Skywalker .... Mat Lucas
 * Young Anakin Skywalker .... Frankie Ryan Manriquez
 * Yoda .... Tom Kane

Continuity

 * Anakin's starfighter which appears at the end of the episode causes a continuity problem between this and the CGI Clone Wars series. In The Clone Wars Anakin uses an Aethersprite, but here he uses already an Actis like in Episode III. Since this is set before the CGI series, this causes some continuity problems.

However, Hasbro's toy of The Clone Wars starfighter can help retcon this Starfighter. On the toy, the Droid part of the ship can be ejected, making the ship similar to the Actis. So perhaps Anakin's starfighter seen here is actually his one from The Clone Wars, simply without the Droid part of the ship. The fact that there is already a Droid compartment on this ship,can still be retconed into a customisation Anakin made to the ship, which was later removed.

Behind the scenes
Although K'Kruhk appears to have been killed by Grievous in Chapter 20, and is not rescued with the other Jedi, he is actually known to have survived this battle and is in a state of hibernation when Grievous takes his lightsaber.

There are several easter eggs during the Coruscant street scene: an animated version of Genndy Tartakovsky, a creature resembling "The Creeper" from the Scooby-Doo cartoons, the Cylon Centurion from the original Battlestar Galactica and a "Woolie" from Tartakovky's series Samurai Jack.

Although Eeth Koth remained canonically dead after the Battle of Geonosis, a Zabrak Jedi High Council member that appears in the Council scene, officially credited as Agen Kolar, was animated instead with the likeness of Eeth Koth. It is unknown if the character was originally intended to be Eeth Koth (in ignorance of his canonical death) and then retroactively credited as Agen Kolar to avoid a continuity problem, or if the Zabrak was always intended to be Kolar and the animators accidentally used the wrong reference photographs.

The significance of C-3PO's offering of Anakin's Padawan braid to Padmé is explained in the novelization of Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith.

When C-3PO reveals his new golden plating to Anakin, a musical cue of "stripper music" can be heard. This was acknowledged by Genndy Tartakovsky in the Volume II DVD commentary. In the same scene, Anakin's line ''Impressive. Most impressive. mimics the same'' line he, as Darth Vader, says over two decades later, in Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back, to his son, Luke Skywalker.

When Genndy Tartakovsky and team began working on this episode, George Lucas's first instruction to the crew was to resolve the Hypori storyline which the crew had began in "Chapter 20". He specified this because his son Jett was eager to find out how that particular story ends, as there were originally no plans to continue the series beyond "Chapter 20".

The unique designs on the front of the clones' LAATs were inspired by nose art seen on military aircraft. According to Paul Rudish on the Clone Wars Volume II DVD commentary, the front of the LAAT featured at the beginning of this episode was meant to look like the face of a rancor.

The clones' customizations of their helmets in this episode and in the rest of Volume II is based on real-life actions done by soldiers during World War II and the Vietnam War.

According to the commentary for "Chapter 3", the creators had studied how special forces teams acted in real combat situations, to ensure the ARC troopers acted very much like a crack special forces team would. They apparently reapplied their knowledge for this episode (Captain Fordo used hand signals instead of actually speaking, and as they approach Ki-Adi-Mundi and General Grievous he directed members to perform what appear to be flanking maneuvers).

According to the episode commentary, Ki-Adi-Mundi's concern for Shaak Ti was intended to hint at a possible relationship between the two.

Most of the sentient species in the Mos Eisley Cantina scenes in A New Hope appear in the underlevels of Coruscant.

"Chapter 25" attempted to give an explanation on why Grievous wheezes when he talks. On the film commentary for the DVD of Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith, John Knoll noted the reason for Grievous's cough in Revenge of the Sith was due to the Force Crush Mace Windu gave him in this series. Canonically, this should be combined with George Lucas's explanation that the General's body didn't adapt well with the cybernetics as he was an experiment for the technology perfected with Darth Vader's armor, to give the reason of Grievous's cough. The Grievous in Clone Wars is depicted as larger, far more aggressive and acrobatic than his movie counterpart. While the Grievous of the film is described as a coward and repeatedly flees until cornered, the Grievous of Star Wars: Clone Wars appears anything but, repeatedly taking on numerous Jedi single-handedly (though this inconsistency can be "explained" by stating that after Mace crushed his chest, he learned his lesson and started running from Jedi in order to avoid it happening to him again). Though the damage he suffered from Mace Windu may have largely affected his stamina and movement capability. Grievous also does not split his arms into four arms until the final chapter, but instead, on one occasion, to prevent Ki-Adi Mundi from using his lightsaber, he uses one foot to use a third lightsaber (Ki-Adi's).