Downfall of a Droid

"Trust in your friends, and they'll have reason to trust in you."

- Moral

"Downfall of a Droid" is the sixth episode of Season One of the television series Star Wars: The Clone Wars. Its title was first revealed by Henry Gilroy in an interview that featured in Star Wars Insider 103. It was postponed for one week, in observance of Halloween, and aired on November 7. This is the first episode written by Megas XLR creator, George Krstic.

Official description
''R2-D2 is lost during a fierce space battle - and Anakin, along with Ahsoka and a replacement droid, R3-S6, must find him before the Separatists discover the Jedi military secrets locked in his memory banks."

Plot summary
Because Grievous has been ambushing Republic fleets at places like Falleen, Obi-Wan advises that Anakin take his fleet out of the Bothawui system and regroup, but he has a plan to defeat General Grievous. At that moment, Grievous's fleet is advancing on his. Anakin leads Gold Squadron in a frontal assault, informing his forces to wait for the right moment as Grievous' fleet advances through the asteroid belt. This gives Rex and his brigade of AT-TEs a chance to ambush the Separatist frigates from behind.

Because his droid commander is too incompetent on where to retreat to, Grievous flees the ship on his personal starfighter. Anakin and Artoo pursue him until a shrapnel embedded in the fighter causes it to careen off course. Anakin later wakes up aboard the Resolute, learning that he was salvaged from his fighter; Artoo was not. However, he informs Obi-Wan that he didn't erase Artoo's memory, which would be a severe liability should the astromech fall into Separatist hands. Anakin heads a salvage operation to recover Artoo, but Ahsoka shows him the new R3-S6, who has better skills than an R2-unit, calling him Goldie. As they search the debris field, they spot a freighter and dock with it. The Trandoshan captain, Gha Nachkt, claims there is no R2 unit on board but allows them to search anyway. Anakin hears Artoo's beep and begins to slice through the door that he thinks he heard it in. But Goldie accidentally activates two IG-86 units instead of opening the door. The two Jedi manage to slice the droids in pieces as Anakin gets through the door, only to find Gha, who is angry that his droids were destroyed. Ahsoka concludes that Artoo is not on board and they leave. But unfortunately, Gha had the little droid locked in a crate with a restraining bolt on and contacts Grievous, informing him that the droid is of great strategic value. Artoo later escapes while Gha is sleeping, flushing one of his IG units out of the airlock, only to be discovered by the Trandoshan.

Figuring that Grievous has a listening post somewhere, Anakin decides to go scouting but Ahsoka sends along R3, saying they could bond. R3 instead accidentally turns on the tracking device, alerting Grievous to his position. R3 only makes things go from bad to worse, detaching Anakin's fighter from its hyperspace ring, not cutting the engines when he is told to, and disabling the blaster cannons. He is luckily saved by Ahsoka and Rex in the Twilight. Grievous, frustrated with Skywalker's escape, beheads a battle droid in rage. Anakin chastises the incompetent droid over nearly getting him killed and hopes that Artoo is still out there.

Cast

 * Dee Bradley Baker as Clone troopers
 * Ashley Eckstein as Ahsoka Tano
 * Tom Kane as Narrator
 * Matt Lanter as Anakin Skywalker
 * Ron Perlman as Gha Nachkt
 * James Arnold Taylor as Obi-Wan Kenobi
 * Matthew Wood as General Grievous, Battle droids

Decoded
The Decoded version of the episode aired on June 6, 2009. The annotating character for the episode was supposedly Obi-Wan, yet some annotations still referred to the character as, "Obi-wan" rather than, "myself" or "I." The annotations included many facts about various ships and some characters featured in the episode. Unique information provided by the annotations included the fact that the chest plates worn by Anakin and Obi-Wan were based on designs of ancient Jedi armor. Stim plugs were named for the first time. Also, it was revealed that Gha Nachkt damaged his eye in a cantina fight.

Behind the scenes
The opening scene of this episode, described and even illustrated in the accompanying Episode Guide, was cut probably because of the strong time limit of the TV format. Additionally, there were other scenes that appeared in The Untold Stories DVD featurette of the The Clone Wars film that were apparently cut from the episode due to similar reasons.

Part of Obi-Wan's dialogue reveals the presence of dimes in the Star Wars Universe.

The episode's original moral was "Friends are hard to find, difficult to leave, impossible to forget."

This episode was the second to be produced, which means that it possesses the earliest-produced animation in the TV series. Also, Ahsoka's maneuver of the Twilight between the two Munificent-class frigates explains Anakin's later hesitation about her flying ability in the later-produced episode Shadow of Malevolence.

Continuity
Anakin's hair appears reversed near the end of the episode.

When Anakin is scolding R3-S6, the droid's dome appears reversed for a moment.

When Ahsoka gives Rex a command, he replies by saying Yes, sir!, rather than by her gender. It would be a mistake only if she preferred "ma'am" or Commander, the rank established for Padawans, or it could be that the clones simply don't observe gender differences among officers, only civilians.

The IG-86 droid Ahsoka fights in the cargo hold of the Vulture’s Claw has one of its arms cut off by Anakin, but during the fight sequence, the droid has its arm back for a moment.

There was a short line removed from the finished episode which had Ahsoka say "did somebody call for help, again?" after she destroyed vulture droids that were about to destroy Anakin's fighter, although it was still present in the dataclip of the episode.

There was another line that was cut from the episode where Anakin said, "and I'm going to find him" just after he declared that R2 was not destroyed and "still out there". It was also still present in the dataclip.

DVD Release
In the United Kingdom, HMV released this episode on DVD, as an 'exclusive preview episode', priced at £1.99 in a slimline DVD case.