Rising Malevolence

Star Wars: The Clone WarsJedi Master Plo Koon is tracking a mysterious Separatist warship through the Abregado system. He contacts Anakin Skywalker and his padawan, Ahsoka Tano, in hopes of acquiring backup. But Anakin has strict orders and cannot join him. When communications are cut off, Master Koon and his clone troops find themselves under attack by a massively powerful ion cannon that wipes out all power and destroys all three of Koon’s ships. Master Koon and his men flee in escape pods, but soon find themselves hunted down, as a droid task force cheerily steers its pod hunter from pod to pod, cracking them open and dumping the inhabitants into open space. Urged on by his padawan’s close relationship with Master Koon, Anakin decides to defy his orders and takes his ship, the Twilight, to Abregado in search of Master Koon. But time is running out both for the lost Jedi and his men and for Anakin, whose actions bring down the disapproval of both the Jedi Council and Chancellor Palpatine, all of whom want him to return. Anakin must weigh the importance of obedience to orders with obedience to his instincts.

written by Steven Melching
directed by Dave Filoni
music by Kevin Kiner / original Star Wars themes by John Williams

Cast: Dee Bradley Baker (Commander Woolffe / Sinker / Boost), James Arnold Taylor (Plo Koon / Obi-Wan Kenobi / 4-A7), Matthew Wood (Battle Droids / General Grievous), Corey Burton (Count Dooku), Ashley Eckstein (Ahsoka Tano), Matt Lanter (Anakin Skywalker), Terrence “TC” Carson (Mace Windu), Ian Abercrombie (Chancellor Palpatine), Tom Kane (Yoda / Admiral Yularen / Narrator), Tim Brock (Medical Droid)

LogBook entry by Philip R. Frey

Notes:This episode is the first part of a trilogy dealing with the Separatists’ new weapon and the ship Malevolence. It is production number 7.

Jedi Fortune Cookie: “Belief is not a matter of choice, but of conviction.”

Although Jedi Plo Koon has been on view as far back as Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace, he was silent in all film appearances. He is a favorite character of series Supervising Director Dave Filoni, who uses Koon’s image as an approval mark on series artwork.

There are several homages to the original trilogy in this episode:

  • The visual similarity between the firing of Malevolence’s ion cannon and the Death Star weapon.
  • An escape pod numbered 1977 (the original release year of Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope).
  • Dialogue between Sinker and Boost that duplicates a conversation between Han Solo and Chewbacca in Star Wars: Episode V – The Empire Strikes Back.
  • When Plo Koon contacts Anakin and Ahsoka, they are in the Bith system, which is the homeworld of Figrin D’an and the Modal Nodes a.k.a the Cantina Band from A New Hope.

    Master Koon and Ahsoka briefly speak the Kel Dor language, one of the few non-“Basic” languages heard outside of the commonly used Huttese.

    Terrence “TC” Carson voiced Mace Windu in the previous animated Clone Wars series and in several video games. He also voiced Darth Vader in the video game Star Wars: Galactic Battlegrounds. Other voice work includes Life with Louie, The Animatrix, and Afro Samurai, where he worked opposite Samuel L. Jackson, Mace Windu’s original actor. He is probably best known for his five-year stint on the sitcom Living Single.

    Tim Brock, in addition to voicing the 2-1B Medical Droid, is a concept artist for The Clone Wars and has worked in the color field on shows such as Aeon Flux, Spawn and Futurama.

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