- Title: Star Wars: The Clone Wars – Rising Malevolence / Shadow of Malevolence / Destroy Malevolence
- wiki: link
- wiki: link
- wiki: link
The first multi-episode arc of the series centers around General Grievous‘ (Matthew Wood) ship The Malevolence and its massive ion canon which the Separatist commander has been using to cripple Republic patrols and outposts. “Rising Malevolence” focuses on Jedi Master Plo Koon (James Arnold Taylor) and clone troopers Boost, Sinker, and Wolfe discovering the truth about the new weapon while holding out for survival in the wreckage after its attack in the Abregado system. “Shadow of Malevolence” follows Anakin (Matt Lanter), Shadow Squadron, and a fleet of new Y-Wing bombers of Clone Troopers taking a shortcut through the the Kaliida Nebula in order to sneak up on Grievous and destroy the ship which is preemptively stopped in “Destroy Malevolence” when Palpatine (Tim Curry) leads Senator Amidala (Catherine Taber) into a trap allowing Grievous to temporarily halt the attack.
“Destroy Malevolence” introduces a disturbing trend which will recur often in the show’s First Season. Every time Padme appears in an episode she is taken prisoner or hostage in some way. Sometimes she gets out of the trouble on her own, sometimes she needs help, but the damsel in distress storyline (introduced here) gets old rather quickly. It’s also worth noting although Asoka and Ventress are a couple of the better designed characters, the show seems to have trouble with more human-looking females as Padme doesn’t quite look or move right for several of the scenes she appears in. The haunted doll quality is unintentionally disconcerting but it looks like the show gets better with the character as her story continues past these episodes. “Shadow of Malevolence” not only showcases Anakin’s flight skills but his legend within the Republic fleet and his indomitable will as the show begins us how far the character has to fall in the third Star Wars prequel and the hubris which will play a part in it.
