Star Wars: Visions Presents - The Ninth Jedi : 7 : The Jedi Strike Back
What is it ? : Kara is heading for Hy Izlam with the hunter, she tells him she is going to her father, but the hunter realises she is committing to facing against Nawaam alone if necessary.
The Jedi Fleet arrives at Hy Izlam, and Ethan, Homen, and Kwana board and find Zhima and 99-99 waiting for them. As they speak fleets headed by Tafflah and Dundai arrive, and then Kara arrives and is reunited with her father. The hunter enters just after her and Zhima goes to attack recognising him, but he ignites the lightsaber Kara has given him and the blade is blue, so Zhima accepts that he isn't evil. Zhima apologises for everything, telling Kara that he never wanted the life of a Jedi for her, and he remembers when she was young, playing on Margraves lap as he worked on making lightsabers.
Nawaam's ship emerges from Hyperspace and they spot the fleet amassed around Hy Izlam, and he launches a number of cruisers from around his vessel and uses a tractor beam to pull in Hy Izlam so they can harvest the giant Kyber Crystal at it's heart. Gennoh takes a shuttle, seeking revenge on Zhima, arriving along with a massive shielded Battle Droid. while the fleets engage, Zhima fights Gennoh, and Kara and the others fight the battle droid.
Gennohs cybernetic body splits it's arms and reveals blasters built into the hands, and provides a real challenge for Zhima, who tries to explain that the Kyber Crystal at the heart of Hy Izlam is just too pure to be used for the Kyber Cannon, that the blast from it will not stop, so if fired at a planet the blast will destroy the planet and everything beyond it, destroying a cone out of the entire galaxy in whatever direction it is fired. But Gennog doesn't care, he just seeks revenge.
Nawaam releases mining vessels to drill into Hy Izlam, and the others realise that the force shield on the giant battle droid blocks their sabers but is draining a lot of power so can't last forever.
So Kara stands before the battle droid as it fires, focusing, and survives the blast, and both her and Zhima's silver lightsabers flare, allowing her to defeat the droid, and Zhima to slice up Gennoh killing him.
The mining ships extract the Kyber Crystal from the heart of Hy Izlam, and Nawaam's ship tractor beams it in, and Zhima declares it is time to finish this saying he is going after Nawaam. . . .
High Points : The multiple simultaneous fights are very well done, Zhima versus Gennoh particularly, Zhima trying to convince the Sith that the galaxy is in danger, but the Sith being so focused on his revenge (a very Sith thing) that he just doesn't care. The Battle Droid seems very similar to the one from the end of The Book of Boba Fett, a giant droid invulnerable behind massive shields firing a storm of blaster fire, but this time instead of using a Rancor to defeat it, they use super neutral powers. And something which is often done poorly outside the movies, the space battle outside is epic, with asteroid ships and Nawaams cruisers hammering each other with heavy fire.
Low Points : The structure of the episode seems a little out of whack though, the first half is all people arriving at Hy Izlam and talking, essential to put everyone in place, but the tension has been building and instead of having the battle begin and then swing one way and another as forces arrive to reinforce. We get everyone arrive and then just shoot at one another.
Kara's neutrality force powers really just seem to look like Jedi Powers to me, her waiting for the droid to fire reminded me of Qui-Gon meditating before fighting Maul in The Phantom Menace, I really don't see what the difference is. And the more I think of it, I'm reminded of Obi-Wan's advice to Luke when he's training on board te Millennium Falcon, "let go your conscious self and act on instinct" and "Stretch out with your feelings!".
This has always been Kara's story, but with so many Jedi being built up during the run, they're all looking a bit useless, Ethan, Homen, Kwana, Tafflah and Dundai all prove pretty much ineffectual just standing around while Kara solves the problems, and Gramps hasn't had a good line in episodes. It's a large cast, and most of them barely get a line in, making me wonder why they're in the story at all.
For getting towards the finale of the season, there's really not a lot of Nawaam in this episode with still a lot of story to be told and explained about him, we get a scene of him accepting that Gennoh is going for revenge, and ordering the Crystal captured, but I really want to get inside his head and it's beginning to look as if we're not going to get him as fully fleshed out as the series seems to have promised throughout. But with 1 episode to go, we could get everything I want in the finale.
So what do you really think ? : An action packed second half of the episode follows scene after scene of people arriving and getting in a line or two. The main plot isn't explained any further or progressed, with the battle just being an excuse for Zhima going after Nawaam later. There's nothing terrible in this episode, but it's all just a bit of a let down, the series seems to promise so much more, but in the service of looking like Star Wars it just puts in conventional story beats rather than really experimenting which is where the series has stood out. Not terrible in any way, but just not great.
Final Words : Not a down point but I found it convenient that the Hunter igniting the Lightsaber ends up with a Blue Blade, which shows his heart, even though last episode he said that Kara better pay well, he seems to be more of a Han Solo type, where he claims to be in it just for the money, but has a good heart.
Score : 8/10
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