Max sinks his teeth into the triumphant return of The Clone Wars in Season 7.5 – “Gone With A Trace”
“Gone with a Trace” is the first of the “new” Clone Wars episodes (original content) and faces some of the same pacing problems that befell The Rise of Skywalker. Everything happens WAY too fast, and we are barely able to breathe, as Ahsoka gets thrust into a new situation. It opens with Ahsoka flying a crummy speeder through the underworld of Coruscant, which malfunctions and almost kills her.
Upon landing, Ahsoka meets Trace Martez, a girl who……fixes droids? It’s not really clear what Trace is. She claims she wants to be a pilot, but in the meantime; she is kind of like Yeager from Resistance. She makes mechanical repairs for money. Ahsoka’s character model has been updated and her voice and appearance match closer to that of her adult self we see in Rebels. Ahsoka is brooding and melancholy in this episode, which seems to fit since she has just left the only place she ever called home. Trace doesn’t like the Jedi and Ahsoka is extremely cool in disguising her identity. She almost displays signs of social awkwardness which is unusual for her character, but I guess she has a lot weighing on her mind.
The main problem with this episode is how poorly it is structured. First, we see a jerky alien and his goons threaten Trace, saying she needs to pay them. A fight breaks out almost immediately. They beat each other around and the fight abruptly ends and both sides act like nothing happened. Trace remains a boring character. Later in the episode, we are introduced to Trace’s older sister Rafa, who is apparently the head of their operations and wears a luxurious looking fur coat. Maybe she stole it?
The main part is hard to discern but Ahsoka and Trace work on Binary load lifters which are repurposed Demolition Droids. Die-hard fans will remember load lifters from A New Hope; as C-3PO erroneously stated that programming them was his first job. One of the droids goes haywire and Ahsoka has to stop it. It’s a really boring sequence and this episode did not start the arc off on a good foot.
The only thing I thought was cool was that we get to see the Star Wars world version of what appears to be a laundromat. No droids were spotted, so perhaps the underworld still has organics do it, but perhaps it was closed at the time. Due to the scattered and unstructured flow of this episode, I have a hunch it is Filoni baloney. Very disappointed, I give this episode a C minus.
Star Wars: The Clone Wars is streaming now exclusively on Disney+
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Max Nocerino is a new addition to the Future of the Force roster. He is a passionate Star Wars fan and loves the literature of the galaxy far, far away. Follow him on Twitter @MaxN2100 where he channels his passion frequently!
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Max Nocerino is a regular Staff Writer for The Future of the Force. He is a passionate Star Wars fan and loves the literature of the galaxy far, far away. Follow him on Twitter where he shares his love of the Force frequently!
