Quarantine Control #137: Tales for Hope Well Lived

It’s since become clear who won the midterm elections in the United States now that it’s been nine days since they happened. Republicans will take the House of Representatives, albeit more narrowly than predicted, while the Democrats will keep the Senate. The most important result involves how all the election deniers running in swing stages lost their elections, which will help prevent efforts to overthrow the results for the 2024 presidential election to the fascists. Speaking of the fascists: The news gets worse and dumber. But let’s stop here before everyone gets depressed thinking about how much “fun” 2024 and the aftermath could be.

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Geoffrey Barnes

Star Wars: Tales of the Jedi (2022)
Source: Disney Plus
Episodes: 6

For Star Wars in western CG animation form, it appears that all roads lead back to The Clone Wars. Credit to the efforts to drift away from the era, including Star Wars Rebels (which nonetheless included several Clone Wars characters) and Star Wars Resistance (which garnered the worst reception of any animated work), but it’s clear that Lucasfilm has made sure to listen to what fans wanted. Clone Wars was by far the best and most well-received of their animated efforts, which is why the much-needed final season was one of the first shows to grace Disney Plus when it launched, why The Bad Batch, which takes place immediately after the Clone Wars, is the newest show (returning for a second season in January). It’s, finally, why Star Wars: Tales of the Jedi, a series of six superlative shorts, exists.

Tales of the Jedi’s episodes take place before and after the Clone Wars, focusing on what popular face Ahsoka (reprised by Ashley Eckstein) did just after Order 66 and a young Count Dooku (reprised by Corey Burton) before and to his place by Emperor Palpatine’s side as Darth Tyranus. The series partially gives Ahsoka and her family a spotlight, and shows which characters helped Ahsoka survive a chaotic time for the Jedi beyond showing her escape in the Clone Wars’ finale. Meanwhile, the young Count Dooku, accompanied by padawan Qui-Gon Jinn (Micheál Richardson younger; reprised by Liam Neeson older — the former being the latter’s son) is shown to be a faithful Jedi who sometimes questions whether the Jedi Council’s methods are truly for the best in the galaxy. It also elaborates on what the hell Yaddle (Bryce Dallas Howard) was even doing, alongside an interesting fact about Yoda.

They’re all short episodes, with the longest one being about 19 minutes, but the storytelling team stuffed plenty of content into a short timeframe. The short time helped it move at a great pace. Let me be honest here, though: Absolutely none of this content qualifies as “necessary” for Star Wars lore. But I’ll also be honest by saying that anyone far too invested in this franchise will find it entertaining, as I did. It’s a great time for anyone (spoiler: me) who wondered what these characters were doing at other points within the Star Wars timeline.

It was also worth it to see more Clone Wars content in Lucasfilm’s current extremely pretty animation style. The final season of the Clone Wars floored prior animated works when it aired in early 2020, and this was another opportunity to see a story focusing on characters outside a defective group of Clone Troopers in this pretty of a style. It’s helped by one of the best musical scores Kevin Kilner has provided in his long time composing soundtracks to animated Star Wars content. Kilner appeared to take equal inspiration from prior Star Wars movie soundtracks (particularly those from John Williams) and those from Disney and Pixar animated works.

The quality of these was so good that I hope they aren’t the only shorts from Lucasfilm’s internal animation studio planned for the near future. It was perhaps the best they could manage while also working to make sure The Bad Batch’s second season premieres on time in January, but there are still animated Star Wars stories they could tackle around the Clone Wars era. Important events like the fate of Asajj Ventress and a number of Darth Maul stories only happened within comics and novels of uncertain canonical status. None of these would require entire seasons to expound upon and show in animated form; they could be done through shorts just like these.

It speaks to the high quality of Tales of the Jedi that I’d like to see more, to no surprise considering the animated Star Wars content has been consistently higher in quality compared to live-action works. In the meantime, there are plenty of adventures to be had with The Bad Batch, and potential adventures outside the current Star Wars timelines.

P.S. Oh! There was something else too.

Zen – Grogu and Dust Bunnies (2022)
Source: Disney Plus
Episodes: 1 short

Disney also somewhat-surprisingly released Zen — Grogu and Dust Bunnies, a short featuring “Baby Yoda” character Grogu from The Mandalorian, released for the series’ third anniversary. The animation came courtesy of Studio Ghibli, and features the dust bunnies from Spirited Away. It’s… not much, lasting barely three minutes, the kind of short a production company would release to demonstrate their animation abilities for free on YouTube. But it was enjoyable enough to watch, and features a superlative music remix from Mandalorian/The Book of Boba Fett composer Ludwig Göransson. It also, importantly, leaves the door open for future collaborations between Ghibli and Lucasfilm — and perhaps Ghibli and Disney as a whole again. Let’s hope that happens soon, in a more robust form than a short for the next Star Wars Visions collection.

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Joseph Daniels

This week, I come to you with an interesting fact about Korean folktales, one that is very appropriate for the Year of the Tiger.  Although “once upon a time” is often used, even in Korea, there is a phrase unique to some of their folktales.  “Back when tigers used to smoke” is used to denote a time long, long ago.  I guess in some ways, it’s their version of “A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away.”

So with that in mind, this week I’d like to talk about the following show, now that it’s on topic for the Year of the Tiger.

Once Upon A Time (2011)
Source: Disney+
Epis

Nah, just kidding, it’s Desert Bus week.

Desert Bus For Hope 2022
Source: Twitch
Raised so far: $678,022.77 this yea

The sixteenth year of Desert Bus For Hope is also the first year since the pandemic where they’re holding it in person, and it feels like a return to what made the pre-pandemic years special.  With that said, the event has always been evolving, and its current form has been influenced as much by its first thirteen years as it has the two years that were limited by the pandemic.  The overnight, “Zeta” shift has retained the “work from home” model of 2020 and 2021, meaning no one on Zeta actually has to go to the Moonbase if it’s not feasible for them.

The best thing about Desert Bus For Hope is that there has only been one year where they didn’t beat the previous year’s total, and last year they raised well over a million dollars.  There’s still plenty of time in the last forty hours or so to reach that total this year, given how much has been raised so far and just how many awesome giveaways there are left.  There’s also at least one upcoming live auction that I’m anticipating will reach five figures before all is said and done, and that’s going to be exciting.

Quarantine Control columns #33 and 85 have more information about the event, as well as the official website at desertbus.org.

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Angela Moseley

Rick and Morty Season 6, Part 1 (2022)
Source: Cartoon Network
Episodes: 6

I was so impressed with the season 6 premier of Rick and Morty that I wrote about it for Quarantine Control #128. Of course strong season premiers aren’t always indicative of a strong season overall. Seasons 4 and 5 had strong starts, sagged in the middle, and went on to have strong finales. This year the producers of this sci-fi comedy have a different approach in mind with a split season. Through September and October we saw the first six episodes of season 6. We’ll have to wait until the 20th of November to start on the remaining four episodes. Fortunately, season 6 not only had a strong start, but each episode has been fantastic. I have no doubt that the showrunners will deliver a strong batch of final episodes for the season.

I’ll break down what I enjoyed about the six episodes that have aired so far:

• “Solaricks” raised the issue of continuity and consequences. Namely, Rick having lost access to the portal gun and having to instead rely on the interdimensional rift Evil Morty created at the end of season 5. This has meant no instant travel, and adventures are mostly localized in one dimension. That all changes with the events of episode six, “Juricksic Mort,” which I’ll discuss later. Rick, Morty, and this version of the Smith family’s adventures have been exciting to watch with the absence of portals. What I really loved was how the first half of this season allowed everyone to explore themselves in new ways.

 

• In “Rick: A Mort Well Lived” Morty explored his relationship with Rick thanks to a freak accident that left all of his consciousness scattered across billions of individual people in an arcade game. As Rick encouraged his grandson to literally reunite, a war broke out over blindly following Rick or not. The most rebellious parts of Morty were left behind, and I can’t help but wonder if this means the remainder of Morty’s consciousness saw a soft reset and is now more obedient. That is a popular fan theory, but I’m doubtful. Also, seeing Summer “do a Die Hard,” was fun as a fan the Die Hard movies. She truly is Rick’s go-to in tough situations.

 

• I’m not going to lie, “Bethic Twinstinct” might be my second favorite episode of this season so far. Dan Harmon seems to have an obsession with incest, but compared to season 5 it was handled so much better here. Beth-on-Space Beth action was pretty damned funny, especially as each member of the Smith family coped with the revelation in their own ways. (Rick has done everything in the universe, including himself, so he doesn’t care.) The realism in video games parody was a hilarious bonus. The episode seems to be exploring issue of self-love, narcissism, and marital obligations through Beth. We also get some deeper insight into Jerry as a person.

 

• In “Night Family” issues of self-actualization and what it means to respect those who work for you are explored. This episode also doubled as a neat horror episode. Rick is bested by Summer in so many ways here. Also, it shows that kindness and understanding are qualities that shouldn’t be mocked or underestimated. Jerry is shown to come through in a clutch thanks to these qualities, where Rick more or less screws things up because of his inability to compromise. The biggest takeaway from this episode might be Summer’s genius potential and how she (or an alternate dimension version of herself) may challenge Rick someday.

 

• “Final DeSmithation” was a rare Rick and Jerry episode. The last time we saw this pair together in their own episode was in season 3’s “The Whirly Dirly Conspiracy.” The relationship between the two men is considerably better now. As Jerry receives a weird message in his fortune cookie and freaks out. No one takes him seriously, but Rick is surprisingly sympathetic. The episode escalates wildly as fate is explained in scientific terms and Rick gives up an opportunity to control fate in order to help Jerry. Yes, this is another episode with incest vibes, but it works out so well because a line is almost crossed, and it’s weirdly funny. Additionally, I noticed the trend of making Rick less of an asshole and more sympathetic to the needs of others.

 

• The final episode of the first half of season 6,”Juricksic Mort” pretty much resets the issue of the portal gun. In fact, the reset was made purposely unsatisfying by the writers. Likely as a middle finger to the audience and to subvert the expectations of having an entire season of portal-free travel. This episode also provides a good demonstration of how Rick always isn’t the smartest being in the universe as he’s bested by hyper-intelligent space traveling dinosaurs.

The beauty of this season was in its return to form. These new episodes of Rick and Morty feel like the best of both worlds. The scenarios that made seasons 1 through 3 fantastic, while keeping the larger character developments explored in seasons 4 and 5. I have high hopes for the final four episodes of this season. I’ll let you know if the showrunners managed to stick the landing.

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It was mentioned above that Democrats staved off Republican wins in the midterms. But it’s also possible part of that was due to conservative voters not getting vaccinated in high-enough rates compared to liberals thanks to denialism. They’re literally killing off their own voters. Ah, if only they read the reminders in the ledes and conclusions to these Quarantine Control posts regarding how lethal COVID was (and is) and to get vaccinated. This doubles as a reminder to get your COVID and flu shots if you haven’t yet.