How Order 66 Became the Best Scene in Star Wars

funding for shaperless is provided by squarespace the sponsor of today's video from websites and online stores to marketing tools and analytics squarespace is the all-in-one platform to build a beautiful online presence and run your business happy may the 4th gamers today i'd like to talk about the most wholesome scene in all of star wars order 66. edit i just found out what order 66 actually is how do i delete my previous sentence for those who don't know order 66 is a moment in the star wars canon that strikes fear into the hearts of all star wars fans it's the moment where palpatine right after luring anakin to the dark side and getting his face all puffy via force lightning contacts all the clone troopers across the galaxy and initiates a top secret order that forces them all to kill the jedi within moments the vast majority of the jedi order is wiped out in one fell swoop all thanks to the sinister senate it's one of the most important moments in the entire star wars canon but i have to say as someone who's been a star wars fan my entire life it didn't really feel all that impactful when it was first shown in revenge of the sith here's the thing the main tragedy of revenge of the sith story is anakin's fall to the dark side and the fact that he would go to such dark places and betray his friends and family in the process within the context of revenge of the sith story as it's presented solely in the movie order 66 feels like more of a cleanup job for the writing a way to explain how the jedi order spread out across the galaxy was wiped out and why only obi-wan and yoda remain it's a good scene thanks in large part to john william's excellent score but on its own it doesn't really elicit much emotional reaction from me and i feel like that's blasphemous to say so let me explain further pretend for a second that it's 2005. revenge of the sith has just come out in theaters and you're watching it you see this guy piloting his starship oh no he got shot down i mean that's kind of sad but also who was that guy oh yeah he was in the background and the other prequels oh no it's the blue lady she she was also that person in the background in the other movies and now she's dead oh man that's rough buddy now the guy with the pointy head is dead man oh well i guess i i i i i don't really know these people it's 2005. there's no long ass show dedicated to fleshing out the individual members of the jedi council who die here so like i don't know it's sad this long-standing institution is getting destroyed and that people are dying but i don't really know them so it kind of loses some of its emotional impact sure the score is excellent and yoda's reaction to these deaths is kind of sad but it's not quite as emotionally affecting as anakin's turn to the dark side say what you will about the acting and the directing and whatnot i certainly have but ultimately it's sad that anakin is turning his back on obi-wan because we know these characters and we may have grown attached to them because they were the focus of the prequel trilogy these other nameless dialogue-less jedi are not and yes i know that they had established names at this point you don't have to tell me it's just the fact that they never mentioned their names in the entire trilogy you know what other characters in this scene we don't know at all the clones in fact it's actually kind of hilarious in hindsight how unimportant the clones are to the movies they appear in an attack of the clones they act as a plot device a mysteriously funded army that the jedi can use during the clone wars that can also eventually betray them in revenge of the sith where they're also used as a plot device that kills the jedi order and then becomes the empire's army for a bit i guess they were just evil the whole time because they execute order 66 without question and kill the jedi they served under for three years well that's great i mean i guess it's still kind of a betrayal but it's a betrayal that practically non-existent characters are performing on other practically non-existent characters with the exceptions of obi-wan and yoda who survive anyway so it's not a huge deal once again it's a good scene but more so for the music and how it advances the plot not really because of any investment in the characters the betrayal here just feels underdeveloped because the characters involved in it aren't developed in the slightest so how come when i watch this scene nowadays it actually makes me cry in recent years order 66 has had somewhat of a renaissance in star wars media not only has the original scene and revenge of the sith been enhanced with new context and information courtesy of the clone wars but we've also gotten to see order 66 from way more perspectives than we've ever had before and it's happened to a lot more characters we've grown emotionally attached to over the years and it's been presented using much more compelling storytelling and directing techniques it's gone from a mildly sad thing that just kind of happened as a backdrop to anakin's fault of the dark side and palpatine's rise to power to the single most heartbreaking event in the entire star wars canon but how did we get here how did this small 4-minute scene in revenge of the sith become the basis for some of the best star wars stories out there well before we can talk about the new iterations of order 66 we have to talk about the show that laid the groundwork for the power of this moment star the clone wars wars yeah patrick and i are doing a retrospective on the entire series so we were and still are going to cover all this stuff eventually but it's still worth analyzing a ton of this show's brilliance here one of the best aspects of clone wars is how it fleshes out the key players of the order 66 scene and turns them into actual characters i'll admit i don't think we ever saw speeder bike lady in the show and yes i know her name is stasali you don't have to tell me but the other jedi in this scene become actual characters kiarimundi and ayla sakura both get arcs in this show where we get to see what their personalities are like and get a little attached to them and yeah we knew kitty mundy was very adamant about stopping the droid attack on the wookiees but we never really knew much of this guy's actual personality getting to actually see him playfully join anakin and ahsoka's game over who killed the most droids is a cute detail that adds to his character and makes his death a little sadder meanwhile plo hits way different this guy is super fleshed out in clone wars probably because he's dave filoni's favorite he has a special connection with ahsoka as the one who found her and brought her to the temple and he appears in a ton of episodes it's actually really sad to see him die now especially since he's the one who said that famous line about how clones aren't expendable to him speaking of which the other key players in this scene are the clones and at this point i don't need to tell you that the clones are infinitely better fleshed out in clone wars than they are in the prequels they all have individual personalities and aspirations and they feel like actual characters rather than plot devices most importantly they form bonds with their jedi generals which makes it all the more heartbreaking when they break those bonds and shoot the jedi down this is especially effective with commander cody we've gotten to see supporting obi-wan over the course of multiple episodes it kind of stings that their relationship ends in heartbreak and attempted murder but at the same time making the clones into such well-rounded and likable individuals throughout the first five seasons of clone wars kinda makes their betrayal make even less sense if they're not mindless drone to obey every order without question then why would they turn on the jedi with zero hesitation i pondered this for a while as a kid but fortunately the answer finally came in the season 6 inhibitor chip arc it's so hard to believe that arguably the most important clone wars arc in terms of its implications for the larger star wars canon almost didn't air because this was right when disney took over and canceled the show thank god they got to finish these episodes for a release on netflix because this arc really changes everything i'm not going to get too into it because again patrick and i are going to get to this arc when we cover season 6. but basically this storyline kicks off when clone trooper tupp suddenly shoots one of his jedi generals the jedi and other clones are stunned by this even though we as an audience can easily surmise that this is an accidental early instance of order 66 and this is later explicitly confirmed within the arc tuff is taken back to kamino so the kaminoans can run tests on him and discover the cause of his sudden urge to kill the jedi and by discover i mean cover up since the cameron owens don't want the jedi or the clones to know that the inhibitor chips placed inside of each clone's brain are meant to take away their free will and force them to carry out order 66 when the time comes top's chip malfunctioned and caused him to execute the order too early but the kaminoans are trying to claim that a virus caused tup to go haywire however tupps buddy fives conducts his own investigation and discovers that the inhibitor chips are inside of every clone he manages to remove his chip and requests an audience with a supreme chancellor to tell him all about the cameron owens manipulation but uh oh it wasn't their manipulation they were just following orders from lord tyranus aka count dooku who was just following orders from lord sidious aka the chancellor oh no yeah palpatine and the cameron owen successfully cover five's discovery up by drugging him causing him to go a little crazy and then pretending he attacked palpatine thus making the jedi believe that the clones will go violent and berserk without their inhibitor chips in and ultimately this arc ends in five's tragic death as he's gunned down by his own brothers it's one of the greatest stories the clone wars ever told with an unprecedented sense of eeriness to the proceedings because of its inevitable outcome we know fives's mission to warn the jedi can't be successful since order 66 does eventually play out as palpatine intended so it's especially tragic to watch this story and see just how close the jedi were to learning of palpatine's plot the existence of order 66 at this point in the canon heightens the dramatic power of this arc but the reverse is true even more so this story does wonders to make order 66 so much more compelling by introducing the concept of the inhibitor chip it reframes the clones as victims in order 66 they never wanted to betray their jedi generals the heroes they fought alongside for years in battle after battle conflict after conflict we've had five seasons worth of clones and jedi working together and bonding so to know it all gets thrown away in a heartbeat once palpatine flips the switch in their brains that causes this massive betrayal is just beyond heartbreaking this arc also enhances the disturbing power of order 66 through the use of two recurring lines the first one being good soldiers follow orders tupp keeps repeating this line before and after killing his jedi general and it's so alarmingly cold and robotic he seems entirely entranced as he says it unable to form any other thought all that matters to him is the order the directive to kill all jedi that he needs to follow in order to be a good soldier and this one line is so perfectly indicative of the horror of order 66 from the clone's perspective their free will their ability to think for themselves at all has been snatched away in an instant they've been reverted back to their original programming which necessitates pure obedience to every order without question it's a terrifying thought the idea that these troopers we've grown to love over the course of this series were not only mere pawns insidious quest for total galactic control but completely unwitting pawns at that well maybe not completely unwitting the second recurring line in this arc is a reference to the mission the nightmare in every clone's dreams top speaks about it to fives as he dies and then five speaks about it to rex during his own death the revelation that the clones are all subconsciously aware of the order is gut-wrenching deep in the back of their minds they know it's coming one day but they're powerless to stop themselves from carrying it out the only escape from executing order 66 is death top and fives express relief at finally being free of the horrific nightmare or rather premonition of what their futures hold if that doesn't bring a whole new angle of tragedy to order 66 then i don't know what does it fits in so perfectly without retconning anything we can watch this scene knowing that cody never wanted to betray obi-wan and order him shot down it was all the machinations of the chip but like yeah we know that's what's going on in canon now but we also know that that's not how this scene was originally filmed the inhibitor chips didn't exist back when george initially wrote revenge of the sith and even if that was his idea for why the clones betray the jedi it definitely doesn't come across at all in this movie you essentially need knowledge of the tv show that came out years after the fact to appreciate the full range of the tragedy at play here and that's not ideal i'm not gonna lie still for years revenge of the sith was all we had in terms of canon visual depictions of order 66. like i said earlier the disney buyout resulted in the cancellation of clone wars before it could reach its intended conclusion a depiction of order 66 from the perspectives of ahsoka and captain rex two characters invented for the clone wars show that didn't appear in revenge of the sith but for many years following the airing of the clone wars sixth and final season we never got to see that unfold on screen season six dropped a bombshell on us in terms of the inner workings of order 66 without the show ever getting a chance to portray the event itself on its own terms in a post-inhibitor chip canon the idea of ever seeing new depictions of this tragic moment seemed entirely implausible thanks in no small part to the franchise's new corporate overlords appearing to shun all prequel content in favor of hardcore pandering to the original trilogy it seemed like the end of order 66's story until it wasn't call it an altruistic miracle call it disney finally waking up and realizing that prequel nostalgia pandering was just as lucrative as original trilogy nostalgia pandering but whatever the reason disney announced that the clone wars would be given one last season and in it a chance to finally conclude with its intended final arc depicting the siege of mandalore and order 66. like most clone wars fans i was ecstatic but little did i know that this announcement was just the first piece of what would become a renaissance of order 66 content and in fact there was one other visual disney era depiction of order 66 that came out beforehand but before we talk about all this heavy stuff let's take a break to talk about websites you know the thing fives could have used to publish his findings about the inhibitor chip in order to stop order 66 before it started that's the power of websites baby and you can make your own using squarespace squarespace is a fantastic intuitive online website builder that allows you to create beautiful websites for your business or personal hobby present your work using squarespace's professional portfolio designs display projects and customizable galleries and add password protected pages to share private works with clients you can even present your videos from youtube vimeo and animoto on your squarespace site add an image overlay to your video to improve your website's load speed by waiting to embed video players until playback starts every design automatically includes a unique mobile presence that matches the overall style of your website so your content will look great on every device every time and if you don't want that you can always disable the mobile view from website manager buying a domain from squarespace is so simple because there are no hidden fees or price hikes each domain comes with an ad free parking page and free wh ois privacy on eligible domains squarespace sells over 200 top level domains so you can find the perfect name for your website choose a url that ends in com.net.org or you can always get a more specific one like dot art if you want to be fancy if you're ready to share your passions or promote your business with the rest of the world head to squarespace.com for a free trial and when you're ready to launch go to squarespace.com10 off your first purchase of a website or domain jedi fall in order is a game where you play as cal kestis a former jedi padawan who's gone into hiding in the five years following the jedi purge it's a pretty good game i played it when i first came out and i really enjoyed it throughout the game you occasionally flash back to your training with your jedi master and i didn't really think anything of it i was like okay that's a cute little flashback didn't seem necessary but it was nice i guess eventually you get to this one flashback where you're vibing with the clones on the way to your training it's cute to see cow being friends with these guys one of them even gives you a high five how wholesome you complete your training and make your way to your master where everything seems a-okay and then it happens are you okay i actually gasped when i saw this part it was obvious they were building up to this with the flashback scenes in hindsight but somehow this just threw me entirely for a loop when i first played this i saw these flashbacks as a chance to get some temporary relief from the horrors of cal's current reality but of course that didn't last we all knew going into this game that it wouldn't and yet i never would have expected this game to suddenly throw me into the shoes of a young padawan having to escape order 66. in my opinion this sequence is not only the best part of the game but a far more compelling depiction of order 66 than what revenge of the sith offered part of that is due to the interactivity of it all but you also have to give credit to the way it was built up to and framed by making it clear that the clones are cow's friends it makes their betrayal sting all the harder and by planting sidious's hologram in the background of the scene it better puts you into the shoes of these bewildered jedi jar to paul is having a terrifying vision and cal is concerned if his master is okay neither of them even notice that palpatine's order is what initiated this it perfectly reflects just how out of nowhere the whole situation was for the jedi running through the halls of the ship in constant fear of the clones catching you as you hear john williams brilliant order 66 score playing over everything is just such an indescribable feeling it's made even more potent by the fact that we got to know cal over the course of the game heightening the emotional investment of his urgent escape even more in the end his master is shot down dying right before him as one of the best music tracks from revenge of the sith anakin's dark deeds plays it's such a tremendously powerful sequence even if cal's scream at the end is a little bit silly so yeah between its buildup framing and unprecedented level of emotional investment this was pretty much the best canon interpretation of order 66 for about six months or so the final arc of clone wars is a masterpiece one of the greatest star wars stories of all time it flawlessly manages to simultaneously serve as a sequel to three of the show's greatest storylines maul's takeover of mandalore ahsoka's expulsion from the jedi order and our previous topic of discussion in this video the inhibitor chip mystery we all knew going in that this arc would overlap with the events of revenge of the sith and they make this fact explicitly clear multiple times throughout these episodes it's obvious throughout this siege of mandalore where ahsoka's leading troops in an effort to capture maul and free mandalore from his influence that these are indeed the end times throughout the second episode in this arc maul appears to be in constant fear of something some sort of major shift in the power dynamics of the galaxy that ties back to darth sidious we know what he's talking about but ahsoka and her allies don't and that's one of the many reasons this arc is so potent because not only do we know that order 66 is gonna happen sooner or later but also it's an event so horrifying that it has maul of all characters constantly on edge this seemingly fearless ruthless sith lord is terrified out of his mind over what sidious has in store so much so that after being bested by ahsoka in combat he begs her to let him die screaming hysterically at her and the clones maul is finally captured but nothing about the following proceedings are celebratory the tension at the beginning of the third episode in this arc is so palpable we got this eerie haunting music paired up with these incredibly long takes and throughout it all you just can't look away you keep thinking is this gonna be the moment it finally happens more than anything this is an episode that knows exactly what it has in terms of its story content and uses brilliant directorial techniques to keep you on the edge of your seat throughout the first 10 minutes ahsoka and rex have a brief conversation reflecting on the war and how despite all the horror and heartbreak it caused at least it allowed the clones to exist and for rex and ahsoka to be friends and it's like man we know what's coming the build up here is even more heartbreaking than it was in jedi fallen order because in that case we only just got to know cal and we don't know the clones that betrayed his trust but here we've had a whole series getting to know ahsoka and rex we know what they've been through together we know how much they trust each other and yes due to the existence of star wars rebels we know it ultimately will work out for them in the end but that doesn't lessen the supreme power of this one paradigm shifting moment execute order 66 the way rex's pupils dilate as if he's been possessed the way he shakes and drops his helmet to the ground the way he resists the chip's programming just long enough to tell ahsoka to find fives and uncover the truth all of this done with no music just eerie silence before the chip finally forces him to shoot resulting in the same blaring tragic music we heard as cal mourned his master the track anakin's dark deeds has become somewhat of an anthem for this terrifying event and it's a perfect encapsulation of the pure horror felt by everyone involved while revenge of the sith portrayed order 66 and then swiftly moved along to cover palpatine's declaration of the empire and the conclusion of anakin's fall these two final clone wars episodes are allowed to fully focus on order 66 and allow it to hold even greater dramatic weight than ever before after ahsoka learns the truth she captures rex and removes his inhibitor chip meaning we not only get a jedi's reaction to this event but a freed clones as well and seeing such a stoic and strong character like rex cry at the thought of having to kill his brothers is just brutal that's not even mentioning how the animation on the clones is specifically designed to be more robotic once the chip kicks in or the insane dramatic irony of the helmets depicting ahsoka's markings now belonging to unwitting mindless drones forced to shoot her down the final episode also makes surviving order 66 look like the near impossible feat that it was in canon like by comparison it makes it seem like obi-wan and yoda's clones didn't really try that hard to take them out no one could have survived that fall my ass now i don't want to diss the original scene too much it's good and it laid the groundwork for all order 66 content we have now but everything about the final two episodes of clone wars speaks to a true evolution of the directorial and storytelling capabilities of order 66. everything from the slow methodical tension-filled build-up to the raw power of the moment it finally happens to the ensuing nail-biting escape and ultimately the supremely tragic aftermath the burial of these heroes who became victims of a cruel plot in their last moments this arc serves as one of the greatest series finales ever made while also doing full justice to the concept of order 66. that's where i figure the depictions of this event would end but little did i know there was still more to come the first episode of the clone wars spin-off show the bad batch opens in the same way any clone wars episode would with exciting narration introducing us to the context of the battle we're about to see it's a simple clones versus droid skirmish with master depa billaba and her padawan caleb commanding the clones hey he looks familiar i wonder where he's from anyway the bad batch come in direct up and all is well except the opening narration made it clear that we're in revenge of the sith territory timeline wise and so once again we get to see order 66 depicted this time from the perspective of kane and jaris and once again it starts with sheer silence when the order is given before transitioning to dramatic music once kanan realizes what's going on we hear certain parts of anakin's dark deeds mixed in with a new score or maybe it's a returning score from rebels i honestly wouldn't know i never finished it but ultimately the lava is shot down as kanan runs off now this depiction of this scene is different from a comic that previously portrayed it which is weird and i kind of like the comic version a bit better but i also just wanted to stick to the main visual interpretations of order 66 for this video ultimately both versions of how this scene went down are great and enhance the scenes in rebels where kanan has to be reminded of order 66 and all the pain betrayal and heartbreak he felt back to the bad batch they are oddly enough just as confused as the jedi they don't know what order 66 means and they want to go help kanan except for crosshair who fires a kanan and repeats those chilling words good soldiers follow orders it's such a potent way to reveal that crosshairs inhibitor chip is actually working even while the rest of the bad batch's chips seem to be broken after kanan manages to escape thanks to hunter covering for him the bad batch is called back to kamino where they notice all the clones acting strange cold robotic the bad batch try to make sense of why the clones turned on master bilaba and i find this conversation so compelling because it's our first glimpse at how clone troopers with their original personalities and values before the inhibitor chip wipes those out would react to order 66. i'm sure any of the other clones we met over the course of the previous series would have similar conversations if their programming allowed for it but of course it doesn't and that's what tech correctly theorizes is the reason for the clone's sudden betrayal and robotic nature programming the cameron owens performed on them that doesn't affect the bad batch because of their unique enhancements and yet it still managed to affect crosshair who continues to argue that hunter let kanan escape and that they should have just followed orders without questioning them it makes for such a compelling conflict between a half brainwashed clone and his non-brainwashed comrades again a whole new angle to view order 66 from that's about it in terms of discussing the bad batch the inhibitor chips do have lasting consequences in later episodes but we pretty much covered everything surrounding order 66 in this show anyway that seems like it should be it in terms of modern order 66 interpretations right no idiot we have to talk about everyone's favorite show the book of boba fett features an entire episode mostly dedicated to luke skywalker training baby yoda if that doesn't tell you what a gigantic this show was i don't know what will but this episode features a flashback grogu has to order 66. there's not really a whole lot to say here it's just clones shooting jedi from grogu's perspective it's interesting to see how he suppressed this traumatic memory for so many years and i feel like we might see more of this flashback in the future since we still don't know who saved him from the jedi temple so i guess that's an indication that new interpretations of order 66 are gonna keep coming out we've had four in the past four years and the more new star wars stories get told the more angles we'll potentially get to see for this paradigm shifting event so now let's bookend things and return to that original scene from revenge of the sith it's still the same scene as it was back in 2005 but it really does feel much more meaningful and significant these days now when i watch it i'm invested in the characters dying and the ones being forced to carry out the order plus i not only see the jedi on screen but i picture ahsoka cal kanan grogu rex jesse all the new characters we've grown to love over the years since this movie came out who all suffered at the exact same time don't get me wrong all this supplemental material enhancing the story being told in this movie doesn't automatically make the movie itself better but it does make the viewing experience better and more impactful and i can't help but get emotional with this scene nowadays i mean it's a well constructed scene even if you hate the movie overall and you don't have the context for all the new order 66 material the cinematography and editing are really strong the music is beyond phenomenal it's a good strong scene definitely not the best depiction of order 66 in the entire series but it did the extremely important job of laying the groundwork for some of the most amazing scenes and stories in all of star wars it took a while for this moment to reach its full dramatic potential but it was absolutely worth it in the end and like i said this might not even be the end for order 66 i can't wait to see what other horrific compelling depictions of it we'll get in the future anyway if you enjoyed this video and want more revenge of the sith content i'm also releasing a long ass youtube poop of the movie and it's supplemental material today on my second channel shave classic time to abandon self-destruct has been activated revenge of the senate for baby only took four years to make go check it out if you want good night tri-state galaxy [Music] [Applause] you

Channel: Schaffrillas Productions

Views: 2,194,236

Keywords: Schaffrillas Productions, Star Wars, Revenge of the Sith, Order 66, Clone Wars, The Bad Batch, Ahsoka, Anakin, Rex, The Book of Boba Fett, Grogu

Id: bgISq88coX0

Length: 30min 22sec (1822 seconds)

Published: Wed May 04 2022