The unique environment with these unique enemies and weapons for one thing. This arc really distinguished a lot of clones in the 501st. The fact that Pong Krell was a traitor really caught me off guard. By the end of the arc we all knew he was a douche bag but it turns out he was a traitorous douche bag lol. One of my biggest takeaways from this arc was even though the 501st captured Umbara, they didn’t really win. Krell forced them to question everything they knew and believed in, he turned them against one another and so many of their brothers died needlessly.

For one thing it's the color the coloration of the battle the blue and the green reflecting off of the purple and pink plants coloring the darkness of the night as the LAAT's illuminate the hellscape with their blinding lights it's just beautiful while the raging battle plays on it's an absolute masterpiece and we haven't even got to the part where Pong Krell comes in

The Umbara arc itself is legendary, easily one of TCW’s best storylines. I’m not a big fan of the battle itself though, it’s fairly average.

Krell

I have to say that it was more of a Clone based arc and they had to fight Pong Krell who turned out be a Sith lord. It was a dark battle because of Krell treated the troopers compared to other Jedi. Plus the action was good and sad sacrifice for Hardcase. Rex not following orders and going his own way with his troops while Dogma stayed loyal to Krell even though it was wrong.

At all times there is action, they humanize the clones and present us with new clones like Hardcase.

It's my favorite clone wars arc.

Interesting comparison to D-Day. I’ve always thought of TCW’s Second Battle of Geonosis as the nod to D-Day (rushing the dug-in enemy with swarms of gunships) while Umbara was more like Vietnam (guerrilla fighting in an exotic environment).

This was really the first time the clones were developed in an interesting way. Sure, Waxer and Boil had some quiet moments of humanity in “Innocents of Ryloth” and the show explored how clones deal with their existence being contingent on the war in “The Deserter.”

But Umbara explored the idea of “good soldiers follow orders” in a surprisingly mature and complex way. It’s impressive how one insanely talented voice actor gave each character so much individuality. Fives, Hardcase, and Rex were such great characters to follow throughout this arc.

And yeah, the battle itself is awesome. The Umabran military technology is so alien and uniquely designed. I loved it.

My only nit-pick was that I don’t think they should’ve made Krell a traitor. I still think he’s one of the best antagonists in TCW due to how unique he is compared to the other Saturday morning villains the Republic fights against, but I think it would’ve been more interesting to just have him be a crappy leader and Jedi who the clones just can’t morally justify taking orders from anymore.

Making him Dooku’s agent dilutes that moral quandary by making him a clear-cut “bad guy” and side-steps more mature story and character development. It’s one of the few times I felt TCW “cop-out.”

You made some good points. No need to apologize for offering your thoughts on an interesting topic!

I agree that Krell is one of the most interesting Clone Wars-villains. He is not an obvious antagonist like Ventress, it takes more time to realize that he's actually acting against the protagonists. And even then, there is still the problem that he's the legit leader of the clones. You can't just fight him like Dooku or Ventress since he's officially part of the Republic and of the Jedi Order. And, like Dogma, there are still clones who consider duty to your superior as more important than ethical questions. So, in the end, Krell didn't only turn the clones against each other in a physical way (sending the 501st and the 212th in a battle against each other) but also plants agitation among them by challenging their sense of duty

@Fisto Pump Thats true what you said about The second battle of Genosis being more like D-day and Umbara more like the Vietnam war. And ya, Krell would have been better off without Dooku having anything to do with it.

The fight scenes, the star fighters and the AT-RTs