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He proved to be a capable soldier, helping the Astromech unit, D-Squad, escape a tight jam. Suffering from amnesia, he took up a job as a dishwasher and remained hidden in plain sight until a Republic official accidentally outed him. We first met this uncomfortable chuckler in the Star Wars: The Clone Wars episode “ Missing in Action.” During the Battle of Sarrish, Gregor sustained a traumatic head injury when his shuttle crashed on Abafar. The signal Clone Force 99 gets from Rex belongs to one such educator: former Clone soldier Gregor. They recognize their abilities, and as such, they make fine teachers for the TKs. They got the numbers.Īs was indicated in the Bad Batch premiere, the Empire only wants to retain a handful of Clone soldiers. The Stormtroopers don’t have their skill, but they don’t need it either. Clone Force 99 is stunned by their ineptitude, and they’re actually relieved to discover that there are no Clones under their helmets. They don’t appear to be nimble on their feet, and as we witness in The Bad Batch Episode 14, they are a clumsy lot. McQuarrie’s early Stormtroopers are a touch chunkier, a little beefier. They’re the paintings that show Deak Starkiller (Luke Skywalker’s prototype) gas-masked in battle with a much more samurai-influenced Darth Vader. If you’ve been around the block once or twice, there’s no doubt you’ve seen these pieces. Before the films were ever a reality, George Lucas asked the artist to whip up some images that he could bring into pitch meetings. Highlighting this transitional period, these early model TK troopers wear designs based on the painting of Star Wars conceptual artist Ralph McQuarrie. They’re staring at Stormtroopers, generation one. Immediately they’re put on edge when they spot the armor these new troopers are sporting. Clone Force 99 is hunting a distress signal, and it leads them to a heavily fortified base. His desire to do so only intensifies with the knowledge that a despot kickstarted his existence.īefore he jumps off the call, Rex points Clone Force 99 to Daro, another one of those pesky Outer Rim planets where the Empire is up to no good. He was born to serve and eradicate despotic rule. Hunter still can’t shake his desire to fight the good fight, and while he balks at ditching a paid job for a favor, old loyalty forces his hand. The Bad Batch Episode 14, entitled “War-Mantle,” sees Clone Force 99 accepting another mission from Captain Rex despite the gig they’re already pulling for bartender bounty hunter Cid. He merely needs a neverending supply of blaster fire. And, yeah, their aim won’t be worth a damn, but the Emperor doesn’t need sharpshooters. Make the universe outside the Empire so wretched, and every youth will come running for one of those sweet, sweet Stormtrooper costumes. The Clones served their purpose, but why waste money on their construction when three times as many free grunts are willing to sign their lives away for a roof and a sandwich. As Star Wars: The Bad Batch Season 1 marches toward its conclusion, the Galaxy’s new rulers are doing their best to sweep the Republic under the rug. In this entry, we’re charging into Star Wars: The Bad Batch Episode 14 (“War-Mantle”) and catching up with classic Clone commandos Scorch and Gregor. Welcome to The Bad Batch Explained, our weekly column dedicated to those rough and tumble Clone Wars leftovers and their march through a bold, new galaxy far, far away. This happened while he was working with cathode rays in 1897. Thomson was the first person to discover electrons. Also, they cannot combine with other atoms to form compounds. All these elements are gases that have no color or smell. For example, helium, neon, argon, krypton, and xenon are all in the same column and have very similar properties. Elements in the same column, or period, usually have similar properties. The periodic table groups elements by their atomic number (how many protons they have this is usually the same as the number of electrons). In 1869, Russian scientist Dmitri Mendeleev published the first periodic table. By doing this, he proved that atoms are certainly real. In 1905 Albert Einstein used mathematics to prove that the pollen particles were being moved by the motion, or heat, of individual water molecules. Brown used Dalton's atomic theory to describe patterns in how they moved. The pollen grains appeared to be shaking. In 1827, British scientist Robert Brown looked at pollen grains in water under his microscope. According to Dalton, in a certain compound, the atoms of the compound's elements always combine in the same way. He said that compounds are formed when atoms of more than one element combine. Dalton believed that all atoms of the same element have the same mass. In 1803, English philosopher John Dalton suggested that elements were made of tiny, solid balls called atoms. Any substance which could be broken down was a compound. He said that an element was any substance that could not be broken down into other substances by the methods of chemistry. In 1777 French chemist Antoine Lavoisier defined the term element as we use it today. Atomic theory was a mostly philosophical subject, with not much scientific investigation or study, until the early 1800s. Some Hindu, Jain, and Buddhist philosophers also had ideas like this. In his view, atoms moved in empty space, and they could not be divided into smaller pieces. He thought that everything was made of particles called atoms. One of the first people to use the word "atom" is the Greek philosopher Democritus, around 400 BC. The word "atom" comes from the Greek (ἀτόμος) "atomos", which means indivisible or uncuttable. They are rarely made, destroyed, or changed into another type of atom. These changes are studied in nuclear physics. Atoms can also join to make larger atoms at very high temperatures, such as inside a star. The forming or breaking of bonds is a chemical reaction.Ītoms split if the forces inside are too weak to hold them together. For example, a water molecule is made of two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom. A group of atoms connected by chemical bonds is called a molecule. These are chemical compounds or mixtures. Many things are made of more than one type of atom. If an atom has more or less electrons than protons, it is called an ion, and has an electric charge.Ītoms can join by chemical bonds. Usually an atom has the same number of electrons as protons. Atoms with the same number of protons, but different numbers of neutrons, are called isotopes. Examples of elements are carbon and gold. The electromagnetic force holds the nucleus and electrons together.Ītoms with the same number of protons belong to the same chemical element. Lightweight electrons move quickly around them. They are in the middle of the atom, the nucleus. Protons and neutrons have much more mass. These are protons, neutrons, and electrons. Scientists learn how they work by doing experiments.Ītoms are made of three types of subatomic particles. This makes one atom impossible to see without special tools. One nanometer is about 100,000 times smaller than the width of a human hair. Atoms are from 0.1 to 0.5 nanometers across. Each type has the same basic structure, but a different number of parts.Ītoms are very small, but their exact size depends on the type. There are over 100 different types of atoms, called chemical elements. The atom cannot be broken to parts by chemistry, so people once thought it was the smallest and simplest particle of matter. This includes solids, liquids, and gases. All normal matter – everything that has mass – is made of atoms. A simplified picture of a helium atom, with two protons (red), two neutrons (white), and two electrons (blue)Īn atom is the basic unit of matter. This is a very aggressive track that comes at you from all across the soundstage delivering crisp and concise channel separation and plenty of interesting, subtle background activity. A dubbed track is provided in English DTS-HD 5.1 Master Audio as well but the French track is the way to go here. Point Blank arrives on Blu-ray with an ass kicking French language DTS-HD 5.1 Master Audio track with optional subtitles available in English, English SDH and Spanish. There are no noticeable problems with edge enhancement or mpeg compression and really, Magnolia has done a great job here, leaving nothing to really complain about. Contrast looks a little warmer than maybe it needed to be in some scenes, but there's no doubt that this was a stylistic choice on the part of the filmmakers and not a flaw on the Blu-ray disc. Color reproduction is dead on, though keep in mind that this film leans towards darker imagery so you won't get that candy-coated 'pop' that some HD transfers offer, particularly once the settings switch to the abandoned buildings. Black levels are deep and strong without ever breaking up but skin tones look just a little bit orange for some reason. Detail level is strong in pretty much every scene with the darker nighttime and indoor scenes exhibiting strong shadow detail and more lighter daytime and interior shots showing off even more texture and subtle nuances in the picture. The 1080p 2.35.1 AVC encoded transfer on this Blu-ray release is very good indeed, if not always perfect. Wrap this up with some believable and emotionally involving performances and you wind up with a kick ass action movie that really just gets things right. On top of that, the film has got some great cinematography and a score that never goes over the top but instead compliments the action perfectly. This grounds the film in the real world and if we have to suspend our disbelief for a scene in which our two begrudging heroes sneak their way into a police station unnoticed (something that probably wouldn't happen undetected these days), we can forgive the movie for that. Cavaye omits massive scale shoot-outs and bullet ballet and instead relies on more down to earth and believable tactics. The plot twists and turns and keeps you guessing but never has to resort to gimmicks or the like, instead it crafts interesting characters and puts them in interesting situations - as such, we definitely want to see how all of this plays out and the suspense turns out to be pretty intense at times.Īs far as the action scenes go, they're done on a very realistic scale. This movie is fast, mean, clever and really well made making great use of the Parisian locations, taking us on a journey through the underground and into various abandoned buildings and warehouses, giving us a look at the grittier side of the French capital. Incredibly well paced, Point Blank may look and sound like a generic straight to video action movie based on its cover art and American title but don't let that fool you into thinking it is. With Nadia's life on the line and time quickly running out, Samuel and the man, whose name turns out to be Hugo, form an alliance and decide to set things right. So Samuel does just that - he heads into the hospital and sneaks the man out of there, knocking out a cop and evading more cops along the way - but soon finds himself involved in a complicated mess that reaches from Paris' criminal underworld all the way up the chain to some high ranking police officials. He answers the phone and is told that if he doesn't get the man he just saved out of the hospital in three hours, his wife will be killed. Samuel wakes up, a cell phone ringing and his wife gone. Happy about his 'rescue' Samuel heads home and tells his pregnant wife, Nadia (Elena Anaya), all about the day's events before being promptly beaten over the head by an unseen assailant. The man wakes up in the hospital where a male nurse named Samuel (Gilles Lellouche) saves him from someone impersonating a doctor and obviously trying to kill him. Cast: Roschdy Zem, Gilles Lellouche, Elena Anayaįred Cavaye's 2010 film Point Blank hits the ground running, literally, as it opens with a chase scene where a man (Roschdy Zem) is tailed by two gun totting dudes into a tunnel where, just before they can pull the trigger, he's hit by a motorcycle. |