The box is part three in Obi-wan’s undercover infiltration of Count Dooku’s plot to kidnap Chancellor Palpatine on Naboo. Count Dooku, wanting to test the mettle of the bounty hunters he’s handpicked, he contrives for them to be tested in a virtual environment that will kill those unfit for the mission and whittle his team down to the 5 best men for the job.
Meanwhile, Anakin is given orders to just sort of back off and leave Obi-wan to his devices, reminding us for the only time that Obi-wan is really the bounty hunter Rako Hardeen in disguise.
I’m going to be honest, this episode was fifty-fifty for me. The visuals were great, with the exception of a couple of weird quirks in Dooku’s animation. Seriously, there was about a shot and a half where he looked a little silly, but that’s forgivable and no big deal. Watching Obi-wan’s struggle to choke back his instincts as a Jedi to act like a bounty hunter is certainly a fascinating struggle to watch which more than makes up for any minor glitches in the animation.
What I really loved the lighting schemes that hearken directly to Revenge of the Sith in Yoda’s meditation room. Visual touchstones to the actual films are always very welcome and the theme is very much the same to match the lighting: Anakin is instructed to do nothing to save those he loves and it kills him, bringing him that much closer to the brink of the dark side.
I also loved all the flourishes from Close Encounters of the Third Kind leading up to the box and I loved the Enter the Dragon sort of showdown at the end of the trial, with a crazed Dooku watching from the safety of his control room. All it needed was mirrors. The choral music in that sequence stood out in the scene, as well as the moment with Cad Bane’s intervention, easily the best moment in the episode.
But what I don’t understand about this episode is the story. Why did Dooku need to test the bounty hunters this way? Why didn’t he hire the five best bounty hunters to begin with? Why did the 11 bounty hunters agree to the test in the first place, knowing how lethal it was? Wouldn’t it be easier to get a bounty hunter to accept a job where he’d be assigned to kill other bounty hunters? Wouldn’t it have made more sense to hire them all and have them fight to the death down to the last five men,? Is making these bounty hunters perform in a series of lethal video game puzzles really the best way to test their skills?
And wouldn’t the cost of operating a death trap as elaborate as The Box just be ridiculous and cost prohibitive? I mean, think about the cost of such an immense box, the size and scale of it, the amount of workers it would require to build, the cost of gas to burn for the fires… The supply of credits for the Separatists must be inexhaustible…
Something about the test and the box itself just didn’t add up for me. It seemed like a very silly video game and maybe that’s what they were going for. It didn’t work for me as well as it will probably work for others, but it certainly entertained Dooku.
I guess this seems very much like Dooku’s modus operandi. Remember how he found Asajj Ventress in the micro-series? Perhaps Dooku would have been right at home as a Roman noble, watching over the gladiatorial battles for their entertainment and brutality.
For visuals, lighting, and effects, I give this episode high marks. It looked beautiful and had some very cool flourishes. For the story, I just don’t understand why we couldn’t have cut to the chase and made this a three part arc, skipping this episode completely.
But my feelings on the story didn’t diminish my enjoyment at all, which is I guess why it was worth airing the episode rather than skipping it. For all its faults, I had a good time watching it, even if I did find myself scratching my head at some of the where’s and why’s.
Next week I’m hoping for a payoff to these last three episodes that will really knock my socks off, and something tells me I’m going to get it.