FILMEDGE REVIEWS THE CLONE WARS EPISODE 2.20 'DEATH TRAP' — AIRDATE 4.23.10

Since his iconic introduction in THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK thirty years ago, bounty hunter Boba Fett has been a figure of mystery and intrigue — a merciless mercenary whose battered battle armor hid any traces of humanity remaining in his hardened heart.  A man of few words — he had only five lines and a death scream in the original trilogy — he was nonetheless a force to be reckoned with, unafraid to challenge even a Dark Lord of the Sith.  But he wasn’t always a hunter with a ruthless reputation; he was once a boy, alone in the galaxy and forced to fend for himself after the death of his father.  These origins were glimpsed briefly in ATTACK OF THE CLONES . . . but now, Boba’s BACK — a young man taking the dangerous first steps on his journey from innocent to icon in Death Trap, the beginning of the thrilling three-part season finale of STAR WARS: THE CLONE WARS airing at 9:00 p.m. ET/PT Friday, April 23 on Cartoon Network.

Who my father was matters less than my memory of him.

Calm before the storm! A rare and welcome respite from endless battle awaits Jedi Knights Anakin Skywalker and Mace Windu as they travel through deep space aboard the Jedi cruiser Endurance. Preparing to rendezvous with a Republic frigate, the Jedi remain unaware of a deadly peril lying hidden in their midst...

SYNOPSIS: On a training tour aboard the Endurance, a group of Clone cadets tease the loner in their group, a scowling lad nicknamed Lucky who is befriended by a very gung-ho and eager cadet, Jax. Jedi Knights Mace Windu and Anakin Skywalker greet the cadets, with Lucky taking intense interest in Windu's presence. Sergeant Crasher leads his cadets to the gunnery bay for some skeet-shooting target practice where Lucky demonstrates his astounding marksmanship with a laser cannon, easily besting his classmates. Crasher and Admiral Killian are both impressed by Lucky's performance, noting the boy has great potential — an observation Lucky silently agrees with, a darker purpose burning in his eyes.

Lucky sneaks away from the cadets' tour of the cruiser to enact his secret mission, opening his comlink to contact an accomplice he calls Watcher who leads the boy to Mace Windu's quarters on the ship. There Lucky plants an explosive on the cabin door, setting it to explode when Windu returns to his quarters — this act of betrayal by Lucky, in actuality the young Boba Fett, is an act of revenge against Windu, the Jedi Knight who killed his father Jango Fett during the battle on Geonosis!

Literally bumping into Windu on the way to his cabin, Boba Fett awaits the explosive springing of his trap. But at the last moment, Windu gives his data pad to a trooper to put in his cabin instead. The bomb detonates, killing the trooper and sounding alarms throughout the ship. Mace and Anakin investigate the disaster, limited in its scope and quite obviously no accident — this was an assassination attempt. Crasher keeps his cadets out of harm's way while the Jedi order troopers to scour the ship for the assassin.

Learning Windu survived the bombing, Watcher orders Boba Fett to sabotage the ship's reactor and destroy both the Jedi. Fett balks at this directive to kill so many others since his immature vengeance only extends to Mace. Pressured by Watcher to act, Fett infiltrates the reactor core section, knocks out a guarding trooper, and opens fire on the reactor core itself.  The reactor failure causes a hull-rupturing explosion as Killian, Windu and Skywalker barely escape being sucked out into the void of space.

The Endurance orbits the planet Vanqor as a flaming wreck of its former self. Killian orders the cadets to evacuate in escape pods as a test of their military training and organization in a crisis, with Boba surreptitiously rejoining the cadets in time to join Jax and two cadets in their pod.  Boba steers his pod away from the others in order to rendezvous for pickup by Watcher. Mace and Anakin fail to talk Killian out of abandoning ship, and Crasher urges the Jedi to find his missing escape pod of cadets.

Jax keeps his cadet friends calmed until the Slave I roars up to dock with Boba's pod, revealing that his contact Watcher is none other than the ruthless bounty hunter Aurra Sing. Jax berates Boba for his betrayal of the Clone Youth Brigade and the Republic, but Fett insists his plan for revenge was only targeting Mace Windu. Aurra Sing escalates his short-sighted plot into a murderous pact as she insists the cadets, now witnesses to their plot, be left behind to die in deep space. In far over his head with this devilish deal, Fett relents and leaves his fellow clones behind in the pod. Jax shows his command skills, keeping the other cadets from panicking until the Jedi starfighters arrive to relay the pod's coordinates for rescue. Yet Anakin and Mace have now lost contact with Admiral Killian, last seen piloting the Endurance into Vanqor's atmosphere to a fiery and unknown fate.

REVIEW: As the three-part Season Finale begins, THE CLONE WARS truly delves into the heart of what the clone army represents in the STAR WARS saga: a tactical asset in the war to battle the Separatists and ultimately the means of the Jedi's destruction, both a deadly deception by Chancellor Palpatine, the future Emperor. Thus it's a rather surprising and intriguing twist that George Lucas and series Supervising Director Dave Filoni embed young Boba Fett into the Republic's Clone Youth Group. His traitorous presence makes an interesting backstory for Boba Fett while bridging the storytelling gap between his first appearance in EPISODE II: ATTACK OF THE CLONES and his eventual (and marginal) return in EPISODE V.

As the set up chapter of the season-ending trilogy of episodes, Death Trap may be somewhat shorter on action but it's deliberately long on character development for Boba Fett which launches the action to come for the finale. More than just the backstory of a boy who becomes a STAR WARS universe icon (see below), this episode lays a great deal of fascinating groundwork for the franchise's mythology which devoted fans will appreciate on another level. We now see hints of the problem which eventually enables the clones' final betrayal of the Jedi and the Republic, and to series' credit, such evidence is dramatized as a character-based revelation through Boba Fett himself. While Boba is indeed nearly identical to his brothers — though he regards them as nothing of the kind — it's the clones' engineered blind loyalty to serving from birth and willingness to die for the Republic that proves the very weapon which destroys it and the Jedi.

When Boba Fett flies off with Aurra Sing at the episode's conclusion, Jax still holds out hope that Boba will eventually see the error of his betrayal and do what's right. What an ironic and sadly telling sentiment to invest in the young clone who has proven his worth as a brave soldier for the Republic which he and his brothers will ultimately tear down. Surely Palpatine's inhumanly evil plan to rule the galaxy is to blame for the Republic's downfall, but his plan could not succeed without the unquestioning, programmed loyalty of his clone army to enact Order 66 and crush the Jedi's guardianship of peace. This is just one example how Lucas, Filoni and the creative team devising the storylines of THE CLONE WARS are cleverly, deliciously playing both sides of the STAR WARS game: fans may already know how it ends, but there is a gold mine of richly dramatic opportunity to be plundered in telling how Anakin and the galaxy both fall to their doom by the end of EPISODE III. In short, Season Two of THE CLONE WARS (and beyond) provide the space and time to elaborate on this crucial era of the STAR WARS universe in detail that the Prequel films either lacked or couldn't afford to indulge in with just two hours of screen time.

STAR WARS gets deeper and more dramatic as Season Two of THE CLONE WARS draws to its exciting conclusion, and best of all this three-part finale will be a springboard into even greater, darker, more entertaining adventures in Season Three.

Returning to the point about Boba Fett's future in the features, FILMEDGE has always found Fett's iconic reputation in the STAR WARS universe overshadowed by his thinly supporting status as an on-screen character in the six films. Fett's first notoriety came from his desirability as a Kenner action figure which got an early release before EMPIRE hit theaters in 1980: he was a cool-looking armored warrior and an enticing mystery until the sequel's release. After that, Fett's presence grew only in the extended universe of STAR WARS novels and comics where he was elevated to mythic heights. Yet his return in the feature film universe undercut his iconic mystique with Fett's quite ignominious exit as Sarlacc chow in RETURN OF THE JEDI. This backfilling of Boba's early years at least adds some depth to his character, exploring the genuine drama of an orphaned boy who knows nothing of the galaxy beyond the mercenary teachings of his bounty hunter father. Now left on his own to coexist with this fellow-yet-different clone brothers, but far too individualistic to conform to the Republic's system, Boba seeks justice in the only way he knows.

Perhaps most intriguing question arising from Death Trap is how young Boba would have grown up had Jango Fett lived? We now see that Aurra Sing's calculated manipulation of Boba's grief likely proves a far more destructive influence on Fett's future, since the boy quickly realized he cannot trust even his supposed friends to act in his best interest. This certainly deepens the shadows of his past which ultimately forge him into the galaxy's most cunning bounty hunter, but the problem is that no matter how rich his character becomes with exploration in THE CLONE WARS, Fett still is destined to fall down the sandy maw of the Sarlacc and disappear from the on-screen STAR WARS universe forever! Even worse, Boba never gets his revenge on Mace Windu since Palpatine kills him in REVENGE OF THE SITH, nor does Fett ever really tangle with the Jedi again once collecting Han Solo's bounty becomes his mission — and truthfully, he even fails to triumph over Solo. While Fett's disastrous destiny leaves little room for debate on what could have been for Boba, it's the supporting character study of his clone brothers in this episode which offers many more intriguing possibilities for story and character development in future seasons of THE CLONE WARS.

FILMEDGE ranks Death Trap as an above-average episode from Season Two with some superb animation, scene lighting and special effects (the fiery destruction of the Endurance being a noted highlight), but this chapter's true value arises from what it sets up for the future of Boba Fett as a character and for the series' storyline moving forward into the season finale and beyond.