Full Series TCW Season 2 Retrospective Thread (np: S02E20-22 The Boba Fett Trilogy)

Geez, even GG liked Death Trap and I didn't.

I'll have to look back on the original episode thread, but I believe my biggest problem was suspension of disbelief with the whole Boba sneaking off repeatedly.

I suppose it was interesting to look at the young clones, and it made sense for Boba to want to kill Mace, but I thought this trilogy was really a chance to explore the character of Boba Fett and even the character of Mace Windu, for that matter. A chance to show a different side, a la Obi-Wan/Satine.

There were some brief moments where they touched on this, but really, all they taught us was that Boba isn't truly evil yet and he wants to have revenge for the killing of his father. Yeah, we all could have figured this out. We're no farther ahead now than when we started.

It's telling that the most interesting and entertaining aspects of the trilogy involved Ahsoka/Plo Koon, and Aurra/Hondo.

This trilogy was by far the most disappointing thing TCW has given us so far. I said from the very beginning that I had a bad feeling about bringing a young Boba into the show, and I guess I was right.

 

"What is it R2? Is Annie stuck down a well?"
"You started it!"
"Sucks to be you Fett."

That's all I will say about this travesty.

 

Death Trap: Good episode all around, but Daniel Logan's inexperience in voice acting really brought it down for me. Also, the Admiral's voice drove me nuts. It's Star Wars, he's not Scottie. Or Shrek for that matter. 8/10

R2 Come Home: Terrible, terrible, terrible. They wasted a chapter of the Boba Fett story with (terrible) R2 antics and childish humor galore. The only saving grace was some good visuals. 1.5/10

Lethal Trackdown: Very Star Warsy feel here. Some moments were pretty adult . The visuals were stunning. The only thing that brought it down were the lines at the end between Boba and Mace and Aurra going down like an amateur. 9/10

Overall, it was not as satisfying as it could have been. There were a lot of wasted opportunities and many of the ones that were taken were messed up. Definately not worth all the hype.

 

I didn't like as much as I liked Rookies. That's too much of a stretch.

One of the things that bothered me in Death Trap was just the way they showed Boba and him interacting with Aurra. The whole Anakin/Mace thing that's been going since those godZillo Beast episodes has been strangely odd.

I would agree that this Boba Fett arc was awful. Simply put it. They could have done so much better, but instead they gave us one episode that centered around Boba that featured him wanting to get Mace, and then two filler episodes, which didn't even do justice to the entire point of the story arc.

 

This.

 

Yeah, they ruined a chance to really have a meaningful conversation between Mace and Fett at the end of Lethal Trackdown. Or between Mace and Anakin in Lassie Come Home.

Ha ha, that reminds me of the worst exposition ever "I killed his father on Geonosis" or whatever.

 

Yeah, Lethal Trackdown was a fairly good episode, but it didn't add anything to the Boba Fett story. He became a sidekick in the grand finale of his own trilogy. In a trilogy that's supposedly about Boba trying to take his revenge of Mace, how could they leave Mace out of the final episode? In the end, out of a trilogy, we only got a single episode that actually focused on Boba and told us something about him. And that was only an introductory tale.

But I do not thing, as Garth said it, that it was a mistake to introduce young Boba to the series. I don't think they damaged the character in any way, they actually used him pretty well (when they used him). It's just that they wasted a golden opportunity to create a classic trilogy dealing with one of the most obsessed-over SW character.

 

But to me, it's just adding yet ANOTHER character to the ginormous (wait, ginormous is actually word now? spell check says yes) number of characters in this show where we already know what will happen to them.

Kenobi/Skywalker/Padme/Palpatine/any Jedi that appeared in ROTS/Grievous/Dooku/any character that appeared in ROTS or the OT. Which is most of the characters.

Who are the characters where there might be a little dramatic tension? Ahsoka, Rex. I suppose possibly Ventress at this point, as well as Aurra Sing, although I don't know her EU history very well.

So focusing a three-episode arc on a young character who (a) has to survive and (b) wants to kill a character that we know has to survive is pretty much a waste of time if they don't add something to his character. And they didn't. We knew he was mad at Mace and that he was at least as talented as his father. Maybe the only thing we didn't know was that he was part of Aurra Sing's gang.

And don't even get me started on Bossk.


At least with Obi-Wan and Anakin they're trying to explore different sides to those characters. And with some of the characters who didn't get much screen time in the PT, such as Dooku, the cool Jedi, and Bail Organa, it's nice to see them in more stories.

But Boba Fett is one of the most popular characters ever, probably top 3 with Solo and Vader. There is already a wealth of material out there on him. But most of it concerns him becoming his badass self or else is around the OT time when they can actually do something with him.

 

I don't agree. I don't have any problems with stories about characters we know can't die. Not only the entire prequel trilogy was like that, but frankly, you know a main character won't die until that final moment when it is allowed to. Until the last episode, the final epic confrontation. We know a certain someone won't die in TCW anytime soon, and that is not a problem. Most of the fun comes from watching everything play out, not for fearing for the character's life. (although, of course, it would be better if we didn't know all these characters can't die)

They could have the whole trilogy focused on Boba trying to kill Mace, as long as the focus were not on the killing attempts themselves (which we know would fail), but on how those actions affected the characters. How this young boy was consumed by lust for revenge, how it corrupted him, how it led him to make unholy alliances with dodgy characters, how it affected Mace to have a child dedicating his life to killing him, how his actions have consequences and all that. They did touch on some of these subjects, but they could have explored them SO much deeply and effectively if they weren't wasting time with R2's antics and Ahsoka-Plo quality time.

 

Fair enough.

Now THAT would have been an exciting trilogy.

 

Death Trap was all right. I wish there'd been more to taking down the Endurance than shooting up some controls, but it was a pretty solid episode that focused strongly on Boba and his attempts to kill Mace.

R2 come home...uggh. I can appreciate it somewhat as a standalone but it completely killed the momentum of the arc. They could've at least made it relevant to the plot by having Mace and Boba stuck rather than Mace and Anakin. Cliche perhaps, but I prefer cliche to complete waste of time. I think this episode is the single biggest mistake this show has made so far.

Lethal Trackdown I enjoyed a lot more, and was infinitely more successful in balancing Boba against another plot thread than R2 come home was. I liked the use of Hondo to counterbalance Aurra's influence, and Mace's flat refusal to sink to Boba's level. That said, having the core of the trilogy being Boba's hatred of Mace and having them only meet for about 3 seconds was a mistake. Hoping they fix this with a director's cut on the DVDs, but I'm not holding my breath.

Boba Fett's portrayal was about what I expected from him in this stage of his life. Lethal, but still immature and deciding who he wants to be. He's still not quite on track to be who we know he becomes of course. Guess we'll see him again in the inevitable jailbreak episode. Hopefully he shoots Dr. Vindi on the way out.

 

I liked the trilogy, but agree that it was definitely flawed, and truth be told, not my favourite trilogy of the series. That said, I liked the character work.

Death Trap might have required some willing suspension of disbelief, but it's a good introduction on where Boba is and what he might be thinking.

Artoo Come Home was a light, slapsticky jaunt. Not a bad thing in and of itself, and it does the droid justice, but unfortunately, it comes at the cost of the bounty hunter group, which could have really used more development in that episode itself.

Lethal Trackdown, as Gry said, it was solid, had some powerful moments, but the resolution was half-baked. There isn't really much closure (though heck, if we want to keep using these characters, it's best to keep them agonised and angsty to justify their involvement ), and it's true that Boba was, at worst, a sidekick in his own finale and at best sharing the spotlight with one too many characters.
Still, at least it had what I thought was one of the coolest brief showdowns of all time at the end in the bar. Very fast pace for that one.

There was also at least one wasted opportunity in each episode, though I don't know how many of them were due to administration errors or the limitations of the format.

Individually, they aren't bad. Sadly, they didn't join together very well. It's the middle I blame, because if we'd gotten into Boba's head THEN, maybe explored his motivations or his growing concern for hanging out with a crowd like this, Lethal Trackdown would have provided the climax of his ultimate choices with the hostage situation. Instead, the rest of Lethal Climax had the unenviable job of providing the rest of the character work.

On the plus side, I thought the character work was nice in the following ways...
-Boba may want 'justice', but he's not a heartless sociopath who'll kill just about anyone in his way
-Aurra is demented (but not manic), intense and dangerous, as well as remarkably competent
-Hondo is Hondo, and it's great they kept up with his neutral affiliation for the story
-Ahsoka had some good learning moments in this episode, and it's nice seeing her with Plo Koon
-Plo Koon, from his brief time at the end of Artoo Come Home, to Lethal Trackdown, was my favourite in showcasing a more calm and composed Jedi Master. But don't take my word for it.

Not something I'd pick out of a line-up, but definitely something I'd remember fondly, if nothing else, for Plo Koon awesomeness.

 

I Wholeheartedly agree with you G_M. Even though I'm not much of a Boba fan, I felt completely disgusted by how he was presented in this arc. I found the moral ambiguity and his relationship with Aurra quite odd to say the least; something that it worked more on her end then on Boba's. I also believe that showing R2's heroics was(even though I enjoy it greatly)complete waste of energy that, not for the first time, something grater. To be truthful I'm greatly worried about the future of the show in regards to the older fans of the Saga (the ones that became fans of SW thanks to the movies) if they keep this up.

I know! Let's not forget Anakin's "You mean, the clone template?" that was one of those brain damagers for me. I did enjoy the more in character banter though!

The Ahsoka/Plo Koon and Aurra/Hondo interaction was great...most enjoyable & memorable thing in this finale for me.

Overall, I believe the arc was a failure as a finale.

BTW, I still haven't seen the Mandalore arc yet, does anyone has a link to it?

 

I agree about Boba not being in the spotlight.

The bright side is that Aurra Sing, my favoritest villain, got the spotlight instead.

 

She certainly did! I found quite her interesting.

 

Totally what Gry said... the Boba trilogy was flawed from begin to end. They could have done so much more character building with Boba, instead they're having fun with R2 and making Boba go 'you started it!' The only good thing about it is Aurra Sing, because Bossk wasn't even put to good use.

What I'm not getting in Lethal Trackdown is this: If they want the Jedi to find them, why the whole searching in the underworld thing (as nice as it was)? Why not just flat out tell them where they can be found, demand that Mace come alone or they'll execute all the hostages? I really don't get it.

And Ahsoka overhearing that conversation, how contrived was that? It didn't even make sense! She reacted to the word 'murder', but it would have made far more sense if she'd overheard Aurra's name instead. Even then, it's extremely coincidental. Especially since they're looking for friends of Jango Fett, and instead they're finding Castas' vague contact.

Blegh.

It's a bunch of okay scenes, but the story is just bad. And then I'm talking about the whole Boba trilogy.

I can't believe Lethal Trackdown got so many votes for 'best episode' here in LACWAC. Didn't it win the season 2 poll, even?

 

Yeah, that's why I wanted to delay longer, because I figured it would "Newest Episode Glow".

It was probably one of the better episodes of the season, unquestionably the best episode since the Mandalore trilogy. But not best of season.


Lady_Skywalker - Season 2 is up on iTunes, at least in the US and Canada. It's coming out on DVD in about a month I believe. Otherwise, I assume some stations would be showing reruns of Season 2, you could try the official site, or there are other ways of finding the episodes.

 

Exactly!

 

Funny, I rather remember Lethal Trackdown being warmly regarded around here.

Can't remember well enough to form my own opinion, but something feels off...

 

It was, and mostly it still is. But when looking at the Boba Trilogy as a whole, it doesn't work as well as it should.

 

I saw it on CN.com and it was just fantastic! I found it true SW on so many levels that it blew me away; Something that hasn't happened to me since the series started. It was a great PT/OT mashup combined with the best cinematic elements of all time. Just classic! ... I'll elaborate on this tomorrow if you'd like ..now, Off to watch the start of Season 3!

 

I can only speak for myself, but I can only say that my criticism of Lethal Trackdown (and the Boba trilogy as a whole) hasn't changed. I wasn't the biggest fan back when it aired either.

 

Lethal Trackdown was one of my favourite episodes of the season and I enjoyed both Death Trap and R2 Come Home. However, I'm not sure that the three episodes, when taken together, were entirely successful as 'The Boba Fett Trilogy'. Boba was, I think, upstaged by Aurra Sing to a certain degree. Aurra is, in my opinion, a great villain and I really enjoyed how she was portrayed in the trilogy; but I can't help but feel that Boba himself should have had the same impact.

 

I can't remember if I ever posted about the Boba Fett episodes (I think I dropped out of the message board game sometime towards the end of last season). But I sounds like my opinion is just like everybody else's. They really dropped the ball with this trilogy.

They didn't ruin Boba's character or anything like that, but they also didn't do anything interesting with him. The whole arc was just pointless. This run of episodes reminded me very much of the Ryloth episodes from season 1. Great premise with all kinds of build-up (including a stunning trailer) only to make me yawn when I finally see it. The fact that Filoni and crew are so happy with these episodes definitely makes me concerned.

I'm not sure what happened. Season 2 really had a lot going for it. The Geonosis and Mandalore stuff are the best episodes this show has ever done, no question...but most episodes after that were kind of a let-down.

Hopefully season 3 can keep up the pace for the whole season.

 

The Boba Fett trilogy was fairly decent but not as spectacular as we all pictured it to be. Boba was downplayed as a side-kick to Aurra in the trilogy. He was treated like a kid, and he didn't really do that many (if any) bad ass things. Bossk was so downplayed, that I forgot that he was even a part of the trilogy. Hondo shouldn't have had anything to do with this, even though I like him. R2 was excellent, but he should have had his own ep, then share one with Boba. Killian and possibly Aurra were the only characters that was memorable to me.


Death Trap 7/10

R2 Come Home 7.5/10

Lethal Trackdown 8/10

Overall Trilogy: 7.5/10