Sound Off: Thoughts on "Death Trap"

Dave Filoni (from left), Jaime King and Daniel Logan at WonderCon (photo: scifiwire.com)

Young Boba Fett just premiered on the airwaves, joining Aurra Sing and Bossk. What did you think? Comment below.

Spoilers ahead, now that the show has finally aired.

G4’s Attack of the Show interviewed Jamie King (actress and voice of Aurra Sing) and Daniel Logan (Young Boba Fett):

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IGN reviewed the episode:

What was interesting though was the portrayal of Boba as a guy who is very willing to kill, when it is part of his specific goal, but who isn’t bloodthirsty. Not shockingly, given what happened in Attack of the Clones, Boba wanted Mace Windu dead and had no qualms leaving a bomb in his quarters – But every time his accomplice/mentor Aurra Sing pushed for others to be killed along the way, he gave pause. However, Boba may be reluctant, but he also didn’t have the moral backbone to really ever do more than briefly try his best to convince Aurra otherwise, and when he failed in those arguments, he ultimately went through with causing the reactor explosion that led to many more deaths – and a very well done sequence on the show, as we saw Clones and debris sucked into space (this show has done a few moments like this before, but always effectively enough that I haven’t tired of them yet).

Seeing Aurra Sing and Bossk standing in that entry way at the end was a well done, appropriately bad ass visual – and Aurra proved her ruthlessness when she told Boba his fellow Clone cadets had to die. That being the case though, it seemed pretty silly when she simply flew off (though it was in Slave 1 – so points for that), rather than do anything to actually destroy the escape pod and make sure those kids wouldn’t survive to talk. Now don’t get me wrong – this show has been very dark, but I also don’t think they “wimped out” by skipping the on-screen graphic death of these kids. Still, it would have worked better if we had been given any reason that Aurra would think the kids were dead (or, perhaps, if they died off screen), so that her just flying off at the end didn’t feel a bit forced.

StarWarsAficionado.com [no longer online] reviewed the episode:

Playing only slightly against the tale, however, was its disappointing ending, with the abandoned boy clones being discovered by Anakin and Mace too easily and quickly. Boba’s deliberately choosing to strand his brothers in space forever would have been a far more dramatic, uncomfortable and satisfying end-the first true stages to his relationship with the dented helmet being cemented. I’m sure many fellow fans will have been equally annoyed a little with the resolution, but, at the end of the day, it’s a family show with morals, so our personal EMPIRE misery-like expectations were never going to be realized.

TheForce.net posted a 2,200-word review:

n Death Trap, we learned a lot about the boy who would one day talk back to Darth Vader. As of this episode, young Boba is still fairly new to the whole “ruthless murderer” game. Even as a cold-blooded killer (or would-be killer), he still has reservations about killing innocent clones to accomplish his goal of revenge. Here we see the conflict between Boba as a child and Boba as a determined villain. I actually find it really refreshing to see the primary villain of a story arc having doubts about what he’s doing. Even if that ended with the next episode, I’d still consider Death Trap an important part of the Clone Wars storyline, simply because it offered us a unique take on villainy.

The scene where Boba fought the clone trooper in the reactor room was also an important dose of character exposition. The whole scene was intense (especially because of the almost-angelic music in the background), but the best part was the close-up of the clone trooper’s eyes as he frantically implored Boba to stand down. I was convinced that Boba would have killed the soldier had the man not tripped him. When he did shoot, thankfully the weapon was set to stun. Even so, Boba hesitated long enough to make me think that he was having second thoughts. And for the record, I think it’s a little stupid that the clone gave Boba his blaster. Even if he thought that there was no imminent danger (which there obviously was), I’d be more cautious about handing loaded weapons to children.

GalacticBinder.com also posted a review:

It’s interesting to see that Boba’s actions here are purely motivated by revenge for his father’s death, and he seemingly lacks the ruthless killing-machine instincts for which he will later become notorious. Having teamed up with Aurra Sing and Bossk, he proves that he is certainly willing to do what is necessary to exact his revenge on one of the galaxy’s most powerful Jedi ever.

Also join the discussion of the episode on our message boards.