#83 Season 4 Episode 17

“The strong survive, the noble overcome.”

The disguised Obi-Wan accompanies Cad Bane and Moralo Eval to Serenno, where they enlist in a brutal competition with other bounty hunters from around the galaxy to determine who will participate in a plot to kidnap the Chancellor.

The Box Preview and starwars.com Episode Guide.

Original Airdate: 3 February 2012

Writer: Brent Friedman

Director: Brian Kalin O’Connell

Concept Art and Trivia

Serenno at night environment painting by Jackson Sze

Yoda’s warning advice to Anakin, “If you leave, help him you could… but his future uncertain is” very much mirrors something he tells Luke in Episode V. “If you leave now, help them you could… but you would destroy all for which they have fought and suffered.”

Kiera Swan is a nod to Keira Knightley’s Elizabeth Swan character from The Pirates of the Caribbean movies. Her accolade, “two-time winner of the Obsidian Sphere” is presumably a championship, but the name actually derives from the Black Pearl, Jack Sparrow’s pirate ship.

Derrown’s design stems back to a piece of artwork done by Ron Cobb for an odd and colorful cantina alien for Episode IV that was never created. The original piece (on the left) describes the alien as a tropical, ambulatory plant, while the final alien is more of a sentient gasbag.

Many of the supporting bounty hunters are customizations of existing character models from previous episodes. Sixtat, Sinrich and Mantu were based on prey running through the underbrush in “Padawan Lost,” Jakoli is based on Greedo from “Sphere of Influence,” Twazzi is a re-do of Rumi Paramita from “Bounty Hunters.”

Water, not gas, was supposed to fill the chamber in the first challenge. “At the point when we wrote this story, which was the same group of stories as ‘ARC Troopers,’ we had yet to solve water,” explains Dave Filoni. “Thus the water idea was dropped in favor or gas.” Even though the team would eventually solve for water, the constrained FX budget for “The Box” necessitated sticking with dioxis gas.

A cut storyline would have had Anakin search for the real Hardeen once he discovered Obi-Wan was alive. The Council still tries to deny Hardeen’s existence, but when Anakin intercepts Rex transferring Hardeen off-world, they have no choice but to divulge the truth. This thread was cut for time, clarity, and character focus. It also seemed very unlikely that Rex would keep something like this from Anakin.