IGN: The next storyline, with Obi-Wan undercover, was interesting in that the final episode had a swerve where some very important stuff happened with Anakin at the end - the idea seemingly being that this was Palpatine's first true attempt to turn Anakin. Was the idea, "Well in Revenge of the Sith, we see it all play out. But what if he tried it already? What if he'd tried, but it didn't work the first time?"
Filoni: That was really a George idea, as all the initial story jumping-off points are. He said, "This is the first attempt. You've seen the second attempt." Because he's trying to get a sense of Anakin's abilities. I think a lot of people just accept the inevitability of Anakin become Palpatine's apprentice, but it's not so cut and dry. If Anakin can't survive the Clone War, if he's not powerful enough, he'll die. And he'll never become Darth Vader. It's not gonna happen. The Emperor's interested in power and being the most powerful person. So it was kind of neat when George explained that to really do this story that was ultimately about Anakin, but doing it all through Obi-Wan Kenobi's point of view and trying to come up with a plan and something that was so layered that the audience doesn't really even see this test of Anakin coming, because the Jedi don't see it coming. And Cad Bane has no idea that's what the purpose of the whole thing is. Even the bounty hunters, to a large extent, get played in the whole thing, because the kidnapping of the Chancellor is such a ruse. It's never really meant to happen even in the way that Cad Bane thinks it's going to happen. So "The Box", everything about it, was just a filtering process to failsafe -- because Dooku knows the Jedi are going to be able to kind of suss something out. So the Box is not really meant to figure out which bounty hunters can't make it through. Because you see the bounty hunters that they need for the mission obviously made it through, like Derrown. But the Box really filtered out Obi-Wan, and it allowed Dooku to understand that that was who was really there, that there was someone, a Jedi, in their midst.
IGN: And by the end of that, you also have a lot of things set up for Revenge of the Sith as far as Anakin mistrusting the Jedi and Mace Windu mistrusting Palpatine.
Filoni: Absolutely. I think it's an important thing because a lot of people, when they watch the movie, they go, "Well how can he turn his back on these people? They're like a family to him." But when you give the greater context of this series, you see, "Well, it might be a family, but the family doesn't trust him. The family doesn't believe in him fully. The family often isn't as much a family as Palpatine is a grandfather." The scene between Ian Abercrombie [as Palpatine] and Matt Lanter [as Anakin] is just phenomenal, when they're walking over to the window. It's probably the most like the prequels our show has ever been. It's really, still to this day for several of us, just devastating with Ian's passing. I mean, he is so brilliant as Palpatine. We still have his work well into next season. So it's great that he's still alive and well, at least in the Star Wars galaxy.