Boba Fett was first introduced in the Star Wars Holiday Special all the way back in 1978, so he's been waiting a while now to get his own series. There was a Boba Fett movie announced in 2013, but director Josh Trank's issues on Fantastic Four led to him quitting before he could get fired, and it ultimately never happened. In retrospect that might have actually been a good thing, considering that the Star Wars TV series have been getting more love from their viewers than the movies lately.
This is a spin-off from The Mandalorian by the same creator, Iron Man director Jon Favreau, with Desperado and Sin City director Robert Rodriguez directing half the episodes, so there's a fair chance it might be good. Or it could be a massive disaster like the Star Wars: Resistance cartoon. It came out months ago so I guess everyone already knows! All my reviews were written directly after watching each episode though so any apparently cluelessness is genuine.
There will be SPOILERS for The Book of Boba Fett, The Mandalorian and probably lots of other Star Wars below. But I won't spoil anything that comes afterwards, in chronological or production order. In fact I can't spoil anything made after it, as right now this is still the newest Star Wars.
Note: I rate episodes on a 1-9 scale, with 5 being where my attention starts to fail a little.
| The Book of Boba Fett - Season 1 | ||||||||||||||
| 1-01 | Stranger in a Strange Land |
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Boba Fett escapes the Sarlacc Pit, but then his day gets even worse when he's kidnapped by Sand People. Fortunately he wins a bit of respect when he kills a monster and saves a kid. Meanwhile in the present day, Boba has taken over Jabba the Hutt's stuff but his trip into town is interrupted by assassins. After 38 years we've finally gotten the answer to what happened to Boba Fett in the Sarlacc Pit! Turns out he just shot it with a flamethrower and then punched his way out. Because he's just that much of a badass... sometimes. The episode has it both ways when it comes to Fett's legendary fearsomeness though as his story here is a tale of both brutal beatdowns and triumphant feats. In fact there's two stories here as the episode switches to flashbacks while Fett's recovering from his injuries.
To be fair after what Fett goes through in his flashbacks it's a wonder he even manages to keep picking himself up off the floor. At least he finally earns himself a drink at the end. Not alcohol, just any liquid at all. His flashback story feels like the A plot here and tells the tale of how he won the respect of the Sand People by strangling a monster with his leg chain, Princess Leia-style. It's not a particularly unique tale and Fett's the most talkative person in it so it's low on snappy dialogue, but I found it watchable enough. Speaking of Princess Leia's Jabbacide, the present day story is all about Fett taking over his operation, with some help by Fennic Shand. Well, taking over Bib Fortuna's operation I suppose, seeing as he'd been running the place in the meantime. Which is good, as it means the palace has probably had a good clean since Jabba was around. Unfortunately it doesn't seem like being a crime boss is really Boba's calling. The story really wants him to come across as sympathetic, so he's all about mercy and respect, and not at all keen on disintegrations... though he does shoot a guy with a missile one time. I'm a big fan of mercy and respect as well, but I can see how he's going to struggle in the future unless he steps up his game. Well, struggle more I mean. His first trip to town ended with him being ambushed and nearly killed, and he had to get dragged back to his bacta tank to heal, so he's struggling quite adequately as it is. It was a great looking scene though, especially after Fennic took to the rooftops to chase the parkour ninjas. My impression was that this looked even more cinematic and expensive than The Mandalorian did, though maybe I'm just forgetting how impressive that show is. It probably helps that movie director Robert Rodriguez was the one calling the shots on this one, with Mandalorian writer Jon Favreau providing the words. Not that there were a lot of words in this story, though there was enough on the page to distinguish Fett from Din Djarin and give the series its own identity. Despite the Mandalorian costume this is definitely not The Mandalorian season 3, but I'm into what it's doing and I think it's got potential to turn into something pretty decent. |
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| 1-02 | The Tribes of Tatooine |
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Boba grabs some bikes, leads his tribe of Sand People to hijack a death train and then goes on a lizard-fuelled vision quest for the one bit of wood on a planet with no trees. Meanwhile in the present day, a pair of Hutt twins make a claim on Jabba's territory.
The Tribes of Tatooine is a bit of a misleading title as this was only really about one tribe, unless you count the bikers as a tribe of their own. They had some beautiful bikes by the way, I'm glad Boba Fett acquired them. And saving Luke Skywalker's deleted scene friends Fixer and Camie was nice of him as well.
Like the last episode, this was split between present day scenes of him handling crime lord business (which involved a lot of walking in the desert) and past scenes of him bonding with his Sand People tribe (which involved a lot of walking in the desert). Though this time there was just 14 minutes of present day and then the rest of the story was all past... and I had absolutely no problem with that. The episode retells the old Dances With Wolves/Avatar etc. tale of an outsider who learns the ways of a tribe and helps them, and it tells it with a minimum of subversion. But that suits Star Wars just fine. It helps that we got a fun training scene and a great looking train fight after it. Plus if they're going to tell a whole season on bloody Tatooine it's nice that they're exploring the local cultures. And it turns out that the Sand People really are native to the planet, or at least they've been here long enough to know that it once had water at least. It also turns out to be pretty easy to communicate with the Sand People, as you just speak English while making the occasional hand gesture. This type of communication is very one-way, but fortunately Temuera Morrison is up to the task of keeping the drama interesting while being the only actor with spoken dialogue and a face for scene after scene. Which is weird considering that he's Boba '4 lines in the original trilogy, never takes his helmet off' Fett. He's also weirdly sympathetic for a feared bounty hunter and strangely apologetic after inhaling the chief's lizard. I found the story in the present day to be less compelling, as it's still a bit aimless at the moment, but the flashbacks are starting to tie in a bit now. We get to see Boba taking his first steps to becoming a crime lord, as he negotiates for the spice traders to pay a fee for passage through the Dune Sea. There's not a lot to tie the two time periods together though and I'm starting to wonder if telling the story chronologically would've made more sense. Overall this was a beautiful episode with a great soundtrack that feels like it could've been sliced right out of a Star Wars movie. I'm glad it wasn't a movie though as these stories are working so much better as TV series. So far anyway. It'll be cool if Andor, Ahsoka and Obi Wan all work out as well. |
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| 1-03 | The Streets of Mos Espa |
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Boba finds his tribe has been slaughtered. Meanwhile in the present day, he starts to build a new tribe... by recruiting cyborgs with scooters. The Mods soon come in useful when the mayor's assistant makes a run for it and they need to chase him down. Also Boba survives an assassination attempt by a Wookiee called Krrsantan and gets a free rancor from the Hutts! It was a brave choice to have Boba Fett recruit a gang of cyborgs with brightly coloured Vespas. That's the kind of thing that can take a person right out of a series. Especially if that series is set on a desert planet where everything's brown and rusty, and the gang gets a whole chase scene to themselves to show off how awesome they are. Personally I'm still on the fence with them. Their whole deal is to stand out, so it's not so weird they'd be the only people on the planet not riding on junk, and they're thieves so they presumably stole what they needed. Though why there were scooters on a desert planet in the ass-end of space to buy/steal is a mystery. Their chase scene was a bit slow, but they're chasing the mayor's assistant on scooters, so... yeah. We already got the high speed train chase last episode so I was satisfied enough.
Though I did think that the scene where Boba first meets them was on the wrong side of ridiculous. You've got crime boss Boba Fett in full combat armour standing in the sandy streets of Tatooine, calling himself the daimyo, discussing the price of water with a cyberpunk biker gang, while a greedy water merchant lurks nearby. Star Wars has a knack for blending cultures and genres, but I struggled to take any of this seriously. The first two episodes had more focus on Boba's adventures in the past than his activities as a fledgling crime lord, but here we only get a glimpse of his time with the Tuskans. Just enough to discover that they're all dead, presumably wiped out by the biker gang Boba aggravated last episode! Though the events in the present day maybe hint that the Pyke Syndicate is more involved than they seem. Maybe Boba's whole rise to power is part of a plan to get revenge on them for massacring his tribe. Or maybe not, it's hard to say at this point. He definitely didn't get into crime so that he could eat massive feasts and be a total dick to people though, as he repeatedly chooses the nicest way to deal with any situation. In fact he tells Fennec that she's being a little heavy handed at one point for doing a bit of minor threatening. It makes me wonder how much longer she's willing to put up with his benevolence. The series is so completely focused on Boba that it's hard to know what's going through her mind, or anyone else's. Even the rancor trainer (surprise appearance by Danny Trejo) had me worried. Is he an agent of the Hutts there to eliminate Boba? Is the rancor intended to kill him? It's all left unresolved. Though one thing that's clear is that Boba really loves that thing! Boba is similar to Din Djarin in a lot of ways, but Boba's way more of an animal guy. I've heard some people calling this episode a misstep, but I liked it. There are hints that Boba's got a bigger agenda (or at least powerful motivations), we got a bit of action, and a bunch of people beat up a mean Wookiee. We also got another mention that Tatooine used to have water on it, which is interesting. I wonder if they're going somewhere with that. |
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| 1-04 | The Gathering Storm |
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Boba saves Fennec Shand from dying of her gut wound inflicted in The Mandalorian by paying for cyborg augmentation, then they go on a mission to infiltrate Jabba's palace and get his ship back so he can go search the Sarlacc pit for his armour. Meanwhile in the present day, Boba recruits Krrsantan and convinces the local crime bosses to stay out of his upcoming war with the Pyke Syndicate. I thought we might be done with the flashbacks after The Streets of Mos Espa. Turns out that I was very wrong and once against the episode structure is very weird, with half an hour of flashbacks before it returns to the present day for the last few scenes. The flashbacks have to be done now though, as we've caught up to the post credits scene at the end of The Mandalorian season 2 and Boba's done with his bacta treatments.
The flashback scenes are all about how Boba met Fennec and teamed up with her to get his ship back, which is good because it finally gives us a little more insight into who she is and what's motivating her. Just a little though. We also got to see how she got saved and upgraded with robot guts: Boba picked her up and took her somewhere that upgrades people with robot guts. Not really a big twist to it, but it did introduce the place that augmented Boba's mod squad. We also got confirmation that he's deliberately putting another tribe together to make them all stronger, and his ultimate mission is probably more along the lines of 'stop working for idiots that got me dropped down a Sarlacc pit' than it is 'put into place reforms to support the community'. Speaking of the Sarlacc pit, Boba nearly went and got himself dragged down it again! The dumbass. He is really lucky that his That's not the only thing Boba may have gotten wrong, as Fennec points out that it's unlikely for the bikers to have wiped out his Tusken tribe. He still guns them all down though, in a slightly out of character moment of extreme violence. There was a lot of good action in this actually, though your mileage on the rat catcher droid scene probably depends on how much you like kids movies (I did like Chef Grievous though). Turns out that the episode was directed by Kevin Tancharoen, whose name had a habit of showing up on Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. episodes with good fight scenes. Overall this was a pretty good episode I thought, despite the infiltration mission reminding me of a video game I played recently. Or maybe because of it. I did love Fennec's little drone, I had one that marked targets too! Plus that music when they were talking about how they can hire warriors was kind of familiar as well. Sure sounded like The Mandalorian theme for a moment... |
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| 1-05 | The Return of the Mandalorian |
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Boba... does not appear in this episode as the Mandalorian takes over! He manages to wound himself with the Darksaber while collecting a bounty and is then exiled by the Armorer after admitting that people have seen his face. He's given a quest to redeem himself, but doesn't have a ship, so he catches a flight to Tatooine to buy a replacement Razor Crest from Peli Motto. He finds himself helping her build a hot rod modded Naboo starfighter instead and gets hired by Fennec Shand while he's there. I was a little annoyed when I accidentally read somewhere that this was going to have Din Djarin in it. I didn't want that spoiled for me! Then I saw the title and realised they weren't exactly keeping it a secret that the Mandalorian was showing up in this episode of Book of Boba Fett.
Though it's not really an episode of Book of Boba Fett at all, it's actually two episodes of The Mandalorian. The episode's pretty much split down the middle into two unrelated stories and neither of them have any Boba Fett in them, or any connection to the events of this season at all really. Well except for a cameo from Fennec Shand at the very end. I've seen episodes of one series mimic another series before, even down to changing the theme tune. I've seen characters from one series take over another series for a story. I've seen backdoor pilots for spin-offs. I've seen crossover stories split across episodes of five different series. But I've never seen an episode of one series airing as part of another series before. The first story is about Mando hurting himself with the Darksaber while collecting a bounty and meeting back up with the Armorer. Turns out that she and Paz Vizsla are the only survivors of his covert and Vizsla wants his Darksaber. That means we get the first of perhaps many duels to prove he's worthy of the Darksaber and it didn't go all that well! We've seen lightsabers wielded by non-Force users a few times with varying degrees of success and it seems like Mando's struggling. I didn't quite get why the Darksaber was getting heavier for him, but that seems to be a problem he'll work on over time as he managed to win his duel here regardless. This side of the episode is loaded with exposition and continuity as the wise (and kind of robotic) Armorer lays out everything we need to know about the destruction of Mandalore. She also turned his special beskar spear into armour for Grogu! (All wrapped up in a bit of cloth tied to look like Grogu's head). And then she asked him whether he'd ever taken his helmet off. I forgot that question was inevitably coming at some point, and I really felt for Mando when he had to say no... and got rejected by his tribe. Season 2 made it appear like Mando was questioning his beliefs, but he seems like he wants back in. He compares Jedi philosophy with his (slightly fanatical) Mandalorian philosophy, worrying about how it might lead to Grogu being isolated from him. Personally I hope Luke knows better than to make the same mistake as the last Jedi order. He definitely still considers weapons to be part of his religion, which makes it a bit awkward when has to take a trip on a commercial starliner. This led to the most suspenseful scene in the whole episode for me when he had to take all his weapons (including the legendary Darksaber) and stash them away in a box during the flight! I was dreading the saber being missing when he opened it back up. They got some comedy out of the scene of the Mandalorian bounty hunter sitting there in an aeroplane seat in full armour, but the guy's already suffered enough lately I reckon. He's lost his ship, his kid and now even his right to call himself a Mandalorian. Fortunately he's apparently going on a quest to Mandalore to regain his worthiness... just as soon as he gets a ship and goes to visit Grogu. The second story is about Mando arriving on Tatooine to pick up his new Razor Crest and finding a classic Naboo Starfighter waiting for him instead. In pieces. This story's basically all about him working on a car with his mechanic friend and I feel like it does that premise justice. It's mostly just Amy Sedaris making quips while comedy robots do their things, but they've grown on me since their first appearance back in The Gunslinger in season 1. It's weird how important that episode's become to the continuity as it felt really standalone at the time. This part of the episode ends with him flying through Beggar's Canyon to give fans some references to the older movies, before flying up to see that kid in the starliner. I guess the kid was only sticking around Tatooine for exactly as long as it takes to build a starfighter. I'm not sure what I think about the subversion of Mando actually getting stopped by the x-cops for showing off (and spinning), but I did like how he got his revenge by escaping from them with his hot rod N-1. The moral of Star Wars is that homemade stuff built from junk will always outperform newer ships made decades later, that's while the biggest piece of junk of all, the Millennium Falcon, is the galaxy's fastest and most dangerous ship. The thing is, the Naboo Starfighter isn't really suitable for bounty hunting, so is he keeping the ship and losing the job or keeping the job and losing the ship? I definitely liked this episode... episodes, and I found the focus on Mando to be a pleasant surprise. It was a bit weird though, especially for people who haven't seen his series, and it means this season of Boba Fett is now an absolutely crucial part of the Mandalorian's ongoing story. |
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| 1-06 | From the Desert Comes a Stranger |
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The Mandalorian visits Luke Skywalker's Jedi Temple construction site to give a gift to Grogu, but is convinced to leave without seeing him. Luke is finding his attempts to train Grogu are jogging the kid's memories of his past training, but he's clearly conflicted. So he offers him a choice to stay and get a cool lightsaber, or go back to his dad. Meanwhile, the Mandalorian returns to Tatooine to recruit Cobb Vanth's town for Boba's army, but the marshal is gunned down by Cad Bane.
This felt like a longer episode than it was to me, but not in a bad way. I think one part of the reason for that it likes to slow down and dwell on things like the robots building the Jedi school, and the other part is that whenever it felt like a story was ending it'd just cut to some other character instead. The last episode was incredibly Mando heavy and I figured that it'd be a one-off, but nope he still hasn't handed the series back to Boba yet. In fact he's brought in more guest stars, so we get Cobb Vanth, Ahsoka Tano and Luke Skywalker! There's a ridiculous amount of deep faked Luke Skywalker in this in fact.
So far the Book of Boba Fett has felt like a sequel to Return of the Jedi, but this episode definitely has Empire Strikes Back on its mind. Luke's scenes training Grogu are clearly referencing Yoda training Luke in the swamp. Which makes total sense really, I mean how else is he going to teach the kid? Ahsoka would've likely trained him differently, but she's not getting involved in this one. She's just hanging around for no reason in particular, basically to give Mando someone to talk to and to finally answer the question "Has Ahsoka met Luke?" Turns out that she has, and she has a lot of faith in him. I wasn't so sure about him myself though. I mean yeah technically he's a very convincing Young Luke Skywalker, they did a fantastic job with the effects, and it's as nice to see him being a thoughtful teacher as it was watching him tear through Dark Troopers in his last appearance, but he seems determined to stick to the Jedi rule of 'no attachments' and I was hoping he'd decided to give that one a rethink. Luke's defining moment is him turning his dad back to the Light Side of the Force, he set himself up as a new kind of Jedi that wasn't going to repeat the mistake that led to Anakin turning on them. But nope, turns out he's sticking to that rule. So that was a bit of a disappointment. Though I was happy to see him at least give Grogu a choice between being a Mandalorian or being a Jedi, not that there's any mystery which he's going to choose. They've been clever here, explaining that Grogu is remembering the things that Luke is trying to teach him, so they can have the kid continue to develop his Force powers without Luke's help. And Mando's got that space at the back of his Naboo starfighter all set up for him. The episode also features a fair amount of Cobb Vanth, who's a little more vulnerable without his armour but still plenty quick on the draw. I have to admit, I'm the idiot who figured that he was the stranger from the desert mentioned in the title, but I'm not too disappointed to be wrong there. Turns out it was actually heartless bounty hunter Cad Bane, making his first live action appearance! So it's a good job I gave in and finally checked out Clone Wars last year or else I'd have no idea who he was. I might have gotten the identity of the stranger wrong, but I knew how that shootout was going to go down at least. There was no way Bane was going to be killed off the moment he showed up, and Vanth probably wasn't going to die either. That deputy though, he had a huge target on his head from the moment he showed up, and it only got bigger when he conspicuously stuck around. So now Vanth is (presumably) injured and the chances of getting Freetown to help out in Boba's war against the Pyke Syndicate have either decreased or increased significantly. One thing I definitely didn't predict was the casino exploding! I've been waiting for Garsa Fwip to reveal her true role in events so her sudden death was kind of unexpected. I guess she was exactly what she seemed to be and all those scenes with her and Boba were setting up nothing. There's a lot of bad things happening in this story, but then that's very appropriate for the Empire Strikes Back episode. Hopefully the next episode will see a turnaround though and Vanth will get some new Mandalorian armour. Also there's no way we're not getting a Fennec Shand and Cad Bane rematch. |
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| 1-07 | In the Name of Honor |
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Boba and the Mandalorian team up to fight the entire Pyke Syndicate army, with new allies and enemies arriving during the battle. Eventually Boba has to defeat some giant battle droids with his pet rancor and the Mandalorian is reunited with Grogu. Cad Bane arrives to take Boba on in a duel and Boba's finally able to kill the evil gunslinger.
I don't know what to say about this episode as a story as it was mostly a
series of poor decisions followed by 30 minutes of really expensive
looking action... in which the characters made a lot of poor decisions. Sometimes the underdogs can win a battle against overwhelming numbers and bigger guns by using ingenious tactics and unconventional thinking. Here they mostly hid behind a wall, or got caught out in the open and shot at for a bit, before making it behind a wall again. They kept putting themselves in terrible positions, they'd made no preparations, they kept everyone grouped together in plain sight, and so on. Plus it was frustrating to find out that the heroes' big plan was to hide until a speeder full of moisture farmers came to bail them out. I'm usually a bit annoyed by Boba being dumb, but here it's Mando who lets the team down by promising that the inhabitants of Freetown are coming to back them up. I mean, they did, but he had no business making that promise and Boba shouldn't have based his whole plan around it. Uh, maybe 'plan' is a bit of a strong word. Fortunately the episode compensates for its shoddy story with some amazing looking set pieces, many of them involving Boba Fett riding a damn rancor! Personally I would've chosen to bring out the spaceship, but hey how often do you get an excuse to cut loose with a rancor? I also liked how we got to learn what choice Grogu made almost immediately, which also quickly dampened any expectations about Luke Skywalker playing a role in the battle. Personally if I was the guardian of a child I wouldn't strap him into a combat jet and send him off to a docking bay on another planet in the hopes that his dad might turn up there, but then I don't have Force premonitions. Plus he was being looked after by R2-D2, the most responsible and competent hero in the series. This means that Grogu is officially a foundling now, properly on the path to becoming a Mandalorian! They're going to have to rename the series to The Mandalorians. All the really good character moments in the episode came from Mando and Grogu as the two are reunited when Peli Motto decides to drive towards the gunfire. I mean yeah that's exactly the right place to find him, she nailed it, but it was also the right place to get her droid shot up and a tooth knocked out! Meanwhile all the good assassination moments in the episode came from Fennec Shand murdering the Pyke Syndicate leaders along with the mayor! Turns out that she is incredibly effective when Boba isn't there to hold her back. She's both the brains of the operation and the muscle of the operation, which makes it a bit weird that the series isn't called The Book of Fennec Shand. I suppose that she didn't get to fight Cad Bane at the end, which surprised me a little. I figured he'd be a midboss for her to deal with while Boba went and confronted the Pykes. I was also surprised that Bane actually dies here... before they've even established anything about his backstory with Boba. All these bacta flashbacks and they didn't think that was important? We've had flashbacks to Boba as a kid but not to anything he did as a kid. The moment that really made it clear that the series hasn't done a great job with the lead character is when Cad Bane asked Boba what his angle was and I was expecting some revelation. I thought we'd get an answer! All this time I've been waiting to learn what Boba's true plan is, why he's been making the choices he has, and it turns out that... he's just really bad at being a crime lord. | ||||||||||||||
CONCLUSION
Tatooine, man. Why do they always have to go back to Tatooine? It's all sand and junk! The series did visit a ringworld for half an episode and Luke's Jedi Temple construction site, but then it was right back to the sand. Still, I suppose that's unavoidable when you're making a sequel to the first half of Return of the Jedi, and man they made that sand and junk look good. The series is just as faithful to the look of Star Wars as The Mandalorian and just as impressive to me whether I'm watching an elaborate action scene or the characters taking in the scenery for a moment. The season does have a few flaws however.
I'm sure The Book of Boba Fett is well aware of how stories are conventionally structured, but it doesn't want any part of it. The first four episodes have almost a clean split between flashbacks and the present day, without any attempt to pull a Highlander or a Lost or an Arrow and tie the two plots together. Then in episode 5 Boba just hands the show over to guest stars! It's like episodes from three separate series have been edited together into one show: one about Boba joining a tribe, one about Boba becoming a crime lord, and The Mandalorian.
The flashbacks to Boba's time with the Tuskans worked pretty well I thought. Despite the one-sidedness of the conversations, they did a decent job of putting me into Boba's head so I understood what he wanted and why he made the choices he did. He didn't appear to be changed all that much by the experience, we never saw him start off as the ruthless hunter he's supposed to be, but I liked how he at least came to appreciate having a tribe instead of being alone. Plus that whole story about the attack on the Pyke Syndicate train was great.
My problem with the flashbacks though, is they don't really give us much context for what he's doing in the present. We do get to see him pick up Fennec and take his ship back, but there are no scenes of him working for idiots like Jabba that get people like them killed. There are no scenes of him interacting with Cad Bane as a kid. There are no scenes of people suffering because of spice. There are no scenes of anything to really establish why he wants Jabba's throne or why he wants to protect Mos Espa, and make us feel it, like I could feel how much he was devastated by the death of his tribe.
The present day scenes are all about Boba establishing himself as a crime boss, with basically no men, no plan, and no real idea of what he's doing it seems. This is the part of the story people were hyped up to see: Star Wars' most badass bounty hunter scheming, manipulating and killing his way to wealth and power. They wanted to see the Boba Fett who shot Bib Fortuna in the face and took his throne, an anti-hero who'd take us into the darkest corners of the underworld. But yeah, none of that happened. I wasn't all that bothered personally, I liked him and Fennec trying to work things out by trial and error, but I was waiting for another shoe to drop to explain what his master plan was and that never really happened either. The guy wants a tribe and he doesn't want to work for idiots, I get that, but I don't think we got nearly enough to justify why he was so keen on protecting Mos Espa. Aside from the fact that the Mods asked him to, and they're his tribe now. And he's a kind-hearted kind of crime lord who never commits or supports crime.
Incidentally, taking on an intergalactic crime syndicate with just a handful of people seemed kind of crazy and I was curious to see what Boba had up his sleeve. Again, he had nothing, and his plan for the final battle was terrible. The guy's got two modes: 'respect' and 'violence' - he apparently doesn't do 'thinking'. Not after that lizard crawled into his nose anyway. Don't do lizard drugs.
And the third story was literally The Mandalorian season 3. It's absolutely crazy to me that Mando gets a new quest, a new ship and his son back in three episodes of someone else's series. The trouble with this is that it means the most beloved and acclaimed episodes of The Book of Boba Fett are the ones without Boba Fett in them. I'm not going to complain about getting surprise Mandalorian episodes though, and I'm not going to complain about them undoing half of The Mandalorian season 2 either, because it's not really undone. Sure he's back flying around with the kid he spent a season trying to get rid of, but a starfighter isn't a ship for bounty hunting and this time his goal isn't to protect the kid. I'm hyped.
Overall I really enjoyed Book of Boba Fett, even if the present day Boba Fett story was a bit underwhelming. The series pretty much has all the pieces it needed to really bring us along with Boba as he went on his mission to, uh, reduce water prices and lower unemployment, but they were just left scattered around instead of being assembled into a tight narrative. There were themes about isolation vs attachments all over the place, the Jedi way vs the Mandalorian way, the Tuskan way vs Cad Bane's way, but they didn't really lead anywhere other than 'friendship is good, you can make your own family'. Plus it probably would've helped if they'd made Boba a bit more cunning, or at least given us a bit of indication that he's supposed to come across like he's just new idiot in charge who gets his employees killed. Still, what the series lacks in brains, and story, it makes up for with that rancor vs combat droid battle at the end. I keep thinking there has to be another TV series I've seen recently that I liked more than this, but none of them had a rancor.
My top three season 1 episodes:
Bottom three season 1 episodes:
Next time on The Book of Boba Fett:
Is there even going to be a next season? It had a post credit scene but that doesn't mean anything when the character in it didn't even come from this series.
If it does get a season two, then what I want from it is a story about Boba and Fennec trying to achieve clear goals in clever, inventive and excessively violent ways. I don't really care if he keeps Jabba's palace or not, I just want a good story.
I'm sure The Book of Boba Fett is well aware of how stories are conventionally structured, but it doesn't want any part of it. The first four episodes have almost a clean split between flashbacks and the present day, without any attempt to pull a Highlander or a Lost or an Arrow and tie the two plots together. Then in episode 5 Boba just hands the show over to guest stars! It's like episodes from three separate series have been edited together into one show: one about Boba joining a tribe, one about Boba becoming a crime lord, and The Mandalorian.
The flashbacks to Boba's time with the Tuskans worked pretty well I thought. Despite the one-sidedness of the conversations, they did a decent job of putting me into Boba's head so I understood what he wanted and why he made the choices he did. He didn't appear to be changed all that much by the experience, we never saw him start off as the ruthless hunter he's supposed to be, but I liked how he at least came to appreciate having a tribe instead of being alone. Plus that whole story about the attack on the Pyke Syndicate train was great.
My problem with the flashbacks though, is they don't really give us much context for what he's doing in the present. We do get to see him pick up Fennec and take his ship back, but there are no scenes of him working for idiots like Jabba that get people like them killed. There are no scenes of him interacting with Cad Bane as a kid. There are no scenes of people suffering because of spice. There are no scenes of anything to really establish why he wants Jabba's throne or why he wants to protect Mos Espa, and make us feel it, like I could feel how much he was devastated by the death of his tribe.
The present day scenes are all about Boba establishing himself as a crime boss, with basically no men, no plan, and no real idea of what he's doing it seems. This is the part of the story people were hyped up to see: Star Wars' most badass bounty hunter scheming, manipulating and killing his way to wealth and power. They wanted to see the Boba Fett who shot Bib Fortuna in the face and took his throne, an anti-hero who'd take us into the darkest corners of the underworld. But yeah, none of that happened. I wasn't all that bothered personally, I liked him and Fennec trying to work things out by trial and error, but I was waiting for another shoe to drop to explain what his master plan was and that never really happened either. The guy wants a tribe and he doesn't want to work for idiots, I get that, but I don't think we got nearly enough to justify why he was so keen on protecting Mos Espa. Aside from the fact that the Mods asked him to, and they're his tribe now. And he's a kind-hearted kind of crime lord who never commits or supports crime.
Incidentally, taking on an intergalactic crime syndicate with just a handful of people seemed kind of crazy and I was curious to see what Boba had up his sleeve. Again, he had nothing, and his plan for the final battle was terrible. The guy's got two modes: 'respect' and 'violence' - he apparently doesn't do 'thinking'. Not after that lizard crawled into his nose anyway. Don't do lizard drugs.
And the third story was literally The Mandalorian season 3. It's absolutely crazy to me that Mando gets a new quest, a new ship and his son back in three episodes of someone else's series. The trouble with this is that it means the most beloved and acclaimed episodes of The Book of Boba Fett are the ones without Boba Fett in them. I'm not going to complain about getting surprise Mandalorian episodes though, and I'm not going to complain about them undoing half of The Mandalorian season 2 either, because it's not really undone. Sure he's back flying around with the kid he spent a season trying to get rid of, but a starfighter isn't a ship for bounty hunting and this time his goal isn't to protect the kid. I'm hyped.
Overall I really enjoyed Book of Boba Fett, even if the present day Boba Fett story was a bit underwhelming. The series pretty much has all the pieces it needed to really bring us along with Boba as he went on his mission to, uh, reduce water prices and lower unemployment, but they were just left scattered around instead of being assembled into a tight narrative. There were themes about isolation vs attachments all over the place, the Jedi way vs the Mandalorian way, the Tuskan way vs Cad Bane's way, but they didn't really lead anywhere other than 'friendship is good, you can make your own family'. Plus it probably would've helped if they'd made Boba a bit more cunning, or at least given us a bit of indication that he's supposed to come across like he's just new idiot in charge who gets his employees killed. Still, what the series lacks in brains, and story, it makes up for with that rancor vs combat droid battle at the end. I keep thinking there has to be another TV series I've seen recently that I liked more than this, but none of them had a rancor.
My top three season 1 episodes:
- The Return of the Mandalorian (8)
- The Tribes of Tatooine (8)
- In the Name of Honor (7)
Bottom three season 1 episodes:
- The Streets of Mos Espa (7)
- Stranger in a Strange Land (7)
- The Gathering Storm (7)
Next time on The Book of Boba Fett:
Is there even going to be a next season? It had a post credit scene but that doesn't mean anything when the character in it didn't even come from this series.
If it does get a season two, then what I want from it is a story about Boba and Fennec trying to achieve clear goals in clever, inventive and excessively violent ways. I don't really care if he keeps Jabba's palace or not, I just want a good story.
NEXT EPISODE
If you want to share your own feelings about The Book of Boba Fett, you're welcome to leave a comment.
In fairness, "stupid but lucky" is quite in character for Boba Fett. He has this weird reputation in fandom as a badass, which I've never understood because the only competent thing he manages to do in the original films is predicting Han Solo's rubbish dump escape plan. Otherwise he just hangs around in the background, chats up a couple of dancers, then gets "killed" in a comedy Laurel and Hardy routine.
ReplyDeleteSo a series in which he accidentally bumbles his way through being a crime lord is quite fitting, although I'm not sure it was deliberate.
I'd say he's more "stupid, unlucky, but tough". Or "stupid, unlucky, well-armoured and has a lot of more competent people to bail him out".
DeleteNow I'm imagining it as a sitcom with hapless Boba stumbling into japes and scrapes, like a Chuckle Brother in power armour. Gosh, I'd love that.
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