A muddled Book Of Boba Fett confuses disorganization for cleverness
"The Streets Of Mos Espa" restructures the rules of the game to confounding effect
TV Reviews Boba Fett
Everything about this episode just felt a little off. The plot points were questionable, the chase sequence was positively geriatric, and the shuffling around of antagonists felt less like a cunning exploration of criminal power structures and more like a show that only three episodes in is spinning its wheels. And while Stephen Root as a conniving, but loveable water monger; Danny Trejo as a gruff, but loveable Rancor trainer; and Yellowjackets’ Sophie Thatcher as a tough, but loveable gang leader were all very welcome additions to the episode, none were enough to overcome the bigger issues that affected this episode. This week had a lot of needless shuffling around and place setting, but hopefully in service of assuring the remaining four episodes go more smoothly.
“The Streets Of Mos Espa” looks to explore the main urban center of Boba Fett’s ostensible criminal empire. When Bib Fortuna took over Jabba’s throne, his weakened position forced him to rely on an alliance of entrenched powers, even though doing so fractured the city into three semi-autonomous boroughs. This is information for a future episode, however. More pressing is those damn kids stealing Stephen Root’s water! The beloved character actor and good-natured weirdo arrives to ask for help dealing with a group of cybernetic street-thugs harassing the local merchants. Just like last week’s Hell’s Angels Nikto biker gang, the kids here are all heavily visually inspired by a real world analog. In this instance, it’s straight out of the Mod scene, with each member riding a candy-colored hover scooter decked out with multiple rear-view mirrors. One kid is even rocking a suit and fishtail parka. It turns out these toughs aren’t so tough after all, and just want a chance to make an honest wage working for an upstart crime lord. Fett’s entourage just got four people bigger.
At night Boba Fett dreams of water. At least until a giant Wookiee yanks him out of his sleeping tank and starts pounding the bacta out of him. I don’t quite understand using electrified brass knuckles when you’re a species renowned for de-limbing people with ease, beyond the obvious reason of the show not actually wanting Fett dead. Just as it was with the Night Wind assassins, this fight scene still feels stilted and overly staged; though it is improved by having a very large creature toss a smaller creature around the room. The trap door to the Rancor chamber continues to pay for itself, however, as the Wookiee happens to stand on the exact 3×3 square necessary to send him into the dungeon. Somehow, the act of Fennic using her throwing knife to dislodge the Wookiee into the pit just seems to highlight how underutilized she has been in this series. Ming-Na Wen is exceptional with a quip or an observation, and she has had the occasional opportunity to kick some ass, but she’s mostly relegated to walking alongside Fett and agreeing with him. That said, the titular character doesn’t fare much better. There’s just a whole lot of standing around on this show. Hopefully she’ll get some solo missions in future episodes.
The show decided it absolutely needed a Rancor and it doesn’t care how it gets one. It’s only under that kind of ends-justify-the-means narrative approach that I can imagine why a departing enemy would gift something so large and ostentatious. After failing to kill Fett, the Twins arrive, apologize for their assassination attempt and inform Fett an opponent is arriving that’s scary enough for the Hutts to relinquish their claim on the Outer Rim. If it were me, I’d just go ahead and quietly depart the planet I no longer wanted to rule, and not worry about repercussions from the obviously over-extended bounty hunter I had just tried to kill. But nature abhors a Rancor vacuum, and that empty chamber was just too sad. So now the show has a Rancor.
Could they have introduced a new monster or monsters to go in there? Of course, but it’s not that kind of show. But if we do indeed get to see Fett riding one as a war steed by the end of the series, I’ll be at least somewhat mollified. Also, the aforementioned Danny Trejo gets to be the guy delivering exposition on the temperament of this giant reptile pit bull, and that’s pretty good too. The departure of the twins speaks to an ongoing problem afflicting The Book Of Boba Fett. While I did say last week that introducing Jabba 2.0 was an uninspired decision, it feels equally befuddling that they would be introduced one episode and depart the next. There’s a lot of build-up and mystery they place around whoever Fett is supposed to be up again, but it’s deflating how they all end up as misdirection or weird interludes.
As for this week’s climactic set piece, What should have been a bracing breakneck chase scene through the streets of Mos Espa instead felt like watching a bunch of teenagers grabbing the mobility carts from a grocery store and videotaping themselves as they idly screw around in the aisles. It was an ambitious effects sequence for the show to plot, no question; with lots of characters interacting in a busy environment. But it all felt so stilted. While Solo should have been a Disney+ show (if it should have been anything at all), this did make me think back fondly to the well-paced speeder chase at the beginning of that film, which only theatrical budgets can buy.
Fett’s time with the Tusken Raiders came to a surprisingly abrupt end this episode. There’s been a lot of speculation about how big of a part they were going to play going forward, even as far as Fett wanting to become Daimyo in order to gift the fruits of his power to the tribe. But they were unceremoniously killed off-screen in a raid by the speeder bike gang Fett tousled with last week. While Fett was away dealing with the Pyke Syndicate, who claims they pay protection money to the gang, it wouldn’t be surprising if they were sent out on the Syndicate’s behalf to take revenge on the Raiders for the train robbery. That scene, together with the reveal it’s the Pykes returning to Tatooine at the end of the episode points to the Syndicate as the ultimate bad guys bridging the two timelines. But given how this show seems to add and discard villains, I’m sure next week we’ll discover they’re actually at the mercy of an Ewok who grafted their head onto a Wampa’s body.
Stray Observations
- Notably absent from the dead Tuskens was the tribe champion. I really hope she shows up again. Because she is very cool.
- I’m generally the type of viewer who is happy to overlook questionable technical or structural questions in a scene if it results in a compelling mood or enjoyable sequence. But watching as Fett comes gently gliding down on his jet pack after the majordomo crashes, I just don’t understand how the airborne guy with a clear line of sight and a long range weapon had to wait on his pubescent lackeys to half-assedly do the job for him. Maybe I’ve been living in this country too long to be surprised at someone in a position of power not willingly firing into a crowd.
- I was not familiar with the Wookiee bounty hunter before last week’s episode. His name is Black Krrsantan, and he debuted in Marvel’s Darth Vader #1 in 2015. Folks like him, but seem more enthusiastic that his presence may lead to introducing Doctor Aphra, an amoral archeologist who also premiered in a Darth Vader comic.
- I’m not expecting this show to go heavy on the blood and viscera, but if you get knocked around the room by a massive Wookiee half a dozen times, I’d like to see at least an artful trickle of blood from Fett’s nose, or a bruised cheek, or something.
- Fett lets Black Krrsantan go instead of inviting him to join his crew, but I’m sure that’s just delaying his inevitable addition to the roster.
- The Book Of Boba Fett continues its mission of humanizing otherwise unsympathetic creatures with a more in-depth understanding of the Rancor. They’re not the mindless killing machines we were led to believe. They are in fact, very mindful killing machines.
- In a larger sense, what does a Daimyo of the Outer Rim do? What vices, trade, and criminal enterprises does he oversee? So much of the show’s attention is spent on Fett trying to wrestle control of his domain with a threadbare crew, there’s no attention to the mechanics of overseeing an empire. It’s a good business to be in if you can afford to delegate so much of your job to the underlings.
- The show featured an exterior shot of the palace with a creature grabbing up a small lizard with its tongue. It’s not even an easter egg, just redoing the exact same thing from Return Of The Jedi with an extra flying creature.
- Gangs of New York-style final showdown between the warring factions in the Moss Espa city center, please.
- Are you watching Yellowjackets? It’s fun stuff. No show should be able to handle the obligations to so many genres at this does so gracefully. It’s every kind of delightful pulp nonsense.
216 Comments
Personally I got a kick out of the accidental(?) Tokusatsu bit with the Young Fettsters and their color-coded bikes. If they don’t end up merging into a mini AT-AT in the finale I’ll be a little disappointed.
We’re calling them the Vespa Rangers at our house.
Make it The Flighty Morphine Vespa Rangers
It looked like something from the 80’s Droids cartoon.
To be fair, Gavia Baker-Whitelaw of the Daily Dot pointed out that Obi-Wan went to a full-on diner:
Is there anywhere in the SW universe that has fancy Michelin-starred restaurants? So far it seems the only eating establishments are diners or shady Cantinas.
That big dining room in Cloud City looked pretty fancy, and the casino on Canto Bight probably has some starred stuff.
Yeah, you can get the casino got Elzzar or some other galactic holo-net celebrity chef to put their name on the restaurant to knock it up a notch
It’s almost guaranteed that at some point the galaxy’s equivalent of Anthony Bourdain filmed an episode on Tattooine and now the Mos Eisley Cantina is an awful hipster tourist hangout and the nearby barbecued Kowakian monkey-lizard stall has been bestowed with their equivalent of a Michelin Star.
“I’m Gordon Fett, and this is Hell’s Cantina!”
“This hubba gourd salad looks like bantha poo-doo, and it fucking well tastes like bantha poo-doo!”
*Throws hubba gourd salad across studio*
Now you see why I was hoping this would be a Guy Fieri-ish roadtrip eating show!
Can you believe that mook Palpatine likes his dewback steak well done?
Yeah right. Now let’s head over to McGreedo’s for a bucket of Bantha Nuggets!
Han Burgundy is overheard protesting “I’m not going to eat a fried Bantha. You didn’t even fry the meat. It’s all horn!”
The Halcyon.
Yeah but that makes sense. Obi-Wan was on a planet that’s just a giant mega megalopolis.
This didn’t make sense they can’t afford Space Bill Dauterive’s water but they’ve got money to spend on pimped out scooters and cyborg parts? It was just a case of someone thinking “Wouldn’t it be nice if Boba adopts a gang of troubled youths? And visually, let’s make them a gang of Space Punks who take body modification to extremes by swapping out their body parts with droid parts and maybe they can ride around on anti-gravity scooters like a cross between Quadrophenia Fry in that one episode of Futurama?”
you can almost see the pitch – “They’re Mods, like in Quadrophenia, but for reals because they had body modifcations!! Get it!?! and we’ll give them hover scooters with lots of mirrors! Maybe we can get Sting for a cameo!!”
obligatory
I often wonder how so many supposedly broke-ass people got sleeves of tattoos.
It was just a case of someone thinking “Wouldn’t it be nice if Boba adopts a gang of troubled youths?If the Tusken tribe really is being fridged, Boba building himself a new one tracks. And let’s not forget, our own Disney Prince Din Djarin was taken in by another Mandalorian.
They’re kids, they make bad financial choices. I doubt they listen to space Dave Ramsey’s subspace radio show.
Why don’cha put a .25 credit in the ol’ jizz-box and play the latest groove from “Fiery” Fig-rin D’an?
And it was terrible.
Oh hell with that, I would’ve rolled with an Obi-Wan as Columbo show had that been an option at the time.
And that…was hella dumb.
Which was EXCELLENT!
In the season finale they’re going to hack the planet.
First one I really enjoyed and it gets a “C+” on this site. LMAO
That chase was uncomfortable to watch because of how obviously slowly the vehicles were moving. The landspeeder didn’t even seem like it was going to clear the debris it was dislodging from precariously-placed overhangs.What makes it extra chuckle-worthy is that about two seconds before they hop on their scooters, one of the cyborg mods says, “There’s no way your bike’s faster than mine!” That turned out to be true–they all top out at about jogging speed.
And the absolutely putrid special effects
50 New Republic credits says they saved all that effects budget for de-aged Harrison Ford.
Well they are space Vespas..
Mmmmm… Daphne Zuniga.
Next episode: Boba Fett recruits another teen gang who drive Space Sinclair C5’s.
It’s pronounced “Mos Espa.”
Funny. They don’t look Druish.
It’s up there with the Last Jedi’s glacial paced bombing run / fleet ‘chase’ combo and a ‘de-aged’ Robert Deniro handing out a superannuated beat-down in ‘The Irishman’
That speeder chase was like watching a Rascal scooter race. I’m embarrassed for them that they put that out for public consumption.
Haha, I tried to post that GIF, but it wouldn’t do it, so I just said fuck it.
Not as uncomfortable as watching Boba pulled out of the Bacta tank:
Isn’t that Danny Devito from “It’s always Sunny in Philadelphia”?
Yes, and this is exactly what that scene reminded me of.
It looked almost like the Venture Brothers on their hover bikes chasing an old guy in a car, and that would have been better.
Discovering that Robert Rodriguez was involved in this explained a lot about why Danny Trejo suddenly turned up (not that that’s ever a bad thing) and also why the colour-coded kiddie bikers gave the episode a real Spy Kids vibe (which is not a good thing).This was also definitely one of those episodes where the concept art in the credits told a better story, and looked better, than 90% of what we actually got in the episode. Which is… unfortunate.And I fully expect Black Santa to be back in the next episode for the “war”, which will make their decision to just have him… jog off… seem even more of a waste.On the plus side, I did enjoy that brief glimpse of Peli Motto in the background. That was a nice easter egg.
Yeah, I thought the new characters came off a bit as Boba Fett’s Funky Bunch, with Skittles Skooters (taste the rainbow™). They made everything in the episode feel especially juvey. And the only character who at least looked intimidating ended up being a big puss (the dark-haired Wookie).I kinda wish I hadn’t seen this episode.
I couldn’t tell if the Spy Kids Assasins were supposed to be 50’s greasers or the members of some failed 80’s new wave band.
Two bad things that go worse together! With that chick’s vest, I almost wondered if her father went by the name of Vyvyan. I honestly think I would have taken these young ones seriously if they had actually been The Young Ones.I get that the streets are narrow and high speeds aren’t ideal, but that chase scene was goofy as heck. I got the Spy Kids vibe as well (when are we getting an Alan Cumming cameo?), and couldn’t help but think of an even slower chase scene from a certain Joe Don Baker film.
Made Driving Miss Daisy look like Bullitt.
They’re actually based specifically on British youth culture from the 60s, called the Mods, which is the milieu for The Who’s rock opera film Quadrophenia. I suspect it’s also world building inspired by a pun, in that the kids all have cybernetic “mods”.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mods_and_rockers
One of my favorite jokes from A Hard Day’s Night:
You mean The Stray Cats?
I think they were 60’s British Mods, re: the movie Quadrophenia.
Thanks for that. I’ll admit I was completely unaware of this subculture.
60s mods
I kind of got a Back to the Future vibe, even before the guy crashed into a cart that filled his ride with space vegetables. Like the space Vespa gang was an amalgamation of all of Biff/Griff/Buford Tannen’s gangs from 1955, 2015 and 1885. They even had bionic implants, like Griff did. When a water tank splashed everywhere, I fully expected at least one of the hover scooters to stall out and someone to explain that they don’t work on water.Would have been cool if he crashed into a cart of Bantha manure, instead of space veggies though.
Neither – They were the 60s Mods. The show hammered it home for those unfamiliar with bygone youth subcultures when they referred to these kids “modifying” themselves with cyborg bits.
Split the difference – they’re more a reference to Mods from the mid-1960s – early 1970s. See The Who’s Quadrophenia for reference. They make the references more obvious when you get a better look at their bikes (loaded up with superfluous mirrors). The fact that they “mod” themselves with droid parts makes it pretty on-the-nose.
I like The Funky Bunch & The Skittles Skooters!
Doesnt Krrastan owe Boba a life debt? I expect that to come into play since Wookies take that shit very serious
Agreed. More Danny Trejo, less Spy Kids scooter gang. Somehow I knew the chase would end crashed into a fruit stand (not in a good way).
When he first showed up, I was hoping Trejo and Morrison would have a geriatric badass death match.
Deploy the Steel Gleaming Veneers!
I told DH that the biker gang was lifted straight from Back to the Future II. I expected someone to crash into a manure truck, but I guess we get fruit instead.
I thought the “protocol droid in the middle of the street during a chase” was lifted directly from The Goonies so I think Rodriguez just likes his homages…
I almost went there, but the fruit cart is more tropey.
Hipsters on vespas is a very questionable design choice. They have no work and no money so they have to steal. Yet their tech is super clean, totally not scratched up and fully functional and not patched together. So bored rich kids we are supposed to like.
“I paid a lot of money for this eye” but also “we have to steal because we don’t have jobs” on their squeeky clean vespas.The whole thing just felt stupid.
The title of this episode shoulda been Vespas On the Streets of Mos Espa. I liked this episode more than a C+ but that whole sequence was straight up bad.
I Will now refer to the jean-vest-wearing gal as Princess Vespa.
Pete Townshend is writing a new album!
To be fair, there have been historically a lot of moto/auto subcultures where the quality of the ride far outpaces the participants actual social class (like, that’s often the point), whether Mods, Bosozuko, Lowrider, whatever.
Sure. In Star Wars it tends to mean you’re evil or outright royalty.
I felt more like the swoop racers jumped over from Rodriguez’s Battle Angel Alita. They can totally add her to the roster (Fox now Disney owned) and wouldn’t bat an eyelash.
With this weeks ‘Alita: Battle Angel’ kids and the jarring product placement for Boston Dynamics in the first episode, Robert Rodriguez seems determined to shove in as much anachronistic shit as possible and it’s pissing me off. In fantasy properties like Star Wars I can take pedestrian plotting and simplistic storylines as long as the universe and/or world building retains it’s beauty and detail. I’ve always loved everything about the weathered design of the original trilogy/Rogue One/Solo etc. and Rodriguez just shat all over it by cramming in a bunch of characters whose costume design looked so pristine, gaudy and out of place in that universe that it immediately took me out of my comfortable enjoyment of the setting.
and yet, the gang’s colorful bikes and pristine outfits would have still worked for me IF they had gotten them -after- getting employed by Fett. We’re talking about kids who have been looking for work but there’s no work to be found, so they steal water because they can’t pay to buy it, but their bikes looked… brand new…It seems so obvious, that their bikes should have looked old and barely stitched together from discarded parts when they met Fett, and then we would see the brightly colored, shiny bikes when they went to the Mayor’s office the next day. That would have been a Gangs of New York-like character beat instead of an anachronism. And it would also tie with Fett’s lavish dining table, showing he spends a lot on keeping his people happy.
I agree with the idea of them pimping up their rides after scoring a gig as foot-soldiers for La Boba Nostra but I still think the shiny chrome look is just so out of place for Tatooine. If they were weathered up a bit, I wouldn’t have such an issue but they just looked like they were transplanted from a different movie altogether. That goes doubly for the bloody Boston Dynamics dogs in episode 1.
Thank you- There was a cheesiness to the ultra-slow chase scene that I couldn’t quite put my finger on, and I’d forgotten Robert Rodriguez is involved, but seeing his name totally jogged my memory, it was like one of the horrible CGI vehicle scenes from a Spy Kids movie.
Yep I immediately thought spy kids. Why couldn’t they give them normal looking speeder bikes?
Their merry go round mopeds looked completely out of place.
The CGI on those hoverbikes in the chase scene was some of the worst I’ve ever seen in a Star Wars show or movie. Not overdone, which is a more frequent sin, just really cheap looking.
I was surprised I noticed Peli Motto, I usually miss details like that. It was a pretty cool shot.And it was a good idea. I feel like if we have too many SW stories featuring Tatooine, which is supposed to be a backwater place where nothing interesting happens, and we’ve gotten a lot of fan service-y, not-subtle-at-all Easter Eggs that sort of break you out of the suspension of disbelief. This one Easter Egg really made it feel like this could be a story that actually occurred in a galaxy far, far away, and not something that was written by an uber-corporation trying to sell toys, theme park tickets, and streaming service subscriptions.
“Black Santa” just jogging off was really incredibly funny, in the worst way. I’m no filmmaker, but even I can point out so many issues with the production value of this show. I’m about ready to just concede that it sucks.
The kiddie bikers was the most “prequel” type of thing I think we’ve seen so far in the Star Wars D+ live action shows (which I realize I’ve made sound like a longer list of shows than it is).
I thought the Pedo Pascal cameo was a bit too much.
Your joke is actually funnier in hindsight.
The girl biker with the robot arm made me think of Rose McGowan in “Planet Terror.”
I lost hope for this series when I learned last night that Robert Rodriguez wrote every episode of The Book of Boba Fett. Rodriguez is a hack! What has he done that’s on the level of greatness like say Tarantino’s work? Spykids? Sharkboy and Lavagirl? Desperado? Dusk till Dawn is overrated. The cheesy bad Machete films? Are these really classic films that are well written and directed? Rodriguez rode Tarantino’s coattails.
If there is one thing we’ve learned about Boba over these first episodes is that the dude has an impeccable eye for recruitement.I mean in this episode he walks about to a semi-random street gang, gets them to join him with pretty much a shrug and the very next scene they are risking their lives for him. Which turns out to be a recurring theme in this episodes. That is a true talent that should be praised.
Sort of like the way people have been unjustifiably nuts for Boba Fett since he appeared over forty years ago.
Well the employment opportunities aren’t great on Tattoine. Maybe he has a good 401k?
Can’t beat the dental plan!
Drash needs braces!
Boba Trump only hires the best people!
The true daimyoship is the friends he made along the way.
Can they give Ming-Na Wen’s character some backstory please? It’s like she popped out of a box labeled “your bespoke henchwoman / bad cop”.
I would order one in a heartbeat.
ikr. I know the OP is right but would they say no to the box?
Have you watched The Bad Batch?
I have, and she wasn’t given a whole lot more backstory there.
Exactly. There is literally no character there at all, just utterly generic badass. It makes her awful Agents of SHIELD character look deep by comparison.
I agree that Fennec is a cypher, but this Agent May slander cannot stand.
Seriously. Whatever complaints one may have about AoS (justified or not), Melinda May cannot be one of them.
Not in love with the show, but that Rancor puppet is real cool though!
Yeah, Boba just starting to recruit goons now makes him seem pretty incompetent. And he recruits the cyberpunk Jets to contend against ruthless criminal organizations and mass murderers? I don’t see how those kids won’t just be slaughtered by criminals who have no problem wiping out an entire village of Tuskens.Also, does Krrsantan owe Boba a life debt now? Boba spared his life, do I think Krrsantan is now obligated to protect Boba.
Something tells me the murderous Wookiee bounter hunter doesn’t stick to all the Kashyyyk traditions. He probably doesn’t make it home for Life Day, even.
He already should’ve had goons. Jaba did. Fortuna, even in a compromised position, still had to have a lot of people to run any kind of criminal enterprise. Boba should still have some access to them. Many would be invested in keeping the enterprise going for their own monetary stakes and avoiding potential retaliation from rival gangs. Nothing makes much sense. Krrsantan, in the comics anyway, isn’t one for following tradition. He also would’ve killed Boba in two seconds rather than toss him around a room for no reason, so who knows where the show will go with him. Probably try to redeem him, like they’re doing with Boba.
That was getting to me in the first couple of episodes. He’s supposed to be like the head of The Mob. 4 people (or more specifically 1 human, 1 droid and Rocksteady and Bebop) do not constitute a mob.
Even Johnny Gat of the 3rd Street Saints knows that you can’t get shit done as a gang leader if you don’t have, you know, a FUCKING GANG!
I can see the Scooter Kids winding up as really annoying antagonists in a Saints Row game at some point.
It’s not even a gaggle at this point.
Exactly. He just shows up and assumes he and Fennc are literally all it takes? The gamorreans and droid join up by happenstance. That’s all you need, Boba? And you’re surprised people aren’t falling at your feet just because you have that cool helmet?
And he doesn’t even have the cool helmet anymore.
He just doesn’t wear it enough.
When you’re a Fett you’re a Fett all the way!
I highly suspect that a lot of ‘issues’ with this episode are very deliberate (the rainbow colored Mos Espa Vespas, their slow-ish pace, the comically slow speed of the majordomo’s escape, done specifically for comic relief, the relatively quick reveal of the Fett’s adoptive (Stockholm-syndromed?) Tusken tribe being wiped out, new Rancor being a trojan-horse of sorts, and so on), because everything that Lucasfilm (and Disney) has on the screen, whether big screen or streaming is deliberate.Also, IIRC, a long time ago in some old, possibly now considered apocryphal book, ‘Tusken’ was more derogatory, as it was in reference to the raid of Fort Tusken by the sand people, and not a proper or native name of that people. This is long before Disney’s takeover, so perhaps it’s changed.
I figured the slow-mo chase scene was a result of them INSISTING it be done practically instead of with CG. To its detriment.
How does every Tusker joke ever begin?*Looks around cantina*
Tuscan Pops used to be their main export
because everything that Lucasfilm (and Disney) has on the screen, whether big screen or streaming is deliberateLike how they deliberately allowed Rian Johnson to write TLJ before deliberately allowing Abrams to unwrite TLJ.I do agree with you somewhat. I do think they deliberately wrote/filmed this show as opposed to accidentally writing and filming it.
yeah i definitely don’t think it was supposed to be some meta joke ‘slow chase’ thing.
A joke about slow chases, no. But a meta-joke about chases through Middle Eastern or African locales, including a final “fruit cart” bit? Yes.https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/FruitCart%5BWARNING: TV Tropes, so pack a lunch.]
Fruit cart joke, maybe, but the chase was supposed to be a serious action scene. And just blew. Nothing deliberate about it sucking.
fine line between ‘meta joke’ and ‘just doing something cliche and generic’, i think it reads as the latter.
The only thing that would have topped this chase is Han..er…Indy? shooting some burly swordsman.
It’s actually hard to tell sometimes.
My wife calls this “The Book of Joe Rogan”, because of Temuera’s resemblance.
Joe Rogan has blinding veneers?
Is that why people listen to his medical misinformation- I mean, advice?
This show is so weird. You’d think the one thing Fett had going for him as an aspiring crime lord is an intimidating reputation, but he’s spent every episode getting publicly disrespected in between getting his ass kicked. And he’s going out of his way to not hurt people who clearly want to kill him, when hurting people is his one marketable skill.
That chase scene was particularly cringey. The new mod gang is pretty awful too. This is a far cry from The Mandalorian so far.
Are people still claiming this block of wood is Toshiro Mifune?
I laughed quite a lot, unfortunately it was at the show and not with it.What a terrible episode. From the zoomer mod gang led by Wolf Shag (that’s her name, right?) and their adorable 30cc scooters, the very uneventful massacre of the Tuscans and the very obvious return of the champion at some point, the rancor gift for whatever reason… Jesus I could keep going. This is bad and lame TV, which is such a shame because Mando was so much fun. I want to enjoy watching this, not hate watch it.
“It’s not even an easter egg, just redoing the exact same thing from Return Of The Jedi with an extra flying creature.”Ahem. From the SPECIAL EDITION, which I guess wanted to introduce a continuity of painfully unfunny Jar Jar-style physical schtick.
This episode felt dull and boring, like Favreau doesn’t know what to do with the character or the story. It’s disappointing that after being reintroduced like a badass in The Mandalorian S2, he’s now quickly turning into Bore-a Fett, an incompetent crime lord who is always two steps behind his adversaries. The Tuskens’ fate was sad, yet completely predictable after Boba attacked the bikers and then Pykes’ train. Way to go, Fett!Also, can you overdose in Bacta? Is Boba really that fucked-up that he needs immersed on a daily basis?I hope the next few episodes help turn the season around, because this one was abysmal.
I’m imagining an episode in which it cuts to 20 years later, and Boba Fett goes full Dutch Van Der Linde shouting “I! HAVE! A PLAN!” even when his version of Bill Williamson can out-plan him in a bank heist.
doesn’t know what to do with the character or the story?
Maybe he saw the last couple movies and though “This is just what we’re doing now!”
I’d definitely want to change the filters after letting that pig/dog guy use the Bacta tank
Also, can you overdose in Bacta? Is Boba really that fucked-up that he needs immersed on a daily basis?Seriously – how fucked up could he possibly have been? If we assume he was only in the Sarlacc for a few weeks at most, that’s like .004% of the 1,000 years or so the Sarlacc takes to digest its victims (per C-3PO).
Is Boba really that fucked-up that he needs immersed on a daily basis?
It’s likely that the bacta therapy is to counter the shortened lifespan that clones have.
I believe Boba is an unmodified clone, as Jango had requested.
Unmodified in that his growth was not accelerated and his education was natural and not imprinted. But a shortened lifespan was a part of cloning. Clones just don’t live as long as normal humans.
Eh, it’s not 100% clear either way iirc. That point itself could have been one programmed in due to the nature of those clones as they were soldiers/cannon fodder.
That chase sequence was so cringe. I feel like Rodriguez was letting his Spy Kids flag fly making that one.Boba Fett is treated like a naive, fool here who’s only gotten this far by a combination of his wits and just dumb luck.He was a ruthless bounty hunter who knew his way around the galaxy and it’s seedy underbelly before getting knocked into the Sarlacc and while his time with the Tuskens may have forged a new, more benevolent path for him, this show his given him too much of a morally ideal code as the successor of a criminal empire.The street rats literally point out that noone respects him and once word gets around that he’s not only a fair but agreeable person to deal with, every weasel in Mos Espa is gonna take advantage of his good nature and blanket him with sob stories of why they can’t pay their tribute.
The only thing they’ve ever shown Boba Fett do is a) trick Luke & the Scooby Gang into a Vader trap, b) cleverly figure out how to track the Millenium Falcon, and b) suck at combat.
Well we can’t all cook meth in the desert.
Why not? I mean, Tatooine is all desert.
Cut to a gun-toting Boba stepping out of a van in the Tatooine desert in his tighty-Walter-whiteies. Actually, let’s not cut to that.
Does Jabba Pinkman get his own scooter too?
“Yeah, Mr. Fett! Yeah, CRIME!”
This is the way
I still truly want to see Hondo, Qi’Ra, and Cad Bane show up, but, honestly, I’m okay with Stephen Root. You can never go wrong with Stephen Root.
Some people are upset about the 50’s aesthetic in Star Wars. Guess what? It’s actually very Star Wars. The 50’s diner in AOTC which was George Lucas’s idea established this type of style in the SW galaxy. George Lucas loves the 50’s. It’s his era and he made American Graffiti. These 50’s style speeder bikes might have even been his idea when he visited the set one day.
Thanks for posting this screenshot. The bikes look like absolute garbage from some cheesy SyFy show.
Fits right in…
You mean they look like scenes from the single most poorly-made Star Wars movie, one of which was a scene that a lot of fans panned for not looking like Star Wars?George Lucas is not the sole creative voice behind Star Wars, nor is he necessarily the best, as the prequels did a great job of proving.
lol, more examples of garbage. If you think its cool that’s fine but the rest of us are gonna keep cringing
Yes, those were garbage as well…
The point is, those dumb bikes stick out like sore thumbs on the dusty, grimy, hardscrabble Tatooine. (Seriously, are they a bunch of trust fund kids? Where/when/how did they get their hands on brand-spanking new bikes?)Whereas Coruscant had an entirely different aesthetic. And we’re not on Coruscant. Also, they just look dumb as hell.
Sometimes the director and writer forget that Star Wars fans can be whine man babies who nitpick everything. Every fan has that idea in their head how Star Wars should be and when it doesn’t fit their vision. They whine and whine like bitches. Aw well. Some things never change.
While that’s true, I’m not entirely sure of your point.
God forbid people critique things. They need to digest their megacorp created slop designed by committee without complaining.
I thought Episode 4 was the best one yet. Things are finally picking up and a lot happened. Surprise surprise, it wasn’t directed by that hack, Robert Rodriguez.
This is how Star Wars takes me out of the movie or TV show. The 50’s style is very specific to earth as well as the USA (a bit of Canada maybe), the style is a result of postwar economic and cultural prosperity. Maybe this was repeated in another galaxy/planet, but it’s pretty unlikely.
So you’re fine with cowboys in Star Wars? Samurai?
How did this get repeated on another planet? Unlikely?
I actually thought the bikes looked cool, and enjoyed that they were a little different from the usual Star Wars aesthetic, but they didn’t look they fit in with Tattooine. Had they been on Coruscant, they’d have felt much less out of place.
That’s so totally Robert Rodriguez. I can just picture him saying on a future “10 Minute Streaming TV Show School”: “I thought to myself, ‘wouldn’ it be cool if Boba’s gang had matching motorbikes with aewsome cool colors?'”
I like how Disney is gradually rehabbing George Lucas’ reputation by taking some of his questionable design choices and executing them worse. Maybe that was his long game the whole time.
He sure showed us!
Well to be fair many thought the look and designs of the prequels were questionable. At the same time you have a younger generation that grew up on the SW Prequels and those Vespa Speeders fit right in.
– The Book of Boba Fett
I just want to know why, with all of the scanner-type of tech in the SW universe, do you need 12 rearview mirrors?
Because the gang was one Union Jack away from being a deleted scene from The Who’s Quadrophenia…
more like 60s scooters that the mods rode, which would make sense if the show had that kind of vibe overall, rather than an old west vibe.
lots of things that are authentically star wars are also bad and dumb.
People hated the diner too.I remember when I first saw Star Wars I got major Richie Cunningham vibes from Luke
As someone old enough to remember a big part of 70s pop culture was 50s nostalgia (Sha na na, Grease, Happy Days etc.) Lucas had a big hand in it when he did “American Graffiti” in 1973 which was set in 1962 but was basically about nostalgia for the 50s. Star Wars came out in 1977 in the middle of all these trends and directed by one of the biggest 50s nostalgiasts
Yes. Lucas is a Boomer. It doesn’t make any of this stuff good
That doesn’t mean things in that “style” can’t still be utterly horrible.
I thought I was going to start hearing the Who from Quadrophenia.
Mods are from the 60s
The whole reason why people liked Mando and were excited for this is that it leaned away from the aesthetic of the prequels.
I had a flashback to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoon of the late 80s early 90s and those neutrinos kids and their space Cadillacs.
I fully expect the eventual Big Baddie will be some Sith or Sith-adjacent remnant of the Empire. Probably something out of a book to make a small section of the internet get excited, then ultimately disappointed and angry.
i hope not, would be nice to leave the force out of this one entirely.
SPOILER ALERTBoba Fett is Palpatine’s second cousin!
By episode five we’ll get a full on street war between the mods and the rockers.
waiting for Pete Townshend to cameo. they’ll give him some special laser guitar he powers up by windmilling.
The ability to destroy a planet is insignificant next to the power of Rock!
Doesn’t Ace Frehley have something like that?
He does have the superpower of turning a boring interview with boring Gene Simmons into a drunken laughfest.
I’m thinking I’d prefer a Boba Fett series where he comes in, takes over Jabba’s syndicate, and is an actual crime lord… being a murderous asshole and loving it. That would be a fun show.
….on a different network.
….on a different network.Now we’re talking… hard TV-MA. Boba Fett deserves some realistic violence. And a vulgar theme song by mc chris.
Star Wars on Disney+ on FX on Hulu.
I really want to like this show but it’s just a mess. Like the visual effects are absolute dogshit (not just the chase scene in this episode – some of the desert scenes have also featured very bad, cheap-looking green screen) and three episodes in I still don’t know what this show is about. Why does Boba Fett want to be a crime lord? What motivates him to get out of his bacta tank every morning? What is the scope of the territory we’re fighting over – at various points they have talked about the daimyo being the crime boss of just Mos Espa, the entire planet of Tatooine, and the entire sector of space that Tatooine is in!
There is no greenscreen in the “desert” scenes. Just FYI.
I remain unmoved by this entry, unfortunately. I’d love to like this show. I’ll watch anything Ming Na-Wen is in, she was the best part of Agents of SHIELD and I felt like her contribution to the Mandalorian kinda wasn’t awesome.By attempting to service the present (taking over Jabba’s enterprise) and the past (escaping the Sarlacc and appearing in the Mandalorian), neither one is even close to being compelling, interesting or a well-told story. I am still very confused why, seemingly months after his making his way to being a trusted member of the Tusken tribe (clan?), he’s sleeping nightly in a Bacta tank.You can see the damage to his skin under the harsh suns of Tatooine in the past timeframe, and he was also exposed to the acids a Sarlacc generates in its digestive process. Then he has no protection for some time, he’s fought multiple people and animals and is obviously intermittently hurt – so needing Bacta treatment makes sense. But he’s sleeping in it, seemingly nightly, and his body, on display during the attack in the palace, seems healed.I understand that Bacta is also a pain reliever and can help repair the mind—I presume the flashbacks are part of that—but it is very confusing why that’s so necessary.But the storytelling remains weak, in my opinion. Again, servicing two masters (past and present) in equal measures means that neither feels like it’s getting enough momentum. The chase scene? Can that be called a chase scene? Chase scenes should be kinetic, fast-paced affairs – and maybe that’s really difficult with the amount of CG needed, but it felt so slow. If this is how it’s going to play out, don’t do them, work within your time and budget and do something well, don’t try to do something like this. It just looked.. bad.
Solo should have been a Disney+ show (if it should have been anything at all)wet-brain take. nick just pass the recaps to someone else.
You people just can’t appreciate a good slow burn.
Ok, so this show is really bad. Like cringe bad. I know SW has always been very heavy handed with the tropes, but Jesus man, this shit is like color by numbers…., no twists, no surprises, certainly no creativity. Lame dialogue, lamer action. Color me disappointed.
I loved the 80’s Space Punks
“Now this is scooter racing!”“Slowly driving up a stair case is a good trick!”
I’m normally pretty lenient on judging a show, especially if I’m enjoying it as a whole, but BoBF has issues. The way they’re shuffling villains, it’s almost as if they wrote an episode, filmed it, and then tried to write the next one. Red herrings are fine, but this s*** is downright confusing.I don’t understand what a daimyo does and I’m getting a strong impression that neither Boba or Fennec would be very good at it.I don’t understand why the Mayor would have it out for Boba, but not Bib Fortuna, and if he’s willing to send assassins, why he didn’t just take over after Jabba died.I don’t understand why the Twins were even introduced and why they would even apologize to and warn Boba. I don’t understand why the “thugs” were riding 1950s Space Vespas and I don’t understand why they had Darth Chewie just… jog off camera.
Black Wookie is the worst. assassin. ever.Speeder bike chase was beyond dumb. How did they manage to make a far better one 40 years ago in RotJ?More Ming-Na, please. She’s so good.And I hate to admit it, but Boba riding a Rancor into battle will probably redeem any future sins this show commits.
How stunningly incompetent are the bad guys on this show? So much here makes no sense, like how Boba Fett was going to try to take over an entire criminal empire with literally just one other person, a droid and two gamorrean goons he hired utterly by happenstance.At the same time, everyone seems terrified at the mere glimpse of a blaster, as when Fennec flashes her gun at the Mayor’s assistant. Like, really? Is that all it takes in this crime-infested planet? Just one or two people with guns can just waltz into a town hall and demand to be heard? There aren’t, I dunno, rudimentary security systems in place? No one has ever been threatened by a blaster before?Oy….
The Book Of Boba Fett continues its mission of humanizing otherwise unsympathetic creatures with a more in-depth understanding of the RancorI thought in ROTJ, the Rancor was more than just an unsympathetic monster. When I originally watched the movie, I remember feeling relief that Luke had escaped, but also some sadness, as clearly the Rancor handler was devastated over the loss of his ‘friend’. If the Rancor were really just an unsympathetic monster, they could have just let him be a dead monster rather than showing us the reaction of the handler.
Jeeeeeezus…. “Whine, whine, whine.”It’s a Boba Fett show. Many talented people have worked hard to give you a Boba Fett show.It is enjoyable enough. Boba Fett is in it. Agent Melinda May is in it. There are pervy incestuous Hutts, speeder bikes, and a rancor.As a bonus Robert Rodriguez brought in his cousin Danny Fucking Trejo, for gawd’ssakes…. but noooooooooo! it “felt like watching a bunch of teenagers grabbing the mobility carts from a grocery store and videotaping themselves as they idly screw around in the aisles.”
Something that few are not talking about with this Boba Fett series is WTF is Slave I? Are we gonna see it? Are we gonna see outer space? So far it’s sand sand and more sand.
sand gets everywhere..
It’s a bad sign for a show when its reviewer recommends you watch something else.
It’s a massive galaxy filled with thousands of species, inter-planetary travel, and laser weapons, and so many nerds can’t manage the imagination to think that some teens might want to be unique and stand out from their dust covered shithole of a home planet
The skittles scooters looked less like vespas and more like Larks. I expected one of the Hutts to show up demanding they return them! Or at least a representative of the Mos Espa Walmart.
Was I meant to be laughing uncomfortably through this episode, because that’s what happened. The Wookiee jogging away awkwardly, that hysterically bad emo gang and the pathetic scooter chase… what the hell did I just watch?