The Book Of Boba Fett ends how it began—mostly fine
We return to our title character just in time for a climactic street brawl
TV Reviews The Book of Boba Fett
It cannot be overstated how many sins can be forgiven by the redemptive act of having a giant monster fight robots. Sure, The Book Of Boba Fett ended exactly as it began, which is to say, mostly a mess. But “In The Name Of Honor” had the good sense to minimize the unearned characterizations and befuddling plot choices in favor of an all-out brawl across Mos Espa. Why, again, does Boba Fett want to rule over the planet that’s farthest from the bright center of the universe? What does a Daimyo do? If your crime empire won’t sell drugs because of your deep concern for the people of the community, what crime are you in charge of? Distributing bootleg Beanie Babies? Why are these gang members so wholesome? Who knows, but at least Boba Fett finally made good use of his jet pack.
One unlikely conclusion this episode highlighted is that Cad Bane should have been introduced much earlier. For a show that committed to fan service so indulgent it accounted for nearly a third of the series’ run time, the initial introduction of Bane last episode felt as much as a “Well, why not?” shrug as anything. But he was well-utilized this episode, less as an implacable hard-ass who’s quick with a blaster, and more as someone who has history with Boba Fett and can act as a bridge between the character he was and who he is now. Because even here, at the end of the series, there is practically no connection between the cold professional killer of the movies and the man here willing to die to protect the citizens of Mos Espa.
Showing that transformation is obviously something the show should and could have done. In retrospect, Fett’s time with the Tusken tribe was meant to represent that character development, but it was never shown. It could have been handled with such a simple montage; the chieftain stopping Fett from killing a foe that could be reasoned with, Fett tending to a wounded bantha or planting a tree at an oasis—any of the well-established thematic shorthand we utilize to show that a person isn’t a jerk anymore.
All we have is the meta knowledge that Disney+ doesn’t want a cutthroat, Michael Mann-style crime thriller, and therefore Fett has to be at least reasonably family-friendly. With a few lines, Bane was able to highlight the incongruity of these two versions of Fett. Had he shown up earlier, the show could have further explored the push and pull between Fett’s warring motivations; the conflict inside him, as the Jedi is so fond of warning about. Part of Bane’s role was to act as main bad guy, since syndicate of identical aliens isn’t as compelling a central antagonist, but the show would have been better served by bringing him in sooner and focused on the pair’s dynamic instead of hopping around with rotating cast of disposable villains. Even Bane’s reveal of the obvious—that it was he, not the biker gang who killed the Tuskens—is ill-served by being presented this episode. Why not let that enmity breathe a little bit instead cramming an entire revenge arc into 20 minutes?
As for the final showdown itself, it had all the requisite final showdown motifs. Our heroes were woefully overmatched; they faced a few grim last stands and were in return saved by a few arrivals of the cavalry. Most importantly, the show made good on delivering a Rancor freak-out that’s been hanging, suspended, like a beautiful promise since Fett first mentioned he wanted to learn to ride the beast.
But first things first. The mods insist on making their final stand against the Pykes in the ruins of Garsa Fwip’s place as a symbolic gesture of unity with the citizens of Mos Espa. I didn’t peg a cybernetic street gang as having a strong sense of community, but good for them. Fett tells Djarin it’s best to take off, but citing the code, Djarin promises to stay, even to the death. Fett is happy to benefit from the Mandalorian’s sense of honor, even if he doesn’t personally share it, offering a small sense of contrast between the helmet buddies. It’s a good exchange, and satisfying to see the dynamic falling into place between these two characters. Fett sends out the few lieutenants he has to watch for any move from the Syndicate. It’s all a setup, though as each group is betrayed by the factions who previously promised to remain neutral. Poor Gammoreans, the first and most faithful of Fett’s crew get ignobly tossed off a cliff.
This culminates in a fight in the plaza where we get to see nearly every weapon the two bounty hunters have at their disposal put to good use: big guns, small guns, jetpacks, wrist rockets, knee rockets, and everything else. But even beskar steel can only withstand so much, and right as the duo are about to be overwhelmed, the Freetown cavalry arrives. Of course, every escalation must be met in kind, and the Pykes do so with a few massive gun droids. And according to the rules established by Super Sentai shows, if you introduce something big, something else big is going to have to come along to fight it.
I admit, when the droids were first introduced, as cool as they are, I assumed it was a way to present a bloodless opponent for the Rancor to wrassle with. And while that was mostly the case, we still did get the chance to see at least one Pyke get eaten. At some point, Robert Rodriguez must have become more comfortable with technology than people, but the Rancor vs. droid battles were some of the most coherent fight scenes of this series. They were kinetic and exciting. And while Fett’s claim to not want the Pykes to take over since he believes they would destroy Mos Espa seems moot given the mayhem they caused, at least it makes for good action. Even the rickshaw chase scene where Djarin and Grogu were reunited was more energetic than the scooter race from a few episodes ago. In the end, our heroes are triumphant and everyone is rewarded with a scene of Grogu laying down for a nap, nestled against a sleeping Rancor.
What an odd show. Seven episodes of a stakes-couldn’t-be-lower character portrait that was entirely uninterested in that character. Like a Jell-O mold salad with marshmallows suspended in it, it was a big, wobbly medium made to deliver smaller, more flavorful bits the creators were actually interested in. It’s fairly telling that there was as much or more plot and character development in two episodes dedicated to ancillary characters than for the protagonist.
Given how we see Star Wars shows are shaping up, the door is obviously open for Boba Fett and Fennec to show up in the future on other series’ episodes. But it’s a testament to this series that the idea elicits a shrug and “I guess…” instead of excitement about the duo’s further adventures. How can you be excited for a character not even the showrunners want to hang out with?
Despite all that, The Book Of Boba Fett was still a very watchable series. There wasn’t a week that I dreaded having to watch an episode. After all, there were a lot of fun set pieces and cool monsters and all that great pulpy Star Wars stuff. But it was so hollow. After all this time, they finally took the helmet off, and there was no one underneath.
Stray observations
- I said earlier that this was no Michael Mann thriller, but that’s exempting Fennec’s incredibly brutal cleanup work with the remaining Pyke Syndicate after the main battle was won. The way she strung up the mayor so that we could see his dangling legs as she took out everyone else was uncharacteristically brutal for Star Wars.
- I like Fett’s dedication to poetic justice that he made sure to grab his gaffi stick when he went to get the Rancor in order to kill Bane in the most emotionally resonant way possible.
- After the rickshaw crashes, Peli Motto offhandedly spits out a tooth. You can see the gap in her teeth for the rest of the episode.
- It’s good stuff whenever you get to see a giant Wookie throw other people around like rag dolls.
- Good King Kong action with the Rancor climbing the tower.
- I would rather one of the episodes this series dedicated to the Mandalorian be given to Fennec instead. Being a wry badass isn’t the worst way to go through your Star Wars screen time, but her character was given fairly short shrift.
- The mid-credit stinger shows Cobb Vanth (not Vance, my apologies for last episode) in the bacta tank. Modifier (Thundercat) is there as well, prepping his cyber surgeon arm. How extensive of an intervention does Vanth require? I’m sure we’ll find out some time in the future when we invariably return to Tatooine.
- This show was not the greatest, but I’m always happy to watch (except you, Rise Of Skywalker) and discuss Star Wars. Thanks for joining me every week.
409 Comments
My fanhood was serviced. That’s all I need from a show.
Jell-O salad was my childhood, and I have a fondness for it I will never feel for this show.
But you’re right, I mostly wanted to get to the marshmallows and other interesting things.
All we have is the meta knowledge that Disney+ doesn’t want a cutthroat, Michael Mann-style crime thriller, and therefore Fett has to be at least reasonably family-friendly.God, I want this show.
I suspect the problem with this show was that they tried to do this at first and Disney said no. Too much stuff just didn’t make sense in the Boba-centric episodes for there not to have been some weird production shit go down we don’t know about, especially considering Favreau wrote both the Boba eps and the miles-better Mando-centric episodes.
There’s a curse on that type of thing in Star Wars. Remember that great looking video game that got cancelled?
This one?
Star Wars: 1313 – E3 Demo Full Gameplay [HD] – YouTubeThere’s a bunch I think but this seems like the most relevant.
Yeah, that’s it. It was supposed to be about the underworld and star Boba.So, yeah, maybe this idea is just cursed.
well, this was a fun comments section.
What an odd showNailed it. I just don’t know what they were thinking with so many decisions while still thinking it as an okay enough show. I mean I liked it more than say Falcon and Co in terms of Disney Plus offerings but that’s also not saying all that much when it gets down to it.
Well… this episode needed better editing at the conceptual phase.
What does a Daimyo do? If your crime empire won’t sell drugs because of your deep concern for the people of the community, what crime are you in charge of? This sums up my biggest lingering issue with the show. Now that it’s done I feel that if the idea was to show Fett transcending what Cad insisted was his true nature, him becoming a proper Marshal in his own right would’ve been a more fitting resolution.
Quick correction, Bane didn’t kill the Tuskens, the Pykes did.
The Shand scene made me wonder why she didn’t just go do that as soon as they had the mayor’s aide in custody.Also Bane didn’t kill the Tuskens, the Pykes did. He was surprised to learn they did that during his meeting with them.
Which made the confrontation with Fett even more baffling as Boba’s act of vengeance was against the one Syndicate guy who wasn’t involved with it. Having written that, it was also the one Syndicate guy who decided to bring it up as randomly as possible.
I would be willing to bet a five of dollars that this season lost at least an episode and probably two to COVID issues. And I would be willing to double that bet that one of those episodes was “Bane shows up to hassle Fett, call him out on going soft, and trigger a few flashbacks that explained why Fett isn’t as ruthless as he used to be.”
Might very well be, but it doesn’t change the fact that they shot the confrontation in this episode and thought through the editing process that this was the best way forward.Like it would have been so easy to change that scene where Bane learns about the Tusken tribe massacre to instead him having been responsible for it.
but they started this during covid right? and they had no real deadline. like, i hate to say it, but i think this is exactly how they planned it and it’s just messy.
They could always have ditched the two episodes that weren’t actually a part of the show at all if they were smarter.
“They could always have ditched the two episodes that weren’t actually a part of the show at all if they were smarter.”
And have SIX episodes where abso-fucking-lutely nothing happens instead of only four?
“I would be willing to bet a five of dollars that this season lost at least an episode and probably two to COVID issues.”
Ah, so you think it was about two hours worth of story that was supposed to be spread over eight or nine episodes instead of seven?
Explain how that would make it better, please.
Also, they shoot entirely on enclosed soundstages. How, exactly, are they “losing episodes”? Disney owns and controls the soundstages. If this needed an extra week to shoot, what makes you think Disney couldn’t arrange for that to happen?
I thought it was going to be Bane’s way of saying that his fight against Boba wasn’t personal, but then he went and made it personal with the Jango taunts. Zero sense made.
Yeah, i was saying, “Wait, was Bane supposed to tell him that?”
That awful scene was played as some big “oh, cool!” moment which fell completely and utterly flat. “Oh, cool! Shand was in the room! How did she get in there! Whoa, she’s a badass!”Uuuugh.
She left fairly early. How long does it take to get from Mos Espa to Mos Eisley?
Who wants to bet that Grogu also has Yoda’s saber? My guess, he ultimately ends up claiming the dark saber as the new lord of Mandalore.
I’d be really surprised if Luke let him have Yoda’s saber.But I do think we got that exposition about the Mandalorian Jedi who forged the Darksaber for a reason though. A tiny frog-eating reason.
Yeah, I was kind of thinking that when presented with the choice Luke gave him – the chainmail vest or the lightsaber, he made a third choice, to choose both of them.
I’m sad because the show that they finally made in the last episode was the same show they should’ve made in the first episode, but wouldn’t for some reason.
I honestly have no idea how you got the idea Bane was the one who killed the Tuskens. There was an entire scene about how even he was a bit taken aback by how ruthless the Pykes were in misdirecting Boba’s revenge.
So we seeing a spin off with Pelli Moto and Mok Shiaz’s Majordomo in a multi camera domestic sitcom?
I think it’s hilarious that the majordomo doesn’t even get a name. He appears in almost every episode and has tons of dialogue and they didn’t bother naming him!
Yes I was thinking does he have a name but then looked it up and no name for you.
Turns out his name is Majordomo. And yes, he’s heard all the jokes.
His title is Majordomo, and his parents named him Majordomo Majordomo Majordomo. It’s a real catch-1138 of a situation.
I just called him Associate Bob, it seemed appropriate.
I just know he is going to be in subsequent seasons. Yup.
That there was a bit of an easter egg for us Amy Sedaris fans! Her and the majordomo actor work together a lot, I always think of him as Stu the Meat Man from Strangers with Candy but he also had roles on At Home with Amy Sedaris. I assume they share Chicago improv roots w/like Steve Colbert and Paul Dinello. Anyway, I was psyched to see him & psyched to see them reunite on screen!
I was like, “Why is this smarmy/Almost repulsively slimy yet engaging actor so familiar?”Andrew from Veep!
OMG the Majordomo is Stew the Meat Man! I can’t believe I didn’t notice it. No wonder I loved his performance so much.
I can’t wait to find out how he compares to her Jawa ex in the sack.
While watching this episode, I kept thinking how I couldn’t explain this show to anyone. I could easily tell them what happened on the show, especially since not that much that did, but I don’t even know where I would start on what the show was about. What was the central story arc, what was the character journey, anything like that?I mean the whole thing with Fett is a core example of that. He essentially disappears for two of the last three episodes in a story how he wants to become the new crime lord… who seemingly is opposed to his organization doing criminal stuff? Then his four episode flashback storyline is wrapped up by not involving any Tusken and him getting vengeance by killing a person who was not at all involved in killing of that tribe. But who keeps telling Boba how he is still a killer despite that never having been a central conflict in the actual show. And all this ends with him making a comment where he essentially says he doesn’t actually want to be a crime lord. I was so befuddled by that final scene.
Having written all that, I will say Boba Fett magicing that stick into existance in that final fight was probably my comedic highlight of the year so far. I am not exaggarating when I write that when he pulled that man-height staff out of nowhere, I had to pause the stream because I was just laughing so hysterically.
He had the gaffi stick on his back when he came riding in on the rancor, if I recall correctly . . .
Yes, you could see the end of on his back when he was talking to Cade Bane, it kind of stood out. I am pretty much clueless for most stuff, but that grabbed my attention when they did a close-up on Boba.
He had the gaffi stick on his back when he came riding in on the rancor, if I recall correctly . . .He did. I made note of it part way through the episode and knew we were gonna get Boba going ham with it later. He tends to lose his head when he starts swinging that thing.
He also apparently re-loaded his back missile-launcher when going to get his mount.My question was – why didn’t he go get his ship? Seems like it would be more effective in fighting those shielded droids than an unarmoured rancor.
Yes, the stick was there the whole time.
The equivalent was that time that Adam West Batman pulled the Bat Bazooka apparently out of his ass.
No, because the stick was there. You can see it in every frame where it should be. You can even go back and check, like I did!
No he had the stick on him when he road the Rancor.
He had it after he came in on the rancor. Completely plausible he picked it up from the palace. But you know find stuff to hate. That’s cool.
If you rewind it, you’ll see the stick in every shot where it should be. I went back and looked.
I can confirm he had it strapped to his jet pack… somehow. It also shrunk for that purpose and magically extended when he needed it. Like a true phallic symbol.
I wouldn’t want to know where he pulled that thing out of.
Because the show utterly failed at the most basic fundamentals of storytelling: who is this character? What is he trying to accomplish? Why? What are the obstacles? What does he learn along the way?
WHY SHOULD WE CARE?What an astonishing failure. If you submitted these scripts to a college-level screenwriting class, you’d fail.
That’s why the people teaching college screenwriting are doing that and not making the millions of dollars this show is.
Well, if you want to get into the whole “teachers are actually failures” argument, have at it. That doesn’t invalidate the fact that this show was shit.
I’ll put it this way: The writers of BOBF clearly should have read “Save the Cat”, a book on screenwriting fundamentals written by a guy who actually sold several screenplays that were produced, since it fails on the most basic levels as outlined in that book. He made money as a screenwriter and someone who also “taught” screenwriting, too.
Do you think Robert Rodriguez hasn’t read Save the Cat? Or Jon Favreau or Dave Filoni? Also, is it your impression that those people aren’t good at making successful pop culture? GTFOLet me put this another way: there are no rules to what constitutes good pop-fiction other than “do lots of people like it”? I promise you, a lot of people liked watching that rancor rip up those robots. I agree, the show did not follow conventions very well and was weirdly paced and had a strange emotional core…but it was still fun. And if you can’t tell because you’re busy comparing it to a pre-fab rubric, well…that’s your loss, but there’s a reason people will watch.
“Successful” pop culture very often isn’t good pop culture. And you should honestly know that. Yes, Favreau made a VERY popular show in “The Mandalorian”, largely due to the cuteness of the puppet as opposed to any of the actual writing. “Book of Boba Fett” is an extremely poorly written show that “succeeds” entirely on the basis of pre-existing affection for the franchise. If all you want is literally just robots shooting and going boom, then have at it. Hope you enjoy your upcoming sixth birthday.But, to many people, the show’s insane shortcomings proved insurmountable, no matter how many “pew pews” and shameless easter eggs you throw in there.
I’m right there with you. I enjoyed a few scattered moments of this show, here and there (pretty much every time David Pasquesi got to speak), but was constantly baffled at how utterly atrocious the writing was.
As delightful as Pasquesi is, that shtick ran dry basically after his first appearance because he was so let down by the writing. Such a shame.
My favorite thing about his character is that they didn’t even bother giving him a name.
Can we not do this whole backhanded “dumb fun things are only for children” schtick? So you like to eat fibre and watch the Mentalist, good for you.
Also being that you’re so highbrow, maybe not generalise numbers to present a case which is largely just your own opinion. A whole lot of us insist.
It’s strange how anyone can look at this mess and think it’s existence is justified
I’m not saying that silly fun things are only for children. That SW is only for children. That fantasy/adventure/scifi is only for children. But when it’s this bad, then, yeah. Adults should be at least slightly sophisticated enough to recognize the many ways in which this show is deeply subpar.But, seriously, “The Mentalist” is highbrow? Uh……
See when you say it that way, I can vibe with it. It just read a bit condescending otherwise, when at the end of the day we’re ultimately talking about a franchise born of inspiration from adventure serials and such, and I think we can do better than insinuate someone’s of simple intellect if they like something whether they realise it’s shortcomings or not. Sometimes like a B-film, something can be ridiculous but still worth a watch.
(p.s. The Mentalist thing was a Community quote ;))
Well, the condescension was in response to more condescension heaped upon me first (or at least my perception of it.) I don’t start out snarky (at least at other posters.) Well, that’s my intent, anyway, but, I’m VERY far from perfect.I try to direct my vitriol only at the subject at hand, not the people. But, as I indicated, I am probably a very poor marksman at least some of the time.Happy to discuss the merits of the show in a non-flaming, non-insulting way.
And there’s plenty of stuff that’s objectively bad that I’m still fond of and can’t truly defend. But BOBF ain’t it!
Fair enough, I get a little snarky too and appreciate the candour.
But yeah, while I appreciated the diversion the series presented in spite of it’s (many) faults, it’s nothing I’m going to spend precious time sticking my neck out for, haha.
I’m glad you enjoyed it. I genuinely don’t think you’re a moron for having done so!:)The comments I can’t abide (not necessarily here, but elsewhere) are from idiots who say, “you hate the show because you had pre-existing head canon about Fett! You always were going to hate the show no matter what! Grr!”Nothing would make me happier than loving new SW content, I assure you! This one just wasn’t for me.
Which is fair and why I wouldn’t challenge anyone on their thoughts because I’m still trying to decipher some of the choices they made. I think Boba’s characterisation is probably the least egregious thing in fact, heh (motivation needed more work, but he’s fine, just deserved to star in his own show a bit more).
I was fine with Boba Fett’s motivation. My issue was they waited until episode four(!) to reveal it. Like, why should we care about this guy? Why is he doing what he’s doing. What are the stakes, personal and otherwise? What’s the point of it all?Oh, okay, that’s a pretty good explanation. Would’ve been nice to know that upfront so I cared at least a little bit about him during those first three episodes.
I’m just wondering why they didn’t have PS5 Luke Skywalker cross paths with Boba if they were so committed to going full tilt into fan service, in a show largely about Fett reconciling his past so he can forge a future where he’s in charge of his own destiny.
BTW, what episode was the “Community” joke from? I think only watched the first three season.
S02E09 Conspiracy Theories and Interior Design – great ep, one of my favourites.
lmao must still assert dominance by insisting you’ve only seen what are widely considered the better seasons of Community. Yikes.
So that’s “asserting dominance” is it. If that’s the lens by which you view the world, then yikes indeed. Gimme a fucking break. Sorry that I stopped watching a show after everyone else in the world told me it got bad. Yeah, that makes me a real toxic asshole alright!
If this was series was ‘subpar’, and I’m not arguing against that sentiment, what in your opinion is ‘par’ for a PG13 soft sci-fi/fantasy TV series?
I mean, there are literally dozens, just in the past few years. Of things I’ve seen (at least a little of): The Magicians, the Expanse, Lovecraft Country, Superman & Lois (hell, ALL of the Arrowverse shows, while all fairly middling, are better than BOBF), Shadow and Bone, Dark Materials, Doctor Who, Dark, Orphan Black, Wheel of Time, Counterpart…
The streamers pour out tons of this stuff every year and I’m honestly hard-pressed to think of a show WORSE than BOBF (well, okay, Picard.)
The only ones I know are The Expanse, and Wheel of Time. The Expanse and Star Wars aren’t really comparable in my opinion, given that The Expanse is set in a more realistic world, and the laws of physics matter.The Wheel of Time and Book of BF are more comparable. I enjoyed both despite numerous and significant story-telling issues. I think with Star Wars content, I don’t care about anything but having fun and seeing cool shit happen. I go elsewhere for clever and nuanced storytelling.
You can have fun and have cool shit happen and also have good writing. They aren’t mutually exclusive. You can have silly, fun, goofy SW content that’s actually good. It’s not binary.
Of course. In this case, I enjoyed the series almost exclusively based on all the silly, fun, cool shit.
C’mon. There is no way this show is worse than Supergirl S1 or Flash post..S3?(or whenever the writers decided to say fuck it and go full soap opera). Even Iron Fist S1 was better.
Supergirl season 1 was a pure delight and infinitely better and more entertaining than BOBF on its best day. I didn’t watch all that much Arrowverse stuff, but if they follow the pattern of typical genre shows, I’m sure they settled into at least a few crap seasons here and there.That’s hardly the point, though, is? Someone asked me for a list of sci-fi/fantasy shows and those are just what I thought of off the top of my head. Obviously, with the rise of streamers and a constant deluge of content, there are a dozen or so notable genre shows a year, at least.
And, of the ones I’ve seen or at least sampled, the only thing worse than BOBF has been “Picard.” BOBF was baaaaad.
My theory is that all the people airily dismissing the show’s flaws have been Stockholm Syndromed by too many repeat viewings of the prequels. Wooden acting, janky pacing, flat dialogue? They crave that shit now, and Book of Boba delivered.
I love the fact that Favreau homaged the prequel trilogy not just by bringing back the Naboo fighter, but by making this season’s head bad guy an ineffectual, non-threatening, mush-mouthed alien with a bad accent and a terrible rubbery face puppet!
Other media exists beyond the prequels. I don’t think people whole grew up in the prequel era run around making the prequels their identity in the same way that boomers make the OT their identity. I loved the prequels but I bring them up in conversation, like, twice a year?
It fell flat in SO many ways that really anyone who enjoyed this show I’m afraid they don’t really have a lot going on between the ears.
Book of Boba Fett was rubbish, but Save the Cat is a terrible screenwriting book. More importantly, Favreau wrote Swingers, Chef and the first 2 seasons of the Mandalorian, never mind directing Elf, Iron Man, etc. He clearly knows story, so I don’t know how this show so badly lost basic storytelling fundamentals. Covid related production issues?
Save the Cat is perfectly fine as an introductory book or a refresher on the basics. I agree, Favreau has done good work before (though the writing on the Mandalorian is pretty underwhelming most of the time, let’s face it.)But, yeah, there’s just no excuse for this show.
Yet here you are watching, then ranting and raving, about every single episode of both shows.
Well, at least I stopped watching “Discovery!”
That’s crap. Robert Rodriguez and Jon Favreau have both shown that they can tell stories properly, hitting all of those beats that the college professors teach. That doesn’t mean they’ll do it right every time now that they are being paid millions of dollars.And it also doesn’t mean that they have free reign in what they’re writing. Was it RR’s idea to add all the fan-wanking stuff into this series? Maybe, maybe not, and it doesn’t really matter. The show is still a mess.
Who needs fundamental storytelling tools when you’ve got a franchise logo slapped on your product? People are gonna watch it regardless. Including me, mostly because I was stunned by how bad it was and needed to see it careening from one inept moment to the next.
Sounds like we were in the same boat!
I was actively rooting for the bad guys in the final battle. I was yelling at Cad Bane to just shoot my favorite star wars character! What a mess.
We care because…Grogu!!!! I love him soo much! LOL no, I am not a ten year old girl. Goodnight.
I remember a criticism of Solo at the time that it felt like they just filmed a Wikipedia (or Wookieepedia) page, but I feel like it’s far truer for this show: a workmanlike trudge through events which only occasionally remembers that it should be trying to make you care about it. This happens, then that happens, then another thing happens.
Ho-hum. Well, based on that image of Fett walking through the marketplace accepting fruit at the end, here’s my pitch for Book of Boba Fett season 2:
One of my favorite criticisms I heard when Solo came out was “Hey, you know everything we learned about Han Solo’s past from the original trilogy? Well all of those things happened in the same 3-4 days.”
I think Boba should’ve become the mayor. Like the fate of the Tuskins makes him decides it’s time to quit being a lone wolf and clean up the town. Almost everything works better if instead of being a crimelord who is too soft he’s the mayor with an occasional nasty streak he tries to tame but occasionally needs to lean into. It explains why he works with the scooter kids from the 4H. It explains why he suffers the annoying majordomo guy. Why he won’t deal spice. Why he is such a fish out of water. etc etc Instead of a reluctant crimelord he should have been a reluctant mayor.
So, like the movies, on his own show Boba Fett largely stood around as a secondary or tertiary character.
It was . . . fine. This whole episode, though, I kept thinking “Man, this would be really incredible if they’d have bothered to lay the necessary groundwork.” All of these disparate factions coming together to fight for Boba Fett could’ve been awesome if their previous enmity had been established. We REALLY needed a sense of the previous status-quo between the mod bikers, that asshole biker gang, Freetown, even Krrsantan. Maybe even just everybody in Mos Espa fucking hates bounty hunters and that’s something Fett has to overcome. Maybe having the Hutts be more than a very brief potential challenge. Cad Bane and Fett should’ve had a previous showdown . . . or at LEAST include a flashback to pre-Return of the Jedi Boba Fett and Cad Bane doing . . . something together. The same goes for those crime families. It would’ve been nice if we actually knew something about them and the differences between them, and how the whole crime families/mayor/Garsa Fwip/Hutts/Pykes all functioned. There needed to be a little Godfather Part 2 DNA in there, with Fett using both ruthlessness and carefully applied kindness along the lines of “Some day, and that day may never come, I will come to you for a favor . . .” as he builds loyalty from the common folks of Mos Espa. A little bit of intrigue on shifting allegiances and difficult deals being made before everything blows up.As it was, it really came across like Jon Favreau and co were just bored with the whole “Boba Fett becomes a crime boss” story, and were way more interested in “Boba Fett becomes a Tusken” and “The Mandalorian Season 1.5″.
I’ve been thinking about the shootout scenes, too and they always seemed understaffed for what they were meant to be (all the talk about being outnumbered, etc…). The show was really let down by its urban sets which are so, so, so obviously oversized backlot sets. What they could have used was some narrow alleys, something like a traditional medina where a dozen guys can fill the scene and where the plucky good guys can find actual cover rather than standing in open plazas (also, yeah… you’re outnumbered you should have gone to the rooftops as a first move).
To be fair, we don’t really know the actual role of a Daimo. In the beginning of the show, Fett was happy taking protection money from businesses. Given that he has now displaced the mayor, he is less crime boss and more legitimate leader of the city. He is the mayor now. His “protection money” in that regard looks more like taxes. His mods look like police. He’s just running the town now.
Who’s to say a town can decide to live with one kind of crime (like shady spaceship ports that perhaps don’t have all their paperwork lined up) and not allow others (wanton violence, spice trade, etc.). Real mayors have to make those kinds of decisions too.
Nothing wrong with running a town. Mayors live well too.
It’s odd, because the story they told amounts to “Boba Fett is just a wealthy fuck-up who can’t manage anything on his own. He’s a shitty criminal, a shitty planner, and a shitty leader, and he can’t decide which of these things he wants to be shittiest at.”
Having not seen much of the animated shows, I think Boba and Cade have a history that’s being referenced directly in their dialogue. There’s probably a wookiepedia write up.
BOBF was clearly less “a story about Boba Fett” and more “extended table setting for Mandalorian Season 3.”The first few episodes answer the question “how is he still alive to show up at the end of season2?”, the next few episodes are basically “what happened after the end of season 2″ and the rest was “moving everybody into place so they can avoid a lot of exposition in season 3 about why Din is with Grogu again and why they’re going to Mandalore” or something.
Which, I guess, if you have Disney+ money, is a better solution than a tie-in novel, and we get to spend some time with fan favorite characters we’ve enjoyed since the 80’s. But the actual Boba Fett arc was itself just filler.
yeah this show more than anything felt like a companion tie-in comic book turned into a series.
Didn’t they kind of ruin the entire point of “The Mandalorian” by having the characters reunite so quickly and easily? I’m sure they realized that stripping “The Mandalorian” of its central, defining relationship was hugely problematic.But then to just wipe it all away without it meaning anything? Awful. So not only was BOBF bad, but it made “The Mandalorian” worse.
Agreed. We see Din Djarin’s listless bounty hunting for about five minutes before he decides he needs to see Grogu again. And those were about the only good minutes of BoBF.Not only does it make The Mandalorian worse but it continues the character assassination of Luke Skywalker who for some reason just sends back his baby padawan to be dropped off with literally the first person who knows who Mando is. Like, OK so he’s not going to train him, but he’s not even going to bring him back in person?
The character assassination of Luke started in the prior episode, where Luke, learning apparently NOTHING from the failure of the previous Jedi order, still pulled out that “no attachment” bullshit and asked a pre-verbal toddler to have the wisdom to make a massive life decision between a life of extreme sacrifice and just wanting to see his daddy again.
So, yeah, fuck this fucking show and the rancor it rode in on.
Does it not occur to anyone writing these movies and shows that Luke’s attachment to his father was what redeemed Darth Vader?
I know, right???
Right, the whole thing about Luke’s journey was finding his own way. The Jedi teachings professed that emotions and attachments are the path to the dark side and that letting go of all that is the only way to face Vader and the Emperor.
While this is true, I can buy that Luke maybe didn’t see it entirely that way and could easily have thought something along the lines of, “that worked, but it wasn’t very ‘good’ Jedi of me. If I improve my training and focus, etc… I could have gotten out of it without my father dying in the process.”
What was Luke’s plan with Grogu? Train a toddler until he himself dies of old age? Grogus’s been a baby for fifty years. How much longer until he matures? Heck he can barely hold a lightsaber, let alone use one
Given that ~900 years is like 90 in human years, Grogu’s roughly 5 now and will be 15 in a hundred years.
learning apparently NOTHING from the failure of the previous Jedi order, still pulled out that “no attachment” bullshit
It’s funny because the Jedi’s “no attachment” ideology comes from the prequels (which formalized the idea and “proved” it with the fall of Anakin) but the now-canon idea that it’s wrong came later. First, from fans trying to reconcile the prequels with the original trilogy, but only officially confirmed in canon by The Last JediBut because everyone involved in producing Star Wars is scared to engage with the ideas from The Last Jedi, what we’re left with is a highly confused idea of what Luke thinks about it at any time in his history.Any honest reading of the original trilogy is that the redemption of Darth Vader proves that personal attachments can pull you back the light side, not just just draw you to the dark side, but The Book of Boba Fett seems to think that Luke is fully on board with Jedi dogma (which he was not really trained in) and only rejects it after he is betrayed by Ben Solo.It’s very confusing because it reads like the rebirth/death of his father didn’t really move or change him in any way.
Unfortunately, like the ST, Luke is now being written by separate sets of people who all have their own, conflicting visions for how the character should be realized and what he should feel. Throw in Lucas’ own confusing, if not self-contradictory, ideas about the Jedi and you have a mess on your hands.One of the things I loved about the Last Jedi is that Luke had bothered to watch the prequel trilogy between it and ROTJ and learned that the Jedi of old were huge fuck-ups. So for Mando-era Luke to be on board with Old Republic Jedi dogma seems puzzling and stupid, not just because of where he is in TLJ but because of everything that he did in ROTJ.It just doesn’t hold together. At all.
You’re incredibly annoying and incredibly wrong about everything. It’s almost impressive.
Thanks for your insights!
I can’t believe you responded to me within 12 minutes at 2am ET. Even more impressive.
I haven’t been on my computer all day, so I had no idea how old your post was. And it’s not 2:00am everywhere.
Keep trying, maybe you’ll accidentally stumble onto a point.
I keep thinking about how confusing Mandalorian S3E1 is going to be to someone who got bored of Boba Fett and didn’t watch through to the last few episodes. After all *that* to summon Luke Skywalker and send Grogu off for training, he’s just back with Mando after barely attending his Jedi freshman orientation.On the other hand, it’s clear the series just can’t have Luke as an actual supporting character who makes regular appearances. The special effects are distracting and you can’t really write scenes of Luke as a Jedi teacher because he just regurgitates Yoda’s teachings from ESB with proper syntax. So at least they got that out of the way, and it looks like we won’t spend too much time with the New Jedi Order that we know is guaranteed to be slaughtered by Kylo Ren within ~25 years.And with time maybe we can forget that Luke did a silly thing by letting the second-most powerful Force user in the galaxy go back to tempting the Dark Side while riding shotgun with a bounty hunter, because attachments are bad and such.
“I keep thinking about how confusing Mandalorian S3E1 is going to be to someone who got bored of Boba Fett and didn’t watch through to the last few episodes.”I’m imaging someone who watched Mando S1 and S2 but skipped BoBF – and somehow didn’t hear anything about it – tuning in for Mando S3E1 thinking “Wow, what’s gonna happen with Grogu now that he’s training with Luke? Will he and Mando ever reunite? What will Mando do now that he doesn’t have Grogu?” Then the episode will start with “Previously on The Book of Boba Fett” and they’ll be like “Wait, all of this already happened???”
Can’t have someone with Luke’s powers in the area during this fight or the entire article would be about why Luke didn’t just show up and dismantle the Pykes by himself.
I think it does but doesn’t. With Moff Gideon out of the picture presumably nobody is hunting Grogu anymore.
But whether or not Grogu is being actively hunted by the remains of the Empire, he still is a former Jedi padawan who should have a greater destiny than just tooling around aimlessly with a rando bounty hunter.But, hey, maybe not.
Yeah, it’s weird. It feels like it at least should have taken longer for them to be reunited. It really undercuts the emotional resonance of the Mando S2 finale. I appreciate that Grogu is a goldmine for Disney, and that he’s a big part of why many casual viewers have tuned into The Mandalorian at all, but there was probably a better middle ground here between serving the needs of money and serving the needs of the story.
I’m of two minds about it. I felt that taking Grogu out of the show stripped “The Mandalorian” of its foundational, defining elements. The show is literally about a bounty hunter whose heart grew three sizes because of his relationship with an adorable, but annoying puppet creature. There’s literally no show without Grogu.And yet the way they got them back together was so clumsy and so rushed it really did obliterate the entire point of the S2 finale.Honestly, I think the best thing they could have done was ended the show and had Mando show up for cameos in other series along the way.Dunno. I understand why they did it, but I still think they did it poorly.
Yeah, the S2 finale felt like the ending of the show, and perhaps it should have been. I was one of the people who assumed that the announcement of The Book of Boba Fett was as a subtitle for The Mandalorian S3. I thought it was a clever way tell a maxi-story about various Mandalorians, wherein S1-2 would have been The Book of Din Djarin, and so on. At the very least it felt like they should have left Din Djarin for a while.
Yeah, they should have pivoted to Boba or the other characters that came into Mando’s orbit for spinoffs and have Mando show up for the odd cameo. Then maybe after two years, they could bring back the original show and reunite Mando and Grogu in a way that felt organic and not clumsily rushed.
How many fans wanted badass Boba Fett bounty-hunting across the galaxy? If he doesn’t remove his helmet, it even works with younger Fett and his many adventures and misadventures.
I HATE Boba Fett. Boba Fett is the personification of what went wrong with the franchise. He was fine in the original trilogy — just a slightly more prominent minion that died in a way that fit well with the story — but Lucas or whoever noticed the audience focus on him (toy sales? who knows) and so then just dragged Boba Fett into the center of the entire overall story arc which pretty much ruined it. Ruined the entire overall story arc of the first six movies. Yes. Then, of course, they have to retcon and make two TV serials. Mandalorian was fine but pretty much exclusively because they grafted Lone Wolf and Cub — a brilliant story — onto the Star Wars Universe. Otherwise it wasn’t that great. I haven’t watched Book of Boba Fett.
If you want to continue with The Mandalorian, I’d recommend watching Eps 5-7 of Bobba Fett, one episode is exclusively Mando that includes a lot of lore exposition that will drive the plot for S3. Also, there’s quite a bit of actual The Mandalorian plot in those episodes. Otherwise you’d start S3E1 with a ‘wtf did I miss?’
When minor characters get spinoff tv shows… it doesn’t always work. Setting precedents and getting it wrong, despite months and months of preparation. Odd way to play, I’d say. I too never cared much for Boba Fett. I did like his spaceship though.
If you interpret Book of Boba Fett as a look at characters directly influenced by Boba in the Star Wars universe rather than “the adventures of Boba Fett solely” the diversions make a bit more sense, though probably a bit too much development on the Mando end, and still a lot of missed opportunities to serve Boba’s character better (more background between him and Bane, and having cryptoLuke and him cross paths).
I have been calling BOBF just The Godfather moved to scifi.
I’m still giggling about that comment comparing the lead to Toshiro Mifune. Uh huh.
Cade derided Boba for trying to go straight. Taking over Jabba’s empire is what Cade thinks is going legit? I mean, Boba does seem to have turned Jabba’s criminal organisation into a local youth group for troubled teens, but there still has to be some level of crime?
Apparently all Boba Fett thought you had to do to be a crimelord is show up in town, sit in a big chair, interfere with the local water economy and rub shoulders with saloon keepers. Not exactly a criminal mastermind.Oh, at no point did it occur to him until it was WAY too late that he probably needed to hire a staff larger than 2 people. That criminal gangs require an actual gang.
LawrenceQ, I remember your posts from The Mandalorian times and I agree with many of your points on that show. I’m curious, between the two shows, which one was better (or which one worse)?
Wow, thanks for asking my thoughts! I always thought the Mandalorian was generally just “okay”, with a few good episodes and a few bad ones, but mostly just kinda “meh.” Watchable, but largely lacking in ambition and content to just be a fairly basic show, leaning hard on fan service and a cute puppet.
But, dear god, grading on a curve, it’s “the Sopranos” compared to “Book of Boba Fett.”
Yes. I think we both lamented the wheel spinning nature of The Mandalorian at times. But in the end Boba Fett didn’t even have wheels. It really should have leant harder into a Sopranos in space vibe. But they didn’t commit to anything.
“I always thought the Mandalorian was generally just ‘okay’”LOL.
I was being kind.
Four people, he kept on those Lizard Pigs as well (Rest in Power little guys).
He added those guys later through happenstance. He initially just showed up with him and Shand and assumed that would be enough.
Bane derided Fett for going soft. For caring about other people. Bane was an avatar for what Fett used to be—a mercenary that cared only for himself. It got Fett digested by the Sarlaac.When Fett found a new way to live amongst the Tuskans, he started to grow and change from a one-note “badass” (who didn’t do much but get thrown into the Saarlac by a blind guy in the OT) into a more rounded character. This apparently, ruins people’s childhoods.Over and over, especially in this episode, it shows that treating people with respect and honor DOES pay off. Mando comes to help. The Freetown posse show up. The employees (the Mods, Gammorrans, Black Krrsantan) that he’s treated well are loyal and dedicated. And finally, the skills the Tuskans taught him allow him to beat Bane.The subtext was not subtle—Star Wars is mythology and is broad by design—but it was an effective morality tale. Honor and connections to others are not a liability, they are a strength.
I have to admit that to me the epicness of that shootout was undercut by how every choice made by the protagonist was pretty much the dumbest possible.To start with, when the Syndicate attacks the Sanctuary, the two Mandalorians show first that they are able to fly before deciding to land on the most exposed part of the street surrounded by multiple rooftops. Then they stand there shooting and getting killed despite being able to move to a more secure location without any issue.Then the Freetown crew comes to the rescue and bring with them unnecessary shelter, but decide to all huddle together instead of again making use of the environment and thus end up all being pinned down by gunfire. But no worries, the gang here is to support them all… By literally driving through that same gunfire to get that same pinned down location instead of flanking the enemy. Like it required more effort for them to end up in a less helpful position and did they commit to that. All this finally leads to the wookie coming in from an angle that required him to march through gunfire to the same pinned down location instead of offering supporting fire from a flanking position.At a certain point, it just started feeling like something of an action movie parody.
At least the Pykes remove all their shooters pinning Boba’s team down when the robots come in to blow up the cover, so they can all flee before their attack is effective.
It could have actually been a pretty cool scene if Mando and Boba showed that they were tactically better fighters and jetted around taking guys out. But yeah, instead they just land in the most central location and get blasted to bits. Good thing they have that indestructable armor and nobody ever hits them in the legs or stomach.
I also had no idea how that armor worker as they kept reacting when something hit the armor like it hurt?
I assumed that Beskar works like a bulletproof vest—taking a hit won’t be fatal, but it will still bruise and hurt like hell.
Sometimes it does, but a lot of times it’s basically invincibility armor. Plenty of times we’ve seen Din get shot in the armor and not even flinch, while other times he gets shot in the armor and grunts and falls down. Make up your mind, show!
It’s the literal definition of ‘plot armour’. It has to change depending on what the plot requires.
Except that the point of kevlar hit with bullets will push into your flesh – it just doesn’t let the bullet penetrate. A beskar breastplate would spread the blaster/bullet (Cad was using bullets, I think?) impact out across it’s entire surface.
Good thing they have that indestructable armor and nobody ever hits them in the legs or stomach.
YES! I keep waiting for someone to go “shoot them in the khakis!”
*Let’s all go the kill box,Let’s all go to the kill box,Let’s all go to the kill box and get ourselves selves mur-dered*
I liked how most everyone’s method for avoiding the giant wide robots was to run down the middle of wide streets.
Someone had to say it….Think your being generous too. Cant believe this episode had me pining for the heady days of episode 2. Which wasn’t great either but there was some sort of story being told and logistics to the fighting and decent choreography both in fighting and how things happened.
The directing was brutal (sorry RR, but it was) in this way. Good direction makes it seem like the events unfolding dictate the plot, not the other way around.Eg. one lick of Bane’s fire wrist and Ranky bounces because the plot needed a Fett/Bane duel. Cut to Din vs Ranky and suddenly the beast is fireproof, because the plot needed Grogu to do something.
Exactly It was so bad. So many other examples that could be used but I cant even be bothered to dissect it because i would be here all day.
Yeah but did you see that dope spin move by cyborg eye guy?
Exactly, the execution of the battle in this episode was absolutely terrible. Some other REALLY sloppy examples:1. Fennec shows up to save the mods then jumps off the building above them and her speeder is literally parked right next to where the mods were pinned down.2. More syndicate enemies just kept flowing into the battle like it was a video game. Why were they not in place at the start of the battle?3. The Freetown people show up in their tank speeder, are very effective in using the speeder to take out enemies, but then just decide to get out and shoot from behind it.4. The big droids show up and no one thinks to shoot at them until after they get all set up and turn their shields on.5. The heroes continue to shoot at the shielded droids even though it has been thoroughly shown to be ineffective.6. As the droid chases the rickshaw it’s proximity to the rickshaw continuously changes from very far behind to directly behind. The rickshaw was also much faster than the droids and should have been able to get away easily.7. The big droids may actually be the least accurate shooters in all of Star Wars. They couldn’t/didn’t hit anything but the Rancor.8. The syndicate foot soldiers just stand out in the open shooting at a wall the entire time the good guys are pinned down behind it allowing the good guys to basically just chill out and come up with a plan.
5. The heroes continue to shoot at the shielded droids even though it has been thoroughly shown to be ineffective.Good GOD was that tedious. I mean, so was absolutely everything else, but the mind-numbing, endlesssss stupidity of firing at force fields was possibly my Worst Moment of the series. And it just went on and on. How long could you possibly keep firing for before thinking, I dunno, maybe we should all just run away—not down the middle of a wide street, mind you, but just scatter? You’d think after the very first shot and someone would go “Holy shit! Force fields! We’re fucked!” Alas.
Also the tank speeder has an integrated gunning turret but no operator/passenger shielding whatsoever??
Hey take it up with whoever is in charge of Freetown’s defense department contracts.
The bad guys were not that smart either.Remember the former gladiator? Yeah, the guy twice our size, furry and full of teeth?Lets ambush him using blades, melee weapon and our physical strenght!Nah, leave our blasters, snipers and our other long-range, safer options at home, we cannot lose!
To be fair, Star Wars has rarely ever been very good at implementing any kind of well thought out strategy or tactics into its battle scenes.
It’s said before, but this is the most inexplicable TV show I’ve seen in a long time.
Why did they even MAKE it?
Why was the dialogue so awful (that final exchange with the melon had all the edge of a low-tier 80s sitcom)?
Why was the big reunion with Mando and Baby Yoda jammed into the middle of a chase scene in another show’s finale?
Why didn’t we get Artoo finally getting some solo combat time in the X-Wing (c’mon, you can’t tell me that you wouldn’t have killed to see him swoop in and take out a couple of the battle droids)?Why are the effects on the speeder bikes so awful?This would have been much better served as Fennec and Boba going into the crime lord business and explaining how that works – filling in some details about Star Wars. But the show didn’t care to tell any stories like that, so instead Boba walked in and out of town a dozen times and we got two episodes from the show’s better, cooler, older brother.This mess is going to be spoken of in hushed tones for decades to come.
Those ain’t speeder bikes; they’re Space Vespas, and they look cheap as shit. Speeder bikes, all old and dirty, are way cooler.
It didn’t help that the vespas all share the same design and have the gaudy sparkling aesthetics of a 50’s diner barstool.
…and they’re still there prominently in the last Tatooine shot before the camera pans up to Space… ugh.
That gang looked like they were about to go to a Justin Bieber concert to be ironic to cover up to one another that they all still like Justin Bieber.
Except the Aussie chick that looked like “The Craft”-era Fairuza Balk.
I too was expecting R2 to deus ex machina those giant droids with the X-Wing, but alas I guess he headed back right after delivering the package.Which reminds me – what the hell did Grogu do to that one giant droid? He unscrewed a knob with the force, that crippled it?
Trade Federation engineering – terrible then, now, forever.
I was hoping Grogu was going to do that!
Man, some of you guys really overthink a decades old universe that just wants to have some fun with a bevy of genres. This show did have a slow start but ended brilliantly! So fun.
I want my TV shows to be good and justify the time I invested. This wasn’t, and it didn’t.
Well, except for the parts of it that were an entirely different TV show. Which is the maddening thing; this creative team is capable of producing good TV, so asking what the
reason they made such a bad misstep here is entirely justified. (Also, complaining about overthinking things on a site devoted to analysing TV shows is… an odd stance to take.)
“Why was Tony Stark’s devastating family reveal jammed into a fight scene in someone elses movie”
I see I mistakenly credited the Tusken tribes’ murder to Bane instead of the Pyke Syndicate. I apologize for the screw-up. It was my blunder and I have been fired for it.
Good to see there are appropriate consquences for actions here. Too long have things been allowed to go lax.
They also cut off a toe.
No I’m pretty sure THAT was Peacemaker.
Only half a toe.And that was Peacemaker as we all know.
I can get you a toe by 3:00 this afternoon. With nail polish.
Hopefully not the little toe. It’s the most important toe!!
only one?
only one?
It was meant to be a big twist “reveal” in this episode that fell utterly flat.
Especially when it wasn’t Boba Fett who avenged the Tuskens.
No reason for Boba to assume it was the biker gang aside from some mild graffiti. It was basically the “I stole your crown, signed Eugene Krabs” note from the Spongebob movie. Fennec even pointed out how unlikely it would be for speed bikers to successfully wipe out a Tusken tribe. Fett had just led the Tuskens in a heist to steal from the Pykes. Not a very smart man, that Boba Fett. If he couldn’t put two and two together.
Which I could give you more upvotes for the Spongebob movie reference. We quote that scene at home constantly. “Just want to say thanks for selling me the crown. NEPTUNE’s crown. Which is nowinShellCitygoodbye!”
Even though it didn’t go down that way, I can see why someone would want to read it that way. Bane’s massacre of the Tuskens would give the Fett/Bane Rivalry some in-show stakes and a revenge angle, rather than the bad blood that is otherwise just eluded to, and would have bookended the series in a kinda satisfactory way. But we didn’t get any of that, oh well.
I’m not going to try and defend my mistake, because it was just sloppy analysis on my part. But I do think, in part, my brain was starving for any kind of thematic through line to a show utterly uninterested in that kind of storytelling.
I made the same Mandela Effect type mistake, I think it’s because Bane’s direct involvement in the Tusken slaughter was such a predictable and telegraphed plot twist that it feels like it happened, even though it didn’t. But it’s not like they threw out some unexpected twist instead there, they just had Boba kill him with the Gaffi stick after exhausting his traditional OT arsenal, which would have made a lot more sense with the “It was me!” twist.
I think the Gaffi stick kill was thematically appropriate, just in a different way. Bane was going on about how Boba getting all dedicated to his Tusken family was his weakness and would lead to his death, but it turns out his badass Tusken-learned skills could best Bane when his badass bounty hunter skills fell short.
Also it was weird how Bane brought it up, it played exactly like a scene where he’d try to get Fett to shift his alliance or something but it was just to make him mad or something?
To be fair, that would have been a much more interesting angle. Robert Rodriguez must keep getting work due to alliteration alone, I haven’t enjoyed something that he directed by himself since Desperado. I can’t give him full credit for Sin City; aside from the reports that Frank “fuckin psycho” Miller co-directed it, he basically just turned comic panels into moving pictures. If doing so was legitimate talent, Snyder would be respected outside of a vocal minority…but in honesty that movie is trashy af. Also, you will be missed!
Honestly, if the had done that it would have been better writing.
Wait, was that not the implication in the reveal, that Bane killed them under contract from the Pykes?
Nope, Bane didn’t know. The Pyke leader told him about it.
Sucks they fired you before you could edit that sentence so it’s no longer incorrect.
“You can stick around and fix that edit or you can get stepping to L.A. and keep your job.”
-Herb Spanfeller.
That actually would have been more dramatically satisfying. Maybe since you’re looking for work now, you can write for the Obi Wan show
If any star wars character, from my limited knowledge of the star wars world (child of the 80s and the original 3 films) cried out for a bloody grim crime saga, it was Fett.‘’All we have is the meta knowledge that Disney+ doesn’t want a cutthroat, Michael Mann-style crime thriller, and therefore Fett has to be at least reasonably family-friendly.’’Just because you could Disney, doesn’t mean you should. I was hoping for a Gangs of New York type of thing, or like how in Kill Bill they tease how Lucy Lui’s character battled her way to become mob boss of Tokyo. I wanted a show like that.
Seems weird that Disney+ would not want a “cutthroat, Michael Mann-style crime thriller,” but a “family-friendly” show would graphically depict someone completely bisected with an energy sword, another had his arm ripped off at the shoulder, and another brutally hanged.
True. It is all rather bloodless and sexless though; the Disney+ content seems to be at the most a mild PG-13 and that is pushing the limits of the edginess.
Those are aliens, so that’s not human violence.😏
I mean, there’s got to be something between ‘Heat’ or Walter White and what we got with this as far as crime shows go.
There is. It’s called Star Wars.
It’s got burned corpses, tons of laser-blasted ebel soldiers, a bloodily dismembered arm… and that’s before you even get into the choke-a-thon of Darth Vader in ESB. I desperately want to know what the hell is going on in the Star Wars development offices over at Disney, because it has to be the most schizophrenic place to work ever.
Except they let Fennec straight up lynch a guy! This show should’ve been 7 episodes of that. I’d have even allowed the whole “no crime Crime Lord” thing if the whole series was him eliminating the entire criminal element of Mos Espa with cold efficiency.
“I was hoping for a Gangs of New York type of thing, or like how in Kill Bill they tease how Lucy Lui’s character battled her way to become mob boss of Tokyo. I wanted a show like that.” Lol really? Did you really think there was gonna be a disney plus Star Wars show like that? c’mon
Team Fett’s tactics in the battle this episode were as slapdash as the plotting of the series. From the armoured leading men jet packing in to the sky and then… standing in the middle of a road surrounded by enemies with cover and a height advantage, it didn’t get any better.Also, the citizens seemed remarkably grateful to have their town torn apart by a Rancor.
AKA How not to prepare for war/battle/showdown with a larger enemy force.
I think you meant, “Mostly as a complete piece of shit,” because, hoo-boy, was this show bad!Second worst SW content shy of the execrable “Rise of Skywalker.” There, I said it. Yes, “Attack of the Clones” is better than this.
After that last episode, I reckon it’s even worse than Rise of Skywalker. That turd at least looked like it belonged in a Star Wars Universe.
I dunno, I put Rise of Skywalker as the absolute nadir of the franchise. I can’t imagine anything will ever be worse (I hope!) This show came at least as close as anything, though!
No, the Prequels exist.
This is worse than every prequel.
Well if you count SW Holiday Special, then… wait this is a long ass version of a scene in SW Holiday Special.
the Boba Fett content in the holiday special is immeasurably better than this!
What are you talking about? Yes, it started a bit slow, but as someone who’s been with SW from the beginning, this show was amazing and had it all! Definitely could have done without some of the Amy Sedaris humor and weirdly out of context colorful cyber punks ( and more Cad Bane), but overall, wowza–great stuff!
It was hot garbage, but I’m glad you had fun.
This review is excellent, and I agree with most every word of it, but especially this: “It cannot be overstated how many sins can be forgiven by the redemptive act of having a giant monster fight robots.”Yes, this show was an absolute mess from start to finish, other than reminding me how much I like the Mandalorian and Grogu and their adventures. But I watched most of In the Name of Honor with a big, dumb smile on my face. Partly because the battle was pretty cool, and partly because I have been waiting to see a Rancor truly go off since 1983.I am both amused and confused as to why the Fett team went this route when fully half the series belongs in Mandalorian Season 3. So many people who skipped this series are going to be confused by all the major developments for Mando and Grogu that occurred on another show. I also find the fact that they made Boba Fett such a moron pretty distracting. For someone who is supposed to be so experienced and world weary, he was fooled by the other crime families awfully easily.But whatever. I had a blast watching episodes 5-7 once I threw up my hands and stopped caring that they basically cancelled the show about Boba Fett mid run.
So many people who skipped this series are going to be confused by all the major developments for Mando and Grogu that occurred on another show
Come on, man. You know anyone who is watching The Mandalorian did not skip this show. It’s freaking Star Wars. It doesn’t matter how much it sucks, Star Wars fans are going to watch it. And bitch about it.
You may be right, but that has not been my experience so far. My wife, my brother, my mom, and my best friend from college are all huge into Star Wars and really like the Mandalorian (during the pandemic we all watched it together remotely). All of them skipped out on BOBF after episode 1. I had to advise them to watch 5-7 by letting them know it is basically Mandalorian Season 2.5.
I know a huge SW fan who skipped it based on the bad reviews. It does happen. I’ve skipped plenty of franchise entries to properties I loved due to bad worth of mouth (never saw any of the Matrix sequels, for instance, up to and including the most recent one.)
I am both amused and confused as to why the Fett team went this route when fully half the series belongs in Mandalorian Season 3. So many people who skipped this series are going to be confused by all the major developments for Mando and Grogu that occurred on another show. This is how I felt watching “Infinity War” without seeing “Captain America: Civil War”. Apparently it worked for Disney, so they’re doing more of it.
https://mattthecatania.wordpress.com/2022/02/09/the-book-of-boba-fett-picked-the-wrong-protagonist/
Fett agrees to ban the spice trade in exchange for Freetown’s
underwhelming aid. Fennec points out this is a terrible loss for his
business. SPICE MUST FLOW! Why does Fett want to be a crime lord if he
doesn’t approve of crime?
Fett finally does something both useful & badass by riding his Rancor to battle! Most series would let their stars do cool things periodically, whereas this only allows bookends. The citizens of Mos Espa then feel obliged to salute Fett for destroying
their town & local economy. Boba better be getting kickbacks from
construction guilds.
The demythification of Boba Fett could be an interesting direction for
the series. He being unsuited to his grand ambition would be a great
contrast to Din being up to the unwanted responsibility thrust upon him.
Whenever we see cracks in Fett, however, the series quickly moves on to
another plot point. It’s acknowledged so lightly it’s almost subtext.
This could even make for a “crime doesn’t pay” tragedy, yet Disney is
terrifyied of subverting expectations that much for a marketable
character.
yeah it could have been really neat if midway through the series he was like ‘damn, am i actually a loser?’ instead of constantly acting like he knows what he’s doing. i could not tell you a single thing that goes on in that man’s head except remembering stuff he did a few months before.
It makes me think of the Monty Python “Non-Illegal Robbery” sketch. They go through this super-convoluted plot to pirchase jewelry, freak out over one of the “criminals” not paying the meter and come up with another super-convoluted plot, and then finally deciding to just commit crimes because it’s more fun.
I like after all of that killing and destruction he’s just like “we’re not cut out for this”. Conveniently closing the door on Boba’s odd middle-life crisis.I do appreciate the rancor ride as a nod to Boba’s first appearance riding some random giant beast. We all knew he had it in him.
The “we’re not cut out for this” showed there’s been zero character development since the first episode. An impressive “fuck you” to the audience
I found myself hoping that Boba Fett would pass his armor on to Mando, that would have been interesting because really that’s all Fett has going for him and he doesn’t even like to wear it.
The demythification of Boba Fett could be an interesting direction for the series. He being unsuited to his grand ambition would be a great contrast to Din being up to the unwanted responsibility thrust upon him. Whenever we see cracks in Fett, however, the series quickly moves on to another plot point. It’s acknowledged so lightly it’s almost subtext. This could even make for a “crime doesn’t pay” tragedy, yet Disney is terrifyied of subverting expectations that much for a marketable character.This is the best – most thoughtful – criticism of this series I’ve seen yet.
Why not have everyone fighting on Boba Fett’s side gather into one location, pinned down. And have other people come in, shooting their way into that same location, just to be pinned down.
And doesn’t anyone on the Pyke’s side have a grenade?
Hiring Cad Bane is not cheap. Something had to go-the vending machines in the Pyke Syndicate break room or the monthly grenade allotment.Management chose……..poorly.
The Pykes don’t even own a ship. Their reinforcements all arrived via Space Greyhound. The stakes and scale of whole season are pitifully small.Fett and Shand think two people are enough to run a criminal empire. The Pykes show up “in force” with maybe twenty additional goons.
The good guys literally have no choice but to appeal to a group of civilian farmers for extra muscle. Really? Shand and Fett don’t know hundreds of badass mercs they could have hired? The Pykes don’t have a fleet of ships at their disposal?
Only the mega-droids hint at any real power from anyone at any point. The end culminates in a couple dozen characters having a shoot-out in an alley. Such an astonishing lack of logic and imagination.
Just about every scene of this episode (and most of the scenes of this series) had me asking “Well why would they do that?” That fight was maybe the most frustrating. I couldn’t stop laughing when Black Santa shows up, after being tackled to the ground and somehow not killed, literally dragging about five lizardmen several miles to a shootout, then proceeding to get shot several times and then rather than helping from a strategically helpful position, just kind of limps his way over to where everyone else is already pinned down. And then Boba just says “I thought you were already dead.”That fight scene made the street brawl in Anchorman look hardcore in comparison. At least then someone did actually have a grenade.
Every point here is valid. Fortunately adding lyrics to the theme song in the end credits fixed everything! BOH-BAH FETT!
Brick killed a guy!
Boba Fett says “I have armor” at one point to Cad Bane. Yeah, plot armor!
Before that, Boba says, “cover me” as he goes out to help Krrsantan get to the group. Um… were they not already covering Krrsantan? if not, how come? and how much does Fett really help him limp those last ten feet?
Anyway, something must have worked because 5 minutes later, he’s running down the street full speed and takes a full throwing-through-a-wall from the gunner droid and still never betrays a limp again.
That’s just not what happened. The character is a former gladiator that is really good at killing and enjoys doing it. He has metal-coated bones like Wolverine, so he’s pretty durable. Still, you’re supposed to think he’s dead after being overwhelmed by the Trandoshans, only to realize that he dug his way out of the pile by killing them all. Then he went to help his boss and on the way he fought through a bunch of the Pyke soldiers that are shown clinging to him (those are different than Trandoshans—they look like fish instead of lizards). Boba Fett says he’s thought he was dead because we were all supposed to at that point. It was pretty clear to a lot of fans that a mere handful of Trandoshans wouldn’t be enough to do the job, but I still enjoyed it. This was a fun, action-packed episode and I just don’t understand the hate it’s gotten. Star Wars fans sure seem to hate Star Wars sometimes.
None of the stuff about BK is clear from the show, though. To me, he’s just another Wookiee, and he’s bad at doing just about anything. His fight with Boba was pretty lame (if you’re going to assassinate someone, you wouldn’t wrestle them first) and his fight in the last episode was bad too. He didn’t actually DO anything and also looked ridiculous while not doing it. Good Star Wars is great (Rogue 1, Mando), bad Star Wars is hard to watch (this, Rise of Skywalker).
In connected universe stuff it pays off to have seen the stuff before, certainly. Filoni is definitely threading stuff from the animated shows into Mando and Fett. It’s not necessary to know that stuff, though. Krrsantan is introduced as a big, dangerous, formidable Wookie. You could see him come back after the fake-out death scene and just think, “huh, that’s a tough Wookie!”.I’m not saying the show is perfect, and it does seem like something happened (probably COVID-related) that made them rejigger things and maybe lose some polish along the way, but people are so _angry_ that it wasn’t exactly what they wanted.A lot of the complaints in this thread show that people aren’t really paying attention anyway. Cade Bane didn’t kill the Tuskans, the Pyke did. It wasn’t Trandoshans from the first fight hanging off Krrsantan, it was the Pyke. Somebody was complaining about the gaffi stick appearing from nowhere when it was clearly shown on Fett’s back since he went to get the Rancor.
Agreed. Very bad tactics and planning considering the showdown had been expected for days.
Their decision to hunker down in the town was so dumb.
“We can’t abandon
the people, we have to protect the town.”
Hey idiots, the Pykes are
attacking you. Why would you make your stand in the middle of a town where there are tons of bystanders around instead of a fortress with no one else around.
I thought Daimyo just meant lord? Maybe I’m head-canoning things, but I just assumed that the daimyo had power like a feudal lord and could either do it in a corrupt, exploitative way like Hutt or in a more responsible way like Fett wants to.
Yes.
Yes, feudal lords a notch below shogun.
I’m shocked people and reviews were so high on this episode, because I hated most of it. I don’t care about Boba or any of the other characters. I only care about Mando and Grogu and this isn’t even supposed to be their show! Also, yikes that credits music
The credits song was the best part of the whole series.
Why was the murder of the mayor so brutal? Here was a character whose importance to the story was 100% murky.
At one point, they said the mayor was hugely important. Then they literally said, “Well, he has no power.” Then they freaked out when the mayor suddenly disappeared. Then they freaked when they learned he was working with the Pykes. But he never actually DID a single thing and only barely appeared. And yet, this character, who appears utterly ineffectual and unimportant to the story, who does nothing, good or bad except actually saving Fett & Company from assassins, literally has to get hung on-camera?One of a hundred examples of how poorly-conceived this entire enterprise was. Bleh.
I kid you not, I had forgotten he was the mayor by the time he was hung. I just thought he was another rando crime boss.
Agreed.
“After all this time, they finally took the helmet off, and there was no one underneath.”Beautiful.
Boba Fett riding a Rancor looks like something they plucked out of someone’s fanfic for a version of the character that never appeared in this show.
Head Writer: So, I’ve got this idea where we’ll have these two giant robots with fuck-off huge cannons fight Boba, Mando, the Wookie, the Mos Espa Vespas and all the Freetown people.
Other Writer: Sounds cool. I guess a bunch of them will die fighting these enormous threats?
Head Writer: Nope. The giant robots will miss every shot they fire, will be unable to penetrate a wall that the people are hiding behind, and when they do hit something – the Rancor – they’ll mostly just piss it off.
Other Writer: Won’t that kind of ruin the stakes?
Head Writer: And then, once the robots are dead, we’ll do King Kong with the Rancor!
Other Writer: What???
This episode was fun, but it was also frustratingly stupid. One of the townsfolk got shot, meanwhile the Pikes lost about a bazzillion of their own from standing in the open. And those droids were worthless. They hit nothing.
Big Stormtroopers in other words
Robert Rodriguez is way overrated.
Clearly you missed cyborg eye guy’s spin move.
Dudes always been shit
At least in the OT, there were good-guy minions who got killed to make the heroes seem like they were in danger. The guards on Leia’s ship mostly get killed, Luke’s fellow pilots mostly get killed attacking the Death Star, tons of Echo Base rebel troops get massacred by AT-ATs and stormtroopers, plenty of ground troops and fighter pilots get blown up during the Battle of Endor.Here, they lost two gamorreans.
Also the good guys shot one billion blaster bolts at the droids when the shields were up but as soon as the shield went down all they could do was stare dumbfounded. Then they remembered they had guns when they saw an angry Rancor (who is ON THEIR SIDE) 500 feet away and didn’t hesitate to start trying to kill it.
And then, once the robots are dead, we’ll do King Kong with the Rancor!When it started climbing that tower, I said out loud to an empty room, “’Twas Beauty killed the Beast.”
This was a frustratingly bad show, who’s highlights were because of characters from The Mando, not it’s own title character.
It will be super easy. Barely an inconvenience.
You know, just when I think that stakes can’t get lower in a shootout with two Mandalorians in armor shrugging off several blaster bolts, in comes a Wookiee that does the same thing.
But he’s limping or whatever, so I guess being shot a half dozen times somehow sprained his ankle.
Well, sprained his ankle for a moment. Later on he’s running completely fine until he is shot a bunch times and needs the two gang members to help him… Before again moving normally in the very next scene.Every time I start thinking about a scene in this episode, I just start laughing in disbelief.
He found a green herb while running on the street.
The best plot armor is Beskan.
Metal-coated bones, like Wolverine. You can cut him, but it’s really hard to break him. Especially since he’ll be ripping your arms off as you try.
The credits song was the best part of the episode. My 11 year old daughter and I were laughing our asses off trying to sing along, and it’s been in my head ever since – BOH-BAH FETT!
Has someone turned the Boba Fett theme into the Baba Booey theme yet?
No –actually they were (and I am not making this up): “Dum dum dum dum dum-dum-dum-dum dim dum.. “
I look forward to the next spin-off, “R2-D2: Space Uber”.
This series was watchable in the “I don’t know what’s going to happen next” way… but not in the good kind of “I don’t know what’s going to happen next” way. Like in a, “I genuinely have no idea what is going on” way. The only sustained coherency was in the two Mandalorian episodes. Otherwise, we got a main character with no clear motivation who was constantly holding the idiot ball, and a whole ton of characters and ideas that got introduced and then dropped- or barely introduced and then became very important with no development. Sanctuary and Garsa Fwip were never given enough to do to make their destruction carry any weight. And the Pyke Syndicate? Who gives a shit about a faceless gang of mooks? I agree that introducing Cad Bane as the “face” of the Syndicate was done way too late- and if you hadn’t watched Clone Wars, his appearance carried no weight. But even then, his point that Fett was a killer who worked for the Empire was entirely valid, and it’s not something the show really grappled with very clearly.
I assume, given the pomp of their introduction, those Hutt twins will re-appear in another series… but they would’ve been fun antagonists for *this* series. They would’ve been antagonists that made sense, considering Fett’s history with Jabba and his desire to take Jabba’s place.
This has a lot of problems but, in all honesty, a show that gives us Chekov’s Kaiju is a show I cannot criticize.Okay, I’ll say this, they coulda done more with Jennifer Beals as a Twi’Lek bar owner. Maybe she didn’t like wearing the makeup.
Thanks for the reviews, and love the drawing!I think the only ending that would have redeemed all the nonsense would have been Boba dying due to any of his many many mistakes and Fennec taking over competently. It would have shown the writers understood how dumb it played out, and closed the Book (so to speak).
Another thing: don’t have the bad guy ask the hero “what’s your angle” when you’ve done such a bad job in plotting that the audience really would like to know the answer to that question as well.
That was just the writers room remembering getting stoned and catching “Heavy Metal” on late-night TNT. Then the Disney lawyers told them they couldn’t use anything from the Hanover Fiste segment.
I was already raging earlier in the series with Robert Rodriguez just going ‘fuck it’ to the entire Star Wars Universe and bringing in your Skittles Chase The Rainbow Space Mods and daft product placement for Boston Dynamics but the shit that went down in this episode was a fucking giant manga robot too far. Seriously, I thought I was watching Ready Player One. What the fuck are huge shiny silver Hideo Kojima / Matrix /Final Fantasy style mech-droids doing running around in a cinematic universe that -in spite of all it’s faults- has at least kept the same amazing 1970’s/early 80’s design aesthetic for 40 years+. Also since when did blasters start sounding like .45 calibre handguns?Fuck. I won’t even get started on how badly plotted and acted and directed the main plot was just that everything in this episode seemed to be designed to send my blood pressure through the roof. Like it was intended to be a personal insult.
I could see Ernest Cline writing this show. Maybe the next SW show can be based off of William Shatner’s “TekWars”.
First Order Purchasing Dept: “What? Mega Battle Droids? WTF are those?!”
Uh, The mech droids were clearly an evolution of the Droidekas from the prequels. The design language hardly came out of nowhere.
Yeah, agreed. The show is incredibly stupid in almost every respect but the giant battle droids were at least basically… giant battle droids.
I erased those from my memory
Anyway, explain the firearm sounds!
And they are cooler than the gorilla walkers from The Last Jedi, which don’t do anything cool.
Because the Separatist Army presumably made several million ‘scorpion droids’ for it’s droid army? There are a lot of flaws to this series and episode, but it makes perfect sense that bad guys would buy 35 year old surplus store tanks if they could. There should probably be more of this sort of thing. Especially because there were three movies and several TV series in canon about these things?
The scorpion droids would have looked a lot cooler if they were Dr. Mobius’ Roboscorpions! Although maybe they were. They’re known for draining intelligence, and this show does seem to have a lack of it in some aspects.
I had a thought about this when Amy Sedaris unveiled the Naboo starfighter and told Din “it’s pre-Empire so it’s off the books, unregistered” – the Empire only lasted 20 years! That’s like the US government saying that every car built before 2000 can be driven without any vehicle registration or tax, just because it’s old. The galaxy must be stuffed full of ships and equipment built pre-Empire, and most of it is probably military surplus, especially since there’s been multiple Star Wars happening all of the time (clue’s in the name there).
If you ever drift over to Jalop, you’ll definitely run into dozens of people who are convinced they will definitely be saying, “the VIN is pre-Biden so you can still run an internal combustion engine in it” in about 20 years.
Did you miss the droid armies invading Naboo in the prequels? Can’t blame you, I guess
I was too wrapped up in the in the intriguing political maneuvering of the trade dispute.
The way she strung up the mayor so that we could see his dangling legs as she took out everyone else was uncharacteristically brutal for Star Wars.I agree. As was the cantina bombing from last episode. Never thought I’d see something in a Star Wars show that I normally only see in gritty crime/mob movies. Both times I actually said to myself “damn, this is supposed to be a show aimed at kids?”Shand’s dispatching of the Pyke/Mos Espa leadership in the office was pretty badass though, made me wish we got to see her do more cool stuff throughout the series other than just picking people off with her rifle or pointlessly front-flipping off of high places. Oh well, here’s hoping she gets her chance in Mandolorian season 3.
Oh man – you reminded me of Fennec’s front-flips. The one in this episode was especially egregious; the editing made it look like a sequence from a cheesy 80’s show like the A-Team of Magnum PI.
– Knowing what this show is, now that its done, I’m not too upset. I’d have given the finale a solid B. I think the showrunners were thinking, take what screentime Fennic and Boba had in Mandalorian S2 and flip it. Did it work? Eh? These things tend to gain cult followings. Kind things to say:Morrison is sorta a Clint Eastwood type. His big gains were with the Tuskens early on. He has a little of the “Get Off My Porch” vibe going on. That meme that went around was so true: I think the showrunners really wanted to recreate the feeling of playing with your action-figures, at age 9, with the improv plots and the “and then … and then … THE RANCOR ATTACKS!!! Rowr! Pew pew! Ka-boosh!!”Singers in the end credits actually singing “Boba Fett” … fucking lol.If like Cobb Vanth shows up in another show for three episodes, then ok … D+ is doing like a Rubic’s Cube scramble with characters. Everyone crosses over everywhere. A little more chaotic than Marvel. Ok. Maybe I can get used to that. “Non-traditional” story structure or what have you..
It’s amazing how a show that is obviously so expensive, can also feel so chintzy at the same time.
Answer: Robert Rodriguez.
I knew it was directed by Rodriguez when he did that slow dissolve montage of Boba Fett’s reaction to killing Bane. His way of making emotional points without requiring his actor to act. 😄
I feel like I’m being punished for not watching all the cartoons or know anything about the extended universe. Boba Fett was okay, the Mandalorian is pretty great, but I don’t know anything about Ahsoka or Bane or the darksaber. They’re cool, but like….lets do some original shit here next time maybe. Put us all on a level playing field.
…Or just watch the other shows. I mean, The Clone Wars is surely tedious at times but at this point we’re all aware Filoni has his own story arc and these are all spinoffs/crossovers. There’s no point complaining if you’re jumping in now and don’t feel like catching up on what came before.
No
I could not get through the clone wars at all, and I’ve tried multiple times. Tapped out in season 2
as someone who didn’t watch clone wars, but quite enjoyed rebels, the added context doesn’t really make the new live action stuff any better or more interesting.
I don’t know. I didn’t watch any of the toons, but I can gather enough from the show to get the gist of who these people are or what their stuff is. And if all they’re giving us is what they gave us, the gist is about all I need.
People want to give Favreau and Filoni all this credit, and they deserve some of it, for steering the Star Wars boat in a good direction. But, to me, they’re continuing to violate the cardinal sin of Star Wars. They’re failing to expand the scope.Like, the biggest problem with the prequel trilogy is that it dilutes an entire galaxy into half a dozen people. Luke’s dad was Obi-wan’s padawan and he built Threepio. R2 belonged to Luke’s mom. Boba Fett’s dad was the source of all the Clones.And, while the quality is mostly great, Favreau and Filoni are basically suturing up the galaxy even tighter. They brought back Boba for The Mandalorian. Fennec’s in Bad Batch. Cad Bane’s in BoBF. Luke’s in both. Ahsoka’s in EVERYTHING.It’s an entire galaxy revolving around 6 people and Tatooine.
This is probably more what I’m getting at. I know there’s some news floating around about in-development Star Wars games and movies that might be taking place thousands of years in the past. That sounds awesome. I want all things Skywalker/Obi-Wan to be wrapped up and done. We don’t need any more content around those people or characters tangential to them. But that’s just like my opinion man.
It’s annoying how the recapper talks about “Cad Bane” (?) as being “fan service” when I’m a fan of Star Wars and I’ve never heard of this motherfucker
The way she (Fennec) strung up the mayor so that we could see his dangling legs as she took out everyone else was uncharacteristically brutal for Star Wars.
Remember that The Mandalorian began with a fugitive being sliced in half by an automatic sliding door. This show was not only more PG than that series, imo it was softer edged than Filoni’s Clone Wars. Even with Boba turning over new leaf, it never made sense to me that included an oath to not kill (which was used erratically through out the BoBF anyway). Unlike, for example, the DC universe, its never been debatable that heroes in the Star Wars Universe kill. The emphasis should have been on Boba learning how to build trust and use politics rather than threats (where possible).* The last three episodes didn’t fully redeem the disappointing elements of the prior 4, but the finale definitely provided some redemption for most of the cast. The one exception: Jennifer Beals who was completely wasted. I wanted her to show up — perhaps with an eyepatch or scar, but still beautiful — to deliver some vengeance on the Pikes. * I hope we see Boba and Fennec again, with a lot more consideration given to character development. It might be fun to see them off planet, as heroes for hire, making money by continuing to wreak vengeance on the Criminal Syndicate.
It’s clear that this season was just to find proper footing, establishing more of this world, and trying to see what mood for the show actually works best, similar to what they did in Mandalorian season 1. All the teasing of Jango Fett’s influence on the story, etc. it’s really seeming like they’re teasing the return of Mace Windu.
I really don’t need a S2 if it’s going to be about Mace Windu. We already had Maul and Boba Fett resurrected for what turned out to be pretty lame story arcs in the Filoni-verse.
It was sad when the pig boys died. I was rooting for them.Other than that, I thought it was fine. I wish there was more Boba Fett in this Boba Fett show, and I wish they had developed the character more. I still think Temuera Morrison was miscast (dispite the obvious reason he was cast). He just never really sold me on the role.
My son is still upset about the Gamorrean Pigs’ tragic deaths.
Well, somebody on Fett’s side had to die. I swear nobody else – townsfolk included – suffered any damage that couldn’t be fixed with a complimentary voucher to the bacta tank.
I honestly can’t tell if Morrison isn’t that great of an actor or if it was Boba Fett was just terribly underwritten. I’d lean toward the latter but it could be a little of both
Watch Once Were Warriors and you’ll have your answer.
That weird way of talking like he’s in Slytherin was a choice he made, I’m sure of it.
Both. He’s a very wooden actor and didn’t have much to work with.
Missile on his jetback gets used finally, but somehow there’s still a missile at the end? How come the First Order didn’t have Mega Battle Droids at their disposal to get rid of the Resistance? Was there a quota on how much Grogu could do to save lives? Poor Mando, being thrown around like that and still kicking ass. I guess Mods can’t shoot for shit. Poor Fennec, disappears for half the show, only to do the avenging Fett should have taken care of. Poor Cobb, reduced to a postscript shot with a dreadlocked guy no one cares about. This episode was, let’s do a lot of action, so the fans will stop complaining about the very uneven show. I’m sure we’ll revisit some of these characters, plus Tatooine, soon enough, but not looking forward to a second season. Robert Rodriguez is way overrated.Thankfully, Obi-Wan Kenobi comes May 2022, in a limited series format.
Disney’s D+ shows are interesting because they pay lip service to foregrounding anti-heroes and complex characters but they’re too afraid to actually follow through, which makes them a really weird mish-mash of tones and character beats.
That episode was fun for what it was. Chekhov’s rancor got pulled as expected, but damn, was that a muddled mess of a series. Nothing about Fett made any sense. I guess they thought a few episodes of him caring about Tuskans changed him, but not only was it a boring going-native-trope, it also gave no view into what Fett was before then. If we’re supposed to buy that he’s learned something and changed his ways we need to actually see his ways before that. The hired killer who changes his ways is another trope unto itself, but it again entails some semblance of guilt and the character working through that. This was just, “Hey, I’m not going to kill people for money anymore, for reasons. I’m instead going to become a crime lord… for reasons. Without that crime shit though. The writers don’t seem to know what I, or any of the other crime families, even do so this will work out fine.”It’s also baffling, from a narrative sense, that they used this series to get Din and Grogu back together. The end of the last Mando season left their separation, and the prospect of Din having to deal with the with knowledge that Mandalorian society is far more nuanced and complicated than he knew, as something that could be compelling. Instead they basically said we don’t have a lot confidence in any of these stories so… Baby Yoda and Mando have to get back together… have you not seen the memes… Oh, and give Baby Yoda some Chekhov’s mithril chainmail. The audience will be super surprised when it appears that Baby Yoda dies but is saved by it.
BTW – Din really got ripped off by the Armorer. One size 8m Frodo shirt out of a whole beskar spear and no questions asked?
No decision anyone made working on this show made any goddamn sense. Most of these have been ably listed in the comments, but here’s one more:
Why the hell does Sophie Thatcher’s character have a British accent? She’s not British, no one else on Tatooine has that accent. My only guess is that she used that sweet Disney money to get some free dialect lessons for other, better roles.
That’s discount Felicity Jones, yes?
Brutal but fair.
That’s at least easy enough to answer via headcanon. She’s a daughter of an Imperial (who were all Brits) who fled after the Empire collapsed and ended up hiding from the Rebellion on Tatooine.
Or she’s a Kenobi.
Oh, man. Someone’s probably already added this to her Wookieepedia bio.
Seems like an odd gripe given that every speaking character in The Empire (Vader and Palpatine notwithstanding), Obi Wan Kenobi, Felicity Jones’ character in Rogue One and a host of others in Star Wars have had British accents.
Because pale brunettes in Star Wars have that accent. Qi’ra and Jyn had that accent. Heck Padme had something sort of close. It’s a new Wilhelm scream style transition.
Ming-Na Wen, the actress who plays Fennec Shand, is 58 years old.
This show definitely became an unintentional comedy for me…maybe the most fun I’ve had with one since I quit watching The Walking Dead in its middle seasons. I think the only kernel of the show that could have made for a good story was if Boba’s time with the Tuskens led to a Dune-esque, anti-colonialist story where Boba is determined to help the Tuskens take back control of Tatooine from the off-worlders. I’m decidedly less excited about the Ashoka and Obi-Wan shows now.
Well, Obi Wan at least isn’t written by Favreau, so there’s hope….?I’m most looking forward to the Acolyte, where, by definition, we will get NO LEGACY CHARACTERS.
Aren’t you optimistic.
Had to google it, but High Republic Era is 300-82 year before the Battle of Yavin. I guarantee you’ll see Yoda in there (I wouldn’t even take odds that he’s not the title character). It’ll be a dramatization of the story in the opera house from RotS, just you wait.
True. Yoda is a possibility. But, even so, that would be only ONE character, instead of Mando and BOBF, which became nothing but a string of endless, increasingly pointless cameos, mostly from the Filoni corner of the universe.
There were all these dollar store Dune aspects to the first few episodes. But the problem is that this show, and maybe Star Wars itself (which has tons of Dune ripoff aspects), simply isn’t equipped to tell a story with the political and economic complexity of Dune. Case in point “spice” is introduced in this series (maybe for the first time in Star Wars?) and there’s absolutely no discussion of why the spice is valuable, what the spice does, what function it serves in their society? Is it a narcotic (they seem to hint at this?)? a fuel? is it simply spice? Nothing is explained about it other than it’s a valuable commodityThat’s why when people talk about wanting a show where Boba Fett becomes the head of a criminal empire I just think Star Wars is not equipped to tell that kind of story. If he’s to truly be a crime boss he has to run actual crime. So what kind of criminal rackets will he be in charge of? Sex work? Drugs? Has Star Wars ever even had a remotely realistic take on such things?
I totally agree. Maybe I should have amended my comment from “a good story” to “a story.” Taking the anti-colonialist angle could have made for a coherent narrative and some motivation for the main character, but you’re right that they still most likely wouldn’t have done it well.
Spice has precedence all the way back to the OT, in that Han Solo’s gig prior to hooking up with Luke and co. was smuggling spice for Jabba. and while it’s never explicitly stated, the implication is that the cargo he dumped when he got pulled over by the Empire, which left Jabba is pissed off at him enough to send Boba Fett after him with the intent of turning him into a piece of fancy wall art, was spice.
Okay it wasn’t the first time, but my larger point still stands: why is this spice valuable? What properties does it have? What purpose does it serve? Star Wars just isn’t sophisticated enough to figure this stuff out
What properties does spice have? It’s spicy, obviously!
Show has the writing of a bad Saturday morning cartoon. Nothing means anything. Going from plot point a to b c no matter what happens in between. ps Robert Rodriguez is just the director he takes the script he was given and puts in on screen
ps Robert Rodriguez is just the director he takes the script he was given and puts in on screenIs that really how the show production worked? The script said things like:- Cyborg eye guy does a super dope spin move before firing blaster- Mando and Fett appear soaring above their enemies on jetpacks, then land in the centre of the square in order to take inordinate amounts of blaster fire- Black Santa will take a few blaster bolts to the torso causing a severe limp that will be gone by the next cut- Bane’s flame thrower will cause Rancor to run away in terror and then be completely unaffected by Din’s flame thrower
PS – There’s lots more, but you get the point. That’s shit’s on him. For either making it happen or accepting it.
The Mandalorian set the bar pretty high so I’m not all that surprised this didn’t meet those heights. If Mando was an A grade, this was a B-. Still entertaining and fun, but could have used some work. I remember reading some production rumors that the initial idea for TBoBF was for it to be a movie and I think it shows. There’s enough content there for this to work as a movie, but not really enough for it to be a series. I wish we could have gotten a little more with the Tuskens and I wish things didn’t wrap up quite as they did with a pretty bow on it at the end, but I still liked it overall.My biggest takeaway is Robert Rodriguez shouldn’t direct any more SW related things. All his episodes feel so rigid and lifeless compared to others that helm the show. It’s something about his style that’s just tonally different from all the rest be it Favreau, Filoni, BDH, whoever else.
But if “The Mandalorian” is really truly only a B-minus show (which, let’s face it, it is), that makes this one a straight-up D.
D+ if you are generous
LMAO…did anybody else catch, about halfway through, when Skad (guy with the eye piece- I had to Google that, btw) was trying to help up Krrsantan and they get rushed by Pikes, and for some weird ass reason decides to do a full 360 before shooting back? That was the height of unintentional comedy. I literally rewound that three times before I moved on- the first two just laughing at how stupid that looked, the third to make sure there wasn’t some tactical reason he needed to go full Kobe in the paint before firing his weapon (there wasn’t).
Besides the fact that in, a franchise already infamous for it’s trained soldiers having the complete inability to land a direct shot on damn near ANYthing, the Pikes managed to set the bar even lower by failing to shoot a guy quite literally in the back, I just couldn’t get over how completely pointless that maneuver was.Then I thought, damn, if that scene wasn’t about as apt a metaphor for the entire series…
That’s what we get when they hire Robert Rodriguez to join in the playground.
Chekhov’s rancor
So Boba is just the sheriff of Tatooine now? I guess technically, he’s running a protection racket since people pay him tribute for his protection. But people actually need his protection and they’re happy to have it so that really just makes it an unofficial security company.
What crimes are his criminal organization involved in? Are they smuggling? Are they stealing? Are they assassinating people for money?
Apparently none of the above.
I think it bears remembering that, for all of Boba Fett’s new, cuddly attitude about wanting to rule with respect, not wanting to be just another greedy crimelord and eventually becoming more of a protector figure than a ganster, his journey did start out with him literally murdering Bib Fortuna in cold blood for no remotely justifiable reason whatsoever.It’s pretty shocking that the series kicked off that way and Boba never once grappled with or had to reckon with that decision in any way.
Dumb as fuck criticism. So he murdered the Grima Wormtongue character who he has a direct negative past with? Nothing could make more sense in the universe. God you’re annoying.
Your obsession with me (not to mention your continued wrongness and inability to comprehend time zones) is truly a cause for concern. You should seriously consider therapy.
I feel that the whole shebang would have benefited from just telling a linear story! The way the first coupla eps were structured really undercut any dramatic momentum. I’m still scratching my head about that choice, especially from a group of seasoned storytellers.
It cannot be overstated how many sins can be forgiven by the redemptive act of having a giant monster fight robots.This opening line slaps!
I wish i could cut and paste this and throw it all over my social media hangs.
Yeah, I definitely want more Fennec and less Boba in the future.As everyone has already pointed out, the weird lumpy story telling isn’t so strange if you consider these to be the latest episodes in an ongoing series. A few weird detours in a 20 episode arc seems reasonable.
Did he fly off in his PC-named starship? I mean the generic term ‘slave’ is suuuuuch a trigger for nerds.
My takeaway from this show was that the badass “no disintegrations” bounty hunter character from my 1970’s/early 80’s childhood movie going & Kenner toys is in fact a massive pussy.That is all.
I will not get over the “Mods” with all the rear view mirrors on their scooters something from The Who’s Quadrophenia when they are on screen.
Mecha Tim Olyphant woot!
Three reasons this episode was worth watching for me – 1: Peli Motto. Anything with him in it is worth watching. 2: Cad fucking Bane. The dude exudes malevolence and charisma in a way Boba Fett never has for me. But on the other hand, 3: Say what you will about Fett’s (lack of) character development, but I finally got why people have found him so cool for the last 42 years when he killed Cad fucking Bane. That was badass.
The only real value I took from the series was. Grogu and Mando are BACK together!!!! Yay, the end.
Robert Rodriguez needs to stay the fuck away from Star Wars
Oh, man, that spin was just the worst!
Would not look out of place if Tubbs did this on Miami Vice
Also, eyeborg needs to use his eye! What’s the point of the character design if he’s not the one who spots things? He should have been the first one to twig that they walked into a trap (because, I dunno, his computer eye IDs all the weapons or something).
I don’t care about all the flaws this show has: it had a rancor climbing a tower like King Kong. The rancor scenes were the greatest things I’ve ever seen, and will ever see.
The best thing about this show was that it introduced me to the phenomenal word “sobriquet”
Also, look, I love Desperado and Once Upon A Time In Mexico just as much as the next person, but Robert Rodriguez is not a good director. There I said it. He may have been once, but not now.
I just want to point out that this dialogue exchange makes no grammatical sense:Cad: I’m still faster than you.Boba: That may be, but I have armor.Cad: Let’s find out.Cad doesn’t have to find out that Boba has armor, but according to the English language, that’s what he’s saying here. If Boba said something like “That may be, but my armor will protect me,” then Cad’s response makes some sense, but he didn’t, so it doesn’t.
Just here to say, what a great opening paragraph of this review. Stick around, Nick.
Dumb things Boba Fett did on this show:-Leads Tuskens in attack on Pyke train. Then, when Tuskens are all killed, take graffiti at face value and accept that a speed bike gang did it, despite everyone saying how unlikely this would be, and despite the strong Pyke motive.-Tells Fennec how being dead has its advantages, then randomly informs a small droid who he is, lets that droid live. That one’s just odd.-Sticks his whole ship inside the Sarlaac pit and being surprised when the Sarlaac tries to grab it and yoink it inside.-Pardons two Gammoreans who wanted to kill him and promotes them to his only bodyguards. This works out for some reason, but still dumb.-Is surrounded by assassins but doesn’t use jetpack to escape.-Confronts mayor, who sent assassins, but just lets him talk his way out of it and leaves. Mayor later escapes and joins Pyke syndicate so good job there.-Is directly threatened by the Hutts and their Wookie employee, but sleeps with no guard, leading to another assassination attempt by Santo that he barely survives.-Pardons and hires Santo, who again, previously tried to kill him. This relies on him trusting that the Hutts leaving was legitimate and that they actually fired Santo.-Trusts the Hutts to leave on their own accord, does not pursue them or take revenge for the assassination attempt. Legitimately surprised they didn’t show up with the other villains in that one room that the villains hang out in.-Trusts that the other criminal gang leaders will uphold their truce and bases his entire defense strategy on that trust. He spreads his forces out and then they all get picked off by the other gangs.-Decides to make a final stand in an unfortified position instead of the fortress palace because a teenager said something about inspiring hope or something. This directly leads to Boba releasing the rancor on a civilian population center, instead of the empty fortress.-As others have pointed out, he and Mando jetpack in to a spot with no cover and then get shot a bunch of times because they’re pinned down.Did he do anything else stupid? Comment below and let me know. Remember to like and subscribe
We learned that wookies are mostly immune to blasters. Getting shot multiple times kind of hurts them a little, but that’s it.
Man the fact the Gamorrean guards squealed like actual pigs when they got pushed off of the cliff makes me sad. Coulda shot a Mod that had actual speaking lines but no, gotta dump my porcine green boys off of something for the weakest follow-through on stakes. Totally the Rodney Dangerfields of the Star Wars universe.
Poor Boba. A second stringer on his own show. He’s always had the raw deal. All hyped up in between Star Wars and Empire, and then maybe 5 minutes of screen time. Turned into a slapstick character in Return. Poor Boba.
If your crime empire won’t sell drugs because of your deep concern for the people of the community, what crime are you in charge of?Vito Corleone had the same objection to drugs. He still ran protection rackets, traded guns, operated a casino, carried out hits, laundered money,…. The way [Shand] strung up the mayor so that we could see his dangling legs as she took out everyone else was uncharacteristically brutal for Star Wars.That’s why they call her The Cavalry. 😉
Thank you …someone else who saw The Godfather in this!!
Boba Fett doesn’t do any of that other stuff either
He runs protection, & he endorses the casino (though the casino might be legal anyway). And part of the plot is him trying to wrangle the other criminal families under his control.
It’s semi-implied that he “runs protection” but the ins and outs of this are never explored. The plot is about him and the other criminal families and that part of the plot is totally unconvincing and lame. And at no point is it really shown what rackets they’re running or what the source of their power and/or money is or what interests they have that might be in common or against Boba Fett. All there is is that terrible scene where they at first say they won’t be neutral between Boba and then inexplicably change their mind. The series gestures at this sort of crime drama stuff but does a terrible job with it
I’m not saying it’s good; I’m saying it’s there.
This show seems to be made for people who have never seen a movie before. It’s nothing but a compilation of cliches. You see everything coming from a mile away.
Things I liked about this show:The Tuskens vs Pykes Train sequence.The Mandalorian episode.The Luke Skywalker Epsiode.The return of Cobb Vanth.Everything else was pretty dire.So one out of four things had to do with the title character. This show was a bust.
Since it’s the Book of Boba Fett, perhaps these are stories He wanted to tell.And the lack of great writing and acting? Disney has joined the increasing large group thinking only the technology sells. Everything else takes too much time and money away from the thousands of graphic artists.
Was it just me or was the directing of this episode really sub-par ? Dialogue and other “non-action” scenes seemed bland and forgettable, and all the action seemed slow, unresponsive, apathic even. Like playing a 90s PS1 game with gamepad sensitivity on minimum.
To think there are so many talented writers and stunt coordinators out there, and this is what you come up with ? A bunch of slow moving humanoïds hiding stoïcly and immobile behind a cardboard wall while a giant droid that can take a rancor’s punch can’t make a dent in it, all for 15 minutes that seemed like a week.
And don’t get me started on the retarded plot, battle tactics, and the fact that “The Book of Boba Fett” hardly has any Boba Fett in it at this point.
It’s up to a point where, when I watch a BoBF episode, I end up looking at my watch wondering when it’s gonna end (notable exception : the train heist episode, and most of the Mandalorian episode). Never happens when I watch, let’s say, Peacemaker. Heck, I know all 6 seasons of Justified and all 7 of The Shield by heart, and I never tire of watching them…! Heck, 5 minutes of Deadwood dialogue is more exciting than this… ><”
I do want to see more of Fennec now, she did all the badass stuff we expected Boba to do.
This show has made big assumptions on who has watched Clone Wars, if you haven’t Cad Bane would make no sense. Agreed that they needed to bring him in earlier.
Really needed the Tuskens to have a hand in the liberation of their planet. It feels weird that they weren’t, like they were just some sort of sacrificial lamb.
Grogu returning gave me mixed feelings but was glad to see him as useful and not just a target Din carries around and needs to protect. Good touch with him using the force to calm down the rancor.
We also needed to see what exactly Spice is and how it affects people. It’s just a nameless drug that seems to have no impact on Tattooine.
Boba kinda forgot he had a ship he could’ve used too.
Wanna know what Spice is? Watch Dune.
That spice has to do with interstellar travel, where star wars spice just appears to be a narcotic
I’m convinced that this was initially meant to be a shorter arc in the next season of the Mandalorian, obviously with the hope of spinning Boba off into his own show, but somewhere along the way they decided to beef up his story (somewhat) and to prematurely declare it to be its own show. The finale leaves Boba basically where he was left in that Mando finale stinger, and almost nothing we learn about him here couldn’t have been inferred from what we saw of him in that season. The up side is that if there is another season of this show, they still essentially have a blank slate to take wherever they want to take it.
So…Grogu chose the armor over the light sabre. Sorry Luke.
At least Luke gave him the choice. It seemed that Mando doubted he would.
I was giggling and guffawing like a 12 year old throughout the last 30 minutes. Gosh, why couldnt have this show been better?
Trust me, this is the only review we need.
“Like a Jell-O mold salad with marshmallows suspended in it, it was a big, wobbly medium made to deliver smaller, more flavorful bits the creators were actually interested in.”You should have gotten a raise for that sentence. It describes this show so aptly. Perhaps there is some boba suspended in that Jell-O mold salad as well.
I do think the Tusken sequence was meant to show Fett’s growing humanity; bonding with the kid, healing himself through training, learning about loyalty and wisdom from the elder. He took his background and offered it in their service against the devil train. Not the images you wanted, but they worked for me.
Am I missing something here, or is it just that Fett is stubborn and/0r forgetful? Why is he asking the Mandalorian if Cobb is coming when he would have to be already in the bacta tank? At the end of the battle Santo can’t go in the tank because it’s already being used. I don’t want to accuse the Star War of an inconsistency, but we already knew Cobb wasn’t dead, so why muck this up to set up a not-surprise?
“Why is he asking the Mandalorian if Cobb is coming when he would have to be already in the bacta tank?” At this point Mando/Fett don’t know that Cad Bain visited Cobb and shot him. Mando thinks that he visited Cobb and convinced him to join them, and they will be coming soon.When the Freetowners show up it’s heavily implied that Cobb is dead – they don’t say that he was wounded and unable to come. So him showing up in a bacta tank in the mid-credits scene is supposed to be a surprise to everyone.And we don’t know that is Fett’s bacta tank. The fact that the person we see operating it is someone we’ve never seen before made me think this was a different location/bacta tank than Fett’s palace.
The Rancor scenes were fun but this series was a hot mess. The crime boss who doesn’t do crime. 2 episodes in a short series dedicated to other more interesting characters. C+ for the season.