This week, I finished watching The Book of Boba Fett. I enjoyed it, even if it was a strange show that was several different things at the same time and sometimes within one episode.
I never liked the retconned origin of Boba Fett in the prequels, where he’s a clone of the man the clonetroopers are cloned after. Lots of clones. I thought this new origin took away a large part of the mystery of the character and conformed to the unnecessary Star Wars trope of everyone needing to be related to everyone. And it was weird with Boba Fett suddenly having a Kiwi accent, and his lines in the original trilogy redubbed by Temuera Morrison.
That said, I really liked what they did with the character when they brought him back in season two of The Mandalorian. Him laying the smackdown on a platoon of stormtroopers single-handedly is one of my favourite fight scenes in all of Star Wars. Best of all was when he did the beating with a gaffi stick, without his armour on, and with the raging eyes of a Maori warrior. So, when they announced the Book of Boba Fett, I was looking forward to it.
The best part of the series was the flashback scenes with the Tusken Raiders in the first couple of episodes. As with the first few episodes of The Mandalorian, it was much like a computer game in terms of having clues and being told to speak to certain people to find things out. Flying his ship around to shoot down a swoop gang or directly into the Sarlacc pit are some things I would actually do in a computer game if I was able to.
But the best episode was when Mando showed up, who then derailed the series for two episodes, just when the present-day storyline needed to build momentum. As much as I enjoyed the Mando stuff and seeing Grogu again, it would have worked better to save this for S3 of The Mandalorian.
If I had been writing it – and there’s a big ‘if’ here to the point of there being no outside possibility – then the penultimate episode should have had Boba and his gang go to Kessel to carry out a hit job on the spice mines. This would have brought down the Pykes’ operations and set up the final battle in the last episode. If anyone at Lucasfilm is interested in hiring me, then I’m willing to negotiate.
There was a lot of cool stuff and live-action Star Wars is always going to be something I want to watch, especially if it involves Hutts, a Wookie, a Rancor, Ahsoka, Cad Bane, and a more convincing CGI Luke. But narratively, it was a bit messy.