Thursday, February 10, 2022

The Book of Boba Fett – Season 1 Review

 

Image Credit: Disney+

 

Season 1 of the latest Star Wars offering from Disney+ wrapped up last night and being the Star Wars geek that I am, you know I watched every minute of it. If you haven’t seen it yet but plan to, I do share some mild spoilers below but I tried to avoid spilling the best stuff. If you’re on the fence about seeing it, I’ll say up front that it isn’t as good a show as The Mandalorian, but it’s still a fun ride. Boba Fett always struck me as a galactic High Plains Drifter. I assumed this series would depict that same quiet, cruel bounty hunter who just happens to now be more interested/invested in punishing bad guys instead of good ones. That isn't what we get. Instead, Fett is an aging, softening man who just wants to settle down and get the locals to like and respect him.  For me at least, this makes for an uncompelling lead. There’s no doubt that the show is an entertaining piece of nostalgia, it's just not everything I hoped it would be.

That said, here are brief summaries and my thoughts on each episode written immediately after I watched them.

 

Stranger in a Strange Land

Fett’s appeal in the original Star Wars trilogy was his quiet menace. We didn’t hear much from him. We just knew he looked and moved like a bad ass. This new version of the infamous galactic bounty hunter does a good bit of talking and frankly, most of it isn’t very bad ass. I would have enjoyed seeing his sidekick Fennec Shand do more of the talking on his behalf. Like Netflix’s The Witcher, allowing the warrior to rely on grunts and growls would let him keep more of his air of mystery. I also think a set of hand signals between the pair similar to the House Atreides battle language in Dune would underline the importance of their relationship and Fett’s ability to act swiftly and mercilessly with a minimum of words. Robert Rodriguez’s direction of the Mos Espa fight sequence left something to be desired as well. It felt more Spy Kids than Desperado. Improved stunt choreography and editing would have dramatically improved the scene and our belief that Fett and Shand are forces to be reckoned with. This first episode is fun in that it takes us back to a planet and characters that we love, but I think it does less to set up a strong series than what we saw in The Mandalorian.

The Tribes of Tatooine

This second episode has some weak spots, but it’s a definite improvement over its predecessor. The arrival of the Hutt twins and their Wookie enforcer, Krrsantan who want to lay claim to Jabba’s former domain and run off Fett in the process is a highlight as is the appearance of the Ithorian mayor of Mos Espa, Mok Shaiz. However a large portion of this episode is backstory and while interesting, it further damages our image of Fett as a bad ass as we see him repeatedly get beat up by Tusken Raiders. Eventually he earns their respect by saving one of their youths from a desert monster whose odd appearance and movement wouldn’t be out of place in Clash of the Titans. Fett follows that victory with another against a gang of ruffians in a bar brawl, cementing his place in the Tusken tribe. Our protagonist then goes on to lead the sand people in a high-speed spice train robbery that could have been great, but like the Mos Espa fight in Episode 1, feels short-changed by the stunt performers and special effects. It ends up coming off a bit like Fury Road-lite. All-in-all still underwhelming, but the series is at least moving in the right direction.

The Streets of Mos Espa

Fett reflects on the tragic fate of his former Tusken tribe then wakes from his bacta tank dream to an assassination attempt by Krrsantan. He survives thanks to a new gang of young bikers he’s recently taken under his wing and he soon accepts an apology from the Wookie’s Hutt twin employers. The Hutts have decided to leave while they still can and they offer both the Wookie and a rancor as payment for the trouble they’ve caused. I didn’t dislike the teens and their colorful speeder bikes nearly as much as many critics on Twitter did, but I did take exception to director Robert Rodriguez again choosing cheap-looking Spy Kids-type special effects in a chase scene through the busy streets of Mos Espa that could have been a series highlight if done well. Cheers to the casting of Danny Trejo as the rancor keeper though!

The Gathering Storm

The quality of the special effects continues to disappoint, the most glaring example in this episode being Fennec’s cybernetic surgery scene, but watching Fett rescue and befriend Fennec was fun as was the mission to retrieve Fett’s ship from Bib Fortuna, and Krrsantan’s dismemberment of an unfortunate gambler in the Sanctuary club. The highlight of this episode is Fett and Fennec’s exploration of and subsequent battle with the Sarlacc while inside Slave 1. I thought it was a great way to tie the show to Fett’s last scene in Return of the Jedi and yes, for this old-school fan, the name of his ship will never change.

Return of the Mandalorian

Chapter 5 isn’t so much an episode of The Book of Boba Fett as it is a lost episode of The Mandalorian. We follow Din Djarin as he stops in to show off the Darksaber to The Armorer, dukes it out with Paz Vizsla over which of them is the rightful wielder of the legendary blade then promptly gets booted from the Mandalorian ranks when he admits he broke their code to remove his mask for Grogu. This leads Djarin back to Tatooine where he commissions a small, Phantom Menace-era ship to replace his destroyed Razor Crest. The new ship is ridiculously fast but also completely impractical for a bounty hunter who needs to be able to live on, sleep in, and transport prisoners in a cargo hold. The episode ends with Fennec showing up at the shipyard to ask Djarin for his help, finally tying the story back to Boba Fett. While out-of-place in regard to telling Fett’s story, this episode is a blast. I don’t know if it is the superior direction of Bryce Dallas Howard, the superior acting of Pedro Pascal, or if writers Jon Favreau and Noah Kloor are just more in tune with Djarin than Fett, but chapter 5 is far more satisfying than the four episodes before it.

From the Desert Comes a Stranger

The penultimate episode of Season 1 is again mostly about characters other than Fett and it’s even better than episode 5. Not only do we get more Djarin, we get the return of Luke Skywalker, Ahsoka Tano, R2-D2, Cobb Vanth, and maybe coolest of all, the first live action appearance of Star Wars: The Clone Wars baddie, Cad Bane. All of this fan service and world building seems to be leading to a big battle for control of Tatooine between Fett and his allies against the spice-smuggling Pyke Syndicate and their hired guns. Meanwhile Grogu faces the choice between his friendship with Djarin and his Jedi training with Skywalker, a decision which should clear up which direction the next season of The Mandalorian will take.

In The Name of Honor

The final episode of the season is all action and while some of it doesn’t hit as hard as it should, quite a bit does. We get the Star Wars version of Godzilla vs. King Kong, we get Fett and Djarin fighting side by side against overwhelming odds, we get a great showdown between Fett and Bane that’s practically lifted straight out of a Clint Eastwood spaghetti western, and we finally get to see Fennec Shand act like the deadly assassin she was built up to be. This finale isn’t as strong as the two episodes that preceded it, but it’s a fun wrap up of Boba Fett’s rise to power on Tatooine and a nice segue into the upcoming third season of The Mandalorian.


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