The Middling Adventures of Star Wars‘ Original Mystery Man(dalorian)
By Thomas Hill Jr. | Observer Designer
Disney and Lucasfilm’s third foray into the live-action Star Wars series (after two seasons of The Mandalorian) brings us The Book of Boba Fett. Acting as a sort of sequel/spin-off of The Mandalorian, Boba Fett follows the titular bounty hunter as he attempts to take over the criminal empire built by the now-deceased Jabba the Hutt on desert planet Tatooine and turn it to his own devices. To do so, he must build a team of other bounty hunters, gangs, and Tatooine’s own denizens to chase off rival crime lords looking to take a piece of the pie, including the spice-dealing Pyke Syndicate (drug dealers, essentially) and Jabba’s own family. On the surface, this seems like an intriguing set-up; a deep dive into the seedy underbelly and criminal politics of the Star Wars galaxy. Unfortunately, the execution of this idea leaves quite a bit to be desired.
To start off with some positives, the effects are great and at least on par with The Mandalorian (which you would hope, seeing as it is the same team behind both shows). All the droids, creatures, ships, costumes, props look wonderful and the show perfectly blends computer-generated effects with practical props and puppets. The music is also quite good, using themes written by Ludwig Göransson (from The Mandalorian) and everything else composed by Joseph Shirley. The main theme of the show is just as catchy as Mando’s, and I’d find myself humming it around the house while working on other things.
However, pretty music and effects alone are not enough to make a compelling TV show and is to be expected from a franchise as large as Star Wars, backed by a company as large as Disney. It’s the story and characters, ostensibly, that get the audience invested, and this is unfortunately where Boba Fett stumbles.
Starting with characters I liked; I enjoyed Ming-Na Wen’s returning character Fennec Shand, Boba Fett’s right-hand. I like her dry wit and her loyalty, as well as her competence (in some ways proving to be better at this whole coup thing than Boba). Despite not learning a lot about her backstory, I enjoyed when she was on-screen (though this makes me wonder how much I enjoyed the writing of Fennec’s character, and how much Ming-Na Wen’s charisma just sold the part; who can say?).
I also enjoyed the live-action introduction of Black Krrsantan, the hulking Wookiee bounty hunter from the Star Wars comics, played by Carey Jones. He’s like an angry, brooding Chewbacca, but very fun to watch, and very expressive due to added animatronics in the costume’s mask that allowed for his eyebrows to raise and furrow– giving just that extra bit of “humanity” (“Wookiee-manity?”) to the character. There are also various droids and side characters I found amusing or interesting, as well as some returning characters that I like, but that’s delving too deep into spoiler territory. The rest of the cast just wasn’t very interesting to me, and in some cases, actively annoyed me.
You may have noticed that Boba Fett wasn’t really mentioned here, and that’s because there isn’t a whole lot to say about his actual character that isn’t just plot-related. He has a sense of honor, but also wants to take over as crime lord on this back-water desert world. He can be brutal in a fight, but stunningly incompetent in many other matters. He wants to create a new system for bounty hunters so that they don’t end up working for idiots but doesn’t really lay out how that would work or be different from the already-existing Bounty Hunter’s Guild. Temuera Morrison’s acting is fine, and I like him in the role; I just wish the actual character writing were stronger. It doesn’t help that he only gets five out of the seven episodes of his own series to show any development or growth.
This brings us to the story side of things. The Book of Boba Fett is broken up in a very odd way, jumping back and forth between the present, showing Boba Fett and Fennec Shand’s attempts to take over Jabba’s domain, and the past, showing how Boba Fett survived his “death” in 1983’s Return of the Jedi. Then moving to the point that we next saw him in The Mandalorian Season Two. On top of trying to tell these two stories, episodes five and six take a detour to a story pretty much completely unrelated to Boba’s adventures on Tatooine, to the point where he doesn’t even appear in episode five at all! While these two episodes were very entertaining and involved characters I liked and built on a story I cared about, they probably should have just been saved for another show. Instead, that time should have been used to develop the plot and characters of this show.
Overall, The Book of Boba Fett is a very pretty, very messy series that struggles with what it wants to be; does it want to be a solemn character piece about Boba Fett, does it want to be an ensemble “putting the team together” series, a look at the politics and crime on the outskirts of the galaxy, a sequel, a spin-off, a prequel? It tries to be all of these things, teasing many separate, interesting “what-ifs,” but sadly not coalescing into a single, cohesive whole. Hopefully, these experiments with the Star Wars galaxy provide a lesson to the creative team behind them; sometimes simpler is better.
Oh, also, the final episode is one of the most ridiculously weird things I’ve ever seen in Star Wars (at least in live-action), so if “so bad it’s good” is to your liking, maybe check that out!
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