These past two years, Disney+ has been gifting Nerdds with shows set in the MCU as well as in the Star Wars canon. Some have been great, some have been bad, and they all get people talking. Last week we got the finale episode of the spinoff show from The Mandalorian, The Book of Boba Fett. Overall, I enjoyed the show, but it was certainly far from perfect. I feel like there are three aspects to this show, so I’m going to go over each one, starting with what I loved, and going down to what was disappointing.
Boba the Daimyo
The main aspect of the show was all about how Boba Fett was attempting to be the warlord of the Tatooine city Mos Espa. Mos Espa, if you recall, is the home city of young Anakin Skywalker in The Phantom Menace, not to be confused with Mos Eisley, the city where Luke and Obi-wan meet Han and Chewy.
The choice of the word Daimyo is interesting, and the whole show took some interesting inspiration from Feudal Japan. First, a Daimyo ruled a city, like a English Baron or Lord. The way Boba Fett said his name had a very Japanese pattern to it, removing the stress on the final syllable that English pronunciations generally do (BO-ba-fett, vs BO-ba FETt). The politics of ruling Mos Espa were also enjoyable to me, between allowing citizens to have an audience with him and bringing him Tribute, as well as negotiating alliances with the powerful families of the city. One time we see the previous Daimyo, Jabba the Hutt, was when he presented the Boonta Eve Classic pod race.
The series of flashbacks when Boba was in the Bacta Tank, watching how he survived the Sarlacc pit was cool, and the relationship he built with the Tuskens was really cool to watch. However, later in the show, he references his time he got out of the Sarlacc and met the Tuskens as being “all those years ago” which was a huge shock to me. Throughout all the flashbacks they never make any reference to the amount of time it took, and I assumed it was several months, not several years. This also makes me question then how far into the future The Mandalorian is, because I don’t believe it ever states it clearly.
The rescue of Fennec Shand was cool, and she was a total beast on screen. Ming Na Wen is great in everything she does. I didn’t mind her use of robotics to survive, as it really shows more than Luke and Anakin being part robot, but the other “Mods” were a little over the top. We’ll get back to them.
Boba getting his own Rancor from the Hutts was fun, Danny Trejo being the trainer was fun, and while the finale fight was a little silly having a Rancor, going back to the Japanese themes of having a big monster and a big robot fight to the death was a fitting end.
Speaking of the big robot, we should mention the villains of the series, the Pykes. These guys have shown up in Solo, The Clone Wars, and The Bad Batch, and have really been an ongoing antagonistic force in the Disney-era Star Wars. A large alien group of drug dealers are easy to hate, so it makes sense. However, I don’t think their presence in this show really added much. It could have just been the other families, or some other group. We never really learn more about them, and it almost feels like Disney admitting that George Lucas stole desert-planets and Spice-drugs from Dune. It literally looks like the Dune spice.
The coolest thing about the Pykes, were their employment of other Clone Wars-era bounty hunter Cad Bane. The live action design of Cad Bane was terrifying to watch, and I got genuinely worried whenever he was on screen.
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So, all that to say, Boba the Daimyo was cool.
Mando’s the Man
The smallest aspect of this show was the fact that this show was a spinoff of The Mandalorian. Luckily for this show, Mando is a cool character, and I enjoy every moment he’s on screen. The very first shot we have of him, he commands the screen in a way no other character in these shows do.
The ship repair montage was cool, and I love that he has a new, sleeker ship, but the montage was just too long. Also, I can’t help but wonder where he’s going to put his bounties. There’s not really a spot for them. They took out the Astromech port just so Baby Yoda Grogu Baby Yoda has a spot to sit.
Speaking of our little green Jedi, I guess he’s not a Jedi anymore. I like Luke, I really like Ahsoka, and I like a good Jedi training scene. BUT. Having Grogu immediately leave Jedi training the first chance he gets makes the season 2 finale of The Mandalorian lose some of it’s gravitas. Mando removed his helmet just to say goodbye, and Grogu decides to leave summer camp early anyway. It could have led to an interesting “The Second Mandalorian Jedi” opportunity, but I guess we don’t get that. Also, if you are complaining that Luke doesn’t look like Luke or sound like Luke because he is so CGI, give it a rest. You get three choices when it comes to this stuff:
- Have Luke be played by someone else, which people hated from Alden Ehrenreich in Solo
- Have someone else train Grogu, like Ahsoka, who left the Jedi ways because she realized they’re not good anymore, which people hated from Luke in The Last Jedi
- Have a CGI Luke that is good enough for the Disney+ tv show
None of them are great, so stop complaining about it. It’s a boring complaint, and you’re boring for making it.
Too Much Spy Kids
The thing I disliked from this show, was everything that reminded me of the 2002 films Spy Kids. For those that don’t know, Robert Rodriguez was the director of Book of Boba Fett, as well as Spy Kids, and the Spy Kids canonical uncle’s movies Machete. The biggest example of this were the “Mods.” I didn’t dislike that Mods existed in Mos Espa, because people with robotic modifications have been in Star Wars since A New Hope when Obi-wan says that Vader is “more machine, now, than man,” or in The Empire Strikes Back when Luke gets a robot hand, or in The Revenge of the Sith with General Grevious.
However, these specific Mods feel very out of place in this show, with their bright flashy colors, in a very muted setting. The bright colorful bikes, the spin shooting, all of it was just out of place in this particular show. It all just had me feeling like…
This show was fine, it wasn’t as cool as The Mandalorian, and I still don’t care about Boba Fett as a character, I never really have. But I don’t think the show was a waste of my time, and I still include more than half of it in my Essential Watch Star Wars list.
The Nerdd 