The following contains some light spoilers for The Book of Boba Fett Season 1, which is now streaming in full on Disney+. For more, check out our spoiler-filled reviews of each episode below:
The Book of Boba Fett Episode 1 Review
The Book of Boba Fett Episode 2 Review
The Book of Boba Fett Episode 3 Review
The Book of Boba Fett Episode 4 Review
The Book of Boba Fett Episode 5 Review
The Book of Boba Fett Episode 6 Review
The Book of Boba Fett Episode 7 Review
Ever since he was first introduced in the Star Wars Holiday Special, Boba Fett has been afforded a merciless mystique. A man of few words, a bounty hunter without a face, until George Lucas provided an endearing yet ultimately tragic origin story in the prequel series. Star Wars is a space opera, after all. Still, the Boba people knew from those films is significantly different to the one Temuera Morrison reacquainted us to within The Mandalorian Season 2, and this action-packed solo series does a decent job in filling in the gaps. However, the effort to bridge the divide between the myth and the man is not without its problems.
The franchise has long been grounded in the hopeful idea that disparate groups of people, races, and droids could come together in the face of adversity and defeat fascist oppressors. As a continuation of that theme, series creator Jon Favreau has succeeded. Tribal solidarity is the core purpose of Boba’s arc as he and his right-hand Fennec Shand (Ming-Na Wen) toil to set himself up as a new, benevolent crime boss of Mos Espa during a power vacuum. It’s an intriguing direction for a character who has long been depicted as a lone wolf and, in both this series and The Mandalorian Season 2, is at pains to distance himself from his father’s heritage despite the Beskar armor he inherited playing a key part in his self-identity.
Through the flashback framing device of a Bacta Tank, the first few episodes suggest both Boba’s body and psyche are being healed with each visit while we’re provided meaningful context for his more pragmatic leadership perspective. Even if Boba isn’t technically characterized as an indigenous person himself, Morrison, a New Zealander of Maori descent, naturally affords the bounty hunter this inherent communal understanding. His affection and respect for the Sand People feels authentic. It leans on savior tropes, so common to Western film and TV, but it’s still less eye-roll-inducing than if it were the especially overused “white savior.” Still, it’s the obvious, easy option to “fridge” the natives in order to push the hero’s journey forward. And given how little plot is afforded to his present-day conflicts, which is basically “he who controls the spice controls Tatooine,” the time spent on beefing up his backstory felt unnecessarily bloated.
Narrative pacing is a major issue in this season, especially when two out of the seven episodes are dedicated entirely to Din Djarin and Grogu. This sojourn back into The Mandalorian’s arc had its entertaining moments; it added even more depth to their bond, gave us more Cobb Vanth, some brilliantly choreographed action sequences – nice direction, Bryce Dallas Howard! – and, of course, mirrored the thematic tribal narrative of the season in which these episodes sit. But fan service doesn’t always lead to great storytelling when so much is dedicated to a CGI facsimile of a beloved character with an eerily robotic presence. They might be great episodes of The Mandalorian, but these two chapters made a minimal contribution to Boba’s story, other than showing that the writers are seemingly far more interested in that bounty hunter than the one this series is named for.
We are, however, introduced to some fun and impressive new characters. The colorful addition of the Mods – a Quadrophenia-meets-Alita: Battle Angel hybrid gang of youths led by Yellowjackets star Sophie Thatcher (doing a rather affected English accent, I assume) – brings some vibrant edge to Tatooine’s burnt aesthetic and Ludwig Göransson’s score. Boba’s theme is a guttural, primal blend of human voices, powerful drum beats, and strings while the Mods’ escapades are soundtracked by cyberpunk synth chords and thrashing beats. This stylistic addition helps dilute the Orientalist stereotypes laden in Star Wars’ depiction of Tatooine, which itself took its name from a Tunisian city near to where the original films were partly shot. It might be a desert landscape and heavy on the Spaghetti Western tropes, but there’s no reason why the aesthetic and technological diversity of this galaxy can’t be present in Mos Espa.
Cad Bane and Black Krrsantan are a welcome arrival in live action but, again, for those who aren’t up to date with the comics and animated series, sparse time is left to really understand their significance to Boba or even establish the former as a proper antagonist. Cad Bane is everything you could hope for in a nemesis and the combination of Corey Burton’s voice and stunt performer Dorian Kingi’s swagger makes a formidable impression on later episodes. What a difference it would have made to the dramatic tension and intrigue if he had been introduced early. Instead, we have Boba and Fennec taking far too long to work out just who the ultimate Big Bad is. And you have to wonder why Jennifer Beals was cast as Garsa Fwip, a Twi'lek who runs a cantina, because her stunt casting amounts to nothing.
Morrison’s grounded delivery, dry wit, and physical prowess in battle help to flesh out a previously unreadable character, but this trend of ameliorating classic villains has maybe softened his edges too much. He’s still a crime boss after all, so it’s a shame we’re getting more Maleficent than Omar Little with this antihero reboot. Fennec Shand has more in common with the latter Wire character and Wen is nothing less than formidable as the assassin. The series doesn’t give her much, but what she does with her time is intentional. A nod here, a small smirk there; her guarded neutrality is as much of a potent reminder that she is a deadly enigma as her agile ease in a fight or with a gun.
Two things you can count on with a Star Wars series is a good sense of humor and abundance of action sequences. Chapters 2, 4, 5, and 7, directed by Steph Green, Kevin Tancharoen, Dave Filoni, and series director Robert Rodriguez, respectively, stand out for their execution of exhilarating stunts and nerve-shredding confrontations with some tension-breaking humor. From a train heist and stealth attack to a showdown that could give Sergio Leone a run for his money and a rip-roaring battle for Tatooine, the stylistic nods to Westerns, Kaiju classics, and Lucas-produced adventures prove nostalgia can be a positive influence on contemporary filmmaking. But with an iconic character like Boba Fett, who already carries the weight of so much fan expectation, maybe too much nostalgia and not enough time at the drawing board to work out the kinks of his Star Wars evolution has prevented his debut series from achieving the same legendary status.
from IGN Reviews https://ift.tt/ndjf4Cr
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