Being a Star Wars fan has been a wild ride, especially in the last decade. What's funny is, I remember a day not too long ago when people thought the idea of a Boba Feet series sounded boring. But, here we are in the year of our lord, 2022, and we have The Book of Boba Fett. I'm actually writing this while watching the fourth episode and, at least so far, the series is... fine... question mark?
Here's the thing about The Book of Boba Fett. The pieces for something good are here. Temuera Morrison is outstanding in the lead role, Ming-Na Wen as his assassin sidekick is always a treat, and it's got El Mariachi creator Robert Rodriguez in the director's chair, at least for a few episodes. This shouldn't be bad, but I feel like it could be better.
For one thing, the story feels somewhat disjointed. The trouble with a legacy character, specifically this legacy character, is that a large chunk of time had to be dedicated to how he got here. That's especially true given that the last time we saw Boba Fett, he was eaten by a Sarlacc. The story often has to split between the current day and flashbacks with the two stories mostly having next to nothing to do with one another. It's not like with The Mandalorian, where the lead character had no legacy baggage and could just hit the ground running, worrying about backstory later.
The other thing is, the story just doesn't feel all that compelling. Boba Fett taking over Jabba the Hutt's empire felt like a natural end point for the character, not the beginning of a new story. That's because, where do you really go from there? There aren't a lot of interesting story ideas you can run with at that point, which is proven by the uninteresting main plot of the first half of the series.
The action has a lot of highs and lows. The sequences with the Tusken Raiders were engaging and the highlight was definitely the one-on-one between Boba and Black Krrsantan. What's not to like about a wookie with electricity-infused brass knuckles? But for every one of of those scenes, we get the wacky speeder bike chase from the third episode and it managed to feel both slow and clumsy. I saw the Power Rangers memes flying after that third episode and while I won't resort to those, I will say that I'm not particularly attached to Boba's crew of misfits. The Gamorrean warriors from the first two episodes, even though they can't speak Basic, are a lot more compelling, just because they're basically ass-kickers who are serving a life debt.
I'm fully expecting The Book of Boba Fett to pick up in the final episodes, but I feel like this show should be better than what it is. Maybe my expectations are too high after The Mandalorian or maybe I'm just more enthralled with Peacemaker on HBO Max, which is a topic for another day. It's fine, but it's nothing I'd go out of my way to watch right now.
