If you’ve spent the last 35 or so years wondering how Boba Fett could escape from the Sarlacc pit, today was your lucky day as the first episode of Disney+’s The Book of Boba Fett offered up the answer right out of the gate. Since his first appearance in Star Wars Holiday Special, Fett has held the imagination of Star Wars fans (this critic included – I had a toy version of his ship, Slave I, as a kid), and with the resurgence of the Star Wars universe, it was only a matter of time before we got the deep dive into this mysterious character. While the pilot, “Stranger in a Strange Land,” wasn’t all that flashy, it has set the table for an interesting, insular story – something that the extended Star Wars universe hasn’t really tried as of yet.
The premiere focused on the present timeline – the immediate aftermath of Fett and his right-hand woman Fennec Shand’s take over of Bib Fortuna’s mob enterprise on Tatooine (which used to be Jabba the Hutt’s empire), which occurred at the close of The Mandalorian’s second season – with flashbacks interspersed of Fett’s escape from the Sarlaac pit, the loss of his armor to the Jawas, and his rise within the ranks of the Tusken Raiders during the Return of the Jedi timeline. It’s fairly perfunctory as expositional set-ups go, and there isn’t much for Temuera Morrison (Fett) or Ming-Na Wen (Fennec) to do from an acting perspective, outside of pushing through fight scenes and delivering some rather uninspired dialogue.* That isn’t to say I didn’t enjoy it – I did, there’s some interesting conflict being teased, particularly with those shield-wielding ninja characters – but there wasn’t all that much to see in the grand scheme of things. Judging this premiere from the standards of The Mandalorian, it felt awfully similar to that series’ early episodes – laying the groundwork for what was to come slowly and surely. And the influences of Westerns and their Eastern cousin the Samurai film were clearly felt here as they were in The Mandalorian.
*A huge plus to having characters with helmets – as we saw with The Mandalorian – is that fight scenes are a heck of a lot easier to choreograph when your leading actors can just cede that aspect of their work to their stunt doubles. That parkour chase across the roofs with Fennec and the ninjas was smooth, sure, and well-done because the stunt team could just let loose. But when your audience knows that your lead actors might not be physically there when their character has their helmet on, it means you need to make the most of the scenes when their helmets are off. So, the dialogue needs to snap and you need to allow the actors to emote and show us who these characters are. And that was lacking in Jon Favreau’s script for this episode. Wen, in particular, is a great actor. Favreau needs to lean into that and give us more.
So, we have Boba Fett taking on Jabba the Hutt’s holdings in the Tatooine underworld, but – against the advice of Fennec – he wants to be respected, not feared. Two formidable bounty hunters opting to take managerial positions within the Tatooine crime world is an interesting proposition. Throw in Jennifer Beals’ Twi’lek bar owner Garsa Fwip – who seems to be more shrewd than at first glance – and the mysterious assassin squad that attempted to take out our duo and you have enough question marks and intrigue to build a show around. My one big worry moving forward is whether or not there’s enough story to be found in the static location of Tatooine – and just how many episodes of flashbacks we’re set to get before the present-day story needs to become the show’s main focus. But those are worries for another day. Thus far, The Book of Boba Fett has enough going for it to make it appointment TV.
Odds and Ends
— Since this is the tale of Boba Fett, if you’re looking for a bit of backstory for Fennec – and the Jango Fett clone line – check out the animated series The Bad Batch on Disney+, which follows a squad of defective clones as the Empire takes over the galaxy. Fennec shows up as a young bounty hunter (voiced by Wen) in search of a particular person who some have speculated might make an appearance in future Boba Fett stories – assuming there are more following this initial seven-episode season.
— It sure sounds like the Mayor is the key antagonist for our dynamic duo. And that was the wonderful character actor David Pasquesi (Selina’s ex-husband on Veep) as the Twi’lek majordomo of the mysterious Mayor. I can’t wait to see who landed that key part.
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