By: Rick Green
For a certain subset of fans, the release of the first episode of The Book of Boba Fett may be the most anticipated piece of Star Wars media since The Force Awakens. But could it live up to the hype that fans inevitably gave it in their own minds?
Unfortunately, mostly not.
Needless to say, spoilers are ahead.
The Book of Boba Fett begins with a new chapter for everyone’s favorite bounty hunter
We open the episode with the scene that a lot of fans have been waiting for since 1983 – Boba escaping “being slowly digested over 1,000 years.” The Expanded Universe (now Legends) told us a story of his survival, but after the purchase by Disney, no one was really sure how, or if, this scene would be handled. It was smart of the showrunners to give us this scene early. If they’d done it any other time, even at the end of this episode, most fans wouldn’t be paying attention and would only be waiting to see this escape. It was smart to put this scene first, and it was well done.
Boba Fett’s great escape
After the escape, the rest of the episode sets up Boba’s takeover of the Hutt criminal enterprise. He is captured by Tusken Raiders, earns their respect by killing a large sand monster (and saving a Tusken child in the process), and eventually sits on the throne that must have been hidden under Jabba’s tail for so many years.
If you’re a patient person, this episode did its job by (kind of slowly) setting up the situation in which we find Boba. However, most of this episode was hoping to get by on nostalgia and getting fans to say “oh yeah, look at that!” There was the slow look around Jabba’s throne room, the flashes back to previous movies (even Attack of the Clones gets a flashback!), and the unnecessary inclusion of a Rodian in Boba’s capture by the Tuskens. So much of the episode didn’t serve a purpose other than fan service. The episode could have been cut to 20 minutes and still gotten the point across.
Don’t get me wrong – those 20 minutes would have been great, and we have the basis for a very good show. But this episode left me hoping that the future episodes will be more focused.
This episode won’t draw in any new fans as its predecessor did (EVERYONE knows who Grogu is), but for fans of the franchise, this should be enough to get us to stay invested in the show. My grade: 6 out of 10 lightsabers.
