There will be Spoilers for Episodes 1 – 4.
Let’s get something straight from the get-go.
I love Star Wars. I have enjoyed, whether it be a little or a lot, every bit of Star Wars media I have consumed. Not just the Disney era content, but way-back-when when there was no “Legends” banner on the novels.
There have been instances where I’ve had to step away from content because, despite liking it, there was something not clicking with me, how many times have I tried to play ‘Knights of the Old Republic’ and just bailed because I’m not a fan of the gameplay? About five. How many episodes of ‘Star Wars: Resistance’ did I feel were going nowhere during Season 2? About a quarter, but the second half of the season really picked up. Is ‘The Rise of Skywalker’ a truly satisfying conclusion to the Skywalker Saga? Not really but I enjoy it just the same.
So when I say that I’m enjoying ‘The Book of Boba Fett’, I’m not lying. Have some choices been made that I’m not a big fan of? Sure. The Mod Squad’s Speeder Bikes are irksome to me, does their inclusion ruin the series? Not at all.
But we are four weeks into the series, Boba has escaped the Sarlacc Pit, stripped of his armour, imprisoned by the Tusken Raiders and accepted into the Tribe after leading them in a Train Heist to put an end to their murders at the hands of the Pyke Syndicate. He’s put the Tribe to rest after they were slaughtered by a biker gang, or so we are led to believe and found and helped heal Fennic Shand who has helped him get his Firespray Gunship back from Jabba’s Palace. And he had laid out his desire to take over as a head of a Crime Family because he’s sick of almost dying for idiots. And that’s just the flashbacks, showing us the path he took until his return to our screens in ‘The Mandalorian’. In the ‘present day’ he’s working his way to understanding his new role. He didn’t just kill Bib Fortuna and suddenly everything fell into his lap, you know why? Because that’s lazy storytelling.
But why is ‘The Book of Boba Fett’ getting such bad press? From news outlets such as ‘The Guardian’ and Decider.com throwing the series under the bus, for what reason? All I’m seeing here and in other places, people who basically take the negativity from a portion of a fan base (because not everyone hates the series) and use YouTube’s outlook of ‘negativity sells’ to get clicks?
Are we seeing hate because people can’t wait week-to-week anymore thanks to the Netflix model of ‘dump a series all in one go and see a spike in users for a weekend’? Honestly I think so, where people were clamouring week-to-week for the fast paced ‘The Mandalorian’, the slow-burn of ‘The Book of Boba Fett’ is possibly testing the attention span of the non-Star Wars fans. I try to put myself in their shoes, was Chapter 1 the perfect first episode for the casual fan? Probably not. The first six minutes is a dialogue-free exposition of Boba getting out of the Sarlacc. For viewers not well versed in Star Wars other than ‘The Mandalorian’ then it could be confusing with him being digested in the opening moments. For fans of the whole saga, this was an answer to an oft-asked question.
The main complaint seems to be that Boba Fett just isn’t the same “bad ass” we got in the films. But here’s my question, how do you know what anyone is like after knowing them less that seven minutes? It’s almost like someone being shocked after finding out that person you met during Speed Dating turns out to be a serial killer, of course they seemed lovely in the one minute you got to talk to them.
Are people forgetting that we saw him as a child in ‘Attack of the Clones’, or his angsty pre-teen appearances in ‘The Clone Wars’? He’s not exactly the “silent killer” in his comic appearances either. I can’t tell if the discourse is even based on what we got from the character in the “Legends” timeline as I haven’t had much experience with the characters in any of the books/audiobooks I’ve read/listened to. I do know he got a number of comics dedicated to him, and he appears in the ‘Legacy of the Force’ series which I hope to read sometime in the future (making my way through ‘The New Jedi Order’ series at the moment), or are we seeing a resurgence of the #notmylukeskywalker movement with Fett taking the place of the self-exiled Jedi Master because they want a one-dimensional silent killer like a video game protagonist or Terminator in Mandalorian armour?
I’m not trying to enforce enjoyment on people, somethings just aren’t someone’s cup of tea, but what I can’t understand is how people don’t want to see character development. They see him as weak, I don’t think he is, as I said in my podcast review for Chapter 4, Fett understands his limitations. He tells Fennec that to take over a Crime Family he needs muscle and brains, which she has both. That’s not weakness, in actual fact it’s a very smart move.
One thing I won’t be surprised about is that during the last three episodes, the naysayers will get to see their precious “bad ass” Fett as his group goes to war with the Pykes and whoever else may be in charge of their operation, but even then I doubt they will be happy, and they’ll pick out some obscure and ridiculous reason to complain and the mainstream media will pick up on the vocal disdain and get their clicks in like their homegrown YouTube counterparts.
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