A/V The Book of Boba Fett

What an emotional episode!

Spoiler

-I was so excited to see Cobb at the beginning, and then that happened! Well, People have survived worst injuries in Star Wars, so I hold out hope he lives.
-Cad Bane was terrifying though. Regardless of anything else, it's super cool to see him in live action.
-All the Luke/Grogu/Ashoka stuff was very interesting though I had to turn off a few obsessive "one canon" parts of my brain but that's not the show's fault. XD
-Love those spider-droids. It's a shame Legends!Luke didn't need to build his temple, or else I would have headcanoned those into Legends.
-Was Max Rebo in the bar when it went up? Where is he? Is he safe? Is he alright?
-Love that the Krayt Dragon's skeleton was reused by Freetown. That's just cool.
-I also really liked the Mods reaction to Din.
-I agree that the pacing is...weird. I can understand the story, but the pacing is a bit odd. I'm still into it, of course. I guess I'm just a little worried that the climax will be rushed but I withhold judgement on the show proper until we have the entire season.
-Despite that, it would be cool to get another season of this.

 

This show is just bananas, man. Like, as much as last episode came as a surprise, I was 1000% sure this was gonna be Mando S3 stuff. No complaints though.

...okay, one complaint: I hate the whole "dilemma" they dropped here. I mean, I know whate they're doing and where they're going with it, but it really just made me miss and appreciate how the old EU handled things on that front.

 

I think that is due to practicality. Actors can only carry so much.

My gripe is that that character exists and hasn’t yet died

 

Strange reaction/response regarding a show that has so far had very little to do with the sequels. And even if it does, ok?

Why do we need to get excited about upsetting people?

 

It was awfully out of character for Luke, and especially after attachment saved and redeemed his father, to be so against it just seems odd.

 

Given Lucas’ opinion of Luke not getting married, it seems clear the non-attachment rule was intended to stay.

 

Independent from quality, 2/7 episodes not being about Boba at all and instead being Mandalorian Season 2.5 is a very weird choice to me and honestly feels like a disservice to both characters/shows

 

yeah I thought one of the lessons of the 6 movies was the old Jedi "no attachment" way was flawed

 

That one particular character might be able to get this show across the line, when it comes to Boba and this whole present day arc being relevant and interesting. Still not great that he got sidelined in his show two weeks in a row.

 

Really. Not there this week til about 20 minutes left and even then it was a cameo in his own show.
But holy cow that episode really did happen.

Spoiler

Seeing Cobb Vanth yet again makes me want to reread the Aftermath trilogy even though I abhor Wendig’s writing.
Even knowing Luke would also be in it doesn’t prevent my excitement at R2!
But I have to wonder, is Boba Fett in this at all? It’s BOBF, after all.

OK the CGI Luke is DEFINITELY BETTER little Mark Hamill!! That makes me smile so much.
But the poor froggies.
But even more, poor little Grogu. He was in the Temple?! Gosh, Luke, hug the little guy.

It is indeed surprising Ahsoka went to Luke. It definitely disrupts the One Canon, as @Dream-Thinker pointed out. I guess that’s why the “no attachments” thing is still a thing. It’s indeed odd and flawed, at least the way they do it.
There’s definitely no way any Mandalorian fan can skip this subseries before continuing with season 3.

Do we know what planet they’re on? The Wook says no, but I know sometimes info is slow is getting on there. It’s not Yavin, unfortunately.

I am not a fan of Cad Bane, but he looks bloody awesome. Literally said “oh my gosh” out loud when he lifted his head.

Holy damn and double damn at these last 10 minutes!

 

Spoiler

Cad Bane shot Raylan...he better not be dead...they better not have killed Raylan!!!

 

Spoiler

-WHAT! CIN DRALLIG!
-Order 66 flashbacks.
- The jedi stuff with Luke and Grogu.
-Luke and Ahsoka know eath other.
- Cad Bane in live action!
All this episode was great, the jedi stuff is great and how it connected with Luke's arc an his jedi scool like we see in the last jedi. The mando and Cobb was good. But Luke grogu and Ahsoka. Im beyond hyped for the finale and Kenobi.

 

Wow.

The last episode had me gushing with praise. This one has robbed me of all words.

Spoiler

I didn’t want to believe the rumours of Luke showing up because I didn’t want to get my hopes up.

The sheer number of guest stars in this episode has me floored.

Luke!

Grogu

Kriffing Ahsoka!

Luke and Ahsoka interacting!!

That one scene between Luke and Ahsoka was incredible. Not overdone and very very subtle yet still powerful.

And even then, we weren’t done.

Cobb Vanth and his Weequay buddy.

And the mysterious trenchcoat and hat figure in the desert.

Cad kriffing Bane!

I don’t know what good deed I did to get so many amazing characters in one episode, but I’m glad I did it!

I think I know what Grogu’s choice will be, but I hope we find out in the next episode. He doesn’t need to be a Jedi. We all know that Ben is Luke’s first student anyways.

Luke said it himself, Grogu lives a very long time. He can become a Jedi later in life. That child needs to be with his father right now. He just needed Luke to teach him how to defend himself.

I’ll echo what everyone is saying. This is the second episode of the Book of Boba Fett where Fett barely appears.

And I could remark on how a show about Boba Fett needs a lot of supporting characters and guest stars to carry it because Fett just isn’t that popular.

But I’m not going to. I don’t care why we got so many amazing guest stars, I’m just glad we did.

Ahsoka looked amazing in this episode. It’s got me super excited for her series next year.

I honestly think that shows like this are the future of Star Wars. They’ve succeeded where the Sequels failed. They’re making an interconnected galaxy that feels like it’s all one big universe.

That’s what Marvel has done so well and it looks like Star Wars is following their lead at last.

The last two episodes have been truly epic and I can’t wait for the finale next week!

They’re not. Yoda just built a new one in his exile. We saw him leave the Senate with no lightsaber after his duel with Sidious. Yoda’s saber cloak fell to the floor of the Senate after the duel ended and he didn’t retrieve either. It doesn’t beggar belief that Yoda would just build another saber.

 

Spoiler

Filoni and Faveru are going to retcon THE rise Of Kylo Ren comic and we learn Luke's students survived Kylo's actions. Also Luke student will live long enough for Rey to find them. Filoni will add mutch needed context for the ST trilogy and era.

 

Running a week behind here, but man this show is a lot better when it's just the Mandalorian.

Spoiler

Man I missed the visual design of the Mandalorian. It really is the best. In Book of Boba Fett they've basically just been working with a few recreated Tatooine locals (none of which have been all that striking, but which keep being used for mostly indistinguishable scenes anyway.

The entire ringworld sequence is wonderful design and atmosphere, from the meat freezer to the beautiful long sequence of him walking the streets, boarding the transparent elevator, riding it up impossibly high, entering the mob parlor, going to the weird mob-boss luxury feast, and then riding it back down again, through the streets, and into the "undercity."

Though I mean it's almost completely absurd that it's only now, in the Mandalorian episode, that we finally get a clearly mob-movie-inspired scene that's very well-done, with the Italian-mafia butcher shop and the card game in the back.

The sequences with the covert were fine, though a little strained (why does she only ask him the helmet question seemingly after he's been there for weeks at a critical plot moment?). Once S2 made it clear that the "Children of the Watch" were a crazy-cult thing from the perspective of broader Mandalorian society, it makes sense to portray them that way. And I mean, the backstory makes perfect sense to me as a historian of religion--tiny purist doomsday cult on Concordia watch Mandalore get blown up by the Empire and naturally conclude that they were right all along and redouble their purity rituals without becoming appreciably more popular. I'm sure whatever Essenes survived the Jewish War and the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem also felt really vindicated.

This does make he hope we see Satine again, though: having be the person who drove the Empire off Mandalore and seized power only to then preside over the almost total destruction of her people to then still be fighting to reclaim the throne makes her a wonderfully twisted and tragic figure. The visualizations of the destruction of Mandalore were also well done (especially with the probe droid-droid hunter extermination squads).

The whole starfighter sequence is one of the most joyful things to come out of modern Star Wars. It really captures precisely the fantasy I had as a little kid: that the coolest thing in the world would be just having a starfighter that can fly really fast, hover, climb into space, go to other planets...

Reviving the N1 fighter and making into a custom space hotrod also is a really nice touch, it's another great design, and great design appreciates great design.

Overall, though, it's hard not to see this episode as classic "favorite child" syndrome: saving the really cool sequences, environments, gadgets, jokes, ships, character development, and above all ideas for the one episode that just follows the protagonist of that other, more popular show. Mando kind of gets more character development in this episode than Boba in the whole rest of the season.

I guess we finally have an explanation for why the rest of the season felt so stretched-out and padded and repetitive and idea-poor. Which is really a shame, as there's a huge amount of potential for design and storylines in the basic "Boba Fett, mob boss" and "Boba Fett, Tusken Raider" ideas that they've done very little with so far; and now they look to do even less than I expected given that the rest of the season looks like it's gonna be more Mando-focused.

Poor Boba Fett, upstaged in his own DisneyPlus special limited series.

 

This episode is doing all sorts of things right for me

 

Spoiler

I like to think that the events of these series are occurring during the sabbatical that the Black Fleet Crisis establishes took up much of 16ABY. So Luke's sabbatical was off constructing another temple and training Grogu, perhaps as an experiment to practice training children in the style of old-school padawans rather than the adult seminary that the Praxeum is.

Great episode, better than the last in my opinion. Fatal flaw? Same as the last episode.

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For a show about Boba Fett, the best episodes are the ones where he is minimized... that's a disservice.

 

Spoiler

I feel like the issue with the lack of Boba Fett in The Book of Boba Fett is more an issue with marketing/titling/or whatever than the show itself. The way these things are all tying in so closely together, it feels like this "Disney+ Star Wars-verse" would be better suited as one show with multiple plot lines. Especially this latest episode where it was kind of all over the place. Boba Fett would be just one plotline amongst several.

 

That’s true enough. I think tales of Tatooine might have been better

 

Spoiler

I'm not going to be shocked at all if BoBF ends next week like Falcon and the Winter Soldier did with a title card change for a prospective second season - Book of Fennic Shand, Book of Tatooine, etc.

 

I am excited for the final

 

Great episode.

Spoiler

Regarding Yoda's Lightsaber from The Clone Wars being destroyed it actually can still fit because Yoda built a new one in one of the Age of Rebellion comics.

 

Absolutely convinced that a person could start watching with the last episode and just have a very good The Mandalorian arc without missing anything. I guess we'll see if anything from the first four episodes matters next week.

Other stuff:

Spoiler

- Convinced Luke should be used sparingly, and at first I thought the episode was just going to be Din alone on the planet waiting for Luke and never getting to see him, but learning something about patience, attachment, and feeling alone. Then we go to Luke. And none of it is really any good.
- Ahsoka's lesson about attachment is way better than anything Luke says.
- The Cad Bane scene was tight as hell. Glad that we finally get a face villain, too. It only took...six episodes.
- The choice seems contrived. Would be more interesting to just let Grogu wear the Mithril shirt and, like, be worried about his attachment. After all... Luke saved the galaxy because of how much he loved his daddy.

 

I hope something comes into play