New Star Wars series disappoints fans with unfocused storylines. PHOTO CREDIT: disneyplus.com
After decades of mystery, the famed bounty hunter returns in “Star Wars :The Book Of Boba Fett”
“The Book of Boba Fett”’s announcement came at the very end of “The Mandalorian” Season 2, with an end-credits scene of Fett and his assassin partner, Fennec Shand, slaying Bib Fortuna and taking the throne that once belonged to Jabba the Hutt.
This set the series up for a dirtier, more brutal continuation of the beloved bounty hunter’s story. With the stage set in a dramatic way, fans were excited to see what Lucasfilms could think up for the fan-favorite character.
Initially, the studio delivered, showing Fett’s escape from the Sarlacc pit that supposedly finished him off and how he recovered in the years until he showed up in the Mandalorian. There is a very interesting story arc that follows Fett’s time in a Tusken tribe,learning from their ways as well as helping them reclaim control of their sacred land, a humanization that builds off of themes from “The Mandalorian.” I consider this to be among the strongest arcs of the show, having the clearest vision and direction compared to some of the following plotlines we get.
All that’s been mentioned thus far have been contained purely in flashbacks spread across the first two episodes, but in the present-day, Fett has been surveying the local settlement of Mos Espa. One assassination attempt later and he’s at the mayor’s doorstep, where the audience is informed that the main antagonist of the series, the Pyke Syndicate, is amassing a force to take over Fett’s empire.
The show was pretty standard and expected from a Disney+ production, but it takes a turn in episode five. In this episode, we see the Mandalorian enter the show and follow his story in a complete departure from the established characters from the four prior episodes. New cameos and old characters begin appearing, including Grogu, Ahsoka Tano, Pelli Moto, the New Republic Rangers and, most notably, Luke Skywalker.
All of this is fantastic content for Star Wars fans, who love to see their favorite characters presented again, but this comes at a great cost to the narrative that was supposedly focused around Boba Fett and the local setting of the sand planet Tatooine. The show goes from a fairly strong establishment of stakes with the looming Pyke threat and the well-received catch-up on Boba’s absence in the franchise since Return of the Jedi, to the oddly placed Mandalorian’s entrance and side-tracking of the main plot.
Many fans, including myself, were holding out for the finale to truly decide the direction of the show, and see which threads were tied up in the end. I was especially excited because of the live-action debut of an infamous bounty hunter from the “Clone Wars” animated show, Cad Bane. In the end, we saw a more complete resolution of Boba’s character arc. He resolved matters with the Pykes in a climactic set-piece and incorporated his experiences with the Tuskens to bring peace back to the city of Mos Espa.
I think ultimately to complain too much about what we got from this show, as a Star Wars fan, is a little entitled, considering the large range of notes they were able to hit in this one show, but I think that the narrative and main cast suffered because of the detours that the story took.
The reintroduction of the Mandalorian was cool, and somewhat fit within the plot of Fett’s story, but it comes with the baggage of his relationship with Grogu and Luke Skywalker. This ended up bringing the main character of the original trilogy into a show that was supposed to be dedicated to a background character of “The Empire Strikes Back,” resulting in a skewed scope in the show. Additionally, Grogu being tied to “The Mandalorian” had an unintended acceleration of their character arcs when they had to be brought into Fett’s story, resulting in their reunion almost immediately after having a heartfelt and meaningful goodbye in the last season.
Unfortunately, the newer expectations of cameos and character screen time that allowed for Cad Bane’s bone-chilling return also muddied the main character’s story, as well as other main series characters. Going forward, Lucasfilm should focus more on creating a story that works narratively and doesn’t sabotage their already established elements before seeking to introduce additional variables that may have unintended consequences on their larger, overarching plot.