POV: You’re sitting on your couch, snack in hand. Sun set, phone silenced, fleece blanket in use. You push play on episode five of The Book of Boba Fett on Disney+. You are curious and reasonably invested in Fett’s storyline. You look dutifully forward to a new piece of content from the boys, Jon Favreau and Dave Filoni. Life is good. Suddenly, almost before you know it, you’re on your feet! You’re leaping up and down, pointing and shouting, perhaps to some companions or perhaps to yourself, “That’s the Mandalorian! That’s the Mandalorian!” Then it dawns on you, “what is he doing here?”
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You frantically check the menu. Yep, this is The Book of Boba Fett. “Maybe this is a flashback,” you say to yourself, “maybe they’re just showing us a bit of Mando’s past that has something to do with the current events on Tatooine. Yeah, that’s it!” Then Mando wields the darksaber. “This is now!” you scream. “This is now! This is Mando post leaving Baby Yoda!” And without your permission or consent, you’re crying.
The Mandalorian, Season 2.5
Disney+
The remainder of The Book of Boba Fett is very much The Mandalorian, season 2.5, which is problematic from a technical and traditional standpoint. The series has since been met with the most divisive criticism since the J.J. trilogy, the consensus being that the Boba Fett ball was dropped in a big way. For almost half of his show, the titular character takes a back seat or doesn’t appear at all. Aside from anthropologically interesting flashbacks with a Tuscan tribe, some deep-voiced conferences with the ultimate baddie Fennec Shand, and some charming political and social maneuvering, Boba Fett himself does not have much of an arc.
What The Book of Boba Fett Means
Fans got to see their longtime favorite bounty hunter’s transformation from hired gun to man in charge and learned a little something about the classic Star Wars people, the Tusken Raiders, along the way. We also got to watch the bond between Fett and Shand solidify, though we stand to do more with their exchanges in the future! In addition, fans got to spend some time with the Mandalorian, who is grappling with the annoyances of the public interstellar transportation system after losing his ship and is visibly struggling with the absence of Grogu and his lost identity as protector and father.
Fans got to see Luke Skywalker - let’s repeat, Luke Skywalker - in all his deaged, Return of the Jedi glory. Is the CGI perfect? No. Is the voice technology perfect? No, but it’s pretty darn good, and it is still at least a representation of Luke Skywalker. It is still one of the most formative, legendary, and culturally and socially influential characters of modern cinema, on the screen, talking to his father’s live-action padawan from The Clone Wars, Ahsoka Tano. Skywalker is training Baby Yoda, who rides around in a backpack while Luke regales him with stories of the great Master Yoda himself.
The Bold Decision Pays Off
Moreover, there’s a genius creative component to the showrunners’ decision to make this a Book of many of the Star Wars characters we know and love, not just one we are hoping for some more backstory. Showrunners Favreau and Filoni, in their infinite, ever-evolving wisdom, took a big chance. They courageously threw caution to the wind in a no-holds-barred experiment crafted to surprise and delight their fans: a Grogu and Mando reunion when nobody saw it coming.
They knew we weren’t expecting Mando, Grogu, Luke Skywalker, Ahsoka Tano, and R2D2 to show up in a Boba Fett show, and they seized the opportunity to sweep us off our feet. It’s a bold move, one only Favreau and Filoni could make. They knew how beloved Temuera Morrison is and understood the emotion and nostalgia of the Jango and Boba Fett father/son story. They knew the fans were in, no matter what they were going to put in front of us, and boy did they get us.
There are certainly valid criticisms about the series finale, such as Grogu calming the injured and frightened rancor beast rather than its own master, Boba Fett. He is busy recovering from his fight with Cad Bane. Grogu didn’t necessarily need to be the character to achieve this on a show not named for him or anyone in his posse, but then again, yes, he did.
