Man. I’ve never been so happy to be frustrated by show as much as this one. Both this episode and the previous one have been stellar, and yet neither of them have arguably had anything to do with their titular character and his story. It’s almost like they’ve broken away and decided to five us Mandalorian season 2.5 instead.
When this series got going. We, the nerdy fanbase, were all excitedly speculating about how it would delve into the deeper lore of the world of crime and gangsters within Star Wars. In practice, it’s really not been that. The Hutts have been a passing factor, a red herring in fact, plus, we’ve hardly stepped foot off of Tatooine.
The hopes of seeing sequences set on the grimy undercity of Coruscant or the much desired (from me personally) return of Nar Shaddaa into Star Wars canon has gone unanswered, and we’ve gotten a series of…more limited scope. At least when it comes to Boba Fett and his own personal story.
As far as Boba’s story is concerned, he seems to be struggling to wrangle control over one city on one planet in a galaxy where the Pykes and the Hutts control entire regions of the galaxy. Which would be a fine story on it’s own, but all of a sudden, the series has started moving onto other characters, showing us the continuation of Din’s story, showing us Luke, Grogu and Ahsoka on another world.
These stories feel so much grander and of significance than whatever Boba is up to on Tatooine. The comparison of the two sequences just make Boba’s ambitions seem… small by comparison. It’s like I said last time. The addition of these other characters and their stories ends up being a detriment to Boba’s story and my interest in it within his own series.
Conversely, without the including of Din and the characters introduced in the Mandalorian, this series would have been an underwhelming one. One that would have left a lot of fans unsatisfied. Which leads me to wonder what the true path forward for the Disney Plus series’ is going to be.
After the Mandalorian, this was the first live action series to follow it. Now we’re close to the end, it feels more like a continuation of the story started within the Mandalorian rather than its own unique story with its own unique characters. It’s the very thing I did not want from seeing an expanded universe style Star Wars transitioning from comics and novels to television.
It’s like reading a novel about some original character, like Jax Pavan for example, but then there’s massive cut away in the middle that spend some significant portion of its length just letting us know what Luke is up to, despite him having nothing to do with Jax’s story. I worry that the Ahsoka series and the next series of the Mandalorian are all just going be a continuation of this story, all feeding into one another rather than truly giving these characters their own stories and chance to shine.
That being said, Din Djarin and Ahsoka Tano are much more interesting characters who I want to see on screen compared to Boba Fett who has been stoic to the point of putting me to sleep at times. Maybe I’m worrying about noting. You could very easily make the argument that I’m stupid, spending time complaining about an episode of television I loved.
And you’d be correct. Book of Boba has been infinitely better for the inclusion of Din and Luke. And at the end of the day I should just relish and enjoy my time with it. Because this episode was badass.
I mean, we got to see Grogu training with Luke. Culminating in Luke putting a choice before the baby Yoda. Making essentially chose between a future as a Jedi or a future as a Mandalorian. You know, I would have hoped Luke, of all people, would have been a little more open minded about what a Jedi could and could not be. But at the same time, this does foreshadow what Luke ends up doing in the future.
And maybe, for how great Luke is, he was never meant to be a teacher.
Why does Grogu need to chose. I mean, obviously he’s going to pick the Beskar Chainmail and return to Din, anyone with half a brain can see that. But with the expanded universe version of Luke and all the unlikely people be brought into his new Jedi Order, I would have thought he’d be more open to doing new things and allow a Mandalorian Jedi into his order. Rather than ticking the same, tired old dogma that the Clone wars spend seven seasons showing us was the whole reason the Jedi fell in the first place.
Then we got Cad Bane. I was so excited when I saw that figure walking through the sands and his name suddenly came into my brain like a flash. I would have never expected to see him in this series, nor did I expect him to still be alive. But him being included as a foil to Boba Fett is a real treat. The Clone Wars built him up so well that he might be the one bounty hunter in the galaxy who can stand up to Fett, but maybe be better than him.
This has been a much more mixed experience than I was expecting. While I wouldn’t say Book of Boba has been outright bad at any point, it’s not lived up to its potential in my eyes. That being said, this has been a pretty short series and if the final episode continues the trend of being as good as this episode and the previous one, then I happily admit that the good defiantly outweighs the mediocre.
A Richard Wood Text Adventure 