As someone who never watched the original and prequel trilogies, or any Star Wars content for that matter until the early 2010s, all I had was the simple expectation that Darth Vader and Boba Fett were two of the absolute coolest characters of all time. While the former is certain, the latter’s impact was marred to me because he meets his demise in a Three Stooges-like gag. I’m aware he’s more impressive in extended universe works but having only seen the films I was always disappointed by the character.

With his entertaining introduction in The Mandalorian and the setup for his show, The Book of Boba Fett, I was hesitantly excited to finally see the character portrayed in the awesome light that everyone painted him with. Unfortunately, even with that hesitation, I found myself a little disappointed once again.

There are a lot of little problems I had with the show and nearly all of them are compounded by the presentation of Boba Fett. Now I have to say that I fully enjoyed the portrayal of the character by Temuera Morrison and I have no issue at all when it comes to his acting. I think it’s awesome and perfect that they were able to cast him as he did play the role of Jango Fett in the prequel trilogy films. Even when the writing felt shaky for the character, his acting never felt like an issue to me.

Boba Fett has just (to my knowledge) typically been presented and hyped up as the cool and ruthless bounty hunter that always gets the job done. Even in The Mandalorian, he has some fun action scenes that I had assumed would set the tone for his show. Although some elements and scenes try to capitalize on that expectation of him being “the best bounty hunter in the galaxy,” it ends up feeling like a messy contradiction.

The general plot of The Book of Boba Fett is about the titular character and the well-received Fennec Shand starting their own criminal enterprise on Tatooine. Although I had hesitation about the story as soon as I heard about it, I was willing to see why this was the story they were going with.

Without going into spoilers, the reasoning is very basic and it is very obviously just a vehicle to explain a change in the character. For the record, I do agree with the change and think it was necessary. Din Djarin from The Mandalorian very much took on the cool faceless bounty hunter role within these related series. Din has had two seasons of a show to build upon his character. To the general audience, Boba Fett has a few lines of dialogue in film and a fun debut in an animated special. It made sense to develop the character into something different.

Turning him into a space mobster is the source of some of the show’s problems. First among these is that taking over a criminal territory limits him to stay on Tatooine. Instead of the thrilling and varied adventures of a bounty hunter, there are just different locations of deserts and sandy towns.

I’m well aware that a contained location or setting doesn’t necessarily mean something is good or bad. However, the drab setting does not do any favors for the mediocre storyline that Boba Fett follows in the show. It becomes harder to disconnect the two as storylines and a couple of episodes that spend time off of Tatooine are far more exciting to watch. The show was initially described as “The Mandalorian 2.5″ and for better and worse that is an apt description. Some of the best moments and episodes in the show make little use of the titular character.

This disparity isn’t just due to plot quality differences though. One of the biggest issues I have with this show is the action scenes and specifically how Boba Fett is presented in them. For a character who has earned such a well-known reputation, he doesn’t fare well. This would make sense if he was out in space and exploring the galaxy. There are always bigger threats in the unknown after all.

Boba Fett isn’t traveling the galaxy though. He’s staying on one planet and mostly in the same city. It makes sense for a character to struggle throughout a story arc so they can have more redeeming victories. At the same time, he is a character with a history and reputation behind him. To see him struggle so much feels contradicting to the character, especially while characters like Fennec Shand are ruthless and capable of handling themselves.

Another issue is the inconsistent tone. Some scenes are very serious while others feel like I’m watching a melodramatic scene from a CW network show. One action scene has significant weight and tension to it while another feels like a parody.

I’m very open for there to be a variety of scenes. I don’t want it to be as dry and coarse as the planet’s sand after all. There’s just no understating how jarring the tonal shifts can be at times.

The biggest offender in terms of inconsistency is a cyborg gang called the Mods that becomes a group of recurring characters. A young cyborg gang makes for good character contrast on paper. Portraying them with a heavy inspiration of the 1960’s British Mod subculture, complete with colorful Vespa-like scooters, looks very off on the sandy planet of Tatooine. Giving them a long vehicle chase that went about as fast as a law-abiding citizen would and was shot like a kid’s movie was sigh-inducing and briefly had me questioning what I was doing with my time.

Their inclusion was for the sake of Boba Fett’s character through a cliche conversation when they first appeared. After they fulfill that story usage, they don’t do anything else meaningful besides the aforementioned vehicle chase. There’s one redeeming moment built up for the leader in an action scene but it doesn’t work out and the screen time used in the build-up feels wasted. I disliked them immediately and having them fail to accomplish anything only strengthened my opinion about them.

Overall, the pacing isn’t great either. Flashbacks take up a big part of the initial episodes to build up Boba Fett while the penultimate episodes focus elsewhere. An important character is introduced near the end and as a result, doesn’t feel substantial. Aspects of Boba Fett’s character development also feel tacked on at the end.

Even some action scenes in the final episode feel drawn out instead of what I assume was meant to be tense. From a threat taking forever to be taken care of to a weird overkill scene of repeatedly shooting a falling enemy while everyone else has died in one blaster shot, the action is all over the place and the pacing is a big part of that.

As much as I’ve talked about what I didn’t like without mentioning that one terrible 360-spin shot everyone knows of, there were parts I did really enjoy. There is some time spent with the Tusken Raiders and they’re portrayed in a much better light than the films. Boba Fett has actual time to develop into a character on-screen and it’s great. I genuinely enjoyed most of the characters aside from a handful of them. All of the various callbacks and little nods here and there were fantastic.

It would be remiss for me to not mention the wonderful visuals too. Although there were some moments where it wasn’t explicitly fantastic (i.e. the Vespas), I thought the visual effects were pretty great overall. I also have to say that the visual technology used for some scenes in episode six was absolutely incredible. No spoilers of course, but if you’ve seen it then you know exactly what I’m talking about.

For the majority of the show, I do feel like I enjoyed myself. Even when the action was cheesy or over-the-top, I was having a good time and to me, that’s what’s most important. There are some low points to the show, but there are also some very high points and I was really excited over those.

The big problem is that the low points outnumber the high points and even then what’s most memorable feels like a teaser for another show. Admittedly, I would be interested in watching a second season of The Book of Boba Fett. It’s not like I hated the show after all. I just wanted it to treat its main character better and to stumble less.

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The Book of Boba Fett

7

Score

7.0/10

Pros

• Boba Fett Has Character Development
• Most Characters Are Fantastic
• Visuals
• Tusken Raider Portrayal

Cons

• Mediocre Story
• Boba Fett Isn't Used Well
• Inconsistent Tone
• The Mods
• So Much Sand