This review does contain spoilers for episode one of “The Book of Boba Fett.”
The Book of Boba Fett, starring Temuera Morrison and Ming-Na Wen, is the fourth and newest show of the post-sequel era, and so far, it’s shaping up to be a mix of the prequels and original trilogies, but in a good way.
Saying a new “Star Wars” show has elements of the prequels may deter some people off of the show, but actually this is a good thing. The Book of Boba Fett takes the space politics of the prequels, but it has the dark and gritty world of the original trilogy, which brings me into the spoiler part of this review.
However, if you don’t want to be spoiled, I believe this episode has a lot of flaws but also a lot of good aspects that people will enjoy. If you enjoyed the story and visual style of The Mandalorian, then you will most likely enjoy this show.
The first episode titled “Stranger in a Strange Land” mainly revolves around flashbacks showing Boba’s escape from the Sarlacc Pit and the events following with eventual capture by the Tusken Raiders. This is something I hoped the show would do, as this was the biggest question ever since The Mandalorian season two. After the first episode, we don’t have a huge understanding of the plot or where it is headed, but we can assume that it will mainly revolve around Boba Fett’s struggle for power after taking the mantle of Crime Lord.
The first episode is half flashbacks and half in the present, which can be boring and uninteresting for some fans. This is because the flashbacks are mostly filler outside of the opening and eerily similar to the second episode of season one of The Mandalorian when Jawas took apart Mando’s ship, and he had to fight a creature to get it back.
If you were to replace Jawas with Tusken Raiders, and ship with freedom, then you would get the first episode of The Book of Boba Fett, which is disappointing. However this isn’t to say that the entire series will be this way; the jury is still out on whether this show is good or not, and it’s great to see Disney exploring a character that we didn’t have much background for.
The characters of “Star Wars” are one of the most important parts to get correct, and so far, they are doing the character of Boba Fett in good service. The best part about Boba as a character is that he isn’t invincible like Mando, who could not even be hurt by a pseudo-lightsaber because of his literal plot armor with beskar.
Thankfully, this show is looking to make the main characters more mortal, which should give the show more stakes and weight. There are a lot of other great things about this first episode. The visuals and CGI were mostly great outside of the new creatures, and the character designs on the various races of creatures, especially in the cantina, were excellent.
Besides the already mentioned plot of the story, there are other parts that stood out, those being the CGI and Boba Fett’s abilities. The last part is particularly disappointing, as Dave Filoni, who is working on the project, is usually great in making sure the abilities of each character are consistent. I don’t want to go into too much detail as it can come off as bullish, but I hope that they remember that Boba Fett has a jetpack. On the topic of CGI, it’s really disappointing that the new monster at the end of the episode looks so poor quality. Personally, I believe that it’s because of the lighting and the fact that the color pallet is so bright compared to the grey-ish black design of the creature, but it’s a minor nitpick.
Overall, The Book of Boba Fett is shaping up to be an interesting look into Boba Fett and his character. I’m personally very excited to see where this show goes as the trailers usually only show the first few episodes. This is also the same feeling I felt when watching the first episode of The Mandalorian season two, so it’s easy to believe that the best surprises are yet to come. It’s not bad, but it’s not great either, and hopefully, we see more out of the future episodes.
Rating: 3.5/5
