I could not help myself. I watched the television show about Boba Fett, a minor character with a cool helmet from films that came out forty years ago. It was never going to be good. But I just could not help myself.
1. Everything has to be explained!
Forty years ago, it appeared that Boba Fett died early in Return of the Jedi. He next appeared in a season 2 episode of The walking around Tatooine with black robes and carrying a metal stick before getting his armor back and looking like his old self a few episodes later (which is where we left him). Instead of just moving forward with where he is now and letting us fill in the blanks in our own imagination, the show does multiple episodes explaining how he came to wear black robes and carry a metal stick. That is the opposite of art. That is making a Wikipedia page.
2. Star Wars just the Tatooine cinematic universe
I am goddamn fucking sick of Tatooine! The whole point of Tatooine is that it is in the middle of fucking nowhere even by outer space standards and nothing ever fucking happens there! Why is everything in goddamn Star Wars about goddamn Tatooine! Get the fuck away from Tatooine and stay the fuck away!
3. Boba Fett became an honorary Sand Person
I am not sure what Disney Star Wars television shows could do genuinely well at this point beyond the twee puppet. The people really love that fucking puppet. One of the two big journeys Boba Fett goes on in this series is the flashback where Boba becomes an honorary Tusken Raider. The Tusken Raiders are really a great example of the inherent problem of trying to create an expanded Star Wars universe. The language of Star Wars is myth making. The margin of error with trying to build out some of these one-note characters/people is just so small. With no instances of humanity built into them in the films, the people making this show would have to truly do a tremendous job of fleshing them out to make them worth investing in for the audience. They did not accomplish that.
4. It was not a 105 minute movie about Boba Fett being a bounty hunter.
Listen, I am realistic. James Mangold is not an auteur or whatever. He’s not some great artist. But it’s amazing to me that this show has made me go, “Damn, why couldn’t we just get that James Mangold Boba Fett movie that was once in the works.” Once the admirable decision was made to bring back Temuera Morrison as Boba Fett, they really had to think of how to put him in a position to succeed. Writing him to be a somber and relatively pacifist version of Boba Fett for six episodes of television is a really good example of setting someone up to fail in this spot. How was this just not a story about Boba Fett doing one final job so he could escape this life or something? Or why was it not just Temuera Morrison killing people with his metal stick and looking like a badass? He is really good at that! Once you decide to make a 5-7 hour story about Boba Fett, you’re severely limiting the chances of being good because Disney will not pay to make a good-looking 5-7 hour action movie.
5. The Very Special The Mandalorian Episode
Episode #5 of Boba Fett was a secret episode of The Mandalorian and did not feature Boba Fett at all. While in some ways, it was a nice change of pace since it was a break from doldrums of this Boba Fett show. Mostly though, it just slowly became another dull episode of television where not much of significance happened and was somehow even less entertaining. By the end, it became quite clear it was all just a part of establishing the MCU nature of the rapidly growing Star Wars television series world where there are gonna be a million Star Wars shows and they will all be connected with Thrawn eventually being their Thanos. And it was later revealed over the course of the final couple of episodes that Baby Yoda was getting returned to The Mandalorian and the status quo was being restored. If things were mostly uninspired in the first four episodes of Boba Fett, things got awfully cynical in the final three episodes.
6. WHAT’S WRONG WITH YOUR FACE
I lack the vocabulary to properly explain just how bad CGI Luke Skywalker is. If I am being generous, you could argue if he just had to stand there and not move his face, he could pass as Luke Skywalker. The moment he starts talking though, he becomes this terrifying anti-human robot. I am not sure why they think this is working.
7. This was a show about building the Disney Star Wars Brand and not about telling a compelling story about a beloved minor character.
The series finale is all about Boba Fett, The Mandalorian, and a bunch of scrubs defending this city from drug dealers or some shit. As discussed above, the finale (and the final three episodes in general) was really about having some obligatory final battle involving the biggest existing characters and/or actors that the Star Wars television shows had. The fact that the immediate stakes were not something we really needed to care about and the majority of the supporting characters ran together were of no concern. The bigger mission of MCU-ifying Star Wars was what really mattered.
Recommendation: This was very bad even by Disney standards. Stay away unless you’re a sicko like me and needed something to do while falling asleep.
The Reel World 