Spoiler alert for the Book of Boba Fett

Disney+ came out with a long-awaited Star Wars TV show teased since The Mandalorian ended in December 2020, The Book of Boba Fett. I decided to watch it and was incredibly disappointed. 

The show focuses on how Boba Fett, the famed bounty hunter-turned-leader, would continue some storylines that started in The Mandalorian.  Yet, when it finally was released, it wasn’t able to get to the same level of popularity as its predecessor. The show received only 60% audience ratings on rotten tomatoes (that means 60% of reviews were 3.5 or above), while The Mandalorian had a massive 91% audience score. 

“During their first 11 days of availability on Disney+, demand for The Mandalorian was 75.5% higher than Boba Fett in the US, according to Parrot Analytics,” reported Business Insider. “Globally, demand for the former was 101% higher than the latter.” 

Boba Fett had moments worth watching, yet it had too much fan service, had tons of holes, and didn’t make much sense.

The show tried to incorporate flashbacks to show what everyone was asking, which was how Fett survived the sarlacc pit. The big question was finally answered when it was shown he cut his way out of the brutal beast. A nearly dead Boba Fett was picked up by Tusken Raiders as a prisoner.  Instead of being defeated, Fett built up trust and a relationship with the Tuskens as he helped them do tasks they had never been able to do, like defeating a massive beast that had terrorized them for many years. 

Boba Fett helped the Raiders reclaim the land they once had. It showed a better side of the Raiders and made you empathize with them and Fett, especially when Fett returned from negotiations to find the entire Raider village burned and all of the citizens dead. You feel the sadness of Fett as he burns the corpses of his former family. 

These riveting scenes give us the idea that the rest of the show will have the same production quality and emotional impact. Spoiler alert, it didn’t. At all.

Now, while the flashbacks were very good, they also messed up the flow of the show, distracting from stories in the show’s main timeline. Sometimes the flashbacks were long, sometimes they weren’t, and that was incredibly inconsistent. In addition, they didn’t focus on the main plot of the show, which eventually made it harder to focus on the climax. 

The climax itself was lower in quality than the fans were expecting. It ended with a generic fight scene that wasn’t interesting at all. It seemed like the easy way out, and fans got nothing from this show. It didn’t add anything to the story for the future.

Even some of the die-hard fans agree that the flashbacks were very cool, but they just ruined the structure of the show.  ScreenCrush, a YouTuber who analyzes movies and tv shows,  made a whole video on how the flashbacks just didn’t work.

 Max K, a student at this school and another casual fan of Star Wars, said, “Even though the flashbacks were the best part of the show, it weakened the structure of the entire storyline and made it inconsistent,” confirming the thoughts of many who watched the show around the world.

The show also threw in a bunch of unnecessary characters and storylines that should have been explored in other shows, like a Mandalorian Season 3, such as what Mando did after the season finale of the second season, what happened with Grogu and Luke after he took him to train, and what some of the other Mandalorian related characters did. 

They showed storylines with Mando learning how to use the Darksaber and meeting the Armorer, a character from the first season of the Mandalorian, which felt like Star Wars yet didn’t feel like good TV. The Luke/Grogu storyline follows Luke training Grogu, yet Grogu chooses to be with Mando once more. These scenes were incredibly boring and added nothing to what the show should have been, which is about Boba Fett. 

Mando, Grogu, Luke, and Ahsoka should have never shown up, as it brings down their new storylines. Max K had comments on this topic as well, saying, “Luke and Grogu should have never shown up at all.” 

It seems like Lucasfilm doesn’t understand how to make a good, quality show that makes sense and one that actually works. For example, in two episodes, Boba Fett appeared once in total, which is a problem. They focus too much on creating a “universe” instead of making a good film. Lucasfilm has been scrutinized since it was bought by Disney, and rightfully so. Many fans severely dislike the head honcho Katherine Kennedy, so when she finally appointed fan-loved Dave Filoni and Jon Favreau, fans were happy. Yet I am not because of what their idea of Star Wars is. Instead of giving the show its proper development, Lucasfilm continues to show massive incompetence on how to run a good franchise that has been enjoyed by many.

My last major problem is with the entire Cad Bane character, from his design to his demeanor. The intrigue of Cad Bane from The Clone Wars, which were cartoons that ran for seven seasons on Cartoon Network, was his swagger, his mysterious past, and his wit and ability to get the job done. With cartoons aimed at younger children, such as The Clone Wars, you would expect the good guys to always win, yet that was never the case with Bane. He always found a way to outsmart the Jedi by himself and maybe some crew, with some style as well. His leafy hat was a signature item, and the way he acts as a gunslinger is incredibly similar to classic cowboy movies. 

Now let’s look at what he was like in the Boba Fett show. When Cad Bane first entered the screen, viewers were supposed to feel shock and disbelief, along with a big “wow” moment. Bringing in a character from previous work is not supposed to be the twist in a show, and that’s always the case with this amateur TV made by Lucasfilm, so that already is a big no-no. As soon as I saw the character, I recoiled, for the character design just didn’t work. Bane’s skin color was a weird light blue instead of the normal dark night blue that was in the Clone Wars show. He didn’t have the low, gravelly voice that was classic to his character. His hat was static instead of leafy. All of the little things culminated in just ruining the show, especially at the end when he was “outsmarted” by Boba Fett and supposedly died. This man defeated Jedi, yet he was brash and stupid enough to let his guard down while fighting? Come on! 

“Cad Bane looks like Walmart Watto [who is another blue Star Wars character], not a cool bounty hunter,” Max K. states

In all, The Book of Boba Fett, the newest Star Wars TV show, is absolute garbage. It’s as lifeless and dull as the color beige. It’s just there. It failed all expectations. The story was terrible, the CGI was poorly animated, and it was full of useless tropes and fan service. Will the Kenobi show be any better? For now, I’m waiting.