Yes, It’s Clear The Book Of Boba Fett’s Biggest Problem Is Boba Fett

This week’s episode of The Mandalorian, errr I’m sorry, The Book of Boba Fett, served to reinforce what everyone has kind of realized this whole time:

The Mandalorian himself is who we wanted Boba Fett to be. He is our new Boba Fett, and now this new guy with his own show is…not the Boba Fett we envisioned. In fact, both The Mandalorian and Fennec Shand are proving to be more Boba Fett-like than Boba Fett himself.

How did we get here?

Once The Mandalorian was a major hit, I thought it should have been pretty clear that Star Wars did not need to resurrect Boba Fett himself for any reason. Doing so seemed redundant, and even though The Mandalorian had a different backstory and was a different character, he was filling that role that many had always envisioned for Boba Fett, a badass gunslinger and bounty hunter shrouded in mystery.

But, The Mandalorian season 2 could not resist importing Boba Fett into the storyline. That went…okay, but then the decision was made to give him his own spin-off. And something about the character fundamentally changed.

While The Mandalorian was everything we wanted to see from a Boba Fett-like character, Boba Fett himself is…not that. His combat sequences are often clunky and weird. His decision-making process, like sparing loads of enemies meant to kill him, seems unwise and out of character. The entire storyline of trying to gain control of the Tatooine underworld is not terribly compelling.

I think the pitch being made here is that Boba Fett’s time with the Tuskens (incidentally, the best part of the series) made him kinder and softer, but fans don’t…really want a kinder, softer Boba Fett. And it’s not just his fighting and his tactics. He talks too much, takes his helmet off too often, constantly reminding us that he’s just not that mostly silent badass that got mythologized by Star Wars fans for decades.

I don’t really blame this on Temuera Morrison. I think it was a risk to let the prequel actor lead his entire series, and I’m just not sure if he’s fully up to it. But past that, I think even Morrison understands that the script is all wrong for Fett, as he’s commented that the character talks far too much and that he wishes Fett had been left more mysterious. As he says it, he’s half joking, but it very much rings true.

Fett is really the only factor here. The Mandalorian and The Book of Boba Fett share writers, actors and directors, and it’s mainly just how Fett himself has been handled here that’s the problem. It’s why the Boba Fett-less episode this week which only featured The Mandalorian was sadly the best episode of the series so far, and why I would venture a guess that maybe this show won’t live to see season 2, and just serve to pass time briefly between Mando seasons 2 and 3. If Pedro Pascal wasn’t off filming The Last of Us for HBO, I’m not sure this show would have ever existed at all.

I am curious to see what happens with Disney’s other Star Wars projects, given that it appears they’ve gone 1 for 2, whereas Marvel is more like 5 for 5. Obi-Wan and Ahsoka have a lot to prove, and we’ll see if they handle those characters better than what we see with Fett here.

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Pick up my sci-fi novels the Herokiller series and The Earthborn Trilogy.