The Book of Boba Fett: A Star Wars Review

The Book of Boba Fett is the highly anticipated Star Wars television show centered on one of the most famous characters of the franchise, Boba Fett. The show focuses on the origins and adventures of the titular main character. It also serves as a spinoff of both the main Star Wars movies and another popular Star Wars show, The Mandalorian. The cast includes Temuera Morrison as Boba Fett and Ming-Na Wen as Fennec Shand. The show also has epic storytelling, space adventures, intense action, fight scenes, and fast-paced chase scenes.  

The plot of the show focuses on Boba Fett and Fennec Shand after taking over Jabba the Hutt’s territory at the end of The Mandalorian Season 2. Throughout the show, Boba and Fennec try to rule both the territory and Tatooine in a more peaceful and noble way than Jabba did. However, a rival group tries to overthrow Boba from the territory, which causes Boba and Fennec to fight the group and try to maintain their peaceful rule over it and Tatooine. The show also includes flashbacks that showcase Boba’s past life both as a child on the planet Kamino and during his time after he escaped the rancor pit from Star Wars: Episode 6 – Return of the Jedi. These flashbacks are both meant to show how Boba Fett became the bounty hunter he is today and how he got to where he was by the time of The Mandalorian Season 2.  

As a Star Wars and television fan, the show kind of struggles to find its place during the first half of its season. This is because the first half of the series focuses on Boba Fett’s past and present lives that it doesn’t know which story it doesn’t want to tell. While the main story in the present is interesting, it constantly gets interrupted by flashbacks, which make the present-day story less interesting and more dragging as each episode goes by. The flashbacks of the show are also dragging in and themselves because they don’t contribute to the main story and are only used to show Boba Fett’s past life. Another setback the show suffers is some action scenes that are either messy CGI or too fast-paced. In the third episode, there is a biker chase scene that relies on too much CGI that ends up looking weird as a result.  

On a positive note, the show manages to pick itself by the second half of the season. This is because the show goes deeper into Star Wars lore by bringing back certain Star Wars characters and exploring concepts that were shown in the films. Another good takeaway is the performances by both Temuera Morrison and Ming-Na Wen. Morrison does a good job portraying a stone and cold-hearted bounty hunter with a complex past using both his facial expressions and dialogue delivery. On the other hand, Wen does well portraying the sniper character with her fighting skills and parkour scenes.  Both of these actors play off each other very well with their dialogue and the fight scenes that they share together. The show also contains good visuals because of the sandy nature of Tatooine. 

Overall, I think this show stumbles with what and where it wants to be. This is because, on one hand, the show suffers from both an inconsistent pace and sloppy story writing. It doesn’t know which parts of Boba Fett to focus on because of both the flashbacks and main storylines interrupting and overlapping one another. This makes the show inconsistent and difficult to follow. It also suffers from action scenes like the bike chase scene relying heavily on CGI. The overuse of CGI makes the scene and special effects sloppy and weak. On the other hand, the show picks itself up in the second half when certain Star Wars characters and lore concepts get introduced. The great performances of Morrison and Wen carry the show as well. In the end, I think this show serves as a show for something to watch when audiences have finished The Mandalorian and have nothing else to watch after that.