Tag David Pasquesi

Rob Watches Boba Fett – Staying in Your Lane

Rob Siebert 1 Comment

The Book of Boba Fett, characters posterSERIES: The Book of Boba Fett
EPISODE: S1:E6. “Chapter 7: In the Name of Honor”
STARRING: Temuera Morrison, Ming-Na Wen, Pedro Pascal, Amy Sedaris, David Pasquesi
WRITERS: Jon Favreau
DIRECTOR: Robert Rodriguez
PREMIERE DATE: February 9, 2022
SYNOPSIS: Boba Fett and his forces collide with the Pyke Syndicate.

By Rob Siebert
Fanboy Wonder

After Luke’s ultimatum in the previous episode, Grogu abandons his Jedi training, and elects to return to Din Djarin’s side. Ironic, isn’t it? Luke made a similar decision with Yoda in The Empire Strikes Back.

And thus, Luke’s first student winds up ditching him. Not a great start to a Jedi Academy that will ultimately meet a tragic end…

Boba Fett agrees to stop the spice (a drug in the Star Wars universe) from flowing through Tatooine to get the villagers of Freetown to fight for him. This, despite the fact that spice trade makes up a huge portion of his business. This, plus the fact that he and his crew are essentially defending Mos Espa from the bad guys, make Boba Fett seem much more like a Robin Hood figure than a crime lord. I’m not sure how I feel about that. Is that really the Boba Fett that people want to see?

I appreciate that Mando doesn’t look graceful or polished at all in his use of the Darksaber. It makes sense. He’s not a swordsman. So he should look like an amateur.

Boba Fett riding a rancor seems like the kind of thing a fanboy saw in a wet dream. Granted, it was pretty awesome. But still.

THE BOOK OF BOBA FETT

It’s a little surprising that they killed off Cad Bane. Granted, this is Star Wars. People in this universe can survive being cut in half and dropped down a pit. So there’s no hard and fast rule that says he can’t come back at some point. But this felt like it had a measure of finality to it. A fitting end for the character.

The fact that the episode and the season end not with a shot of Boba Fett, but Mando and Grogu, pretty much says it all. They wound up being what people cared about, not Fett.

Temuera Morrison has said that, in a second season, he’d like to see Boba Fett go after Mace Windu for killing his father. Eh…no thanks. It might be cool to see Samuel L. Jackson as Mace Windu again. But not in that context. I’m content to let him stay dead.

All in all, it seems like The Book of Boba Fett, the first season at least, will be remembered as a series that couldn’t support itself from a storytelling perspective. Thus, the need to borrow elements from The Mandalorian. It was awesome to see all that stuff. But it belonged in season three of Mando’s show, not Boba Fett’s show.

That’s not to say Mando had no business being there at all. He could have, say, come in at the end of episode six as a hook for the finale. That way we still get those scenes of Fett and Mando fighting off the Pykes together. But devoting two full episodes to him? To call that pulling focus is a gross understatement.

I guess sometimes you just need to stay in your lane…

Email Rob at primaryignition@yahoo.com, or check us out on Twitter.

Rob Watches Boba Fett – Krrsantan Steals the Show

Rob Siebert 1 Comment

SERIES: The Book of Boba Fett
EPISODE: S1:E3. “Chapter 3: The Streets of Mos Espa”
STARRING: Temuera Morrison, Ming-Na Wen, David Pasquesi, Danny Trejo, Sophie Thatcher
WRITER: Jon Favreau
DIRECTOR: Robert Rodriguez
PREMIERE DATE: January 12, 2022
SYNOPSIS: Another attempt is made on Boba Fett’s life.

By Rob Siebert
Fanboy Wonder

The cyborg gang that Fett ultimately recruits are riding multicolored speeder bikes. That prompted a few Power Rangers jokes on Twitter. As a Power Rangers die hard, you’d think I’d have been more amused. I wasn’t.

As Fett is riding through the city in the flashback, we see the a shot of stormtrooper helmets on spikes, which is obviously an idea recycled from The Mandalorian. As if to add an exclamation point, we then see Peli Motto, the Amy Sedaris character, walking in the distance with some droids trailing her.

Fett returns to the Tusken camp to find they’ve been slaughtered by the nikto gang. So I’ll ask again: How long was he with the Tuskens? Months? Years? He couldn’t have been with them for almost five years, could he?

I loved Black Krrsantan breaking into the palace and grabbing Fett in his bacta tank. It’s one of the highlights of the whole season, if you ask me.

Fett winds up letting Krrsantan go after his conversation with the hutt twins. He lets this big hairy sasquatch just run out into the desert without any water or anything. I guess the idea is that the palace is in Mos Espa, so he’s close to civilization. But it still made for a bit of an awkward visual.

The twins give Fett a new rancor to put in the palace’s pit. Fett expresses a desire to eventually ride the young animal. Well, they’ve planted that visual in our heads. Now it’s going to be disappointing if we don’t get it at some point. If not during the season finale, then during a subsequent season.

I enjoyed the speeder chase through Mos Espa between the cyborg gang and the mayor’s majordomo. Any time there’s a high speed vehicle chase in Star Wars, I imagine George Lucas’ inner child smiles, given his well documented love for cars and speed.

One of the trailers for The Book of Boba Fett made it seem like Sophie Thatcher’s character, the cyborg Drash, would have a bigger role in things. Hopefully as time goes on, we’ll learn more about her.

Email Rob at primaryignition@yahoo.com, or check us out on Twitter.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 

Rob Watches Boba Fett – I Thought It Was Just a Stick

Rob Siebert 1 Comment

The Book of Boba Fett, Boba Fett posterSERIES: The Book of Boba Fett
EPISODE: S1:E2. “Chapter 2: The Tribes of Tatooine”
STARRING: Temuera Morrison, Ming-Na Wen, David Pasquesi, Jennifer Beals
WRITER: Jon Favreau
DIRECTOR: Steph Green
PREMIERE DATE: January 5, 2022
SYNOPSIS: Boba Fett faces challengers to his new throne.

By Rob Siebert
Fanboy Wonder

It makes a lot of sense to me that Fett got attacked by the Order of the Night Wind in the very first episode. After all, he walks around Mos Espa with no fanfare and very little protection. He’s practically begging to be attacked. Then again, maybe that’s the point. Based on what we see in this episode, maybe he’s willing to take on all challengers to his throne, and those that would do him harm…

“Your sister is right. If you want it, you’ll have to kill me for it.” That’s a great line. Bad ass.

*eyes pop* Ming-Na Wen is 58 years old?!? I wouldn’t have guessed that in a million years.

In the flashback portion of the episode, we see the Tuskens get attacked by a train belonging to the Pyke Syndicate. Fett and the Tuskens then hatch a plan to take the train down. The existence of trains in the Star Wars universe has always been little curious to me. We obviously saw one in Solo too. What use does a universe that has space travel have for trains?

This strikes me as one of those things you can explain away if you put enough thought into it. Firstly, they’re not conventional trains with wheels and tracks. They’re, for lack of a better term, “hover trains” that travel off the ground. And maybe the planets that use trains are a little less industrially developed than the ones that don’t…?

I’unno. Just spitballin’.

The Book of Boba Fett, Fixer and Camie

When the nikto gang is in the cantina, the humans they’re about to victimize are Fixer and Camie (shown above), two old friends of Luke Skywalker. Originally those characters were to be in the first act of the original Star Wars, alongside Biggs Darklighter. But their footage obviously wound up on the cutting room floor. The deteriorated footage can be found on Disney+.

Via the ritual they put Boba Fett through, we see the creation of a Tusken’s gaffi stick is part of a rite of passage. Presumably a coming of age one.

And to think, in A New Hope they were just sticks to hit people with.

Email Rob at primaryignition@yahoo.com, or check us out on Twitter.

Rob Watches Boba Fett – Emerging From the Pit…

Rob Siebert 4 Comments

The Book of Boba Fett, posterSERIES: The Book of Boba Fett
EPISODE: S1:E1. “Chapter 1: Stranger in a Strange Land”
STARRING: Temuera Morrison, Ming-Na Wen, David Pasquesi
WRITER: Jon Favreau
DIRECTOR: Robert Rodriguez
PREMIERE DATE: December 29, 2021
SYNOPSIS: Years after escaping certain death, Boba Fett takes over Jabba the Hutt’s criminal empire.

By Rob Siebert
Fanboy Wonder

Disney kind of screwed Boba Fett over. I mean, think about it. They took the basic concept of the character, costume and all, and repackaged it into The Mandalorian. And obviously, that repackaging paid off. The Mandalorian is the best Star Wars content to come along in years. But it didn’t leave much for them to work with as far as a Boba Fett TV show is concerned. He couldn’t be a lone gunslinger traveling the galaxy and having adventures. Mando was/is already doing that.

So what does Boba Fett do if he’s not a bounty hunter anymore? That question could have been the thesis for an entire season. But coming into The Book of Boba Fett, we already knew what the character’s new goal was: To take over Jabba the Hutt’s criminal empire.

But why? Why does he want to be the head of a crime family? That’s my big question coming out of the first episode, and that’s what I hope The Book of Boba Fett tells us. At this point, Boba has either been a bounty hunter or been around bounty hunting for most of his life. To an extent, it’s all he knows. So why the change? And why now?

As they’re both overseen by Jon Favreau, and their main characters are so similar, it’s difficult not to compare The Book of Boba Fett to The Mandalorian. Especially at first.

I loved the first episode of The Mandalorian, particularly the opening scene in the cantina. It captured our intrigue, set the tone for the show beautifully, and is generally just a fun scene. This episode doesn’t give us a scene quite like that, but it does show fans something they’ve always wanted to see: Boba Fett escaping from the sarlaac pit.

Even George Lucas didn’t believe Boba Fett died in the pit. He said so on the Return of the Jedi DVD commentary track. So this escape scene was a long time coming. I feel like that image of Fett’s hand bursting out of the sand has been in the fandom’s collective consciousness for decades.

So Fett’s armor (mostly) protected him from the sarlaac’s stomach acid, and he was able to breathe thanks to some leftover oxygen from a doomed Imperial stormtrooper’s helmet. The question, of course, is what a stormtrooper was doing at Jabba’s palace to begin with. It’s not a pressing question, though. We saw stormtroopers walking around on Tatooine. One could have easily gotten on Jabba’s bad side.

Jawas proceed to steal the armor off Fett’s unconscious body. To make matters worse, that white body suit he was wearing isn’t exactly dignified.

So how old is Boba Fett supposed to be at this point? Let’s say he was about 8 when we saw him in Attack of the Clones. And that movie takes places 22 years before A New Hope. So, factoring in the four years between A New Hope and Return of the Jedi, that would make him…about 34 years old when he crawls out of the sarlaac pit, and 39 during the events of The Book of Boba Fett.

I’ll say this much: I don’t necessarily envy Temuera Morrison. He’s over 60 years old, and has to play someone 20 years younger. He manages to pull it off, though.

After being captured and enslaved by Tusken Raiders, Fett is able to loosen his bonds, and offers to free a fellow prisoner. Said prisoner then screams for his captors, foiling Fett’s escape attempt.

Something about Fett offering to free that prisoner rubs me the wrong way. The man is supposed to be a mercenary. What does he care about what happens to anyone else? Particularly in that scenario.

On a geographical note, I never knew Jabba’s palace was in Mos Espa, a city we originally saw in The Phantom Menace. We saw him pop up in that movie during the podrace. But I had no idea he lived there. From exterior shots, the palace always appeared to be in a fairly remote location. Maybe it’s just outside city limits…?

The referral to Boba Fett as the new daimyo is interesting. The word daimyo refers to a lord or leader in feudal Japan. A nod to George Lucas’ appreciation for Akira Kurosawa films, perhaps?

The blue pianist in the cantina is indeed Max Rebo, who we saw in Jabba’s palace in Return of the Jedi. A random choice. But not an unwelcome one.

After the fight with the assassins, Fett tells his gamorrean guards to get him to his bacta tank. Bacta, of course, being the universal stand-in for medicine in the Star Wars universe.

As he’s moving a bit slow in the fight against the assassins, we see Fett is still feeling the effects of the sarlaac pit even five years later. Presumably he’d be fully healed if he’d started bacta treatments sooner. I’m wondering how long he’s supposed to have been doing bacta treatments. Since he installed himself as daimyo, perhaps? That might make sense, as Jabba would have had the resources to come up with a personal bacta tank like that. Except his would have been much bigger. His would have been, like…a bacta vat.

Email Rob at primaryignition@yahoo.com, or check us out on Twitter.