Tag Temuera Morrison

Catching Up With The Mandalorian – “Chapter 15: The Believer”

Rob Siebert 1 Comment

The Mandalorian, Season 2, posterSERIES: Star Wars: The Mandalorian
EPISODE: S2:E7 – “Chapter 15: The Believer”
STARRING: Pedro Pascal, Bill Burr, Richard Brake, Gina Carano, Temuera Morrison
WRITER: Jon Favreau
DIRECTOR:  Rick Famuyiwa
PREMIERE DATE:  December 11, 2020
SYNOPSIS: The Mandalorian and his allies recruit Migs Mayfeld in their quest to save Grogu.

***New around here? Check out our Star Wars review archive!**

By Rob Siebert
Fanboy Wonder

We’ve got Bill Burr back as Migs Mayfeld. I was thrilled to see his image at the end of last episode, as “The Prisoner” might very well be my favorite season one episode. I’m hopeful this is an indicator we’ll be checking in with this character every season. Why the hell not? Bill Burr is awesome. Having the Mayfeld character see Mando’s face, as he does in this episode, is a great way to bond them together for such purposes.

You know who else from “The Prisoner” I’d like to check in on? X’ian, the purple twi’lek from that episode. She made it seem like she and Mando had a romantic history. I’d like to know more about that.

It feels a little weird in this episode and the next one that a character as important as Boba Fett is essentially relegated to being the driver. I mean, I guess somebody’s got to do it. But still.

I’m still not used to seeing vehicles on wheels in Star Wars. I wonder why they didn’t make those tanks into hovercraft…

Mayfeld’s skeptical dialogue about the New Republic vs. the Empire, the Mandalorians, etc., seems tailor-made for Bill Burr. It’s not funny, but it’s on brand for his type of humor.

The music during the chase sequence was really good, as most of the music on this show is. As always, my hat’s off to Ludwig Göransson.

I’ve always wondered to what extent, if any, the toymakers are involved in the creative process for Star Wars projects. These new Imperial trooper costumes feel like they were created with new toys in mind.

Mayfeld and Valin Hess talk about “Operation Cinder.” That’s a nice reference to the events of the Star Wars: Battlefront II video game.

Richard Brake makes a great Imperial officer. Tremendous casting.

Mando calling back to Moff Gideon’s dialogue from “Redemption” about how “He means more to me than you will ever know.” was a nice touch. Nice continuity.

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

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 – He Kept the Ship?!?

Rob Siebert 1 Comment

The Book of Boba Fett, Fennec Shand posterSERIES: The Book of Boba Fett
EPISODE: S1:E4. “Chapter 4: The Gathering Storm”
STARRING: Temuera Morrison, Ming-Na Wen, Jennifer Beals, Carey Jones
WRITER: Jon Favreau
DIRECTOR: Kevin Tancharoen
PREMIERE DATE: January 19, 2022
SYNOPSIS: Boba Fett gathers his forces far war against the Pyke Syndicate.

By Rob Siebert
Fanboy Wonder

Boba Fett, now wandering alone, finds a nearly dead Fennec Shand in the desert. He takes her for cybernetic augmentation, saving her life. He then recruits her to help him take his ship back from Jabba the Hutt’s palace.

Fett saving Shand means, chronologically, these flashbacks are now in the era of The Mandalorian. In other words, five years after Return of the Jedi. Thus, I must pose the question…why is the ship still at the palace five years later? What possible use could Bib Fortuna have had for it? Why not dismantle it for parts? Or auction it off as the last remanant of the great Boba Fett?

The real answer, of course, is that from a storytelling standpoint, Jabba’s palace is the last place we the viewers saw the ship. So it’s easiest to simply have them go back there and get it. But someday, even if it’s just in a novel or something, I hope we get some kind of answer as to why Fortuna kept it.

Incidentally, Boba Fett’s ship is called Slave I. For whatever reason, Disney doesn’t want it referred to by the name anymore. I imagine they don’t want the protagonist for one of their big TV shows riding around in a ship with slave in the name. But I’m old school. It is, and always will be, Slave I.

Some of these sequences are really, really dark. Not tonally. I mean it’s difficult to watch them during the daytime because they look almost pitch black in a sunlit room. The sequence in the previous episode where Black Krrsantan attacks Fett in the bacta tank was like that too. Does that make me sound like an old man? Yes. But is it still true? Yes.

The Book of Boba Fett, Fennec Shand

Why does Shand decide to stay with Fett after her debt to him is paid? What’s her interest in him? Is it professional admiration? Is it romantic? What’s the deal?

The visual of Slave I hovering face down over the sarlaac pit is pretty absurd. I get that it served the purpose of killing the sarlaac. But still, it was awkward.

This episode gives us some insight into why Fett wants to take over Jabba’s operation. He wants to run an organization that’s better than the ones he’s worked for. That’s…not the best answer they could have given. But it’s fair enough, I suppose.

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.

Rob Watches The Mandalorian: Return of a Jedi

Rob Siebert 1 Comment

SERIES: The Mandalorian
EPISODE: S2:E8. “Chapter 16: The Rescue”
STARRING: Pedro Pascal, Giancarlo Esposito, Katee Sackhoff, Gina Carano, Ming-Na Wen
WRITER: Jon Favreau
DIRECTOR: Peyton Reed
PREMIERE DATE: December 18, 2020
SYNOPSIS: Mando and his allies storm Moff Gideon’s ship to save Grogu.

By Rob Siebert
Fanboy Wonder

Yes, I understand we skipped an episode. But for obvious reasons, this episode had to be talked about ASAP. We’ll come back to “The Believer” in a few days. Promise.

I hate Rogue One. I absolutely hate it, and can’t understand why so many people love it. But there’s one thing that movie did right: Captions that told us which planets we traveled to. Too many of these Disney-era Star Wars planets look the same.

Koska Reeves’ crack about Boba Fett being a sidekick rings true. That’s unexpected, considering this season is basically his big comeback. He’s got clean armor and everything!

Koska hitting Fett with a DDT is one of the most pro-wrestling things the episode could have done. I kind of love it.

See, if I’m a regular stormtrooper, I’m looking at that dark trooper armor and thinking, “Can I get at least half the protection that black armor provides?” Maybe then these damn troopers wouldn’t be so expendable…

Seriously. Cara Dune’s gun getting jammed was the worst thing that happened to our heroes as they faced down a virtual army of stormtroopers. It’s frustrating.

Those dark troopers are definitely nightmare fuel. Kudos on the design.

“…properties that have the potential to bring order back to the galaxy.” It’s reasonable to assume that means properties that can resurrect Palpatine, properties that can eventually be used to create Snoke, or some combination of both.

I like that the Darksaber was burning Mando’s staff the longer the two weapons had direct contact. It indicates the lightsaber is more powerful, which is as it should be.

Luke. Skywalker. Holy. Crap. This show just pulled out all the stops. The anticipation, the tension, leading up to the reveal of Luke’s face, was amazing. What a moment…

What’s more, they got Mark Hamill involved! I’m very anxious to see if it was just his voice, or if he was somehow involved on set as well.

And we get an appearance by R2-D2 as a bonus!

I just saw a headline that indicated this episode betrayed its characters by “indulging in the Skywalker saga.” The sub-head indicated new Star Wars had succumbed to old Star Wars. That’s a frustrating sentiment to read. But it’s a valid point. Despite a wonderfully emotional goodbye between Mando and Grogu, Luke pulled focus. It was inevitable. Anything from the original trilogy is going to have that effect. I mentioned Rogue One above, and Darth Vader had the same effect in that movie.

It’s a little bit like dangling a shiny object in front of a little kid. With this finale, Jon Favreau basically dangled a shiny object in front of the little kid in all of us. I really can’t dispute that.

But I would argue that, despite Luke pulling focus, the heart of the episode was indeed about Mando and Grogu. Those are two new characters that we’ve come to know and love over the course of two seasons. I also can’t dispute that.

And honestly, where else could this story have gone? Side effects of bringing in Luke notwithstanding, it’s logical that Grogu, being as strong in the Force as he is, would encounter him at some point…

Mrs. Primary Ignition was quite curious about what this episode means for Grogu’s fate, as he’s obviously not in the sequel trilogy. At the moment, I have two theories.

  1. Grogu’s attachment to Mando eventually lures him toward the dark side, and he has to abandon his training and return to his surrogate father.
  2. He stays with Luke, but is killed by Ben Solo during the events leading up to The Force Awakens.

Understandably, she was horrified at option 2. But I suspect we’ll discover the answer sooner or later.

Another headline I saw recently? How the “Marvel-fication” of Star Wars has officially begun. In other words, new shows, spin-offs, and all sorts of inter-connected content. You won’t find a clearer piece of evidence than The Mandalorian taking a page out of Marvel’s book with a post-credits scene. A pretty awesome post-credits scene, but a post-credits scene nonetheless.

We see that Bib Fortuna has taken over as the head of Jabba’s palace. Does he actually control anything? The throne seems to suggest he does. So is that what The Book of Boba Fett is about? Fett taking control of Jabba’s crumbling criminal empire?

I think the best season finales often leave us with questions. So what questions did this episode leave us with?

  1. What’s next for Mando? He’s got the Darksaber now, and is seemingly in conflict with Bo-Katan Kryze. So does he get involved with re-building Mandalore? Or does he go back to bounty hunting?
  2. Despite getting captured, Moff Gideon accomplished his goal. He got Grogu’s blood. So what now comes of that? Do the experiments start? Have they already started?
  3. The Boba Fett questions are rather obvious.
  4. Are we going to hear more from Luke and Grogu? Or does that become territory for another series? The recently announced Ahsoka spin-off comes to mind.

Definitely no shortage of questions. We’ll have a lot to think about over the next year!

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

Rob Watches The Mandalorian: An Icon Returns

Rob Siebert 6 Comments

SERIES: The Mandalorian
EPISODE: S2:E6. “Chapter 14: The Tragedy”
STARRING: Pedro Pascal, Temuera Morrison, Ming-Na Wen, Giancarlo Esposito
WRITER: Jon Favreau
DIRECTOR: Robert Rodriguez
PREMIERE DATE: December 4, 2019
SYNOPSIS: Mando takes Grogu to the planet Tython, where he’s intercepted by Boba Fett and Fennec Shand.

By Rob Siebert
Fanboy Wonder

I wonder who came up with the name Grogu, and how long they’ve had it. You think they had that in mind from the get-go?

Slave I gets an awesome entrance in this episode. Not overstated. Just a simple fly-by. The ship is so iconic to Star Wars fans that a simple appearance, even from a distance, does all the work.

So what is that energy field that comes up around Grogu? Are we to believe it’s Force energy? That seems like the most likely explanation. Especially since Grogu passes out afterward.

“I’m a simple man making his way through the galaxy. Like my father before me.” Nice little callback to two different lines there. The first from Jango in Attack of the Clones. The second from Luke at the end of Return of the Jedi.

This stormtrooper ineptitude is becoming a problem for me. The fact that Mando, Boba Fett and Fennec Shand were able to fend off more than a dozen of them is pathetic.

Also, when a giant boulder is rolling toward you…MOVE OUT OF THE WAY, IDIOTS!

The sequences with Boba Fett and the gaffi stick were a sight to behold. Aside from the few swings we saw in the original Star Wars, I believe this is the first time we’ve seen one in action. Certainly to this degree.

The fight between the newly re-armored Fett and the stormtroopers is obviously some great fan-service. It did bring to mind memories of the Darth Vader slaughter from the end of Rogue One. The difference? In Rogue One, that sequence was there to bolster up the end of the film because it had so little in the way of character and story. In contrast, this Boba Fett stuff has been set up since the beginning of the season. And to say the least, The Mandalorian isn’t lacking in depth.

Moff Gideon wants to be Darth Vader. Bad. Real bad. To the point that he carries around a lightsaber. It’s kinda cute, actually.

They blew up the Razor Crest! I didn’t see that coming…

I’ve never liked Temuera Morrison as the voice for the helmeted Boba Fett, especially the way they swapped out Jason Wingreen’s voice for his in The Empire Strikes Back. I have no issue with Morrison playing the role at large. But when he’s got the helmet on? Give him a voice like Wingreen’s. If Darth Vader can have a voice modulator, so can Boba Fett.

Some questions that still haven’t been answered: How did Fett survive the Sarlaac Pit? I think the general consensus is that he climbed out. But did somebody rescue him? When was he rescued?

If they do end up doing a Boba Fett series, this is some of the ground the first season should cover.

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

A Star Wars #5 Review – The Jedi Bounty

Rob Siebert 1 Comment

Star Wars #5 (2015)TITLE: Star Wars #5
AUTHOR: Jason Aaron
PENCILLER: John Cassaday
PUBLISHER: Marvel
PRICE: $3.99
RELEASED: May 20, 2015

Need to catch up? Check out Star Wars #4.

By Rob Siebert
Editor, Fanboy Wonder

“I’m never coming back to this planet again.”

Luke said that about Tatooine in the original Star Wars movie, of course. But it turns out you can go home again, and not just to rescue your buddy from Jabba the Hutt. Sometimes you’re looking for answers.

Star Wars #5 brings Luke Skywalker back to Tatooine, hoping to find clues on which path to take next. But our hero is gravely unaware that Darth Vader has sent one of the galaxy’s most notorious bounty hunters after the young pilot that destroyed the Death Star. Boba Fett is on Tatooine, and he’s coming for Luke.

Star Wars #5, Boba FettI’ve been pretty critical of Jason Aaron’s work on this series. But in this issue he writes an absolutely bad ass Boba Fett. We find him in the iconic Mos Eisley Cantina looking for leads. When he finds a teen with answers, we see something that rings very true to the Boba Fett character: A capture and interrogation sequence. This man is a ruthless, stone cold killer, and Aaron and Cassaday are able to illustrate that to great satisfaction. They give the sequence more of an edge than we usually see in a Star Wars story. Yet it still feels like the universe we know and love, especially when Fett finishes with him…

This issue is actually a reminder of how sucky it was when they redid Fett’s voice for the Empire Strikes Back DVD. Jason Wingreen had a gravelly, malice-filled, Clint Eastwood-type voice that was perfect for the character. Temuera Morrison had an accent. That’s about it.

I’ve also come to respect the way Aaron writes Luke Skywalker. In this issue, as well as the previous one, Aaron has captured the spirit of that young man who met Yoda in Empire. He’s impatient, impulsive, reckless, and as we saw last issue, immensely frustrated at times. But we still see traces of a great hero and a brave leader. As such, Luke is pretty easy to root for here.

Star Wars #5, 2015, Han Solo, John CassadayThat’s not to say we’ve seen a 180 in Aaron’s writing. This issue also sees Han Solo and Princess Leia scout locations for a new Rebel base using a stolen Imperial shuttle, much like the way they used one in Return of the Jedi. We even get some familiar talk about clearance codes and what not. But that’s not the problem. Aaron gives us some of the angry flirting between Han and Leia that, again, serves as a precursor to Empire. A Han and Leia get into some deep doo doo, as they’re prone to doing, we get the following dialogue…

Leia: “I can’t believe I’m going to die here with you. You are without a doubt the worst smuggler I’ve ever met.”

Han: “Frankly lady, you aren’t much of a Princess.”

Leia: “I hate you.”

Han then kicks over Leia’s sandcastle, prompting her to plop down and cry.

Star Wars #4, Jesus ChristI’m a fan of Han and Leia being next to each other in this series, but the dynamic in their whole love/hate relationship shouldn’t be this stripped down. That’s part of the fun of the whole thing! They dance around it, and then when they finally get close to it, something happens to spoil the moment. C’mon, Jason. Let’s not turn science fantasy’s greatest romance into an episode of Rugrats.

This is the penultimate issue of John Cassaday’s run on Star Wars, which is a shame. This hasn’t been his best work, but he’s given us some memorable stuff. Not the least of which was the awesome pin up from last issue (shown left). Naturally, as the issues have gone on he seems to have found his groove in the Star Wars universe. He’s able to tap into the classic Star Wars characterizations strictly with his art. Case in point, the way he plays with Han Solo’s acting here (shown above). Boba Fett’s body language is also perfectly on point. There are also some little things, like the texture he gives to the robes Luke and the sand people are wearing, and the cracks on the outside of Obi-Wan’s hut. It all lends itself well to the “used universe” concept George Lucas was going for in that first movie.

I’ll be sticking with Star Wars through issue #7 at least, just to see what new penciller Stuart Immonen brings to the table. This series started off on a sour note, but it’s gradually been picking up in quality. I maintain what I’ve said previously, however. If you’re looking for great Star Wars comics, Darth Vader is the place to be.

Images 1 and 2 from author’s collection. Image 3 from comicvine.com.

Follow Primary Ignition on Twitter @PrimaryIgnition, or at Facebook.com/PrimaryIgnition/