The second season of The Mandalorian was without question a delight for all Star Wars fans, both those who were disappointed by its latest trilogy and those who defended it tooth and nail. There was almost total unanimity in emphasizing that, at last, the galactic universe had found a way to tell a new story, without falling into cheap and reactionary nostalgia. A series that displayed new plots without forgetting the universe to which they belong but without having to constantly refer to it. There were new characters, others that had been seen in the animated series, but above all there was a new hero, charismatic and we wanted to know more about.
In that brilliant second season, the nods to the original trilogy, obligatory since the events occur after the end of Return of the Jedi, came in the form of two cameos. The most important is Boba Fett, the bounty hunter who put Han Solo in a carbonite plate and who, supposedly, died in the mouth of a Sarlaac inEpisode VI. His arrival in the Mandalorian universe worked, and Disney did not miss the opportunity to give him a new series just for him.
This was a smart move, as the character of Boba Fett is known to the old guard of Star Wars fans, but not so much to the new generations, and he has never been a character who’s history has been explored deeply in the movies or series, we didn’t know much about where he came from or where he was going. Despite this, Jon Favreau, once again taking over as showrunner of The Book of Boba Fett, the second original series of the Star Wars universe on Disney + that premiered its first episode this Wednesday, December 29, managed to make us fall in love again with this universe but not without a couple of misses.
After seeing this first installment, one is left with mixed feelings. On the one hand, the western essence that The Mandalorian showed us is a welcome feeling, and it also has its fair share of winks to the original trilogy, but with a story that’s interesting enough to not rely only on nostalgia. This first episode sets the pieces of a puzzle of plots, but does not make it clear where it wants to go.
Is the series any good?
The series has two main plots. The first picks up where The Mandalorian left off, with Boba Fett (Temuera Morrison) replacing Jabba the Hutt as Mos Espa’s criminal overlord, sitting on his throne and with his right hand, the assassin Fennec Shand (Ming-Na Wen). A hostile territory where it seems that the mayor will not extend his hand as they expected. It is emphasized that Fett wants to exchange “Jabba’s reign of terror for respect”, but there is not much more to tell in this pilot. It’s not particularly spectacular either, and the fights aren’t as flashy as The Mandalorian’s.
The second plotline comes in the form of flashbacks and that is where the series unfolds a more mysterious plot that answers the question that all Star Wars fans ask themselves, how the hell did he escape from the mouth of that huge creature until he appeared in The Mandalorian? The memories of the bounty hunter are the narrative excuse to develop an origin story that will explain where the character has been all this time and, hopefully, understand how he got here. A classic narrative that we hope will payoff in the following episodes.
In short, this first episode of The Book of Boba Fett lacks the epicness one would expect from the character, but it also deserves a vote of confidence, we want to see where its creators want to go, what they want to tell and if they have something new to offer or just want to exploit the nostalgia The Mandalorian and the Star Wars universe have to offer.
New episodes available every Wednesday on Disney+.
