Star Wars: So, Uh, Disney’s Boba Fett Show Isn’t Very Good So Far
Boba Fett is back! And it’s bad.
For two seasons The Mandalorian delighted us and stole our hearts on Disney+. As season two wrapped up, we got a surprise tease of an upcoming show. Revealed in an after-credits scene, the Book Of Boba Fett promised to give the armored bounty hunter– well the OTHER armored bounty hunter– the limelight at last.
Boba Fett, long a fan favorite, was expected to kick some real butt (and maybe Hutt) in his show. We are now five episodes into a seven-episode show, and, uh… it’s not very good. Let’s take a look at why.
**Spoilers Ahead**
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What Is This Show About?
Five episodes in and I struggle to really tell people what this show is about. Beyond the vague elevator pitch of “Boba Fett tries to run a criminal empire,” it doesn’t have a whole ton there.
Is it about his adventures with the Sand People? Well, no not really. Is it about him trying to be a crime boss? Honestly, we’ve not seen him do any of that.
What crimes has he, or really anyone committed? Is fighting other groups for control? I mean… maybe? He’s had some meetings but not much has come of all that.
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What about an antagonist? The mayor? Eh, not really? The Hutt Twins? Nope, they’re gone. I guess he is going to fight the Pykes, but they weren’t even really set up as enemies until midway through the show.
If this whole rant feels disjointed, well that’s because the show is. Like I said, it’s really hard to tell much about the plot. Maybe it’s about him befriending animals.
Those Dang Flashbacks
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Right off the bat, I’ll admit I’m not a huge fan of long flashbacks. I personally think they take away from the present of the story. They also rarely tell us much we don’t already know.
So I wasn’t very pleased when BoBF leaned into flashbacks– hard. The show decided to spend half or more of its first four episodes in flashbacks. I still don’t really know why.
The flashbacks show Boba escaping the Sarlacc, living with the Sand People, meeting Fennec, and getting his ship back.
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These were all things we had already been told about before. In particular, the Fennec adventure was one we’d been told before. The flashback offered no twists or new information. It just took up time.
The Sand People flashbacks also really didn’t add much to the mix. Sure, it was kind of a cool look at Sand People, but… meh? I didn’t need 30 minutes of TV to show me how Boba Fett got that stick he used for a little bit. Five episodes in and the flashbacks haven’t tied into the main story. They’ve just taken time away from it.
No Law, No Crime
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Boba Fett is supposed to be a crime lord. And yet, five episodes in I’m not sure we’ve seen him commit a crime. In fact, after offing Bib, he mostly just either sits around or walks around a bit and people pay him tribute.
Are crimes even being committed here? When people, like the Mayor, don’t pay him tribute, he doesn’t even do anything about it. He’s a pretty boring crime boss.
The show also lacks any element of the law. Most crime shows have the law as a force, that even if it’s not the advisory, is at least an obstacle. Not this.
The whole thing feels weird and empty. Fett’s less of a crime lord and more just a warlord who’s taken over. But still doesn’t do anything.
Is Boba Fett An Idiot?
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The character in this show seems less like feared bounty hunter Boba Fett, and more like mild middle-manager Bob Fett. I’m constantly left thinking that he is just a total idiot. He never seems to know what he is doing or what is going on.
He doesn’t seem to have any idea how to run a criminal house, or even what he’s taken on. Fennec seems to do all the thinking. Boba’s plan just seems to be to show up and look intimidating.
He doesn’t even use his gun much. You’re a crime lord, kill some fools.
Bad Pacing
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Honestly, this has got to be one of the worst paced shows I’ve seen in a long time. Episodes just meander around. There’s no drive and nothing feels impactful.
Just when a story seems to go somewhere, it either ends (like the Twins showing up and then just leaving) or cuts to a flashback. Episode five upped the ante by giving us almost an entire episode without Boba Fett.
It did nothing to move the plot forward. It’s baffling.
Didn’t They Already Make This Show?
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I think one of the issues with the show is that they already made a Boba Fett show. The Mandalorian is what the Boba Fett show should have been.
It’s about a fearless, stoic, badass, armored Mandalorian bounty hunter going around in a space western, doing his thing. That’s Boba Fett. Before it came out, many people even thought it was going to star Fett. And then it didn’t.
So now, when it came time to make a show about Boba, the obvious and fitting story was already taken. So what do you do with Boba Fett then? It seems like no one knows.
It’s no surprise that the best episode was one that was far more Mandalorian season 3 than Boba Fett season 1. It’s what this show should have been but couldn’t be.
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While it was a good episode on its own, it was horrible in BoBf. It killed the tiny bit of momentum the show was starting to build it. It took away from developing any of the characters important to this story.
If the best episode of your show (so far) doesn’t have any of the characters or plot of your show in it and is basically an episode from another show, you have issues, my friend.
Can They Save It?
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It’s kind of hard to say that the Book of Boba Fett is bad. It’s got some good ideas. Episode five was great, though for reasons that made the rest of the show worse.
So with two episodes left can they save the show? Well, maybe. It’s not totally bad.
The final episodes need to give us a few major things:
- Clear antagonists and a reason behind their actions.
- Clear, and real, stakes. Right now I’m not sure what’s in this for Boba.
- It needs to tie the flashbacks and the Tusken scenes into the main story in a meaningful one. One that pays off all the time we spent on it.
- A focus on the actual story being told here, not flashbacks or side adventures.
- Better action than we saw in Episode Four (that chase scene…)
- Some sort of character development for… anyone?
That is, admittedly a lot to ask. With just two episodes, no doubt meant to focus on the action, it would be a lot to pack in. We will have to see how they do. The show isn’t all bad, it has stuff going for it.
It looks good overall. It sounds amazing. It’s not offensive. But it’s also not good. Not at all. At the end of the day, it might be worse than bad, it’s boring.
Let us know what you think about the show, down in the comments!
