The Book Of Boba Fett Review [Spoilers ahead]

Disclaimer: This review covers episodes from 2-7. You can read my thoughts on the first pilot episode over here at this link.

Disney+ just premiered its season finale of The Book of Boba Fett and the reaction is quite strange, to say the least. It started off slow with the flashbacks of Boba and how he survived from the Sarlacc Pit, which dominated the narrative of the first 4 episodes.

It was strange in a way that it wasn't involving as say The Mandalorian was nor the character Boba Fett himself lost his mystique when he transitions from a domineering bounty hunter for hire turned crime lord of Tatooine.

Some sub-standard action sequences, weird character development, and on top of that, the treatment of Boba throughout the season felt like a joke. At the halfway point, when I was about to give up due to the lack of interest generated for the initial 4 episodes, something clicked at the start of the fifth episode when a certain character arrives. And all of a sudden, there's an uptick in quality despite being at the cost of reducing the lead character's screen time.

Here, for the first 4 episodes, the plot revolves around Boba Fett, the newly crowned crime lord of Tatooine (or daimyo as it is called), and his loyal assassin turned counsel Fennec Shand, chronicling the adventures of their struggles to maintain peace in a plant notorious for being an unrelenting unlawful place where the worst criminals and schemers remain.

With Boba facing unexpected opposition from unseen forces, and schemes to take him out of the picture, Boba must try to prove he's capable of handling himself in these certain situations by being an honorable crime lord who yearns to rule Tatooine with respect rather than fear.

And here's the main problem with that premise, this scenario makes Boba look weak as if he's incapable of handling threats. Most of the time he's either taken for granted to make him look like an idiot or he would be half of the time out of action due to his injuries through several assassination attempts made at his life.

Even Fennec Shand, who still does flips and kicks while looking cool doing it, she's burdened with some of the corniest lines only George Lucas would call "Poetry. It rhymes." The performances aren't all bad, Temuera Morrison comes off more dignified in this show than we last saw him in The Mandalorian when he was without his armor, and Ming-Na Wen still could flip gracefully.

Even the action feels low-stakes compared to other Star Wars properties. The chase sequence at the end of episode 4 feels very rushed and the VFX does not feel particularly finished. So much so, whatever Boba Fett's mystique had earlier has now been gone down the drain.

But then, the show takes a drastic narrative shift from episode 5 onwards. The episode chronicles the return on Din Djarin (Pedro Pascal) and weirdly enough the episode quickly becomes an unofficial season 3 premiere of The Mandalorian. This is because the titular character never even appears in this episode; and a small cameo near the end of episode 6, which begs the question: why name the show "The Book of Boba Fett"? The show would've been fine it is was called "The Book of Tatooine" with Boba and Fennec serving as the protagonists as the majority of the show happens on that planet.

Episode 5 is a great episode if you look at it individually, but for a show where the titular character is missing; this is weirdly considered a "filler" episode in the grand scheme of things.

You could say the same for episode 6 but at least it follows the narrative plot established from episodes 1-4, and throw in a Mando sub-plot and familiar characters from Clone Wars (Cad Bane, Ahsoka Tano), The Mandalorian (Pelli Motto, Cobb Vanth, Grogu!!!), and even Luke Skywalker himself is back (looking much better than before with improved de-aging VFX than S2 finale of The Mandalorian).

And now with the season finale, the imminent war occurs between Boba, Fennec, Mando, and his small team versus the Pykes who are established as ruthless scheming rich dudes planning to set up collecting spice by stealing them, who make the Harkonnens from Dune conducting a coup of planet Arrakis seem more subtle.

The final episode is directed by Robert Rodriguez as he directed most of the episodes here, and this one is easily the best he's done in this show. I realize now why the previous episodes directed by him didn't have the highly stylized flair when it comes to his action sequences, and the finale just shows why; the man loves a great shootout.

His staging of hand-to-hand combats or chase sequences here feels awkward in the earlier episodes but when the blasters start to blast around painting the walls and bodies in the process, this is where Rodriguez feels more familiar in the finale, and for good reason.

Even when Boba does something here, and by god, he does something epic here which turns the tide for our protagonists, it feels earned and all of a sudden, his absence in the previous episodes might have done him for the better.

Yes, we do have Mando and Grogu reunite here (albeit a bit rushed but it's understandable considering it happens during the battle) and the journey seems more intriguing with Season 3 yet to come as before the credits roll, they have a joy ride on Mando's new Galactic Starfighter ship. And I finally realized, the creators weren't kidding when they called this "The Mandalorian 2.5".