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The Book of Boba Fett

The Book of Boba Fett - Season 1

This Star Wars series, based on the famed bounty hunter, is the definition of a mixed bag.

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The Book of Boba Fett has to be one of the most conflicting, odd and generally bizarrely put together piece of mainstream television for some time. First and foremost, it continues the story of the fabled bounty hunter after the events of the second season of The Mandalorian, while also filling in the blanks on where he's been since falling into the Sarlacc Pit all those years ago. Additionally, it also serves as a launch platform for the third Mandalorian season, even dedicating whole episodes to this premise, even with a rather short seven-episode season length.

It feels both slow and methodical in places, yet somehow rushed in others, and you even find yourself questioning the general viewpoint at times. As in; is this actually a Boba Fett show?

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Despite all that, there are some spectacular set pieces, solidly acted scenes grounded by Temuera Morrison's fantastic performance, and enough solidly constructed pillars amongst its supporting cast, such as Ming-na Wen's pretty nice turn as Fennec Shand, or the nice array of cameos. Just to reiterate, The Book of Boba Fett looks great, is decently acted and has all the pompous music, hard-hitting action sequences lovely cinematography to pass as decent television.

So it's not really about the scene-to-scene make-up, it's about the overall sense of place, direction and thematic consistency that works to confuse, rather than excite. First of all, the general plot device seems to be little other than what was initially teased in the first trailer - Boba wants his piece of the pie, and rule Tatooine's criminal underground, but through respect rather than fear. That mission doesn't have too many steps though, and is generally static until the final confrontation with the Pyke syndicate, which has taken control of most of said underground. Add some bizarrely out-of-place Cyberpunk-esque youngsters on flashy scooters, the almost non-consequential addition of Wookie bounty hunter Black Krrsantan and some stale plot development, and you have yourself an oddly unsatisfying set-up overall.

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The flashbacks pan out better, and serves to more wholesomely summarise where Boba has been, and how his story shaped his identity after he decided that bounty hunting really wasn't going too well post-Sarlacc. His interactions with the Tusken tribe, meeting with Shand, it all works pretty well, and is never the interruption that it could've been.

The Book of Boba Fett
The Book of Boba FettThe Book of Boba Fett

But then we have The Mandalorian. Din Djarin playing a role here isn't remotely surprising, nor unwelcome. Pedro Pascal's depiction of the character is one for the history books, and he steals every scene he's in. But of the seven episodes of the series, two in their entirety are dedicated solely for plot set-up for the third season of his show. When I say entirety, I mean it. There's no plot development for Boba whatsoever, it's as if these two episodes exist in their own universe. They are not bad, not at all, but they don't belong anywhere near The Book of Boba Fett.

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So, conflicted, confusing and at times at odds with... well, itself - The Book of Boba Fett is the very definition of a mixed bag, despite the ingredients themselves being well thought out. It's saving grace is ultimately Morrison, who brings gravitas to each scene, and anchors it down, even as the uneven pacing attempts to run off into the sandy distance. There's definitely enough here to warrant a binge, particularly seeing as it introduces some quite important characters to the mix too (no spoilers here, don't worry), and one in particularly is intense, fantastically put together and well realised, but where Mando remains a tightly focused piece of storytelling, this book remains quite the opposite, and for that, it suffers.

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The Book of Boba Fett
06 Gamereactor UK
6 / 10
overall score
is our network score. What's yours? The network score is the average of every country's score

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