Star Wars: The Book of Boba Fett (Disney+)

[Samwise]

Did he even play any specific role in the Mando storyline besides "another guy who knows how to fight"?  The whole episode with the armor and the krayt dragon was great but it would've been just as good if Boba himself had never shown up.

[Khaldun]

I think basically his role was "Easter Egg wow get excited". So...this series is almost a metafiction about what happens when an Easter Egg gets a show--the void at the heart of the Easter Egg grows quickly and leaves them exactly where they were before, a cameo, unless the people doing the show have An Idea.

Comic books have so many great examples of this. Want to make a comic book about Animal Man? Better have a Big Fucking Idea. If you do, brilliant: two + years of stories and lots of attention. Well done you. If you don't, it's like making a comic book with Detective Chimp, Nightmaster, Nightshade, Blue Devil, Ragman, Zauriel and Enchantress. It might run as long as Animal Man because the company wants it to, but nobody will remember it later because nobody has A Big Idea.

The Book of Boba Fett might as well be called A Funny Thing Happened to Me On the Way to the Mandalorian. It is so screamingly lacking in a Big Idea about its titular character; so obviously a case of "Disney needs content NOW".

[Velorath]

The Mandalorian was a hit and then we saw like half a dozen spin-off shows and other projects announced last year for D+. Even what they're doing with Grogu in this last episode seems like they might be pivoting with the planned story a bit because Baby Yoda merch is a cash machine so maybe they blinked in regards to writing the character off the show for a while.

So much of this just seems reactionary to Mandalorian being the one unquestioned SW hit of the Disney era (and a lot of the rest of it just continues to be Filoni dragging in characters and plotlines from Clone Wars).

[Teleku]

Yeah, pretty much that.  Disney is desperate to make money off of Star Wars but doesn't seem to have any idea how to manage the franchise based on everything they've done since the purchase.  Mando being a hit meant suddenly every fucking side character in the show was going to get a desperation spin off series.

[Khaldun]

If they really want to get long-time SW fans involved, "Darth JarJar and the Ewok Apprentice" would probably be a big hit.

[Setanta]

If they really want to get long-time SW fans involved, "Darth JarJar and the Ewok Apprentice" would probably be a big hit.

Why would you sully the glory that is Darth Jar Jar with a fucking Ewok? A Jawa on the other hand... that or Roger Roger.

[Phildo]

The first droid jedi would be pretty entertaining, if ridiculous.

[Abagadro]

If they are going to bring back every other thing, bring back HK-47 you cowards.

[Threash]

The first droid jedi would be pretty entertaining, if ridiculous.

They are clearly fucking sentient, there is even droid racism. Even the damn battle droids are shown as having hopes, dreams, friends, goals, fear in clone wars.

[Khaldun]

"It's an energy field created by all living things".

If they had some guts, they'd come right at it: in the SW universe, the Jedi (or someone) have pegged sapient rights to whether you're part of the Force; if you aren't, it doesn't matter if you're intelligent or have feelings and hopes and aspirations.

SW's tech/world building is so weird in its way. Droids that are clearly sapient (with no measurable rights; not even the most good of the good guys with one exception so far worry too much if droids are enslaved etc.) but there are no, zero, zilch experiments with AI in anything bigger than a droid body. Why? I dunno. No discussion of AI per se, even AFTER the Separatists used droid armies. Why? I dunno. I get it--it's about science fantasy and not wanting to turn SW into too much of an extension of our own futurist narratives and anxieties. But then they should just lean harder into how weird the SW universe is, how different its rules are. That's another reason I hate too much use of familiar tropes--arguably SW needs to be stranger than it is, not more familiar.

[eldaec]

Not quite no discussion of AI bigger than a droid.

Solo makes clear the Falcon's computer is as sentient as a droid, even before L3 merges with it.

I am surprised Filoni didn't take more of a run at this in clone wars though. Especially as he had entire arcs about droids.

[Threash]

I am surprised Filoni didn't take more of a run at this in clone wars though. Especially as he had entire arcs about droids.

There was a scene in clone wars where the heroes take over a ship controlled by battle droids and as they bust in the cabin both droids there immediately surrender, then the good guys ask who the captain is and the droid clearly marked as the captain points to the other guy who acts all hurt about it. Then the heroes slaughter both of them as they stand there with their hands up. I don't think Filoni was terribly concerned with any deeper questions about AI in SW.

[MahrinSkel]

The "personhood" of droids is a major unfired Chekhov's Gun in Star Wars. They get treated like people except when it's not convenient to the plot.

--Dave

[Sky]

[Velorath]

Not quite no discussion of AI bigger than a droid.

Solo makes clear the Falcon's computer is as sentient as a droid, even before L3 merges with it.

I am surprised Filoni didn't take more of a run at this in clone wars though. Especially as he had entire arcs about droids.

As soon as you start focusing on it two much, Owen and Luke buying R2 and 3P0 from Jawas starts to look like a slave auction.

[HaemishM]

It's stuff like this droid discussion that makes me say "the Star Wars universe makes no consistent, logical sense in anything it does." Literally everything about the technology falls apart if you think about it as anything other than young adult level escapist fantasy.

[eldaec]

Not quite no discussion of AI bigger than a droid.

Solo makes clear the Falcon's computer is as sentient as a droid, even before L3 merges with it.

I am surprised Filoni didn't take more of a run at this in clone wars though. Especially as he had entire arcs about droids.

As soon as you start focusing on it two much, Owen and Luke buying R2 and 3P0 from Jawas starts to look like a slave auction.

I actually quite like this.

Because everyone, in every age, does shit your great grandkids are going to be morally horrified by.


And star wars does make no logical sense. But the good bits at least make thematic sense in the same way opera makes no fucking logical sense but the thematic structure carries you along.

Same can said of the Marvel movies.

Only difference is there have been fewer bad marvel movies. And it is the bad movies when nothing making sense gets noticed. Eternals and thor 2 looked ridiculous because the film didn't carry you along. But guardians of the galaxy is even less logical.

[MediumHigh]

Imagine spending money on 7 episodes and only 2 of them are interesting. 

[Setanta]

Thank fuck there was no more Luke.

A sadly predictable episode, not one surprise. Mulan Fennec Mary Sues the episode - what a waste of a character. I'm still not convinced that the Mandalorian/Grogu served any purpose in the whole series. I really wish that they'd focussed more on the sand people and Freetown throughout the series and actually sold us a proper western, rather than jump the rancor and give us a conclusion that felt like just another generic ending. Even the big bad went from big bad to mustache twirling

[MediumHigh]

Thank fuck there was no more Luke.

A sadly predictable episode, not one surprise. Mulan Fennec Mary Sues the episode - what a waste of a character. I'm still not convinced that the Mandalorian/Grogu served any purpose in the whole series. I really wish that they'd focussed more on the sand people and Freetown throughout the series and actually sold us a proper western, rather than jump the rancor and give us a conclusion that felt like just another generic ending. Even the big bad went from big bad to mustache twirling

Sorry to interject but you only have Freetown plot because of Mando 

[Khaldun]

Whole thing really feels like a mess, like there was no real idea here.

[Setanta]

Thank fuck there was no more Luke.

A sadly predictable episode, not one surprise. Mulan Fennec Mary Sues the episode - what a waste of a character. I'm still not convinced that the Mandalorian/Grogu served any purpose in the whole series. I really wish that they'd focussed more on the sand people and Freetown throughout the series and actually sold us a proper western, rather than jump the rancor and give us a conclusion that felt like just another generic ending. Even the big bad went from big bad to mustache twirling

Sorry to interject but you only have Freetown plot because of Mando 

But could it have involved Boba rather than Mando as part of the writing process?

[MahrinSkel]

Well, at least that's over.

--Dave

[Velorath]

I really wish that they'd focussed more on the sand people and Freetown throughout the series

I'd say I'd be happy for Tatooine to never be used in another SW story again, but Obi-wan is coming up next, so...

[Abagadro]

The people who make and are in star wars really, really like sand (except for, well you know, one person).

[MediumHigh]

I don't think Disney or even the creatives around Disney seem to think that there is a diminishing returns from making the same type of characters, in the same type of setting, over and over again.

[Khaldun]

Plainly not.

Hard to see why Luke wanted to get off Tatooine, at any rate: the place is practically the secret hub of the entire galaxy.

[Sky]

The people who make and are in star wars really, really like sand (except for, well you know, one person).

There sure is plenty in the vaginas around here.

[Hawkbit]

The Ahsoka and Andor shows will likely be set in different places. And to be fair, I really do think SW under Disney is being post-show reflective of what works and doesn't.

[Samwise]

Hard to see why Luke wanted to get off Tatooine, at any rate: the place is practically the secret hub of the entire galaxy.

The combination of the Skywalker family and Jabba being based there pretty much doomed the rest of the franchise to be centered around it.

[HaemishM]

There were some decent bits and some funny bits in this. Unfortunately, almost all of them came from the Mandolorian show and not this one. It felt like there was a ton of backstory on these characters that the writers seem to think I was supposed to know but didn't (like who the fuck the blue gunslinger was and why he and Boba hated each other). The Mods are just terrible. Ming Na Wen was pretty much wasted on this show. I never got any sense of what the entire thing was supposed to be about, because Boba's character had just about as much actual character outside of the Dances with Tuskens sequences as he did during Empire and ROTJ. The story was just an utter fucking train wreck.

[Draegan]

What was the point of this show? It's like they ordered a 7 episode series but only had 3 episodes of content so they added some flashbacks and the first two episodes of Mando S3.

The droid fight was stupid.
1) The droids apparently were able to keep up with a speeder.
2) Everyone ran in a straight line
3) The droids had the accuracy of a storm trooper.
4) Apparently the droids can't shoot through dirt walls.
5) Why did we get a rancor if Boba Fett could have just gotten his ship and blasted them from above.

I'm so happy Luke wasn't on that Xwing. I literally groaned when I saw that.

Lots of shoulda woulda coulda crap with this, but I give up. This basically tells us what we already know and it's been obvious since for decades. Star Wars has no medium or long term plans. 

[Khaldun]

I honestly assumed in the first three episodes the flashbacks were going to be part of a tightly-plotted show where they all paid off in the last two episodes, sort of like The Witcher going back and forth in time until boom! all the pieces come together. But in the end this show is very nearly the literal opposite of tightly-plotted.

[Velorath]

It's a show that has to do the thankless task of not only having to establish Fett as an actual character, but has to have him do a 180 from 3rd string original trilogy villain to anti-hero who cares about his people. Knowing how hard it was going to be to pull off this sort of character study, they enlisted none other than Robert Rodriguez to direct half the episodes.

[01101010]

Just started watching this with the wife. I think we are on Episode 4. Wife is not a SW fan so I have had to explain some things to her about the timing of the flashbacks and the Sandpeople and the Rancor. Show is a fun 40 minutes or so, but wtf is with the power rangers and their color coded speeder bikes that are perfectly level the entire time? Pretty jarring...