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Post #1466088

Author
ImperialFighter
Parent topic
The Book Of Boba Fett (live action series) - a general discussion thread - * SPOILERS *
Link to post in topic
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/1466088/action/topic#1466088
Date created
9-Jan-2022, 3:29 AM

HAPPY NEW YEAR to all.

With one thing and another, It’s been over 2 years since I’ve commented at length about anything specific around here…BEFORE THE DARK TIMES…BEFORE THE RISE OF…er, THE PANDEMIC! But I’ve had plenty of time to mull over the conclusion of the Sequel Trilogy which came out at the end of 2019, and hope to go into some thoughts of my own on it before too long. Along with an idea or two also, but that’s for another day.

As a long-time fan of the Original Trilogy’s imaginative world-building, I wondered what a regular live-action TV show would offer in a ‘Star Warsy’ setting…so I’m glad to say that I’ve found plenty of impressive and fun moments throughout THE MANDALORIAN and THE BOOK OF BOBA FETT shows so far.

After previous disappointments with certain aspects of the franchise, I’d kept my expectations very low for THE MANDALORIAN. I initially had some reservations about how things would turn out when I found out that the main character was going to be accompanied by a little, doe-eyed, Disney-fied ‘yodaling’…but he’s turned out to be a big hit now, even though I wasn’t too keen on the idea at the start. And due to the way things progressed in the show, I warmed to him too…especially as he remained SILENT throughout, rather than being given some kind of awful ‘toddler Yoda’ voice. Thank the Maker!

Yes, there’s been some overly-goofy moments along the way, but both shows have had enough entertaining moments in them to offset any problems I’ve had with them. And Boba’s ‘backstory’ involving his experiences with the Tusken tribe really helps to strengthen his initial appearances in THE MANDALORIAN show for me too.

So yeah, It’s a great time to be a fan of the franchise I reckon, and if the overall quality of these initial two shows are anything to go by, then I’m certainly looking forward to all the other live-action spin-off shows yet to come too.

However, having said all that

just as I thought that THE MANDALORIAN season 2 finale’s last moments came off a bit unconvincing and cloying for my taste, I also had a couple of niggling issues with the opening episode of THE BOOK OF BOBA FETT too…

…because a scene showing EXACTLY HOW Boba escaped from the Sarlacc was always going to be a big moment that a lot of us were looking forward to seeing onscreen…but I’m afraid that Robert Rodriguez came up with something very mediocre, as far as I’m concerned…because the way he ended up putting this major sequence together was lacklustre and cheap-looking I thought, with lazy camera angles and strangely-edited shots…and very little sense of jeopardy overall. And as a fan of a lot of his work, it pains me to say that.

I’d hoped for a much more substantial sequence for that moment, but it was poorly handled I felt. Practical effects can look excellent if they are done well, but the start of the Sarlacc ‘flashback’ was a gloopy, rubbery-looking disappointment for me, and the whole thing seemed rushed overall. And I didn’t particularly like the way Boba was shown to escape in the first place, with his hand suddenly bursting upwards through the sand like something out of the ending of ‘Carrie’! Some may love what we got, but I guess I just hoped for something a bit more dramatic and better-staged for this particular sequence.

To be honest, I’d rather Boba had eventually just managed to get his jetpack to splutter back into life for a few seconds to get out, while flame-throwing and tossing down a grenade at the beast’s insides on his way out for good measure. At the very least I’d have liked to have seen less cutting and better camera angles used on the scene that Robert Rodriguez actually came up with…as the ONLY thing that salvaged it for me somewhat, was the neat accompanying piece of music that started up as Boba broke out of the sand. Truly a missed opportunity for this particular set-piece to have been something more special I reckon.

So just for fun, I played around with the opening of the show for a while to see how things would look and sound if it was re-arranged a little more to my liking…which just involves simplifying things even more when it comes to seeing Boba alive outside of the Sarlacc that he escaped from eventually - at some point after the barge exploded, he just DID…with the method UNSEEN this way, so that I can imagine whatever I wish… 😃

We begin with a certain short musical fanfare, as it fades out to the silence of familiar blue wording…

…then we CUT to the existing opening scenes…

…as we see a familiar figure inside a healing tank…

…then we CUT to a whole new ‘flashback’ here, as Boba recalls a desolate part of Tatooine…

…then we CUT back to Boba moving uncomfortably in his healing tank at this point…

…then we CUT to the rest of his ‘flashback’, where we hear heavy breathing from inside a familiar helmet, as the music kicks in at this point…and we see an exhausted Boba collapse to the ground, as the music fades down…

…then things continue normally as per the episode, as a Sandcrawler comes across Jabba’s barge wreckage at night, and the Jawas steal Boba’s armour, etc…

(by the way, keeping the original initial ‘flashback’ of Slave I at the watery world of Kamino would work equally fine for me too, as a juxtaposition to then seeing my ‘flashback’ of the sands of Tatooine afterwards - in fact, we got a shot of Slave I taking off from Kamino during the 2nd episode of the show, as well as another shot of young Boba with his father’s helmet. Unfortunately, we also got a brief repeat of Boba’s arm shooting upwards again…so of course, I’d prefer to remove it from this episode too)

And while I generally liked the majority of the music heard throughout both of these shows, especially the MAIN themes and END CREDIT themes…there were certain moments where I would have liked the score to have been less bombastic and intrusive personally. And the scene where we first see Boba putting his costume on was one such moment! We got an overly-dramatic piece of music throughout the scene I thought, making it faintly ridiculous for me…which is a pity, as it would have been a neat moment if there had been a lower-key piece of music over it I reckon, or even none at all.

So here’s my ideal re-edit showing how it could look instead, which would give a much quieter reveal of his costume at this point -

We see Boba in his healing tank, and hear a female voice say Wake up Boba

…at this point Boba says The dreams are back to Fennec Shand, as he sighs and gets handed his black robe from the approaching droid…

…as Fennec turns to walk away saying Time to go, they’re lined up to pay respects…I’ll let them know you’re on your way, and we end on a close-up of Boba’s gnarly face, as the music fades away…

…then I’d CUT to this shot of Boba now on Jabba’s throne, as we see him in his full armour again for the first time…

By the way, I reckon Temuera Morrison is doing great in the role so far, and his rugged face and accented line delivery are working very well for the character, just as it did for his ‘father’.

One other thing about the opening episode of THE BOOK OF BOBA - as much as I love all of Ray Harryhausen’s creature features, I wasn’t too keen on the the new multi-limbed sand monster at the end. It seemed too on the nose as something that the great man would have designed for one of his fantasy flicks…but didn’t look ‘Star Warsy’ enough to me, if you know what I mean. Just my own view on that, and I’ll get used to it I guess. But after looking at it again, there’s a few shots I’d prefer to remove to make the sequence a little shorter, which would also lessen the amount of skirling that the beast makes during it’s appearance.

Lastly, I thought Steph Green’s 2nd episode turned out wonderfully overall - I never realised that I needed so much Tusken grunting in my life, and they have been wonderfully portrayed so far. I laughed when a few of them immediately wanted to take the stolen swoop bikes apart when Boba first offered the bikes to them…as that was a genuinely funny ‘call back’ to the Tuskens that were starting to dismantle Luke’s speeder in A NEW HOPE, I thought. And Unlike Robert Rodriguez’s 1st episode, this had a really kinetic, cinematic look to it’s set-pieces.

Safe to say that my much younger self would have absolutely lapped all this up if it had been around at the time, even though my current older self would like to tweak certain things a tad.

Roll on the next episode!

IMPORTANT NOTE - if anyone wishes to comment on any of this, please DO NOT re-‘quote’ the entire post, thanks!