The Book Of Boba Fett (live action series) - a general discussion thread - * SPOILERS * — Page 23

I disagree with so many posts above.

First. What is fan service? When it is bad and when is it good? In a hugely interconnected universe like Star Wars you are going to have old things show up. One of the few things I hate about the prequels is the lack of OT and PT aliens. Too much effort was made to make it different without throwing in a few familiar faces. So you can go too far the other way. If Fan Service must always be a bad thing than not every appearance of something familiar is Fan Service.

Also, too many are objecting that a couple of episodes that aren’t focusing on the titular character. This is not an episodic series, but a larger story told in multiple episodes. Boba Fett’s story starts with episode 1 of season 2 of The Mandalorian. Boba Fett already invaded that series so this is just continuing that story and we have episodes that focus on Boba’s past and now episodes exploring what Din Djarin is doing. Why? That is the question you should be asking yourself. This story is building to a conclusion that reportedly is epic (and we shall soon see if it truly is) and they are gathering characters for that conclusion. What form that will take we don’t know, but there are all sorts of interesting possibilities.

And the big question from the end of The Mandalorian season 2 was how the series can continue without Grogu. The series was really Long Wolf and Cub set in Star Wars and leaving Grogu with Luke for too long ruins the dynamic of the series. And Grogu’s ties to Din Djarin pose an issue for Luke. He has learned from Yoda. He has likely learned a few things from Ahsoka (it is obvious they did not just meet). We don’t know what he may have already found in the post Empire world about the Jedi Training at the Temple on Coruscant. What we do have is Luke in TLJ saying that the TPM era Jedi were flawed. So does Luke learn from Grogu, or does he cling to the TPM era Jedi teachings? Does Kylo Ren fall because Luke let himself be blinded by the idea of restoring the Jedi, or will Grogu teach him that it is not attachments that are the danger, it is the fear of loss that is the danger.

So there are a lot of great story telling possibilities here. It does not all have to revolve around Boba Fett as long as this series is revolving around Boba’s efforts to become and secure and defend being Daimyo of Tatooine. If that is his intent as we saw at the end of The Mandalorian Season 2, then the story telling is spot on. You have a bounty hunter who has survived for a decade since he fell in the Sarlacc and been rescued from the desert by Tusken Raiders aiming much higher and striving for something different. So many of the complaints I see about Boba’s characterization are tied to his new line of work differing form his old line of work.

I think some of the different threads of story will come together in the finale. And we will see if it will be carried on for a second season. We know The Mandalorian Season 3 is on the horizon.

Also, complaining about animated characters and how they are transferred to live action is sometimes silly. Cad Bane is blue. He is represented by a man in a mask like his fellow Duros were in ANH and his skin color is in line with the other live action appearances of his race. Same with Ahsoka. I wasn’t very pleased with how she looked in Rebels (a lot of the character design in that series was very stylized) and her live action appearance here is closer to her original look in The Clone Wars. Plus it is live action so it is bound to be different. I somewhat expect Asoka to show up next week and for Cad Bane to be defeated and escape. His appearance here is very organic (other than he is really old at this point) because this is the sort of thing he does and it makes sense for the Pike Syndicate to hire him.

I think the series could have been better arranged. I think they should have started it out with Boba Fett escaping the Sarlaac and just done a chronological story instead of flashbacks. I think there should have been some other scenes of Fennic recruiting muscle in the last two episodes and saved some of Din’s story for the his next season. But overall I like where the story is going and I love the characters and how things are intertwining. Star Wars is all about things being interconnected and I love that Filoni (who has taken many lessons from George himself) crafts such excellent long term arcs. There are still a lot of unanswered questions in the post ROTJ world that I think these series are going to address.

I guess for me, part of what makes something fan service (and why it’s a problem) is that it feels pointless beyond giving the audience something to point at and go “hey, I recognize that.” Luke being so prominent in the Book of Boba Fett doesn’t really serve the story. It’s just there so fans can think, “hey it’s Luke! I remember him!”

Hal 9000 said:

With time, you will eventually see a piece of media depicting Grogu being trained by Rey Skywalker.

Grossgrossgrossgrossgrossgross eewwwwwwwww

MalaStrana#2 said:

Cthulhunicron said:

Apparently.

I’m of the the opinion that as much as I love Star Wars, it’s kind of limited. I’ve mentioned this on forums before, and people have responded by saying that the galaxy far far away has all this unlimited potential for different stories. But it really seems like all anybody wants is endless stories about Luke, Han, and Leia.

This is such a disgrace. Disney is not killing SW: it’s the ones who praise this shit who are responsible.

Wow, I didn’t think you’d resort to insulting people who like this series. But here we are!

MalaStrana#2 said:

« Member Luke and Yoda training ? »
« Member Luke wearing black outfit? »
« Member the training sphere? »
« Member Yoda’s tiny lightsaber? »

This is such a disgrace. Disney is not killing SW: it’s the ones who praise this shit who are responsible. Endless stuff we have already seen… The Kenobi series is probably going to just be a patch to stage scenes we know about from the movies. Creativity is seriously brain dead here.

Funny thing is that the only stuff looking a bit different - the shinny biker gang - got a « fan » backlash.

Have you seen Matrix 4? It’s not good at all but in the opening scene there is a panel in the background : « For those who love to eat shit ».

Well…

Disney DID kill Star Wars. This is their attempt to pull the franchise back from the grave they put it in with the sequel trilogy. They’ve now swung completely into the opposite direction by doing heavy fan service to try and give fans what they think they want, and re-entice them to return to the franchise those people once loved.

While I agree that they are memberberrying it up, I don’t see anything wrong with what they are doing with Luke. They completely ruined his character in Last Jedi, and now we are finally seeing him do something a lot of fans wanted to see from the beginning. TRAINING HIS STUDENTS. Not him being a miserable failure like they presented him in the ST. Is it so weird to see him reusing lessons that both his masters used to teach him? Yeah it’s memberberries. But does it really not seem plausible?

As a fan of TLJ and how it handled Luke’s character arc, I take umbrage with that statement. It seems you can’t go a page on here without rampant ST hate and a willingness to vilify anybody who defends it.

If anything, this most recent episode is showing how Luke became the person he despised in TLJ. This is him as his pride and inexperience was getting the better of him.

Tobar said:

yotsuya said:

And Mark is a voice actor. A very good one. I believe the voice is his, but they have adjusted it to sound younger. I found his appearance in the episode to be very well done.

They used a program called Respeecher, a neural network powered voice synthesizer. Here’s Matt Wood on the process:

Matt Wood said:

It’s a neural network you feed information into and it learns. So I had archival material from Mark in that era. We had clean recorded ADR from the original films, a book on tape he’d done from those eras, and then also Star Wars radio plays he had done back in that time. I was able to get clean recordings of that, feed it into the system, and they were able to slice it up and feed their neural network to learn this data.

Isn’t cinema magical?

BedeHistory731 said:

As a fan of TLJ and how it handled Luke’s character arc, I take umbrage with that statement. It seems you can’t go a page on here without rampant ST hate and a willingness to vilify anybody who defends it.

If anything, this most recent episode is showing how Luke became the person he despised in TLJ. This is him as his pride and inexperience was getting the better of him.

I don’t remember vilifying anyone for liking or defending it. I think the ST is awful and completely ruined the entire saga, but hey if you like it that’s cool. I for one am hoping that whatever this “climactic story event” ending to Mando, Boba, and the Ashoka show can be a satisfying Post-OT conclusion, since the ST did the exact opposite for me.

WitchDR said:

BedeHistory731 said:

As a fan of TLJ and how it handled Luke’s character arc, I take umbrage with that statement. It seems you can’t go a page on here without rampant ST hate and a willingness to vilify anybody who defends it.

If anything, this most recent episode is showing how Luke became the person he despised in TLJ. This is him as his pride and inexperience was getting the better of him.

I don’t remember vilifying anyone for liking or defending it. I think the ST is awful and completely ruined the entire saga, but hey if you like it that’s cool.

It absolutely did not ruin the saga, but if you want to hate it that’s cool. I’m more referring to the gatekeeping in the post you initially quoted.

I for one am hoping that whatever this “climactic story event” ending to Mando, Boba, and the Ashoka show can be a satisfying Post-OT conclusion, since the ST did the exact opposite for me.

Why not just make the OT your conclusion? That is what some people here want anyway.

BedeHistory731 said:

It absolutely did not ruin the saga, but if you want to hate it that’s cool. I’m more referring to the gatekeeping in the post you initially quoted.

It might not have ruined it for you, but it did ruin it for a large chunk of the fanbase. You can’t ignore that. I don’t like the gatekeeping either, you can like whatever you like. I ain’t here to tell you what to like. I hate what Disney has done to Star Wars, but to me, BoBF is doing what I wanted to see from Post-OT. I wanted to see Luke starting his Jedi Academy.

Why not just make the OT your conclusion? That is what some people here want anyway.

Unfortunately I’m addicted to Star Wars and want more. I hate the ST, but I don’t hate Mando and BoBF. These series are giving me more of what I wanted to see Post-OT, so I’d love to see them have a conclusion that I’m satisfied with.

jedi_bendu said:

WitchDR said:

They completely ruined his character in Last Jedi, and now we are finally seeing him do something a lot of fans wanted to see from the beginning. TRAINING HIS STUDENTS. Not him being a miserable failure like they presented him in the ST.

Either that is setting up him trying to follow the ancient Jedi dogma too strictly and failing as he indicates in TLJ, or it is out of character.

That seems to be exactly what’s happening. If Grogu chooses the beskar, it’s likely that Luke will double down on the ancient dogma too much. If Grogu chooses the lightsaber, that will also lead Luke down the dogmatic path.

BedeHistory731 said:

MalaStrana#2 said:

Cthulhunicron said:

Apparently.

I’m of the the opinion that as much as I love Star Wars, it’s kind of limited. I’ve mentioned this on forums before, and people have responded by saying that the galaxy far far away has all this unlimited potential for different stories. But it really seems like all anybody wants is endless stories about Luke, Han, and Leia.

This is such a disgrace. Disney is not killing SW: it’s the ones who praise this shit who are responsible.

Wow, I didn’t think you’d resort to insulting people who like this series. But here we are!

I recognize that it isn’t quite as good as The Mandalorian, but it is still a good series. I think a lot will tie together in the finale. And considering how much time Boba Fett took up in Season 2, it was nice to Din on screen. It had a point as it setup his return to Help Boba. It could have pulled him out of nowhere, but what is the fun of that.

And isn’t anyone thinking about all the fun twists by having Boba Fett, Ahsoka Tano, and Luke Sykwalker in the same place? Filoni has quite a long trail of stories that can make for some interesting twists. They could really complicate the finale. The main saga is full of interconnections and links and Filoni crafted the same sort of thing in the 5 previous series. We are following a parallel but intersecting story that goes from the prequels to the sequels. And a lot of what Filoni has done came from George. Finding out Darth Maul (or just Maul now) was still alive and finding a new way was something that George insisted Filoni include in the Clone Wars.

When you have so much interlinking, it isn’t fan service continue what you started. Fan service is a something that is shoehorned in that isn’t really part of the story. A prime example is Dr. Evazan and Ponda Baba in Rogue one is exactly that. What are they even doing there? Is there any point to their appearance? At least R2 and Threepio later have a purpose, to hint that their role is about to start and we might see Leia. But those two are useless. They had to hop a transport to Mos Eisley immediately after we see them an that just doesn’t feel right.

Also, easter eggs aren’t fan service. They lie in the background and don’t impact the story. There are a lot of them sprinkled throughout the saga. We had a lot of them in Solo. Especially in Dryden Vos’s ship. And then you have intersecting stories where a significant character from one series or film shows up in another series or film. Filoni does a lot of that. And never without purpose or just to please fans. No, he always does it with the story in mind. Cad Bane, Luke, Ahsoka, Grogu, Din, they all are in this series for a reason and the finale will likely reveal the reason. Fennic Shand and Cad Bane get a rematch. So that makes a lot of sense. How the others will link we don’t yet know. But it could be epic. That some are writing it off as fan service ignores the quality of writing we have already seen that has been epic.

A lot of my opinions have already been reflected in previous posts, but I’ll share a critique and a compliment.

I know it is a cliché, but I think Boba’s character change could’ve been better explained, and been interesting, if he got amnesia while he was in the Sarlacc. I know Legends had this idea that sarlaccs could assimilate the thoughts and memories of their victims, so there could’ve been a lore explanation to it. So when he wakes up in the desert, without his armor, he has no idea who he is or how he really got there. Then he begins living with the Tuskens and the story could play out similarly.

But when he saves Fennec, she recognizes him and reveals him who he is. This would give us an opportunity to have flashbacks of Boba Fett in his prime hunting days, which we’ve actually never seen in live action if you think about it. Boba really doesn’t do much in the OT, so it could’ve been a good opportunity to see where Boba got his reputation as a “cold-blooded killer”, and the greatest bounty hunter in the galaxy.

And more importantly to the narrative, we can see how Boba reacts to the contrast of who he used to be and who he is now, and see how he integrates his new life with his old one.

But I do think the story works well as-is, but I think it would’ve helped if we got a better understanding of who he was before he fell into the pit to understand how the desert really changed him.

On a positive note, I’ve liked some of the direction in the past two episodes. Bryce Dallas Howard did a great job with the last episode, and the long take in the lounge on ringworld made me raise up in my seat. Seeing more creative direction in Star Wars is exactly what I want to see. Because right now, I feel like we’re getting some good Star Wars television, but does it really stand on its own as good television?

I also enjoyed the Cobb Vanth and Cad Bane duel. I appreciate how Filoni stretched it out, allowing their to be these awkward pauses between their replies to build up tension. As well as the direction with the eyes, showing the Deputy’s nervousness and Cobb’s concern for his Deputy, which made him vulnerable to Cad’s quick draw. It reminded me a lot of how Filoni did Maul and Obi-Wan’s duel in Rebels. It’s clear character through action.

Star Wars television so far has felt pretty experimental in a few different ways (like some of the big narrative choices this season), but I hope they keep pushing projects to take more risks and not be afraid to stray off the path of the formula.

RogueLeader said:

I know it is a cliché, but I think Boba’s character change could’ve been better explained, and been interesting, if he got amnesia while he was in the Sarlacc. I know Legends had this idea that sarlaccs could assimilate the thoughts and memories of their victims, so there could’ve been a lore explanation to it. So when he wakes up in the desert, without his armor, he has no idea who he is or how he really got there. Then he begins living with the Tuskens and the story could play out similarly.

But when he saves Fennec, she recognizes him and reveals him who he is. This would give us an opportunity to have flashbacks of Boba Fett in his prime hunting days, which we’ve actually never seen in live action if you think about it. Boba really doesn’t do much in the OT, so it could’ve been a good opportunity to see where Boba got his reputation as a “cold-blooded killer”, and the greatest bounty hunter in the galaxy.

And more importantly to the narrative, we can see how Boba reacts to the contrast of who he used to be and who he is now, and see how he integrates his new life with his old one.

But I do think the story works well as-is, but I think it would’ve helped if we got a better understanding of who he was before he fell into the pit to understand how the desert really changed him.

Very much agree that a fully fleshed out ‘amnesia’ plot could have been a great way to show some terrific ‘flashback’ moments of Boba’s past ‘bounty hunting’ exploits, as well as better ‘explain’ why he ended up searching the ‘Sarlacc’ for his armour.

As it stands, I just want to great rid of that particular ‘Sarlacc’ sequence altogether, due to it not being clear that he somehow forgot that he DIDN’T emerge from the beast in only his ‘long johns’. A pity, as it was a pretty neat-looking sequence overall. But the notion that he can’t remember that he got out wearing his armour just seems implausible, the way things were shown in the first episode. Luckily, it would be straightforward to remove that scene without impacting on the episode in any way.

The latest 6th episode has thrown up plenty for me to think about too, and I’ll go into some thoughts on that when I have some time soon.

RogueLeader said:

A lot of my opinions have already been reflected in previous posts, but I’ll share a critique and a compliment.

I know it is a cliché, but I think Boba’s character change could’ve been better explained, and been interesting, if he got amnesia while he was in the Sarlacc. I know Legends had this idea that sarlaccs could assimilate the thoughts and memories of their victims, so there could’ve been a lore explanation to it. So when he wakes up in the desert, without his armor, he has no idea who he is or how he really got there. Then he begins living with the Tuskens and the story could play out similarly.

Amnesia is a cliche but it would work well in-universe. There is precedent with Bor Gullet, Bodhi Rook certainly appears to have some memory loss from being exposed to that monster, and it seems pretty similar to the Sarlaac.

Maybe a fan editor might be able to get some milage from it. It would explain why he thinks his armor might be in the Sarlaac, and his voyage of personal rediscovery could also put a new slant on his declaration “I am Boba Fett”.