Full disclosure I never watched either The Mandalorian or The Book of Boba Fett. I kept meaning to watch the former, but just never managed to get around to it, and other than 1 or 2 arcs of The Clone Wars I never much cared about Fett as a character so didn’t really have an interest in seeing his book anyway. So my first experience with the Live-Action Disney Star Wars Shows is this one. As this thread shows there are a lot of mixed feelings about this show. I kind of understand what people are talking about when they say the series looks cheap. I think cheap is the wrong word, but more that it seems a bit off. Specifically, it’s the CG. It’s not well integrated and looks obvious whenever it shows up so it looks off. And it’s only ever on Tattooine the way everything else looks is great.
I’ve also only watched episode 1 so far, and while I’ve read a ton of complaints, so far I can’t say agree with many of them. I agree that sometimes the show looks cheap for lack of a better term and that there are some issues with the Inquisitors. I mostly like them, but all of their scenes last too long. Specifically, when any of them is making a speech they pontificate for like a minute too long, and it would be more impactful if their scenes were cut shorter. I don’t know why people are complaining about their acting, or that the characters are often against each other. The acting throughout the entire show, except for maybe that one Jedi and a few scenes with Leia is fantastic, and the Inquisitor’s infighting makes sense to me. They’re Sith and constantly trying to shore up their own positions by putting their coworkers down which feels like a really Sith thing to do.
My biggest complaint is that episode 1 is around 5-10 minutes too long. They should have shifted the Jedi dying to before Leia got kidnapped and ended the episode right where the Organa ask Obi-Wan for help. Don’t get me wrong I like the scene between Bail and Ben, but nothing after Obi-Wan discovers the dead Jedi is needed. Every other scene other than the reveal that Reva is behind the kidnapping isn’t necessary and I think that episode could just be the opening of episode 2 instead. If they just tightened up the Inquisitor’s scenes a bit and ended the episode in the right place I’d have no complaints other than how the series sometimes looks. As it is this is the only live-action Star Wars show, that I’ve actually been excited about and so far it’s met my expectations. Maybe my thoughts will change with episodes 2 and 3 but so far I think the show is really good if a bit slow. However, given that the show seems to be more introspective it feels intentional.