Bit of a mixed bag this time. The chase scene was a bit of a clunker, could have done with a lot more of that old school Star Wars "faster, more intense!" direction. The fate of the Tusken tribe seems both perfunctory and inevitable. I didn't see the female warrior among the dead (though Fett did find her gaderffii) so I kinda hope she'll show up again, maybe even in the present day. Not sure what the Hutts are up to. It's possible they could be on the level and are just not interested in getting pulled into a turf war with the Pykes when they're mostly trying to consolidate their holdings after chaos of the war and the dual power vacuum left by both Jabba and the Empire, and Tatooine just isn't worth the expense. Plus, Hutts are long lived and very patient. One assumes the idea is to sit back and allow Fett and the Pykes to fight it out, see who comes out on top, then figure out how to deal with them once they're good and weakened. Indeed, the symbolism of the lazy, patient worrt swallowing the scurrier and urusai both while they're busy paying attention to each other seems to support this notion. Though in the end, who is the worrt and who are the other two remains to be seen. There's always a bigger fi-uh, sand frog . . . Glad to see Krrsantan lives to glare menacingly another day, and for those hoping for some kind of rematch or rivalry between Boba and Han and/or Luke, his handling of this should be an indicator of his attitude. I always thought it idiotic in the EU how they tried to maintain a decades long feud between those parties. Han owed Jabba money. Jabba paid Boba for guard work. Luke busted him out, Boba got caught by a combination of a trigger happy deck gunner and a lucky strike from a vibro-axe while he was trying to shoot Luke from behind. It's just business. Nothing personal. Great to finally see Danny Trejo in a Star War. I was kinda hoping for this ever since I heard Robert Rodriguez was getting involved with 'The Mandalorian', and rancor keeper seems like the perfect fit for him. The easter eggs were as fun as ever though. The spider-droid. The diegetic use of a Ralph McQuarrie painting. The meilooruns. The Dathomir namecheck and the allusion to the witches riding rancors, and (I think) a sideways reference to Boba's introduction in the Holiday Special.
F'n Trejo! I couldn't help but let out a woot! when I saw him. Gah, I really don't like that gang at all at least from a design perspective, the Elektra Glide hover bikes look dopey and the colors look really out of place on Tattooine. The cyborg designs look really 80s/90s clunky as well. Was the chase scene supposed to look like they just airbrushed the wheels from the vehicles? I do like all the shade Boba gets as daimyo with everyone disrespecting him and trying to take advantage of him. I think there's seeds for a good story there, however, the story of the power struggles and positioning of the pieces is rough. Maybe not Favreau's strongpoint, Breaking Bad this is not so far. The fate of the Tuskens seemed rushed though it does show Fett's struggles at trying to be top dog. I'm hoping this pans out because I think there are good seeds for a story of poser Fett trying to figure out how to haplessly establish himself as kingpin. I feel like there needs to be some occasional moments of good deeds coming back to haunt him. The brevity of the series might not be in the best interest of a storyline like this. The mayor's majordomo reminds me of someone, I think maybe Crispin Glover?
I also like how the gang's hoverbikes looked like 1950s and 1960s cars, probably something George Lucas asked for or the production team did as a way to make him smile.
BTW, I realize my opinion's entirely subjective. If nothing else it was notable. The majordomo's speeder looked like it had some 70s car styling like a LeBaron or something. Even his dash looked like it was out such a car complete with steering wheel.
Yeah, we don't see her body, or the child, just his training stick. We and Fett are meant to think they are dead. I agree, after failing to kill Fett, they learned of the Pike's involvement and decided to step back and let the situation play out. They needed to make peace with Fett before leaving otherwise he would try to strike back and force them back into the situation.
I love how the series flashes back to the AOTC time frame. The more connections with his childhood and his bonds with the people in his life the better.
Yeah, I can't help but wonder if that's just a recurring motif, or if it's building to something more specific. I mean thematically there's a lot of imagery that says Boba is struggling with his own sense of identity and purpose. Is he just a copy of his father, or can he remake himself into his own man? It interesting that in all of this, the takeaway seems to be that Jango was a terrible father. I mean this guy was raised as a foundling in the creed, fought in on of the many many many Mandalorian civil wars, presumably abandons said creed, keeps the armor, becomes a bounty hunter (one of the best, no less!) and when given the opportunity, has an identical clone made of himself and then proceeds to raise said child as a bounty hunter just like him. I mean talk about an egotistical parent inflicting their child with an inferiority complex! One has to imagine that for most of his life Boba did what he did mostly because it's all he knew how to do. No home he can ever go back to. No family he can claim actual kinship with (Omega is very much an unknown quantity at this point.) His only "friends" are also mostly his rivals, depending on who's paying them that week. A life spent chasing down lowlifes and doing the dirty work for scum and villains. And for what? No amount of credits is worth getting swallowed by a sarlacc. Even his current bid to become a crime boss seems like less of a clear plan forwards, and more of a desperate flail of a man that's lost any sense of purpose. He's still in the world he knows, except he doesn't truly know how to navigate it since he spent so much of his life avoiding the politics and just working for whoever was paying the most. I'll be curious to see if he'll actually end up keeping the throne, or finally just leave the life behind him altogether. I think ultimately he'd be happier with the latter.
Everytime we see Kamino I just think of those last Bad Batch s1 episodes Would be cool if in s2 a young Boba could appear in an episode or two and we get to see his reaction to his home being destroyed. And yeah, that chase seemed really slow paced, they looked like they were going about 12mph.
Boba has now lost more than one person who helped protect and mentor him. His father Jango and the Tuskens who saved his life and restored him to health and vitality. When he set the funeral pyre ablaze I can't help but wonder if images of his father's empty helmet in the arena on Geonosis came back to him. They accepted him as family. Now he's lost two families.
Danny Trejo!!!!! Always cool, even if he's just a Rancor handler (if that's all he is....could still be working for the Hutts). The cyberpunk rainbow biker gang was a little silly, but they redeemed themselves a bit.
There something about the space-moped gang that just felt weirdly out of place to me though not for the reasons one might assume, and I think I just realised why: this is the first time Star Wars has EVER portrayed youth culture of any real sort! The closest it's ever come is of course the tosche station deleted scene, and that only just barely qualifies. Sure, we've seen children and teens before. We've seen lowest of the low sewer dwelling urchins on Corellia. We've seen kids raised in a monastic temple run by a load of laser sword waving religious wizards. We've seen child soldiers. Strays. Runaways. But never a group of teens with their own sense of identity. Once I realised that, they suddenly made sense and felt a lot more like they belong Star Wars. No, they don't dress or look like everyone else. They didn't walk in from a Kurosawa, Ford, or Lean movie. They walked in from 'American Graffiti'! They're the post war generation in a nowhere dead-end town.
In other words: that universe's version of some of the kids George knew when he was growing up and racing cars in California.
Yeah, basically. Which is pretty much what Luke and his friends were too, this is just expanding on that. Also: actual crime . . . if you can even call it that in a place like Mos Espa.