Spoilers Book of Boba Fett [Spoiler Discussion]

[BigJake]

Just watched episode 6 of this... I think if 5 and 6 had formed the first two episodes of The Mandalorian Season 3 I would have been fine with it, but they've sidelined Boba Fett for a third of his inaugural season now.

I guess it'll be worth it if the whole thing manages to set up a sufficiently epic season finale, but this rather annoys me too.

If I'm going to get flamed, so be it, but six episodes in and The Book of Boba Fett has nothing to say. It's a gauche Easter Egg dispensary that exists purely to scratch a fan service itch whilst riffing off the same vapid 'Sergio Leone In Space' schtick that The Mandalorian has been emptily running with for two seasons. I wish Fett had stayed dead in the Sarlacc Pit.

Hah. I can't help but admire the rhetorical verve of "gauche Easter Egg dispensary" in particular.

I do happen to be the target audience, if the target audience is the intersection point of "people who like gangster dramas," "people who dug the Space Western schtick," and "people who've wanted to see Temuera Morrison flex his muscles as an Honorable Space Maori since we heard about the casting of Jango Fett" (one of those weird things from the Prequel Trilogy that had an element of cool to go with the silliness). That is a really specific intersection of interests and I'm frankly surprised they made a show to cater to it at all, so hey. Lucky me, I guess.

But I'm not going to pretend it's deep. The show hasn't really explained Boba's transition from villainous bounty hunter to Honorable Space Maori, it's a bit of an awkward pastiche, and having whole-assed episodes of The Mandalorian parachuted into the format has arguably done it no favors. If you're there for Temuera Morrison, Honorable Space Maori, though... then the only real thing to complain about is when the episodes don't have him.

 

[O'Dib]

For the people saying "Cad Bane is the wrong color":

For lack of hair their skin clearly turns white with age. The face is proportioned differently to allow for a human performance, though I had wondered if his speech was puppetry.

 

[Richard S. Ta]

For lack of hair their skin clearly turns white with age. The face is proportioned differently to allow for a human performance, though I had wondered if his speech was puppetry.

I thought his face was CGI?

The SFX in these shows is superlative. It’s very difficult to draw the line between digital and practical at times.

 

[JD]

When it comes to the title character not appearing or barely appearing in the last couple episodes, it's really not that unusual for a show that is carried almost entirely by one or two people to have a a few episodes where those characters don't appear. Back when Dr. Who had just the Doctor and one companion, they regularly had one Doctor only episode and one companion only episode. I'm pretty sure there were also at least one or two episodes of Supernatural with very little or without at least one of the Winchester Bros.

 

[Richard S. Ta]

When it comes to the title character not appearing or barely appearing in the last couple episodes, it's really not that unusual for a show that is carried almost entirely by one or two people to have a a few episodes where those characters don't appear. Back when Dr. Who had just the Doctor and one companion, they regularly had one Doctor only episode and one companion only episode. I'm pretty sure there were also at least one or two episodes of Supernatural with very little or without at least one of the Winchester Bros.

That analogy might work if we got an episode focussed on Shand. I had no objection in all honesty to have one episode of Boba focussed on Mando.

It’s when we get into lengthy Luke/Grogu training montages that the show completely fails to be relevant to its’ titular character though.

That’s not to say it wasn’t nice to see. I just feel it could have been saved for Mando S3. Fett has been largely absent from his own show for a good ninety minutes of its’ runtime now. One scene scratching his chin thinking about what to do, unless I’m mistaken?

 

[JD]

I wasn't making a specific analogy, I was just pointing out that it's not as unusual for the shows with very small casts to have episodes where the main characters don't appear.

 

[Reverend]

Let's all just take a moment to appreciate the design of the ant droids (that I am choosing to call 'Binary Load Lifters' because you can't stop me) and how perfectly the suit the OT aesthetic.
They look like they walked right in off the set of ANH. Like if the PD crew on the Tunisia shoot just haphazardly bolted three GNK shells together with a bunch of tent poles, slapped some white paint on it, and just shoved it in the deep background next to that weird flying spider thing, this is what that would have looked like.

I'm assuming they're surplus Alliance droids, probably the things they dropped off when establishing a new base to get the basic construction work done. Hell, these things have have even helped build Echo Base. Probably originally pre-Clone Wars Techno-Union model used for settlers colonising frontier worlds. Indeed, they don't look entirely dissimilar for a certain other Baktoid design.

Oh and random thing that I noticed re-watching the episode today; in the Order 66 flashback scene, the shouts you can hear are clearly those of children. From context we can assume that a bunch of the infant initiates and young padawans were being protected by those three Knights/Masters in one of the dormitory areas. Maybe cornered trying to make it out, maybe trying to barricade themselves in to make a stand at a choke point.
Also noticed that the reflection of the clones in Gorgu's eyes is obscured right before everything goes dark. This could just be artistic licence for his memories going dark, or it could be that someone stood right in front of him. Maybe Barris (somehow?!), maybe one of the initiates, or Vader? Maybe even Katooni or Gungi or something?

Because he really isn't anymore.

And let's be honest, he never really got to the level of "villain" in the first place. At his worst he was only ever got to the level of "henchman". And a hired henchman at that.

The face is proportioned differently to allow for a human performance, though I had wondered if his speech was puppetry.

If I had to guess, I'd say everything but the eyes was prosthetic make-up, and the eyes were CG. They probably replaced everything above the cheeks and bridge of the "nose" too including the empty eye-sockets, in order to seamlessly animate and blend the composite elements together, while of course using the original for lighting reference for extra fidelity.

The giveaway is the reflection in the eyes. It's just a little too perfectly clear.

 

[Tuskin38]

Semi related, but their reasoning for giving Thrawn pupil's in Rebels was to help with emoting and to tell where he was looking, really doesn't hold up when you have Cad Bane in clone wars without them fine.

 

[Jayson1]

I still think the main issue with Boba Fett missing a couple of episodes has more to do with how few episodes the show has compared to how familiar situations happened in the past. Yet both episodes were brilliant so even then I don't see much to complain about. Those 2 episodes have been really fun to watch.

 

[fireproof78]

I've limited desire to watch it because Fett is not in it.

 

[Sketcher]

I'll laugh (out of sadness) if all we get of Boba Fett in the finale is him in his helmet on, using sound bites from previous episodes.

 

[Richard S. Ta]

And let's be honest, he never really got to the level of "villain" in the first place. At his worst he was only ever got to the level of "henchman". And a hired henchman at that.

In TESB he freezes one of the protagonists into a block of ice in front of said protagonists crying girlfriend, then drags away said block of ice to collect a fat cheque. He’s not a chatty man but most of his few lines are directed conversationally at Vader. He shoots at Luke in Cloud City.

He falls into Jabba’s team in the sail barge battle and shoots at our protagonists again (and there’s nothing to say he was hired to do that).

You can frame him as villain, henchman, whatever, but he was never presented to the audience as a good person before this show.

 

[Reverend]

Semi related, but their reasoning for giving Thrawn pupil's in Rebels was to help with emoting and to tell where he was looking, really doesn't hold up when you have Cad Bane in clone wars without them fine.

It's debatable. I think the reasoning is that since Thrawn is a very contemplative character, it would have hobbled them somewhat if he just had a blank stare. Sure there's a reasonable argument to be made that it make him more mysterious, but on the other hand there are scenes where the audience really does need to understand what he's thinking just by what his eyes are doing.

Whether they'll take a similar approach with his live action incarnation remains to be seen of course. A flesh and blood actor has more emotive flexibility, so it might not be such a pressing requirement.

All that said, if one looks closely one can see that Bane's eyes aren't uniformly red and do have both a subtle gradient akin to an iris and a very VERY tiny pinprick of a pupil at the centre.

In TESB he freezes one of the protagonists into a block of ice in front of said protagonists crying girlfriend, then drags away said block of ice to collect a fat cheque. He shoots at Luke in Cloud City. He falls into Jabba’s team in the sail barge battle.

You can frame him as villain, henchman, whatever, but he was never presented to the audience as a good person before this show.

Uh huh. You're thinking of Vader. Boba's just there to take his payment. Indeed, he protests on the grounds that he can't get paid if Vader freezes a corpse. His only interest here is money, not malevolence.

 

[Jayson1]

More funny if the season final has nothing to do with anything we have seen in any of the episodes. It's all about MacLunkey hanging out with Jar Jar in a day in the life episode were they wile the time away eating and watching amateur pod racing and then getting drunk at a local bar.

 

[Richard S. Ta]

Uh huh. You're thinking of Vader. Boba's just there to take his payment. Indeed, he protests on the grounds that he can't get paid if Vader freezes a corpse.

Your right that it’s not Fett that switches on the freezer. I’m actually not sure it’s Vader either.

Still, shooting at Luke. Sail barge battle. Nobody who watched the original trilogy way back when thought ‘hey, maybe Boba Fett is a decent guy who’s just misunderstood”.

 

[Reverend]

Your right that it’s not Fett that switches on the freezer. I’m actually not sure it’s Vader either.

Still, shooting at Luke. Sail barge battle. Nobody who watched the original trilogy way back when thought ‘hey, maybe Boba Fett is a decent guy who’s just misunderstood”.

That's his job. He was literally being paid to protect Jabba. A guy with a lightsaber starts offing his employer's guards, it's not like he has the option to just stand around looking enigmatic.

 

[fireproof78]

Still, shooting at Luke. Sail barge battle. Nobody who watched the original trilogy way back when thought ‘hey, maybe Boba Fett is a decent guy who’s just misunderstood”.

Because he's not. He was presented as villain, one with a code of honor perhaps but still a villain. Even in the books he is not misunderstood.

 

[Turtletrekker]

I wonder if Bane still has Todo?

n

 

[Reverend]

Because he's not. He was presented as villain, one with a code of honor perhaps but still a villain. Even in the books he is not misunderstood.

I don't disagree. I was mostly just talking about his role in those particular stories. In both cases, Vader and Jabba were THE villains of the piece. His function was that if "henchman". Just as Vader was the henchman in ANH. I'm not saying it makes him "an OK bloke" or in anyway misunderstood. Just keeping things in perspective.

I wonder if Bane still has Todo?

n

I think it seems like a safe bet.

 

[cooleddie74]

I hope Seth Green comes back to voice him if he does.