It’s the visit to Tatooine we’ve been waiting for since the release of Return of the Jedi (1983). Sure, we’ve only known about The Book of Boba Fett since the finale of season 2 of The Mandalorian, but the Legends out there know what I’m talking about. Dark Horse Comics told the story of Boba Fett’s escape from the Great Pit of Carkoon, and a handful of novels eluded to Fett’s continuation after his uncharacteristic demise, but none of that is canon anymore. Thanks to Jon Favreau, Dave Filoni, and Robert Rodriguez we get to see it play out in a new form. Sorry, George Lucas, you just can’t kill off Boba Fett. You tried. Then you teased us in 1997 with a cameo of the bounty hunter glued into a previously cut scene where Han Solo once spoke to a human Jabba in a fur coat. That guy was CGI’d out in lieu of a space slug Jabba who looked like he’d been on a Jenny Craig diet. But we got our Boba Fett back, even if it was just a nod, literally.
A warning ahead: there will be spoilers. Further warning: I’m not bitter about there being so many canonical stories that went the way of Legends, but it may appear that way in what lies ahead. It’s like learning a language and becoming fluent, only to find out the region of the country you’re visiting speaks an entirely different dialect. There’s a lot of investment that feels wasted, and it’s frustrating. The first gripe is the Tusken Raiders. Speaking now, I will forever hold my peace, but it’s the subtitles that got to me. “Speaking Tusken” shouldn’t make any sense since Tusken, in Legends, was a settlement. Tusken was the first to encounter Sand People when Tatooine was being colonized, hence the name Tusken Raiders. They were attacking to prevent offworlders from stealing their land and resources. Anyway, the spoiler there is that Tuskens (they aren’t even calling them Tusken Raiders now?) play a big part in the plot.
Episode one, “Stranger in a Strange Land,“ opens with a few artfully rendered New Republic era establishing shots around Tatooine, including what once was Jabba’s palace and Boba Fett’s private quarters in the upper tier of the palace. Boba Fett (Temuera Morrison) is sleeping due to off-camera action we’ll never get to see. He’s inside a Bacta tank in Mandalorian “present.” Presumably, he’s got permanent damage from the Sarlacc’s belly juices and needs a touch-up to keep his youthful looks. He dreams of the Kamino cloning facility, then the loss of his clone master/father, Jango Fett, on Geonosis when he dared face Mace Windu (let’s hope this is foreshadowing to an appearance by Samuel Jackson in this series). The dream tells the story of Boba Fett’s escape. He’s badly hurt, and unable to stop Jawas from stripping him down to his long johns. We can deduce that Cobb Vanth (Timothy Olyphant) acquires the stylized Mandalorian armor from the Jawas, and that’s canon, right? Has the continuity team forgotten the Cobb Vanth scene in Chuck Wendig’s Aftermath? Did the Jawas strip Boba Fett, then just drop the armor on the way back to the Sandcrawler? I swear I’m not bitter about the new canon, but be consistent if you’re going to reboot stuff.
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Ahem, so Fett is found by a group of Tuskens, who feed him some kind of carrot puss to rouse him enough to tie him up. They proceed to take him prisoner for undisclosed reasons. He’s made to follow them while linked to a bantha, a parade of which travel in single file to hide their numbers. Thanks for not making Ben Kenobi a liar again, continuity people. Back at camp, he’s tied to a rock so youngling Tuskens can beat him with pretend gaffi sticks. He and a nearby Rodian prisoner are guarded by a lizard dog called a massiff which moves with the same agility as a R.O.U.S. from the Fire Swamp in The Princess Bride. Somehow, with jaws big enough to bite Fett’s head off, Fett manages to knock the sucker out. Too bad Rodians are a weasely species. Fett’s neighboring hostage has Stockholm Syndrome and calls for their captors. In another wasted attempt at escape, Fett is tracked down and recaptured before thankfully waking up to Fennec Shand’s (Ming-Na Wen’s) voice.
“Wake up, boss.” We’re back in the present (post-Mandalorian season 2 finale after Fett has ousted Bib Fortuna). The dirty work was done without us getting the benefit of witnessing even a Godfather-like montage. Local business owners and politicians are lined up to pay tribute to the new crime lord. 8D8, the torture droid from Return of the Jedi, is there to introduce the visitors. An Aqualish sets the standard, followed by a Trandoshan (think bounty hunter Bossk from The Empire Strikes Back) who gives the impression he’ll play an arc role toward the end of the season. It’s the first speaking role for a Trandoshan, who speaks Galaxy Basic. The humanness in his voice makes him less menacing than a Trandoshan should sound. The third to bear tribute to the new boss is a Twi’lek (David Pasquesi) who’s there representing Mayor Mok Shaiz of Mos Espa and the surrounding plateaus. However, he’s not there to pay tribute. His majordomo is there to collect it. It seems as though corruption runs thick on Tatooine. It would have taken a pair of thermal detonators the size of a rancor to speak this kind of insolence to Jabba the Hutt. But Fett offers the overconfident, smooth-talking Twi’lek the gift of leave unmolested. The Twi’lek promises another delegation in the near future as unthreateningly as possible. He basically said, “This ain’t over,” in classy Twi’lek.
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Next order of business, Fett and Shand walk under their own power through the streets of Mos Espa, as opposed to being carried along on a litter like a useless noble. They are flanked by his new Gamorrean bodyguards. They make their way to the local cantina, a higher class than Chalmun’s Spaceport Cantina in Mos Eisley, but Figrin D’an minus the rest of his jazzy Modal Nodes play there gigged up with the famous Max Rebo. It’s an all-star lineup, and they’re playing a Spanish-style version of The Modal Nodes’ hit. Fett is there to touch base with Garsa Fwip (Jennifer Beals), the owner of the establishment. He gently reminds her the business is actually his, and her sexy crew of Twi’leks sends him away with a helmet full of New Republic credits and an invitation to return anytime.
Back on the street after a hard day’s shakedown, Fennec and Boba are jumped by a mysterious group of humans in space ninja garb. They carry vibro-shields and stun sticks, but offer no ultimatum or instruction. I think it’s the mayor’s bullies, but they are no match for Fett’s new guards. Fennec heads off in a parkour pursuit to capture one of them alive. Expect the surprise reveal of who they are in the next episode because Boba Fett needs to get back to his Bacta tank to fix his aching side. Conveniently, that will bring us back to dream flashbacks at the Tusken camp years ago.
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The next two scenes are direct homages to scenes from A New Hope and Return of the Jedi. Boba Fett and the Rodian are trafficked off to the dunes to find some weird buried globes that hold water. Who needs moisture vaporators? Uncle Owen was wasting his time repairing them if he could have just dug up these vessels in the dunes. On the way, they witness a home invasion (and adobe invasion?) as a moisture farmer is robbed of his water. Eerily, he’s beaten down, and prone in the same position as the corpse of Uncle Owen, reminding us that Star Wars can be violent at times. I’d say this is the work of a corrupt mayor, but maybe there’s more to it. You could only see the characters from a distance. I thought they looked like Kadas’sa’Niktos from Jabba’s entourage, but their scales were more pinkish. Maybe they work for the Trandoshan, and Boba Fett isn’t going to have the easy time of rounding up Jabba’s businesses he thought he would. Bib Fortuna made a mess of things.
Fett, the Rodian, and their charge, a singular youngling Tusken, move on. He brought his massiff with him, but it’s already been proven to be pretty useless despite how scary he looks. The Rodian accidentally digs up a Ray Harryhausen creature with six limbs. Come to think of it, it may have been something from Barsoom, but whatever it was, Luke never warned us about anything like a giant irritable sand flea. I guess they don’t make their way to Beggar’s Canyon. A scuffle ensues, and the Rodian is plot removed. Boba Fett climbs on the thing’s back and kills it with his chains. The scene is meant to evoke Leia’s escape from Jabba via chain strangulation. This act puts Fett in the good graces of the Sand People. Hopefully, this conclusion is enough and we don’t have to listen to a loop of grunting in more flashbacks with these Sand People. The point is made that Fett learns a few things from them and eventually moves on.
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Hopefully, the next episode takes us past everything we already expected. Overall it wasn’t a bad start. There was a lot of attention to detail in costumes and set design that paint The Book of Boba Fett into the world of The Mandalorian and, more importantly, Star Wars. Ironically, Temuera Morrison shows his mug all over his title, while Pedro Pascal had to fill out all the forms to allow us to see what’s under his mask for only a few moments. Now that Fett is clear of the Sarlacc, I wouldn’t mind a little more mystery, but the cat’s out of the bag. It may be hard to get back in. We asked for it, though. We asked for more Boba Fett since before we were denied an action figure with a working rocket launcher. It’s not a bad start, but I imagine it can only get better from here.
Bonus note: If you’re the type to watch the credits, we are treated to more concept art. In one image, we see the disembodied head of a dark silver or black protocol droid. It looks similar to Triple-Zero from the Doctor Aphra series. During the scene where locals are paying tribute to Fett, he quips something about needing a protocol droid for translations. It could just be a throwaway detail, but wouldn’t it have been fun if they’d spent more time on the process of taking over? They probably won’t have Fett take out any major comic characters. However, Triple-Zero is annoying enough that I would have liked to have seen a scene where he loses his cool with Trip because he intentionally translated something wrong. That droid is just a pain. Han didn’t know how lucky he was to only have to deal with Threepio.
