‘The Book of Boba Fett’ S1, Episode 2 “The Tribes of Tatooine” Recap

Chapter Two of The Book of Boba Fett, “The Tribes of Tatooine,” opens with a gorgeous shot of Jabba’s Palace with two figures heading to the gate. Fennec Shand (Ming-Na Wen) escorts her prisoner, the would-be assassin she caught at the end of the first episode, up the drive to the palace. Their entrance harkens to Luke’s entrance in Return of the Jedi, minus the foreboding atmosphere and the chittering B’omarr monks. Inside, Boba Fett (Temuera Morrison) sits on his throne, flanked by Fennec as they question the prisoner.

The prisoner will not respond to the threat of losing his head and hurls an insult in Huttese in protest. When he doesn’t speak further, 8D8 (voiced by Matt Berry) explains that the prisoner is from the Order of the Night Wind. Fennec isn’t impressed by their overrated reputation and decisively drops him into the Rancor pit. The failed assassin begs to be let out while confessing that the mayor sent him. Ming-Na Wen’s eye roll at the mention of the Order of the Night Wind would have more appropriately been edited to respond to this plot convenience.

Cut to Mos Espa. Fennec and Boba Fett march the prisoner with their Gamorrean Guards behind them. It feels necessary to point out that the Gamorrean costumes and makeup look superb. They are, without a doubt, the best rendition from the classic Episode origins. However, it seems directors Dave Filoni and Steph Green neglected to mention to the actors who play them that they don’t walk like gym rats. They waddle like over-stuffed pigs with bunions. It’s something any Star Wars fan can get past as these characters and species evolve on the screen, but the classic magic appears to have gone missing since the attention to detail paid in The Mandalorian.

The party, sans guards, enters the offices of Mayor Mok Shaiz (voiced by Robert Rodriguez). Has anyone else noticed how similar that sounds to Mayor McCheese? The actor playing the bored receptionist delivers his lines as if waiting for the cue to move off-screen. When Fett and company are denied entry, they muscle their way in despite the protest of the Twi’lek, Mok Shaiz’s Majordomo (David Pasquesi). The mayor is an Ithorian, otherwise known as a “Hammerhead.” This one looks a little like the one you know from three seconds on screen in Star Wars: A New Hope, but he’s a convincing animatronic. If there is any CGI there, it’s undetectable, meaning this alien looks real. We’re back in. He speaks Ithorese through a translator device, and somehow, the character of Mayor Mok Shaiz convinces me of his motivations more than any of the humans thus far.

Mok Shaiz has his guards execute the assassin while denying any connection to him. He explains that Order of the Night Wind cannot operate outside of Hutt space. The implication here goes over everyone’s head, but fans of media from the expanded universe understand what’s coming. The mayor offers a bounty for bringing the assassin in, but in a battle of egos, Boba Fett accepts it as the tribute he should have sent previously. “I am not a bounty hunter,” Fett says. His voice lacks conviction. That might be all you ever were, Mr. Fett. Shaiz offers the advice, “Running a family is more complicated than bounty hunting,” and sends the party to Garsa’s Sanctuary for better understanding.

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Entering Garsa Fwip’s (Jennifer Beals) high-end cantina, just down the street in Mos Espa, Boba and Fennec are greeted with apprehension. It seems the operator of the establishment is perturbed by Fett’s presence. It telegraphs what we already suspect, but some good from the comics universe is about to hit the screen. See my note on Triple Zero in the concept art of the credits from the last paragraph of the Chapter 1 recap. I may have stumbled onto something we’re all going to want to see. A drumbeat from the street announces the arrival of “The Twins,” a pair of Hutts, cousins to Jabba, who now lay claim to his territory. The quips and jabs at Boba Fett for not being carried on a litter over the course of two episodes finally pay off. In my best Columbo voice, “Excuse me, Mr. Filoni, just one more question. How is it that it only takes fourteen humanoid creatures to carry a litter bearing not one but two Hutts? These space slugs are very heavy, no? Just asking.” Columbo goes on to ask why there’s no canopy sheltering the twins from the twin suns of the desert planet. It must have added too much weight for the guys holding up that heavy CGI. The Hutts were well done, though. Star Wars learned its lesson after backlash on the Special Editions.

The Hutts leave with no incident, but as Fennec states, this isn’t over. Want to know why? Because of Santy! Santy is a large black-haired Wookiee who was previously only seen in the comics! Instantly recognizable to fans, but for some reason, it didn’t seem Boba Fett recognized him as anything other than a gladiator; though they both worked bounties under the direction of Darth Vader himself. Black Krrsantan, known as BK or Black K by Doctor Aphra (Marvel Comics) also goes by the handle, Santy. It’s reminiscent of how Wookies need to have a more easily pronounced, pet-like nickname (eg. Chewy). We’ll be disappointed, after this momentous introduction, if Santy amounts to a mere cameo. There better be a fight with Boba Fett coming. Or maybe this is the story group’s way of introducing a live-action Doctor Aphra. Yes, please.

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We cut back to Jabba’s Palace, inside Boba Fett’s quarters, where Bacta tank dreams flash us back to his time with the Tuskens again. Everything before this moment was at least promising, but the extended montages and awkward acting in the scenes in the desert are excruciating.

Some may enjoy the content because we all love Boba Fett, but these scenes diminish the character while attempting to show growth. The unconvincing behavior of the tribe(s) just looks like cosplay and LARPing. The cast goes through the motions of training, farming, playing, and trying to remember what the director told them to do inside the space of the camera. There are no establishing shots that pull back enough to see the context. These guys just hang out on the heat of the day on a desert planet raking a few inches to find “black melons” and practice fighting. They perform their tasks dangerously close to a trade route that gets them and their Banthas regularly killed. A “Long Speeder,” an armed cargo train without tracks, passes through this section of the Dune Sea and it takes the human savior, Boba Fett, to rid the tribes of this menace. The RAIDERS never thought to hijack the train themselves.

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Somehow, the once prisoner Boba Fett convinces the tribe leader that he’ll be “back in the morning” as he heads off to chase the train. Having seen a gang of Nikto speeder bikers passing through the canyon (Mr. Filoni, there aren’t canyons in the Dune Sea), he seizes the opportunity to steal their bikes. Boba Fett is now a bike thief. He tracks the group to a dark oasis bar in the middle of nowhere and beats up the entire group with his training gaffi stick. Apparently, they are big enough to hassle local patrons, but not bad enough to carry blasters. The blatant missed opportunity to have Boba Fett deliver Han Solo’s line, “Sorry about the mess,” was a major disappointment. Fan service has its place, and that was the place. The only difference was that the Greedo scene had tension. This brawl scene was dull and predictable.

When Fett presents the speeder bikes to the tribe leader in the morning he calls them a gift. In a comedic turn, the others begin vandalizing and dismantling the bikes as Fett turns to yell, “These are mine! Stop!” It’s confusing the way we are constantly bobbing between the ideas that Tuskens are savages or that they are a civil group of nomads with culture and sophistication. They understand blaster rifles, but they destroy transportation technology they don’t understand. Skip ahead through another extended montage of teaching these goofballs to ride speeder bikes.

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Next is the expected heist scene. We needed another train robbery in Star Wars, so Fett and the Tuskens plan an ambush to derail the freighter that’s been terrorizing them. After a tediously choreographed fight scene, Fett scares the engineer droid off the moving train, and he proceeds to stop it the same way Bugs Bunny stopped the airplane from crashing when a gremlin was his antagonist. He struggles mightily to pull the emergency brake, not recognizing any of the controls with his years of experience as a pilot. Of course, the thing hasn’t been lubricated in years. Must be a leak in the power break. The forced drama in this episode better not be indicative of where The Book of Boba Fett is going.

Now that Boba Fett has proven his mettle and loyalty to the tribe of Tuskens, they decide it’s time he joined them. This constitutes having fairy dust blown in his eyes while the gift of a lizard skitters up his nostril into his brain. Unsurprisingly, he hallucinates and goes off on a vision quest to break a branch of some sacred tree guarded by Jawas. We are treated to more unnecessary flashbacks to Boba Fett’s past, AKA more scrap footage from Attack of the Clones, all before the unsurprising culmination. The tribe ceremoniously dresses him, finally. His under-suit was getting tiresome. Then they walk us through another monotonous montage as he forges his own gaffi stick with his prize branch and some scraps of metal.

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Temuera Morrison’s face, as he gestures, “Is this how you do it? Teach me, wise Tusken smith,” is painful to watch. Let’s get back to the helmet and keep it on, shall we? Pedro Pascal is snickering at home if he’s bothering to watch this. There’s a reason the scene with Luke performing the final touches on his green lightsaber was cut from Return of the Jedi. It’s not essential storytelling. Even George Lucas knew that. Yet, we are subjected to three full minutes of Boba Fett measuring and carving his stick, followed by a line dance with his new pals. The closing credits couldn’t come soon enough. The Tusken story is a failure. It’s fulfilled, though. We get it. Let’s move the story back to the present time. The Fennec and Boba relationship needs more tension. It’s time to deal with the big, scary Wookiee and the spoiled twin Hutts.  See you next week.