The Book of Boba Fett - Episode 3 - Review

While the premier episode didn’t wow me, the second one corrected a few of the issues that I had, it was time to see if the third episode of Boba Fett’s time in the spotlight, could keep the momentum going. It did manage to, but there were some really weird parts that made the episode feel disjointed. 

With the episode starting off with Boba, Fennec and to a lesser extent us, getting an explanation of how the power balance post Jabba played out and still does to this day, there was hope that the show would start to move things forward and eventually it did. Sadly, before that, we got more politicking and while there are times when that works in shows, when you base your show around a legendary bounty hunter, that should be kept to a minimum, but they keep leaning into it. When a random water salesmen turned up, to complain that a street gang was stealing his hard farmed water, I did wonder who would be so terrifying that they would skip over the local gang in control and go straight to Boba Fett, teenagers on space mopeds was not what I was expecting.

The problem with that entire sequence of events, because it all took part before the title card, is that it didn’t move the story forward in any significant way and while there was a nice moment of Boba finally proving he has some stones, at least when it comes to scaring teenagers, it really undercut the tension that opening moments were attempting to build. From that point on the show sped through a lot of information, including another flashback, which in and of itself was quite a sombre one; but the events never really felt all that impactful, even when Boba was ejected from his bacta sleep.

That fight scene got on my nerves, not because it was bad, there were some interesting parts, but it again highlighted the lack of impressive action that Boba delivers. This is meant to be one of the most feared bounty hunters in the galaxy, Darth Vader personally sent him on a mission to locate and capture rebels and yet, now not even 10 years later, he is so useless in a fight, he can’t do anything, even when he is supported by Mos Espa’s space moped gang. When we saw Boba Fett in action against storm troopers, he kicked butt, literal but and while he may have missed a target with his rocket pack, he still hit the target; but now, in his own show, he can’t do anything except be thrown about, it really undercuts the mythos that was built up around him.

In addition to him not living up to his potential, the side characters are starting to feel exceptionally one dimensional, from his right hand in Fennec Shand, who swings from enjoying the perks of being a crime boss, to wanting to kill everyone, or the denizens of the town who just seem to be there as background filler, there is no depth. Shand especially is a character that we need to know more about, yes in The Bad Batch she was given a moment in the spotlight, but they never really expanded on her as a character, just proved that she can be deadly when she needs to be, we got that exact fact from the first season of The Mandalorian, the problem is, she is not showing why that matters now. Given her reputation before the show started, you would think more people would be aware of her, but most don’t seem to care, which matches her interest in the events for the most part.

Finally, we need to discuss that weird speeder chase, it is without a doubt, the slower speeder chase I have seen and I really don’t understand how it was so slow. Maybe it was the fact that the guy being chased looked about as threatening as your dad, or that the people doing the chasing were on space mopeds, all chromed up and brightly coloured, I don’t really know. All I can say for certain is that the entire sequence was far to slow and given that it was mostly filmed against screens, it makes no sense, especially as in 1983 the speeder bike chase from Return of the Jedi felt insanely fast, having such a slow chase these days seems like a massive step backwards.

As for the cast, it was nice to see Temuera Morrison get some very sombre moments in the flashback, it proved that Fett has some depth and then when he got his scene with the Rancor, seeing a much softer side was quite nice as well. Of course, the Rancor handler was a nice little surprise, but then given who directed the episode, his appearance was not that surprising.

Star Wars The Book of Boba Fett is sadly not much of a book at this point, more like a pamphlet and not a very compelling one. We were given the promise of what could be described as Sopranos in Space, but instead we get thrown back in time and then when we are in the present, we see Fett is unable or unwilling to be the badass we know his character has the potential to be, we know this because we have seen it happen before. This was yet another episode where things just didn’t click into place, the fight in Boba’s room was great, but offset by the speeder chase and given we are halfway through the season, it really needs to get better and quickly.

The Score

7.0

The Pros

+Seeing Fett finally how some emotion was surprising and helped make the character more relatable

+A fight between two rival bounty hunters was interesting, even if not exactly how I would have preferred it to happen

The Cons

-That speeder chase was slow and felt out of place

-Space mopeds