Star Wars: Now You Will Experience the Full Power of Disney

[The Young Maester]

I never watched the boba fett show. I saw it for what it is. Fan service. I was happy to see him first appear in the mandalorian. He did seem a bit of a good guy, but it didnt bother me much. But when they announced the book of boba, I expected it to be massive fan service that would completely alter his character to being something he never was.

[sologdin]

with merely four lines across 8 minutes of screen time, that character was more or less a tabula rasa though, no, in the films? making him robin hood or osama bin laden or denmark vesey would've been fine.

[Jaxom 1974]

It is possible to have fan service and still tell a good story in the Star Wars Universe.  

[Corvinus85]

24 minutes ago, Jaxom 1974 said:

It is possible to have fan service and still tell a good story in the Star Wars Universe.  

I don't see why not. If you can weave the fan service in a way that makes sense with the narrative, it should be fine.

Look at Cobra Kai.

[Lord Varys]

Well, of course Boba Fett wasn't a particularly well-defined character in the movies. But he was still Vader's lackey in TESB and Jabba's guy in ROTJ, i.e. a bad guy.

And the EU - books, comics, games, etc. - developed him into the galaxy's most ruthless, most effective bounty hunter of all time (more or less at least).

That was the base line for the character ... and the Book of Boba Fett definitely didn't go with that.

Boba changing his ways after being stuck in the Sarlacc for quite some time and having a very unpleasant near-death experience has some plausibilty ... but crime lord Boba should still be both more ruthless, more feared, and much more effective.

The guy is outmaneuvered by a fucking Mayor, after all. He is more like Fredo Corleone than Michael.

Also, folks actually treating Boba Fett like an honorable guy they could trust is also a stretch considering his overall reputation. He makes various peoples offers to work for him, etc. and they just take him at his word and accept, as if he a trustworthy guy.

As I said - the way to go with Boba would have to see him turn to his Mandalorian legacy, not him becoming a good crime lord.

And, of course, the entire Tatooine-Pike story sucks for the reasons given above.

The Tusken aspect of the story works to a point, I think, also Boba bonding with them. But it may have been much more rewarding if the people shooting at the Tuskens would have been evil moisture farmers and the like, not the Pikes on their pointless train.

Not to mention if you really wanted to tell the kind of story they told, the 'take over the underworld' plot could have been Boba vs. local crime lords, i.e. Bib Fortuna or some Hutts, not evil outsiders who threaten Tatooine.

11 hours ago, The Young Maester said:

I never watched the boba fett show. I saw it for what it is. Fan service. I was happy to see him first appear in the mandalorian. He did seem a bit of a good guy, but it didnt bother me much. But when they announced the book of boba, I expected it to be massive fan service that would completely alter his character to being something he never was.

I don't think fan service is the correct word for that. I think very few Boba Fett fans wanted to see him in that way.

I'd also say that he didn't look very well. I don't like Temuera Morrison with a bald head. Not sure why they felt they had to go with such looks, but it didn't work for me. I also thought he looked ugly and ridiculous back in The Mandalorian.

[The Young Maester]

25 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

I don't think fan service is the correct word for that. I think very few Boba Fett fans wanted to see him in that way.

I'd also say that he didn't look very well. I don't like Temuera Morrison with a bald head. Not sure why they felt they had to go with such looks, but it didn't work for me. I also thought he looked ugly and ridiculous back in The Mandalorian.

Yeah I imagine many fans were disappointed with bobas portrayal. Probably explains why some of the ratings arent as good as mandalorian.

I dont know why so many film/tv industries are scared of portraying main characters as villains or a mixture of both villain and hero. Like i get people are more likely to cheer for a good guy. But we have tons of evidence of people also cheering for the baddie (breaking bad, Dexter). And Star Wars fans are the last people to be angry that a tv show about Boba Fett shows how ruthless and merciless he is. We know he is a piece of shit, so make him into a piece of shit.

You can make a movie about darth Vader hunting down Jedi and killing innocents without a care in the world. And people would still love it. 

[DMC]

2 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

Boba changing his ways after being stuck in the Sarlacc for quite some time and having a very unpleasant near-death experience has some plausibilty ... but crime lord Boba should still be both more ruthless, more feared, and much more effective.

Agreed.  I think the reform angle they took for the show sounds pretty good on paper, but they completely flubbed it and made him incredibly lame and at times laughably incompetent.  The show in general was very bland and blatantly relied on Mando and the gang to prop it up.  I still think the only reason they made a whole season out of it was due to scheduling conflicts with Pascal so instead of waiting two years for the third season they had this as season 2.5.

[sologdin]

he was still Vader's lackey in TESB and Jabba's guy in ROTJ, i.e. a bad guy.

i get that this is the EU interpretation, as you noted.  but the films themselves don't compel this reading, but rather merely authorize it.  alternatives are similarly authorized, such as he's an independent contractor who works files as a professional bounty hunter, whether for duly constituted political authority or for organized crime acting as de facto sovereign, and who possesses otherwise an underlying set of personal principles not implicated by the professional work. this alternative can proceed forward as the show represents. whether the show is aesthetically engaging is a separate question, much in the eye of the beholder.

[Lord Varys]

4 hours ago, sologdin said:

he was still Vader's lackey in TESB and Jabba's guy in ROTJ, i.e. a bad guy.

i get that this is the EU interpretation, as you noted.  but the films themselves don't compel this reading, but rather merely authorize it.  alternatives are similarly authorized, such as he's an independent contractor who works files as a professional bounty hunter, whether for duly constituted political authority or for organized crime acting as de facto sovereign, and who possesses otherwise an underlying set of personal principles not implicated by the professional work. this alternative can proceed forward as the show represents. whether the show is aesthetically engaging is a separate question, much in the eye of the beholder.

The films do not send the message that Boba is a complete thug, but they do send the message he is a bad guy. We do not see Boba as an 'independent contractor', i.e. as somebody who on screen is depicted as being contacted by a number of factions. Instead we first see him as one of Vader's pets, i.e. the guys who were invited on his Star Destroyer and who followed that invitation rather than decline the offer, and then we see him as one of Jabba's goons, which is the very antithesis of an 'independent contractor' since such a guy would have left Jabba's palace after delivering Han Solo and collecting his money. He wouldn't hang out there like one of Jabba's many hangers-on.

For us to view Boba as a guy who works for anybody who pays, etc. we should have seen him either accept a contract from the good guys - which we do not - or see the movie establish in dialogue that Boba Fett works for anyone who can pay and has also worked for the Rebel Alliance in the past. But this isn't established.

More importantly, we see Boba fight and die in the fight against the good guys in ROTJ, further hammering home the fact that he isn't a good guy. He could have easily enough walked away from the fighting.

[The Young Maester]

Bobas character ark in clone wars was absolutely great. The guy was a psychopath, and Lots of people enjoyed his episodes.

Now a tv show covering bobas ongoings between episode 3 and 4 would be great. And definitely much better than seeing him be someone he isnt. Since we can witness his rise towards becoming a notorious bounty hunter.

Plus im not very fond of this bringing people back from the dead. No matter how ridiculous their deaths are just let them stay dead.

[Deadlines? What Deadlines?]

1 hour ago, The Young Maester said:

Bobas character ark in clone wars was absolutely great. The guy was a psychopath, and Lots of people enjoyed his episodes.

Now a tv show covering bobas ongoings between episode 3 and 4 would be great. And definitely much better than seeing him be someone he isnt. Since we can witness his rise towards becoming a notorious bounty hunter.

Plus im not very fond of this bringing people back from the dead. No matter how ridiculous their deaths are just let them stay dead.

I don't think he's a psychopath. In clone wars, he's a war orphan who's motivated by avenging his fathers death. The target of his vengeance is Mace Windu and, more broadly, the Jedi Order. This gets him tangled up with the criminal underworld, etc. etc. 

Credit where credit is due; incorporating Boba's origin story into the prequel trilogy was done well. 

 

[Lord Varys]

3 hours ago, The Young Maester said:

Bobas character ark in clone wars was absolutely great. The guy was a psychopath, and Lots of people enjoyed his episodes.

Those episodes worked reasonably well as showing the gradual hardening of the boy who would develop into the ruthless bounty hunter we see in the OT.

3 hours ago, The Young Maester said:

Now a tv show covering bobas ongoings between episode 3 and 4 would be great. And definitely much better than seeing him be someone he isnt. Since we can witness his rise towards becoming a notorious bounty hunter.

Something like that could add more nuance to the character, although I don't think that we actually do need a 'bounty hunter' Star Wars show. At least not one with Boba Fett as the main character.

3 hours ago, The Young Maester said:

Plus im not very fond of this bringing people back from the dead. No matter how ridiculous their deaths are just let them stay dead.

Well, Boba Fett has been alive and well in the EU since Dark Empire, so the show bringing him back was neither much of a surprise nor a big retcon, although you certainly do have a point that it may have been wiser to have him stay dead in the new continuity (if that's continuity).

[Corvinus85]

I sense a disturbance in the Force.

[sologdin]

we see Boba fight and die in the fight against the good guys in ROTJ, 

all reasonable, LV--though from the regular perspective of duly constituted authority, the rebels are terrorists rather than good guys.  that said, all of this means that the independent contractor interpretation is also merely authorized rather than compelled.

[Lord Varys]

5 hours ago, sologdin said:

we see Boba fight and die in the fight against the good guys in ROTJ, 

all reasonable, LV--though from the regular perspective of duly constituted authority, the rebels are terrorists rather than good guys.  that said, all of this means that the independent contractor interpretation is also merely authorized rather than compelled.

The openining crawls of the OT all establish that the Galactic Empire is evil, that Darth Vader is an evil lord, and that Jabba the Hutt is a vile gangster. That's the objective voice of the narrator of the story.

The point of view that the Empire or Jabba are 'duly constituted authority' is not something we can take when looking at Star Wars from the outside. One can humanize an Imperial thug or even a Hutt gangster, but that doesn't change the fact that the Empire is evil or that Jabba was a vile gangster.

Even if we were to ignore that ... it is still very clear who the hell the heroes of the story are and who the villains are. And Boba is a villain who tries to attack the heroes ... just because he is evil, presumably. Jabba doesn't even tell him to attack Luke, or does he?

[Jaxom 1974]

The Galactic Empire was evil...from a certain point of view...

[Lord Varys]

24 minutes ago, Jaxom 1974 said:

The Galactic Empire was evil...from a certain point of view...

Nope, from the point of view of the OT itself it says that they are evil. That's not up for debate.

It is like saying SPECTRE are not the Special Executive for Counter-intelligence, Terrorism, Revenge and Extortion ... or rather, that they are calling themselves that way doesn't mean they are terrorists or extortionists.

As I said, you can humanize Imperials and whatnot ... but that doesn't change what the OT movies established - that the Galactic Empire and its henchmen were evil.

[Jaxom 1974]

Take the joke in the spirit it was meant...

[Lord Varys]

2 hours ago, Jaxom 1974 said:

Take the joke in the spirit it was meant...

Sorry, didn't catch the joke ;-).

But GL's POV definitely isn't 'a certain point of view' ... it is THE point of view. The only one that counts insofar as in-universe facts are concerned.

[felice]

5 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

Boba is a villain who tries to attack the heroes ... just because he is evil, presumably. Jabba doesn't even tell him to attack Luke, or does he?

Presumably because it's what he's paid to do. It's reasonable to assume that attempting to stop escaping prisoners is in the job description without requiring it to be explicitly stated onscreen.

46 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

But GL's POV definitely isn't 'a certain point of view' ... it is THE point of view. The only one that counts insofar as in-universe facts are concerned.

Facts, yes, but "evil" is an opinion. It's possible for two people to reach different opinions on something despite having access to all the same facts.