Boba’s back

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Today is Friday, January 21st. Thank you for turning to WORLD Radio to help start your day.

Good morning. I’m Myrna Brown.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher. Coming next on The World and Everything in It: Star Wars!

More than 40 years after the first installment of the epic space drama hit theaters, fans still can’t get enough. The films told the sweeping story of a galactic battle between good and evil. The new stories are more personal, following characters as they navigate the fallout from massive political upheaval.

BROWN: The latest installment, streaming now on Disney Plus, tells a tale fans have been waiting for from the beginning. Here’s reviewer Collin Garbarino.

[Music - Book of Boba Fett Theme]

COLLIN GARBARINO, REVIEWER: I still remember the day my mother gave me my first Star Wars action figures—Luke Skywalker and Boba Fett. Four-year-old me thought Luke was nice. But that Boba Fett toy was just about the coolest thing I had ever seen.

I wasn’t the only one who thought so. Boba Fett, who cut a striking figure in his Mandalorian armor, became one of the Star Wars franchise’s most popular characters despite his relatively small role in the original trilogy. Darth Vader hired the mysterious bounty hunter to find Luke Skywalker, and Jabba the Hutt hired him to capture Han Solo.

Boba only had four short lines in the original trilogy—all of them concerned with the bounty on Han Solo.

Boba Fett: He’s no good to me dead.

George Lucas filled in some of the laconic bounty hunter’s backstory in his prequel trilogy and Clone Wars series. But Return of the Jedi left Boba Fett in the Pit of Carkoon to be digested in the belly of the almighty Sarlacc for a thousand years.

When Disney bought Star Wars from Lucas in 2012, it decided such a popular character was no good to them dead. So Boba Fett is back in his own series on Disney+, The Book of Boba Fett.

Fennec Shand: Who are you?

Boba Fett: I am Boba Fett.

Fennec Shand: Boba is dead.

Boba Fett: I was.

Showrunner Jon Favreau—responsible for many popular movies including Elf and Iron Man—is the guy we can thank for Boba Fett’s return to the land of the living. Disney’s feature films set in the Star Wars universe disappointed longtime fans, but in 2019 Favreau restored some of the franchise’s shine with his dusty space western The Mandalorian. That series followed the adventures of a different Mandalorian bounty hunter, and it proved to be such a hit that Disney allowed Favreau to create this spin-off series with a resurrected Boba Fett, who’s trying to find his place in the universe.

Boba Fett: I am not a bounty hunter.

Mok Shaiz: Is that so? I’ve heard otherwise.

Actor Temuera Morrison, who played Jango Fett in the prequels and Boba in The Mandalorian, dons the bounty hunter armor in The Book of Boba Fett. He’s joined by Ming-Na Wen, who plays Boba’s sidekick, Master Assassin Fennec Shand. In this series, we see Boba and Fennec try to fill the power vacuum left by the death of crime lord Jabba the Hutt. The duo attempt to install Boba as the ruler of the desert planet Tatooine, but they quickly learn that running a crime family is harder than hunting bounties.

Fennec Shand: If you had spoken such insolence to Jabba, he’d have fed you to his menagerie.

This series follows the tone and aesthetic of Favreau’s Mandalorian—dusty, gritty, a bit melancholy. If you enjoyed that series, you’ll enjoy this one too. But because it feels so familiar, The Book of Boba Fett doesn’t elicit quite the same thrill as the earlier series, and some episodes feel slower than necessary.

Part of that slowness comes from extended flashbacks explaining how Boba escaped the belly of the Sarlacc and how he recovered from his wounds, both physically and emotionally. To be honest, these scenes don’t interest me much. They feel like more of Disney’s recent trend toward rehabilitating classic villains like Maleficent and Cruella de Vil. I’m much more interested in the scenes in which Boba and Fennec try to bring order to a lawless planet.

Boba Fett: Where does that leave us now?

8D8: Everyone is waiting to see what kind of leader you are.

Boba styles himself as Tatooine’s new “daimyo,” but he’s one crime lord among many hoping to force the others into submission. We get a glimpse of politics at work in a context devoid of legitimate government. Criminal families, bureaucrats, and local business owners all must negotiate 'a new normal' to restore some semblance of order. The question is, “Who will find themselves atop that new order, and how will they achieve it?”

Boba Fett: Jabba ruled with fear. I intend to rule with respect.

Fennec Shand: If I may…

Boba Fett: Speak freely.

Fennec Shand: In difficult times, fear is a surer bet.

The conflict over who will rule the unruly planet of Tatooine reminds me of something said by Augustine of Hippo. Augustine was a Christian theologian of the early church, who lived during the last days of the Roman Empire. In his book City of God, Augustine said that without justice, a city’s government isn’t much different from a criminal gang.

Boba might be a crime lord, but he’s trying to bring law and order for the benefit of his people. He’s a man of violence, but the goal of his violence is peace, rather than exploitation. Throughout the series we see an unlikely hero promoting justice in a land that doesn’t understand the concept. That sense of justice gives us the feeling that Boba’s bid for power possesses a legitimacy the others don’t have.

We’ll have to see if his desire to rule through respect proves more powerful than his enemy’s desire to rule through fear.

[Music - Book of Boba Fett Theme]

I’m Collin Garbarino.

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