[7.???/10] I love and hate this episode. I love Luke. I love Ahsoka. I love Grogu. I love Cad Bane. I like Cobb Vanth. But what the fuck are they all doing in the same episode of Book of Boba Fett? Why are we plundering the rest of the canon so severely when this show is a chance to expand it? How can Star Wars keep falling back into the same small universe problem?
And look, I’m a total hypocrite, because I gasped and cursed so loud when Cad Bane showed up in live action for the first time ever that I spooked our cat. Watching the badass bounty hunter who made his bones in The Clone Wars stalk out from the edge of the horizon, issue threats on behalf of his latest benefactors, and then get into a gunfight with Space Seth Bullock is unbelievably cool.
Would it feel as cool if I didn’t already know or appreciate Cad Bane? If my wife’s reaction is any indication, maybe a third as cool. He’s still a badass Lee Van Cleef homage with a steely gaze and one of Cory Burton’s patented scary voices. The character works here for the same reason he worked in The Clone Wars on his own terms. Dave Filoni, who directed the character in animation, now gets to direct him in live action (more or less), and shoots the whole thing like a riveting western. It’s great. I love it.
And it’s also bad news. One of the cool things about The Clone Wars is that it expanded the Star Wars Galaxy. Sure, they shoehorned in Chewbacca and Boba Fett and brought Darth Maul back from the dead. But they also widened the universe and the lore with original characters like Cad Bane and Ahsoka, or dove deeper into the identical clones of the Republic Army until they were well-rounded and full of humanity, or you know, widened the aperture of what we knew about the freakin’ Mandalorians.
This is good, or at least a lot of it is. But it feels like such fan service, much of which seems to have more to do with setting up season 3 of The Mandalorian than advancing anything of importance here.
Ashoka is probably my favorite character in all of Star Wars. From the moment she popped up in The Mandalorian, I went back and forth with my friends about whether or not she would ever run into Luke. And she does! They know each other! She guides him regarding his training temple and gives him perspective on his first student!
But the scene feels like it exists solely to play on our excitement of seeing those two characters on screen together. Ahsoka’s there with his master’s only son, and it’s an oddly flat and awkward scene. There’s a cheesy line about him being like his father, and she seems to give him a nudge about letting Grogu choose which path he wants to follow. And yet, it doesn’t have the momentousness such a meeting should. BoBF just wants to say, “Hey! These two luminaries of the franchise are having a conversation! Isn’t that cool?” and leave it at that.
Don’t get me started on the training sequences. Again, it’s neat to see Luke training someone! It was neat in The Last Jedi! Watching him as the master instead of the student is a nice flip from The Empire Strikes Back. But these scenes are unbelievably derivative of Ep. V. Luke just does the same sorts of shtick Yoda did, only slightly modified given the size disparity. He quotes his old master, uses the same sort of training ball that Obi Wan did with him, etc. etc. etc.
You can handwave some of this away. Luke was only trained by Obi Wan and Yoda, so of course he’s going to fall back on the same techniques. But the episode does nothing to show Luke growing on his own, or differentiate what and how he’s approaching this with Grogu. It’s great to channel the audience’s collective affections for Yoda here, but it’s also a cheap trick in some ways, conjuring up goodwill that George Lucas earned [gulp] forty-two years ago rather than generating some on your own.
Maybe it’s just the awkwardness of having to recreate young Luke. The digitally remade version of the character looks a lot better here than he did in season 2 of The Mandalorian. It’s trickier to pull off the sort of virtual facelift in bright lighting, but Luke looks plausible as a real human being, much as he was in Return of the Jedi, a good ninety percent of the time, which is impressive.
Occasionally, the mouth syncing is ever so slightly off, which gives you some of that uncanny valley effect, but there’s remarkable improvement from what the Favreau corner of the Star Wars Galaxy trotted out a little more than a year ago. Likewise, Mark Hamill’s voice sounds much more accurate and unmodified than it did in the other series. The problem is that his delivery is off here. Hamill is a master voice actor, so I chalk it up to either the direction or the awkwardness of how his character is done versus other performers, but so many of his lines have the same upward inflection.
His dialogue is also strikingly generic. I feel like I wrote something close to the same shtick in my sixth grade fan fiction. It’s just a regurgitation of the same Jedi bromides that scads of others in the franchise have uttered for decades now. There’s nothing new, no added insights, nothing specific to Luke and his experiences in all of this. It’s just warm broth for old souls who remember the warm feeling of watching Luke’s training and now get to enjoy it slightly remixed and reheated for their continued consumption.
I don’t know. Fanservice isn’t inherently bad. Oftentimes it works and works well on me. (See: the Cad Bane material.) But there’s something so blunt about it here, so crass even, in the way it’s deployed. I respond to it with the force of someone who’s waited to see this mix of characters interact for years, but also as someone who can feel himself being manipulated by nostalgia and recognition to prop up something with very little “there” there.
I suppose we can cross that bridge if we come to it, but god help me if they’re setting up Grogu to return to Mando in s3 of his show. Once more, you can handwave it. Ahsoka suggested he’d been through too much to be trained, even if she doesn’t get in the way of Luke’s efforts. The last two episodes have set up that maybe there’s too much of an attachment between Din Djarin and Grogu for the little guy to be able to follow the Jedi path. But I don’t like building to such an emotional climax in s2 of The Mandalorian and then seeming poised to undo it in a couple of episodes of someone else’s show.
Despite all that, I like the parts of this that feel closer the thrust of Book of Boba Fett. There’s logic to the idea that Mando would help Boba Fett, and Fett’s crew needs foot soldiers to fight the Pykes, and Mando has a connection to Cobb Vanth and the people of the newly-dubbed Freetown.
Vanth’s opening skirmish with the Pykes is badass as all hell and establishes not only his gunfighter bona fides for anyone who missed The Mandalorian, but also his disdain for the spice trade. His conversation with Mando himself is warm and wry, with good points from Mando about how the Pykes will eventually be Freetown’s problem and smart but knowing remarks from Vanth in return. And as predicted, Cad Bane showing up brings those problems to Vanth’s doorstep, putting a thumb on the other side of the scale for a reluctant Freetown to get involved with Fett’s war, but perhaps giving Vanth a personal stake in joining the fight. (I’ll believe Vanth’s dead when I see his body burning on a pyre.)
These scenes also play on characters we know and (in my case at least) like. They bolster players introduced in other series and mediums, but they also advance the cause of what’s going on here and now. They show real change in Mos Pelgo/Freetown, in Vanth, and in the relationship between him and Mando which bears out in interesting ways. In short, it uses those characters to further the story at hand and to advance them as people and figures in the broader narrative.
The scenes set on the site of Luke’s new training temple just don’t do the same. They mix and match characters from the Original Trilogy, the animated wing of Star Wars, and the key figures of the franchise’s recent live action expansion. But beyond a bit of “Gee, it’s sad for Mando and Grogu to be apart” which we already did at the end of Mando s2, it’s all empty calories, familiar motifs, and recapitulations of past successes. I like all of these characters and pieces of Star Wars past and present, but I wish the show was using that foundation to take them all to new places, rather than to reheat some well-loved leftovers and shuffle toward restoring the status quo.
Review by Andrew BloomVIP 9BlockedParentSpoilers2022-02-03T05:00:56Z
[7.???/10] I love and hate this episode. I love Luke. I love Ahsoka. I love Grogu. I love Cad Bane. I like Cobb Vanth. But what the fuck are they all doing in the same episode of Book of Boba Fett? Why are we plundering the rest of the canon so severely when this show is a chance to expand it? How can Star Wars keep falling back into the same small universe problem?
And look, I’m a total hypocrite, because I gasped and cursed so loud when Cad Bane showed up in live action for the first time ever that I spooked our cat. Watching the badass bounty hunter who made his bones in The Clone Wars stalk out from the edge of the horizon, issue threats on behalf of his latest benefactors, and then get into a gunfight with Space Seth Bullock is unbelievably cool.
Would it feel as cool if I didn’t already know or appreciate Cad Bane? If my wife’s reaction is any indication, maybe a third as cool. He’s still a badass Lee Van Cleef homage with a steely gaze and one of Cory Burton’s patented scary voices. The character works here for the same reason he worked in The Clone Wars on his own terms. Dave Filoni, who directed the character in animation, now gets to direct him in live action (more or less), and shoots the whole thing like a riveting western. It’s great. I love it.
And it’s also bad news. One of the cool things about The Clone Wars is that it expanded the Star Wars Galaxy. Sure, they shoehorned in Chewbacca and Boba Fett and brought Darth Maul back from the dead. But they also widened the universe and the lore with original characters like Cad Bane and Ahsoka, or dove deeper into the identical clones of the Republic Army until they were well-rounded and full of humanity, or you know, widened the aperture of what we knew about the freakin’ Mandalorians.
This is good, or at least a lot of it is. But it feels like such fan service, much of which seems to have more to do with setting up season 3 of The Mandalorian than advancing anything of importance here.
Ashoka is probably my favorite character in all of Star Wars. From the moment she popped up in The Mandalorian, I went back and forth with my friends about whether or not she would ever run into Luke. And she does! They know each other! She guides him regarding his training temple and gives him perspective on his first student!
But the scene feels like it exists solely to play on our excitement of seeing those two characters on screen together. Ahsoka’s there with his master’s only son, and it’s an oddly flat and awkward scene. There’s a cheesy line about him being like his father, and she seems to give him a nudge about letting Grogu choose which path he wants to follow. And yet, it doesn’t have the momentousness such a meeting should. BoBF just wants to say, “Hey! These two luminaries of the franchise are having a conversation! Isn’t that cool?” and leave it at that.
Don’t get me started on the training sequences. Again, it’s neat to see Luke training someone! It was neat in The Last Jedi! Watching him as the master instead of the student is a nice flip from The Empire Strikes Back. But these scenes are unbelievably derivative of Ep. V. Luke just does the same sorts of shtick Yoda did, only slightly modified given the size disparity. He quotes his old master, uses the same sort of training ball that Obi Wan did with him, etc. etc. etc.
You can handwave some of this away. Luke was only trained by Obi Wan and Yoda, so of course he’s going to fall back on the same techniques. But the episode does nothing to show Luke growing on his own, or differentiate what and how he’s approaching this with Grogu. It’s great to channel the audience’s collective affections for Yoda here, but it’s also a cheap trick in some ways, conjuring up goodwill that George Lucas earned [gulp] forty-two years ago rather than generating some on your own.
Maybe it’s just the awkwardness of having to recreate young Luke. The digitally remade version of the character looks a lot better here than he did in season 2 of The Mandalorian. It’s trickier to pull off the sort of virtual facelift in bright lighting, but Luke looks plausible as a real human being, much as he was in Return of the Jedi, a good ninety percent of the time, which is impressive.
Occasionally, the mouth syncing is ever so slightly off, which gives you some of that uncanny valley effect, but there’s remarkable improvement from what the Favreau corner of the Star Wars Galaxy trotted out a little more than a year ago. Likewise, Mark Hamill’s voice sounds much more accurate and unmodified than it did in the other series. The problem is that his delivery is off here. Hamill is a master voice actor, so I chalk it up to either the direction or the awkwardness of how his character is done versus other performers, but so many of his lines have the same upward inflection.
His dialogue is also strikingly generic. I feel like I wrote something close to the same shtick in my sixth grade fan fiction. It’s just a regurgitation of the same Jedi bromides that scads of others in the franchise have uttered for decades now. There’s nothing new, no added insights, nothing specific to Luke and his experiences in all of this. It’s just warm broth for old souls who remember the warm feeling of watching Luke’s training and now get to enjoy it slightly remixed and reheated for their continued consumption.
I don’t know. Fanservice isn’t inherently bad. Oftentimes it works and works well on me. (See: the Cad Bane material.) But there’s something so blunt about it here, so crass even, in the way it’s deployed. I respond to it with the force of someone who’s waited to see this mix of characters interact for years, but also as someone who can feel himself being manipulated by nostalgia and recognition to prop up something with very little “there” there.
I suppose we can cross that bridge if we come to it, but god help me if they’re setting up Grogu to return to Mando in s3 of his show. Once more, you can handwave it. Ahsoka suggested he’d been through too much to be trained, even if she doesn’t get in the way of Luke’s efforts. The last two episodes have set up that maybe there’s too much of an attachment between Din Djarin and Grogu for the little guy to be able to follow the Jedi path. But I don’t like building to such an emotional climax in s2 of The Mandalorian and then seeming poised to undo it in a couple of episodes of someone else’s show.
Despite all that, I like the parts of this that feel closer the thrust of Book of Boba Fett. There’s logic to the idea that Mando would help Boba Fett, and Fett’s crew needs foot soldiers to fight the Pykes, and Mando has a connection to Cobb Vanth and the people of the newly-dubbed Freetown.
Vanth’s opening skirmish with the Pykes is badass as all hell and establishes not only his gunfighter bona fides for anyone who missed The Mandalorian, but also his disdain for the spice trade. His conversation with Mando himself is warm and wry, with good points from Mando about how the Pykes will eventually be Freetown’s problem and smart but knowing remarks from Vanth in return. And as predicted, Cad Bane showing up brings those problems to Vanth’s doorstep, putting a thumb on the other side of the scale for a reluctant Freetown to get involved with Fett’s war, but perhaps giving Vanth a personal stake in joining the fight. (I’ll believe Vanth’s dead when I see his body burning on a pyre.)
These scenes also play on characters we know and (in my case at least) like. They bolster players introduced in other series and mediums, but they also advance the cause of what’s going on here and now. They show real change in Mos Pelgo/Freetown, in Vanth, and in the relationship between him and Mando which bears out in interesting ways. In short, it uses those characters to further the story at hand and to advance them as people and figures in the broader narrative.
The scenes set on the site of Luke’s new training temple just don’t do the same. They mix and match characters from the Original Trilogy, the animated wing of Star Wars, and the key figures of the franchise’s recent live action expansion. But beyond a bit of “Gee, it’s sad for Mando and Grogu to be apart” which we already did at the end of Mando s2, it’s all empty calories, familiar motifs, and recapitulations of past successes. I like all of these characters and pieces of Star Wars past and present, but I wish the show was using that foundation to take them all to new places, rather than to reheat some well-loved leftovers and shuffle toward restoring the status quo.