Welcome to this week’s edition of the Nerd Review!  Every week the Nerds give you their take on entertainment from the Nerd-o-sphere.  This week, Patrick and Dave continue their review of the Star Wars Disney+ miniseries The Book of Boba Fett!

• The Show:  The Book of Boba Fett Ch. 2: The Tribes of Tatooine
• What’s it About:  Following the events in season two of The Mandalorian, Boba Fett had laid claim to Jabba the Hutt’s former criminal empire.  His rise to prominence is not met with open arms and Fett must navigate the Galaxy’s criminal underground in Tatooine.
• IMDB Score: 8.5/10

The Nerds’ Take on The Book of Boba Fett Chapter 2:

Patrick:  Hello again, fellow Nerds. If you will recall from my previous review. I said I had some real concerns regarding where the story of The Book of Boba Fett was going.  My fears not only were not eased, they were significantly increased as the series appears to double down on the “civilized savior” trope and mobster in space story. Oh, plus we get that Boba Fett acid trip we’ve all been looking for. I don’t know if I am being too hard on this show two episodes in, but I am completely underwhelmed right now.

Episode two continues the parallel story telling established in episode one.  In the present, Boba Fett and Fennec Shand question a surviving assassin from episode one. The assassin claims they were hired by the mayor of Mos Espa. This leads Boba to barge into the Mayor, who denies involvement and claims another ordered the hit. The audience is quickly introduced to said responsible parties in the form of Jabba the Hutt’s twin siblings. We get a bit of a standoff in the streets of Mos Espa, with the Hutts laying claim to Jabba’s empire and Fett saying no. This confrontation is clearly the beginning of what I assume will be another element of intrigue for Fett to navigate.

The audience is also given more story of Boba Fett’s past. Fett is now living among his Sand People captors and learning their ways. Specifically how to use a gaffi stick. While training, the Sand People are attacked by a train loaded with advanced weapons that take advantage of the Sand People’s more primitive weapons. After the attack, Fett notices some rough characters on speeders, and devises a plan. After getting permission to pursue this plan, Fett proceeds to acquire the speeders, teach the Sand People how to use them, and lead a successful takedown of the train. The Sand People honor Fett with a ceremony involving a lizard up the nose (more on that in a bit) and Fett carving his own Gaffi stick and going full Avatar and integrating himself fully with the Sand People.

My problems with this episode rest almost completely with this second storyline. The plotline in the present, while uninspiring, is at its worst a somewhat tired trope. Like I said last week, it’s The Godfather…IN SPACE. Plus, we do get the introduction of some new characters and likely a glimpse into the larger world of the Hutts. But, this Avatar/Dances with Wolves civilized savior thing is just tired out, a little racist and completely unnecessary.  It’s not enough that Boba Fett finds a way to survive amongst these people, no, He’s their goddamned savior bringing technology to the primitives. I can emphasize enough how terrible of an idea this plotline is to me. And it’s not enough that Fett is the savior. The series leans into other native tropes in their ceremony to accept him. They put him through some hallucinogenic acid trip to help him find the branch for gaffi stick.  UGH.

CGI effects have not improved in episode two, either.  I will say the Hutts looked good as CGI characters, and maybe that’s why the train looked so terrible in this episode. They spent their budget on the huts. The train and speeders just looked like cartoons on a matte painting.  The perspective was all out of whack and the trains did look like it was moving so much it looked like it was growing on the screen. It’s just bad and there is no excuse for it.

Finally, two episodes in and I, an admitted hater of Boba Fett, think Boba Fett is being done a disservice here as a character. Boba Fett is known as the most ruthless bounty hunter in the galaxy, and the writers of this series have completely taken away everything that made him compelling. I don’t have a problem with Boba Fett having a code of some sort, but to make him stick to that code to the detriment of his success, especially when you consider he was at Jabba’s side for much of his career, makes little sense. Yes, Boba Fett should be taken advantage of for being out of his element. But, this show is setting him up to look completely naive to how the underworld works. And Boba Fett is certainly not that. I really hope this show turns around in a hurry, because if it doesn’t you’re gonna get more scores like the one I’m dropping for episode 2.

Patrick’s Rating:  1.92/5.0

Dave: Episode 2 of The Book of Boba Fett is more of a mixed bag than the first Episode. It does some things well but there are some head scratching moments as well. Similar to the first Episode, Episode 2 covers the present-day conflict involving Boba becoming the Daimio of Mos Espa and also furthers his backstory and his becoming an official member of a tribe of Tusken Raiders.

As for the present-day stuff, on the heels of an attempt on his life, Boba, Fennec, and his Gamorean guards march into The Mayor’s office to confront the being they feel is behind the assault. The Mayor denies involvement but instead deflects blame to “The Twins”. The Twins are cousins of Jabba The Hutt and they clearly feel they have a right to the throne, so to speak. Boba, basically, tells them to piss off and the stage is set for a big power struggle in the streets of Mos Espa. By far, the coolest part of any of this was the appearance of Black Krrsantan. Now, for those of you unfamiliar with the Star Wars comics, or the content formerly known as the Extended Universe, Black Krrsantan is a black furred Wookie bounty hunter. It is clear from the brief interaction that there is some familiarity between Boba and Black Krrsantan. That makes sense seeing as how they are both bounty hunters….at least until Boba tells The Twins he is no longer a bounty hunter. Suffice it to say we have not seen the last of this conflict. For those of us who have been long-time fans of the Star Wars comics, the appearance of Black Krrsantan is quite exciting. All I can say about him is to think of the polar opposite of Chewbacca and you will have a good idea about the personality of Black Krrsantan.

As for the flashback aspect of things, here is where things get weird. Now, I am all for further exposition of the Tuskens. They are a very misunderstood aspect of Star Wars lore. There is much more to them than Banthas, gaffe sticks, and being the beings that Anakin slaughtered “like animals” in Episode II. So, I am all on board with learning more about them. But this Episode’s story as to how Boba helps to organize the Tuskens to teach them to ride land speeders so they can stop a train traveling through what I assume is the Jundland Wastes, where it takes pot shots at Banthas and Tuskens, just seemed very odd to me. Sure, the action is kind of cool. But even that fell flat. The fight on top of the train felt like a scene from Speed, just with a lot more people involved. Then after it is all said and done, we get a very strange sequence where Boba is presented with a gift by the leader of the Tusken Tribe…. a lizard that runs up Boba’s nose and induces an acid trip like state so Boba can find a sacred piece of wood to fashion his own weapon? Yeah, it kind of lost me too. I understand that this backstory must be important as far as explaining how and why Boba has gone from bounty hunter to something more marginally more reputable. But it was still very strange.

After two Episodes, I find myself much more interested in the present-day aspects of things than I am with the Tusken flashback material. I am genuinely interested to see what happens between Boba, The Twin, Fennec, and Black Krrsantan. That being said, I would be remiss in not at least speculating some, which is what I did a lot during our review of Hawkeye. A theory gaining a lot of traction is that the organization that Boba helps the Tuskens thwart in the flashback segments is the Pyke syndicate. This is an organization that has been seen in The Clone Wars as well as Solo. The Pyke syndicate and the Hutts have something in common:  They both have worked with Crimson Dawn in the past and if Crimson Dawn is still active, this raises the possibility that Lady Qi’ra will come into the fold. Emila Clarke of Game of Thrones fame played Qi’ra in Solo and she took over control of Crimson Dawn after Darth Maul was finally killed, for good, by Obi-Wan Kenobi and…. you get the picture. It is all highly speculative, but also possible. The Book of Boba Fett feels a bit disjointed for me at this juncture…. but maybe, just maybe, we are being played here and this is, in fact, all going to tie in to Kenobi and Ahsoka. It is certainly possible.

As for this second Episode though, standing alone and based on what we know for certain right now, this felt like a step back for me. The introduction of Black Krrsantan notwithstanding, this was just a rather odd Episode that did not feel like it progressed things all that much. It was not a bad Episode at all, just a bit on the odd side, all things considered.

Dave’s Rating:  3.75/5.0

Overall Nerds’ Rating for Book of Boba Fett Chapter 2: 2.83/5.0