Welcome to the Heavy Spoilers show I’m your host Paul aka the guy who now Siths on a Throne Fett for a King and throughout this video we’re gonna be breaking down The Book Of Boba Fett Episode 1.
The first bit of amazing trivia for you though, The Book Of Boba Fett isn’t a book…it’s a show.
However, beyond that, there’s a tonne of easter eggs and callbacks to all things Star Wars that we’re gonna be going through in this video.
If you enjoy it we’d massively appreciate the thumbs up and make sure you subscribe for breakdowns like this every Wednesday. Watto you waiting for? We’re gonna be going over the show for the next seven weeks and as you know it takes two to Jango so I’d love to have you as part of our alliance.
With that out the way, thank you for clicking this, now let’s get into The Book Of Boba Fett.
Ok so just in case you missed The Mandalorian Season 2, we watched as Mando trekked across the Galaxy trying to find the Jedi so that Baby Yoda could start his training. Along the way he ran into Cobb Vanth who we learned had taken Boba’s armour even if it didn’t Fett right.
After helping him to defeat a Krayt Dragon Mando took the armour back and this sent Fett out on a journey to take it back. Teamed with Fennec Shand he ended up joining forces with Mando to help rescue Baby Yoda and alongside Cara Dune and eventually Luke Skywalker, the crew got him back from the Clutches Of The Empire.
But it wasn’t over for Fett and the second season ended with him taking Jabba’s Throne from Bib Fortuna which is where we pretty much pick up here.
Bakta the Future
Now we start off in the Halls of Jabba’s palace and see that it’s no longer thriving like it once was. The halls are empty and we catch Boba in a Bacta tank with a tube in his mouth similar to how we saw Luke when he was recovering during The Empire Strikes Back.
This explains how the character has fewer scars on his face than he did in The Mandalorian and why the guy has started looking slightly better. Cut to Kamino aka where the clones were all created and we see Slave One docked there. In case you missed the bad batch, we actually watched the destruction of this as the Empire decided that Clones were no longer needed due to the cost they incurred. They realised that recruiting regular citizens was the best way to go about things and thus slowly replaced the Clones over time.
During these flashbacks, we also see the moment from Attack of The Clones, namely when Boba picked up his father’s helmet. Helmets and their importance are laced throughout this episode and its sort of like Poetry…yes we’ve brought that back.
Beyond that, though we also learn what happened to Fett when he was trapped in the Sarlaac Pit. The iconography here pulls from the expanded lore book A Barve Like That: The Tale of Boba Fett. In the original legends series, Boba melded his mind with the Sarlaac and had some back and forth before detonating his jetpack in order to escape. Here however he takes the oxygen from a Stormtrooper and burns his way out from the inside. I dunno how a Stormtrooper managed to get trapped inside but you have to remember that the digestion period of the Sarlaac lasts for 1000s of years so he might have fallen in there all the way back in a New Hope or before.
Climbing out of the pit we get lots of nods to the artwork from the expanded lore and comic series and I even think they might have given nods to the fan films that were created as it definitely feels like they’re paying homage to how it’s been depicted before whilst also doing it better than it’s ever been done. There’s no Sarlacc head though which was an addition that Lucas added in for the special editions.
Amongst the ruins of Jabbas sail barge, he’s picked up by Jawas which is of course how Cobb Vanth came to get the armour in the Mandalorian.
They abandon him and he’s saved by Sand peop…sorry Tusken Raiders, we’re inclusive here at the channel. Given the food of the desert, they drag him on Banthas and I got a lot of flashes here of the desert scene from The Good The Bad And The Ugly. Star Wars has always given nods to Westerns and watching him being dragged along during a sandstorm is just as gruelling as that movie. The Twin suns beat down on him and they’re of course something that Tattooine is most famous for.
At this point, we get the title of the Episode, Stranger In A Strange Land based on the book of the same name.
This was about a man that was raised on Mars who ventured to Earth. Here he questioned society and how it was run, namely with an importance put on religion and money and much like Fett we watched as he attempted to rewrite the rules.
We’re introduced to a Tusken kid who Darth Vader is probably gonna kill to impress a woman. We also meet their chief and at one point see they have a Rhodian who you might recognise as being the same species as Greedo.
Beyond that, though we also see that they have a Massif who’s a massive guard dog that the Tuskens keep around. As much as The Mandalorian made the Tusken Raiders seem like civilised people they clearly aren’t. Also surely Sandpeople is the less offensive term yeah? Raider just sounds horrible, anyway moving on…
Fett tries to escape but your boy isn’t playing around and I’ve always appreciated the alligator-like jaw design to these beasts. Fett shows he’s not one to Jango with and he takes the creature out pretty easily before offering the Rhodian an escape.
Unfortunately, he’s a snitch though and he calls to the Sand…peo…Tusken…sand people. Whereas the child was happily beating the crap out of Boba, Boba stays his hand and though he’s caught, the situation does change for him.
Unfortunately, these flashbacks are interrupted but we get an awesome suiting up scene in which he’s dressed by droids. Having their clothes put on by servants is something that royalty and the emperors of old used to do and it shows that he’s very much building a kingdom.
Aliens of all kinds have travelled to the palace to pay their respects and there’s a lot of The Godfather throughout this scene. We see that though they don’t have a protocol droid to translate things they do have 8d8 who you might recognise as being Jabba’s smelting droid.
We also meet Dokk Strassi, a Trandoshan who you might recognise as being the same species as Bossk.
He calls Fett, Daimyo and shoutouts Simon A Burman on Twitter for pointing out that this is a word from Fuedal Japan that means Lord.
He’s brought gifts to welcome him to Mos Espa and this may be a Wookie skin though it’s difficult to make out. The snake voice he has also made him sound like he’s threatening Fett but that ain’t the real shade. We discover the Mayor won’t come or offer tribute to Fett because he wants one instead. This kinda sets things up for later down the line and we watch as two Gammorrean guards are brought before them. It’s advised that they be tortured but instead, Fett recognises their loyalty and wants them by his side.
Cantina Band Reunion
They mask up and head out to Mos Espa which is where we venture to the Sanctuary and see that your boy Max Rebo has continued busting those keys. What happened to Reebo has always been a big mystery but it’s great seeing him here doing what he loves to do. Alongside him is a Bith from the Cantina band and I kinda hope these two met up and decided to collab with a new band…just not the one from Star Wars Visions as that was terrible.
Mos Espa was also where Anakin grew up and it’s changed quite a lot since we last saw it.
Unlike the dark and dingy cantina in Mos Eisley, this one seems a lot brighter, has droids in it and also some plants. If you cast your mind back to a New Hope you might remember that Droids were banned from the Cantina but in The Mandalorian we saw that one was now working there, meaning that times had changed. We see an astromech one serving drinks which is similar to R2D2 doing it on Jabbas barge.
Two members of staff approach and offer to clean Fett’s helmet which in England means something different to what it does in Star Wars. They’re here to meet Madam Garsa, however, these helmets being filled up causes some issues later on and it may have been done on purpose.
Garsa is also a Twi’lek and it shows that the positions of power have slightly changed as in Jabba’s palace he of course had them all chained up. I know that the structures in the star wars universe are different but I do feel like the race was chosen for a reason.
It was expected that Fett would’ve been carried in and much like the emperors of old this is something that was often carried out by servants. Fett wants to walk on his own two feet though, showing how he’s changed. He’s handed back his helmet which is filled with coins that have the rebellion crest on them show that they now run the galaxy.
Now outside Fennec and Boba talk about Jabba and his vassels.
According to google, a vassal is a person under the protection of a feudal lord to whom he has vowed to pay tribute to.
We learn that he had a lot of different aspects to his Empire and that keeping them all in check will be quite difficult. However, whereas Jabba would kill you if you didn’t do the right dance move, Boba intends to rule with respect instead of fear. What was the right dance move? Jabba…Jabba the struttt…ooofff.
At this point, they’re ambushed by warriors which leads to our first major action scene.
Now the red shields that they use here actually look very similar to the shield blast doors that were seen in The Phantom Menace. This red force field can stop anything including lightsabers and this scene actually reminds me a lot of when police try and break up a riot in the way they have batons and the shields in front of them.
When it seems like they’re cornered the Gammoreans come to the rescue, showing that Fett was right to spare their lives.
Ya boy puts on his mean face and alongside Shand and the guards they make light work of them.
However Fett is badly injured during this and though he completely vapourises one of them, he wants one brought in alive. Shand chases them down across the rooftop, showcasing some of the skills we saw her pulling off in the bad batch. They go full parkour and we watch them swinging through the skyline of Mos Espa.
Shand catches them both but as she just needs one she kicks the other off the edge of the roof.
Boba is taken bacta the tank and here we get more flashbacks of his time with the…the people in the desert.
Fetts Flashbacks
The young boy he didn’t beat the crap out of is slightly more sympathetic towards him and he leads him and the Rhodian prisoner out in the desert. They come across swoop bikes raiding a home and there’s of course lots of callbacks to a new hope here, namely Luke’s house and the black smoke there.
They’re instructed to dig for water and the episode kinda slows down at this point but you know what, I was still really enjoying being back in this world. The Rhodian keeps getting more and more water stones…is it a water stone and when Boba finds one he drinks from it. He calls the kid a youngling which is of course the name for children in the Star Wars universe.
Poor Fett, he just ends up in Alderaan places and with a guy this Greedo…he’s lucky to get any water at all.
Now Fett is furious that they could’ve escaped and he also mentions anchor head which is a small town on Tatooine often used for transportation.
The Rhodian ends up digging too deep though and a beast amongst the sand rises up and rips the Rhodian and Massiff a new one. Fett manages to save the Youngling and kill the creature by strangling it with the chain, much like what he threatened to do to the Rhodian.
He’s won the respect of the raiders…sorry if there are any raiders watching this and the child returns to the camp with Fett freed from his chains and the monsters head. We know from the end of The Mandalorian Season 2 Episode 1 that Fett had the weapons of the Sand People and therefore we kinda knew that he got accepted amongst them. Fett is given water as a sign to show that he’s an equal as in the desert this is of course a precious commodity.
That ends the episode with us basically getting the same ending as Dune and we get that awesome theme tune kick in.
A Fight for the Throne?
Now as for my thoughts on the episode I thought this was a great first entry and the Disney Plus Star Wars shows have continued to be really atmospheric and not only nostalgic on a number levels but also highly intriguing in how they’re gonna advance the story. As much as I love watching the Jedi and the characters in the main trilogy, the side of Star Wars that has always fascinated me the most is the darker, gangster heavy criminal side to the stories that exist through certain characters. Growing up Shadows Of The Empire was one of my favourite books and games and I was absolutely obsessed with the more low-level criminal organisations that existed just outside of the Empire and Rebellion. They really had some incredible characters in them and watching Fett and Shand move through the underworld is something that I think is gonna be really intriguing as we get further into the series.
I’d love to see a sort of fight for the throne in this show and though I don’t think that will happen, I think there’s enough here to really get fans invested. If you’ve been following the channel for a while now then you’ll know what we’ve covered all the Mandalorian episodes along with the Bad Batch and this slots in perfectly with them in telling a tale of someone just trying to make their way in the Galaxy and all the potential threats that can pop up because of that.
Watching Boba Fett return is something that fans wanted for so long and I’m so glad that we’re getting it in a series that has as high production values as this does. Say what you want about the Marvel shows but I always feel like the Star Wars episodes especially feel like films and they have such authenticity to them.
This was a brilliant way to kick start the season and I of course will be back next week to talk about the second episode in the series.
Now I’d of course love to hear your thoughts so make sure you comment below and let me know.
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