skygiants | (no subject)

I watched The Book of Boba Fett with

jothra! I enjoyed the experience; I did not think it was a particularly successful narrative.

The good:

- one is a simple person who enjoys seeing Ming-Na Wen and Temuera Morrison hang out onscreen
- one also enjoys watching Temuera Morrison have a festive and supportive Tusken wedding! good for him
- less flippantly: the show does want to make very sure that one remembers that Tuskens are people with indigenous rights to Tatooine and one does appreciate this, broadly speaking, although to my mind a lot of that good is unfortunately mitigated by [Tusken spoilers, below]
- nice that the show lets Boba Fett be bad at things
- weird Star Wars subcultures are good, actually, I think
- one is a simple person who finds it very cute when a little puppet takes a nap against a big puppet

The bad:

- while I'm conceptually down with Boba Fett being bad at politics, Star Wars ... is also bad at politics .... which made this aspect of the show more frustrating to watch than I think was perhaps intended ....
- I did not hate Boba Fett's wacky gang of misfits -- personally I love the concept of Punk Tatooine Youths On Festively Colored Velocipedes; see, Weird Star Wars Subcultures Are Good, Actually -- but in order for this storyline to be narratively successful I feel we might have needed some actual time to get to know them and care about them as characters and as a unit ... Star Wars television is just consistently beset by the desire to create pale copies of The Seven Samurai but one's reach should exceed one's grasp, I suppose
- the watcher's collective of

genarti,

jothra and I -- representing between us a fairly broad range of thoughts and opinions about the Jedi as an institution and their portrayal across the various eras of Star Wars media -- were united in our feeling that the Jedi stuff was simply not good; even aside from the unfortunate uncanny valley effect of CGI Luke, the representation of Luke attempting to train a fifty-year-old toddler in the entire Jedi curriculum in, like, a week, and then forcing said fifty-year-old toddler to make a once and final choice between The Jedi Way and The Mandalorian Way a.) did no justice to Luke's character arc b.) did no justice to the arc of the Story of the Jedi and c.) simply took up too much time in the show that could have been spent fixing other problems
- would have been nice not to see another round of 'whole Tusken village slaughtered to stress a human out'; would have been nice if Boba Fett's connection with the Tuskens had ever been relevant again for anything besides motivating him to be Madder and Sadder

The obvious:

- the back half of this show is not in fact the Boba Fett show but S3 of The Mandalorian. Everyone and their long-lost twin has already made this observation and I'm not even annoyed about it on a personal level, it's just structurally baffling; it would have been very easy not to do this! you have unlimited budget to make as many different shows as you want!
- Not Enough Feelings About Clones*

* this is obvious because there were never going to be enough feelings about clones for me regardless of how many feelings about clones the actual show contained, which, of course, was zero; however I am making my argument that if the POINT of your show is going to be "we are tired of standing alone and avoiding attachment, it's about Family now," and your protagonist has a background of strongly differentiating himself from and avoiding identification with the millions of genetically identical humans that once pervaded the galaxy loudly calling each other 'brother' and are now all mostly dead, it seems to me this would be relevant to at least mention, at least once!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

genarti

One challenge of having immediately finished the show by brainstorming ways it could have been better: I am actually extremely fond of our theoretical improved version (rot13 summary for others: gur Wrqv genvavat nep vf phg qbja gb n oner zvavzhz bs n pbhcyr bs fprarf bafperra znk, naq gura Yhxr bssref Tebth gur pubvpr SBE ABJ va n "lbh pna bayl chefhr bar bs gurfr ng n gvzr ohg vs lbh pubbfr gb yrnir lbh pna nyjnlf pbzr onpx gb zr" jnl; gung gvzr vf hfrq gb rkcyber zber bs Obon'f nyyvrf; ng yrnfg bar nyyl/haqreyvat ybbxf ng Obon naq rkcyvpvgyl fnlf "bu lbh'er IREL onq ng cbyvgvpny artbgvngvbaf, V'z fgrccvat hc gb gnxr gur yrnq ba gubfr sbe lbh"; Ghfxra nyyvrf fjrrc va gb gnxr cneg va gur svany onggyr naq jr unir n synfuonpx rfgnoyvfuvat Obon tbvat gb bgure Ghfxra pynaf(f) naq fnlvat "url, V erfcrpg lbhe ynaq evtugf naq jvyy qrny snveyl jvgu lbh, urer vf zl oban svqrf nf na nqbcgrq zrzore bs nabgure pyna, yrg'f gnyx") and therefore have to work on remembering that the version that actually exists in the world is not, in fact, our improved version but is instead the actual show which has many good points and many more inexplicable choices and structural weaknesses, alas.

I still liked it overall! But in a very structural-fixer-upper way...

From:

ironymaiden

In retrospect I am concerned that the show gives the impression that all Tuskens are gone now. it plays into some pretty standard US fallicies and ignorance about indigenous peoples

From:

genarti

Yeah, 100% agreed. I was interested in the portrayal of the Tuskens as an Indigenous people with railroads as a threatening force of colonialist resource extraction -- and I knew about [spoilers], but I had assumed that that was only one group and there would be more Tuskens onscreen! Which, I assume that it was still only one group -- it would have to be, right? right? -- but you'd never know it from the way they immediately vanished from the narrative. That felt like an extremely tired cliche of a fallacy, for sure.

From:

sophia_sol

I love your improved version of the show and I wish that was the version to exist in our world!

From:

genarti

It was a really fun show, that one that we came up with in our heads! It's a real pity that the far more uneven inferior version is the one that actually exists!

From:

skygiants

The joy of watching media as a collective is that invariably one will develop a collective interpretation that is not quite the show as presented on the screen but this was definitely a more drastic example than most!

From:

alias_sqbr

I haven't been watching the show (nor have I watched a single episode of The Clone Wars) but was vaguely paying attention to what people have been saying about it, and I am still kinda outraged at your final point. Admittedly, the reason I haven't watched The Clone wars is that I know I would have too many sad clone feelings.

Also, when I first heard people talking about how it was doing a lot better with the Tuskans than previous Star Wars I thought "Sounds good, for now. But I wonder where the show will go with that..." and, well. Sigh.

From:

skygiants

The fatal 1-2 combo of Clone Wars and three years of playing a clone in an RPG campaign gave me a case of clone brainrot from which I think I will never heal ... Last year when a Boba Fett show was announced lots of people I know were like 'why would they do this, it's just catering to the fanboys and glorifying a character who's truly not that interesting' and I was like 'NO WAIT there's a lot of stuff in his backstory that would be really interesting to engage with, actually --' but the stuff that I am interested in and the stuff that they are interested in is very much not the same. Though of course I am still happy Temuera Morrison gets paid etc.

From:

labingi

You make a great point about the clones, which I had utterly failed to think of. Beyond that, your reactions and mine are about 100% the same. I'm kind of glad you wrote this up, so I don't have to. :-)

From:

skygiants

lol, I am always thinking to some extent or another about Star Wars clones! after we watched just the first three episodes, when it was still the Boba Fett show, our roommate was like 'how'd you like it' and I just launched into my clone feelings yet again and everyone else in the household was very patiently like 'yes, other than that --'

From:

cofax7

Possibly I'm over-influenced by reading Blue_Sunshine's "Desert Storm" series, but there's also the issue that Boba Fett is also Mandalorian, and apparently through his father has some claim to political power within that community? Although the characterization of BF through the canon has not leaned very hard into his cultural heritage...

I concur on your bafflement that the show is ignoring the possibility that there are still clone-brothers around! There's no proof that Rex, for instance, didn't survive the restoration of the Republic. Especially given we have a whole show right over there digging into the clones and how they survived the rise of the Empire. ::waves hands in frustration::

From:

skygiants

Yeah! Modern Star Wars media is also truly not interested in exploring Boba Fett's identity as a Mandalorian -- it is sort of wild that this character has this really interesting backstory with lots of fairly compelling hooks in it and the only part of that they explored, very briefly, the exchange of barbs about his Youth as a Junior Criminal with Cad Bane.

My friends and I keep talking hopefully about the possibility of Cody or Rex in the Obi-Wan or Ahsoka shows but given how uninterested they've been in that aspect of canon so far I'm not holding out a tremendous amount of hope ... still, one dreams a dream ....

From:

stranger

As a dazzled and enthusiastic fan of the initial SW (IV-V-VI), who ran screaming from the I-II-III trilogy and hasn't really come back to SW as a fandom, your summary gives me a more hopeful view of the TV and other expanded universe than nearly anything else has. Very glad to see it!

From:

skygiants

Hope you enjoy if you watch!

From:

kore

even aside from the unfortunate uncanny valley effect of CGI Luke, the representation of Luke attempting to train a fifty-year-old toddler in the entire Jedi curriculum in, like, a week, and then forcing said fifty-year-old toddler to make a once and final choice between The Jedi Way and The Mandalorian Way a.) did no justice to Luke's character arc b.) did no justice to the arc of the Story of the Jedi and c.) simply took up too much time in the show

Uncanny valley Luke WHAT? How much of this was there in the show??

From:

skygiants

A WHOLE EPISODE. A whole episode of uncanny valley CGI Luke! We didn't need this! If you were going to lean on him this much please just recast him!

From:

oracne

when a little puppet takes a nap against a big puppet

Me, too. Puppets FTW!

From:

skygiants

Was recently having a conversation with friends about the concept of 'America's Sweetheart' a la Shirley Temple in which I argued that Baby Yoda was the closest thing we currently had and I stand by it.

From:

leaflemming

Oh my goodness yes, to all of this, with a side-order of:

The confusing:

I've read & heard so many variants on "Temuera Morrison is Maori & how deeply excellent it is that he was given this chance to showcase an indigenous culture's internal complexity and the importance of respecting same!" And what I saw on screen was an outsider doing an unfortunately incompetent -- in that they all got slaughtered while he was off attempting to prevent same -- variant on Dances With Wolves. As a Pakeha from Aotearoa-New Zealand who was really excited to see one of our great Maori actors lead a Star Wars show, I found this unsettling and upsetting. I mean it's not my job to tell Tem Morrison he's doing indigenous representation wrong. But wow, this was an odd thread to have running through this wildly uneven show.

From:

skygiants

Yeah, what I had heard about the show going in was "it veers rapidly into s3 of The Mandalorian" but what Beth had heard was "really interesting indigenous rep! although, unfortunately," so we watched through earnestly hoping that the stuff from the beginning was going to pay off in some interesting and unexpected way at the end and that simply didn't happen. And, like, I do not know how involved Temuera Morrison was in the direction of the storyline and I am not the right person to talk about how doing a Dances With Wolves variant with an indigenous actor at its heart representing the outsider does or doesn't change the overall implications of the storyline, but either way I feel safe in saying that I didn't feel great about the way the Tuskens vanished from the story after Episode 3!

From:

ceitfianna

This all kind of makes me glad that I only read recaps as this show seemed full of missed opportunities, which makes me even warier looking ahead to Andor and Kenobi.

From:

skygiants

Now all this said I do think it's very funny that they've now built all these Tatooine sets and NPCs, presumably so they can go right ahead and reuse them for Kenobi ....

From:

esmenet

not just star wars *television* either -- one of the earliest star wars comics arcs is a terrible seven samurai rip-off (--which happens to contain one of my favorite minor star wars characters, a hardened and cynical gang leader who dresses like a go-go dancer! also han solo hangs out shirtless with chewbacca in a hotel room for a rather lengthy amount of time)

absolutely everything i have heard about this show does not necessarily make me want to *watch* it, but certainly does motivate me to work on my epic-length boba fett (and leia) character study!

From:

skygiants

lololol omg of course it does! Star Wars starts as it means to go on! It is so funny how they keep coming back to this well, and sort of cute in a way -- scribbling a crayon drawing of seven people in front of a town and then laying it earnestly down at Kurosawa's feet like "do you like this?"

I ALSO THINK YOU SHOULD DO THIS.

From:

esmenet

it *is* kind of sweet that they keep trying!

(i have the whole thing outlined and like 9k words written! i just still have to...actually write most of the fic......)

From:

meat_and_breath

I have the maybe unpopular opinion that Luke being a pretentious and unkind ass was, in fact, consistent with his character arc. The is Return of the Jedi Luke; "I am a Jedi, like my father" Luke; the Luke who wants to recreate a Jedi Order he doesn't understand; the Luke who is going to fuck-up Kylo Ren and then go into hiding because of it. Admittedly, I'm a big fan of the characterizations of The Last Jedi, which casts Rey as the anti-Jedi — a force user who does good and respects tradition, but who also openly acknowledges the central role of relationships — in opposition to Jedi Luke — believed he was the savior the galaxy needed, and that restoring the ascetic Jedi way of the Order over relationships was the way. But Luke forcing a child to choose between the Jedi Order or the Way of the Mandalore feels very consistent with who his character is at this point in time.

From:

rachelindeed

It's interesting that you see this characterization of Luke not just in The Last Jedi but also in Return of the Jedi -- I don't doubt that your interpretation works, but I'm just surprised, because my own view of his story is so different. To me, it seemed his central concern in RotJ was to save his father, refusing to kill him and believing (against Yoda and Obi-Wan's advice) that familial love and reconnection had the potential to save Vader from the Dark Side. He felt he had to try, and hoped that if he risked his life in extending his hand to his father, that Vader would respond. By reaching out to restore the first relationship the Jedi Order devoted itself to breaking (the parent-child relationship), he hoped to save himself, his father, and the galaxy. And then...he was right? From his plea "Father, please, help me" being the tipping point in turning Vader against the Emperor, to Vader's dying words being "You were right about me. Tell your sister, you were right," the redemptive power of human connection and filial relationships was the central theme of the whole climax, I thought. To me The Last Jedi felt like a big departure from that version of Luke, and this feels like an even bigger one, to have RotJ-era Luke believing that the Force demands that father-son relationships be abandoned.

From:

meat_and_breath

Yeah, fair. That's a compelling counter-argument. I mean, this is the central tension of Luke, right? He wants so much to be A Jedi™ while also being incapable of ignoring his emotional attachments to friends and family.

From:

skygiants

Hmm, I can see how you would get there, and it's been a minute since I saw TLJ (and that only once), but the read I got on Luke's journey between RotJ and TLJ is quite different and more in line with

rachelindeed's -- Luke's actions in the original trilogy seem to me to hang very much on finding the balance between personal connections to individuals in the world and the more generic compassion+distance of traditional Jedi philosophy. While I could absolutely buy a Luke who is still struggling with that, and overdoing it in one direction or the other and making tremendous mistakes as a result, giving us one episode in someone else's show which Luke simply represents The Stark Binaries Of The Traditional Jedi Path without showing us any of the internal calculus or uncertainty behind that feels like a huge over-simplification of the character -- too much screen time of him and his POV for it to seem like a cameo and read it as simply Grogu & Din's perception of him as a bit player in their own storyline, but too little to actually give him any depth or explore what's interesting about him at this point in the timeline.