Something incredible happened at the end of Episode 6 of what I hope
is the first and only season of The Book of Boba Fett.
Something I didn't think was possible.
Cobb Vanth, the Marshal Freetown,
having just earlier that day disrupted the local drug trade,
is greeted by a mysterious stranger.
The stranger known to fan of the Clone Wars as Cad Bane offers Vanth an ultimatum,
but the drugs known as spice flow in Freetown will be left alone.
But if the Marshal chooses to interfere, the Pyke syndicate,
some interplanetary crime organization will destroy Freetown. That's when it happened.
That's when I saw the beautiful thing that The Book of Boba Fett was missing.
Conflict. Vanth wants to keep his city safe.
But he also knows that the drug trade will continue to hurt innocent people,
and that's a bad thing.
On top of that, while ignoring the Pyke syndicate may protect Freetown in the short-term,
being under the thumb of organized crime will
inevitably lead to more death in the future.
On top of that, Vanth shows weakness in this moment,
his leadership may fall into question.
On top of that,
the stranger seems ready to shoot Vanth if he refuses.
On top of that, a trigger happy deputy seems poised to shoot the stranger,
which will force Vanth's hand.
It was by a country Parsec,
the most successful scene in the season.
The first moment, The Book of Boba Fett a series did, at least in theory,
drew heavily from gangster and Western films,
managed to generate the tension that both genres are known for.
Boba Fett was not in it.
In fact, I don't even think he learned that it happened.
That illustrates a fundamental issue with The Book of Boba Fett.
The design flaw that left the series vulnerable to complete destruction.
Boba Fett is an awful protagonist.
Now I don't think this was inevitable because of the conceit of this series, in fact,
I think there exists another character in The Book of Boba Fett,
he would make a far more compelling protagonist and I'll get to them later.
But I don't even think Boba Fett the character shown briefly in
the background of the Star Wars films and reintroduced in the Mandalorian,
has some fundamental character trait that makes him poorly suited to lead this series.
But Boba Fett, as written in The Book of Boba Fett,
should not be allowed to lead in Ewok line dance,
let alone a multi-million dollar Disney Plus show.
I am baffled by the choices they made.
Flummoxed, discombobulated.
When the series began,
I had a fear that Boba Fett would become a cipher.
A character written as broadly as possible onto whom
the audience can project their own beliefs and values.
Blank Slate. He is something much dumber.
Boba Fett says he has wants and needs and the guiding ideology.
He wants to rule with respect.
He wants to protect the people of Mos Espa,
and he has specific skills.
He's a strategist, he's tough.
He's one of the deadliest men in the galaxy.
But every time Boba Fett gets a chance to act
on any of those character traits or demonstrate any of those skills,
he does the opposite.
Instead of ruling with respect,
Boba rules with slightly less fear than the other guys, but still fear.
He doesn't have any plan to win over the hearts and minds of the people instead
of telling one water merchant to lower his prices.
But most of Boba Fett's leadership strategy seems to be walk around with a gun,
assassin friends and armed guards.
Sounds like fear to me. He won't torture.
But besides that, it doesn't feel like much for departure from
Jabba or Bib Fortuna or any of these guys in the show.
Speaking of that, not to nitpick,
not unlike my podcast, mostly nitpicking.
But what does Boba have that makes him the Daimyo?
He does not have any troops to enforce his command outside of Phoenix and two Gomorians.
He controls Jabba's palace and his money.
But when it comes in and says,
I am the new Daimyo now,
why would anybody care?
Most of his for is a huge place and Boba seems to have
nearly enough people under his command to safely patrol one street.
Seems like the reason Jabba was such a big deal wasn't that he had
the palace or called himself the Daimyo.
It had to do with his backing from
the larger hut family as seen when the twins arrive on that wonderful litter.
But it's like if you killed the head of the entire crime family of New York,
as well as almost everyone in the family.
Then just walked up to everyone they did business with and said,
I'm the crime family now and expected all the actual crime families to go,
well, he called it shucks and gosh,
I guess that means he gets all the money.
Like Boba doesn't even have some ceremonial ring or a Rankor originally,
or anything like that,
that could demonstrate his leadership.
It's such a bizarre plan which fails at every turn.
Anyway, Boba also says he wants to protect the people and he's a cunning strategist.
But when he learns that
the interplanetary crime syndicate is sending an army to kill him.
Specifically, Fett chooses to fight them not
in his heavily fortified palace on the outskirts of town,
but in the streets of Mos Espa to ensure that Boba and
his team squander any home field advantage and causes much collateral damage as possible.
He loses fights left and right.
He's surprised by Black Krrsantan. He's
surprised by those bunch of assassins
with shields that poke him with the electric sticks.
He's even surprised by the Pyke syndicate after Fennec
assures him that the Pyke syndicate can't sneak up on him.
They literally stick up on him one second after that and all show up.
It's like, what have you even been doing this whole time?
What are you good at?
But the larger issue with Boba's ambitions on crime learning comes from
his apparent disinterest and actually being a crime lord.
He doesn't seem to enjoy the sitting around parts or the management parts.
He doesn't seem to have any strong connection to Tatooine,
besides that the Tuscan is founded,
nursed him to help before they were all slaughtered as
an unintended consequences of Boba's own actions.
He doesn't seem to want the money that comes with being a crime lord.
At the end of the season,
regardless of everything that has happened with the Rancor and the disarray in the city,
Boba walks through town with Fennec and the people smile and bow at him.
Boba complains. He even says,
we're not suited for this.
Then Fennec replies, if not us,
who, who you ask a good question.
Fennec, if only there was a character with a strong connection to Tatooine,
who is motivated to keep the peace,
and whose morality would make navigating the criminal underworld difficult.
Also, handsome. Look,
it's Cobb Vanth played by the Hitman's owe Timothy Olyphant.
He was one of the fan-favorite characters of Season 2.
He isn't currently doing anything,
and he is perfectly positioned to do everything
Boba Fett did except in a compelling way and right off the bat.
Yes, I think you could sell the show,
the Ballad of Cobb Vanth.
I mean, either way, it should have been called Ballad.
Why is this a book, why is The Book of Boba Fett?
But the Star Wars name carries weight and they spin off focusing on
a character developed during The Mandalorian show makes complete sense.
A good show is more important than a recognizable one.
Word of mouth is what makes or breaks the show like Boba Fett,
and in my experience,
that word of mouth was not good.
Outside of big Star Wars fans,
I don't know anyone who would recommend this show.
Even the big fans reccd it with that enthusiasm of someone who's like,
"Yeah, I don't know, it's pretty good,
you might like it."
But nothing near the enthusiasm of like, "Listen,
you got to put down everything and watch The Mandalorian right now because it's amazing."
The plus if you throw in an existing marketable character from other Star Wars stuff,
and I don't think it's necessary.
But ya know. Money. Have Darth Maul show up as the bad guy or something.
Or Qira or some other crime boss who you would assume is still alive.
Where's Dengar, the people love Dengar
or Lando maybe he's governing this part of the galaxy.
Him and Lobot can stop over or force Vanth to interact with the guy who says ''Mando'',
he's probably got a name.
Is that Greef Karga? There you go.
Or Migs Mayfeid,
he's wandering around somewhere.
What I'm saying is, you can use some of those other characters to prop up the show.
If you really want Disney,
you don't need to though.
Because you don't need Cameos when you have a compelling story.
The story of the Ballad of Cobb Vanth works in ways that The Book Boba Fett never could.
Because at the heart of the story where they man with a set of values
and a real threat to what he cares about in the form of the spice trade.
Vanth is as Bane points out,
vulnerable without Fett's arm so right there scenes get stakes.
Unlike the Boba Fett scenes where he can be
endlessly shot or shocked and he's just annoyed.
The coolest thing is,
none of the structure of the show would really need to change.
Here's my new outline,
which I throw up on Twitter a couple of days ago, Twitter.com/NandovMovies.
You start with episode 6.
Cobb is the marshal of Mos Pelgo,
which is now called Freetown.
Things are going pretty well.
He intercepts the drug convoy then Cad Bane shows up and gives a warning.
Now Cobb has to do something about that,
but he doesn't know what because he's not going to let this spice go through his city.
But he also isn't capable of dealing with whatever the Pyke's indicate is.
Then second episode same as the original Boba Fett episode 1,
Cobb goes to Mos Espa and starts combing through the criminal underworld.
Maybe he starts meeting some of these characters that are hanging around here.
Third and fourth are more of that meeting Krrsantan,
the motorcycle gang, Fennec and Boba Fett if you want,
maybe they're still hanging around.
All the while, he is making friends and learning about the local government,
becoming a man of the people and he's learning about their customs, what makes them tick.
Learning that hey. You know what?
I was never a big fan of these city folks,
but maybe they're not so bad.
Maybe there's not that much that separates us from them.
Then at the end of episode 4,
we get the actual ultimatum from Cad Bane which is,
''Leave all of this drug stuff going on.
We will let you do your thing in Freetown.
And hey, we'll even kick you over a few credits."
Cobb politely and handsomely declines and then Cad Bane comes back with,'' Okay,
well, we'll see in 24 hours.''
Episode 5 can be the Mandalorian episode if you want.
I think it was okay.
I liked it as an episode and it's always fun to see him.
In episode 6, we assembled the team and it is nothing but planning.
We're learning the geography of where this fight is going to take place.
Maybe it's Freetown, maybe Boba Fett is held
up in Jabba's old palace and that's where we're going to have this fight.
I think it's fun to reincorporate some of
these things we already know about the location,
the Sarlacc, the Rankor pit,
all that stuff and by God,
do not do all this Yoda stuff.
I have my own thoughts about the look thing.
I think sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't.
Sometimes it feels evil like with Tarkin and
this guy is a dead guy who we are resurrecting with CGI.
But even with living actors,
I don't understand why we're using computer programs to voice them,
but it looks great.
But also, it is wild that this show is now required reading for Mandalorian season 3,
or the first episode of Mandalorian season 3 is just going to be this again.
Either one of those options is not good.
Then the finale, episode 7 is The Magnificent Seven, same structure too,
Cobb's recruits Mendo, Fennec,
Sandy, and the four bikers and we have the big showdown.
Maybe if you want here, Boba can help out with the Rancor at the end.
But this is Cobb rallying the citizens of Mos Espa and
Freetown against the Pyke syndicate, saving the day.
I think part of the problem here is Boba Fett has become
what I think is a big problem with Star Wars in general, a precious character.
A character who they do not want to do anything dangerous with.
He can't be bad.
He can't be too good.
He has a very simple and ambiguous set of values.
So if they want to put them in some projects in the future,
they can put them there regardless of whether he belongs there or not.
Even if he would never want to go there
because that's not what he's ever done up until this point.
I think a lot of those same issues reared their ugly head in Episode 9.
So maybe because of that,
The Book of Boba Fett was doomed from the start.
But that's what I'd like about Cobb Vanth and
a lot of the other characters that we've meet in Mandalorian.
Not only are they new,
but they don't come with the baggage and expectations that Boba Fett comes with.
Yes, I'm sure that name makes it a lot easier to sell the series,
but the word Star Wars should be as big as
the word Marvel in terms of you see that on screen and you go,
"Oh, cool, one of these things,
I'll probably watch it if I hear it's good."
I know a lot of people who have no idea what Moon Knight is and they're interested.
I'm not saying that always works,
but I don't think Disney needs to be sitting in a room with people and dials,
turning the dials whenever they see a name that they recognize.
Then look at who got the highest percentage of awareness and make a show about them.
The Star Wars brand needs to be bigger than characters.
Which means, you can take a story like the book of Boba Fett and say,
"We can do this but without Boba Fett."
Let's elevate Cobb Vanth to that level and we'll get something really cool.
This got kind of ranty at the end.
I did not expect that,
but hey, here we are.
I mean, if you want a real rant on Nebula,
I made a full bonus video.
Not even like extra content for this,
like another video that I just did not want to
put onto YouTube because I didn't want to have to deal with
the comments section in defense and offense of
this one spin move that everybody on Twitter was talking about.
I think it is interesting and emblematic of some of the issues with
the Star Wars community and also some of The Book of Boba Fett's failures.
If you want to watch that video,
you can check that out right now on Nebula.
You guys know, Nebula, it's a subscription streaming service
that I helped to create all my videos go up there early ad free
and sometimes I'll upload a full
companion video. So this is something that is not going on YouTube at all.
Just my thoughts.
I get into some issues with the book of Boba Fett,
some of the things that it was trying to do and maybe did wrong.
I think by the end of the video, you will understand where I'm coming from.
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