*WARNING* THIS REVIEW HAS SPOILERS FOR EPISODE ONE OF THE BOOK OF BOBA FETT

Imagine when you’re young and you first see Boba Fett. Hopefully, it was in Empire Strikes Back and not the Holiday Special. The Book of Boba Fett‘s first episode felt very much like what you’d think of the character after learning his fate after Return of the Jedi. His motivations aren’t quite as clear as they seemed in The Mandalorian. The once fearsome bounty hunter is a man of his word and keeps his debt to Din.

This first episode was a lot of backstory to get us to the point where we see him at the end of The Mandalorian‘s season two debut. We see where he’s at in the present, but the story for the show isn’t clear so far. Is it about rival crime lords trying to unseat him? Is there something more sinister at play? This first episode was amazing and showed off the potential for the character of Boba Fett. But as far as stories go, this was on the much smaller side. It’s an interesting choice seeing as how the last Star Wars live-action moment we witnessed was The Mandalorian‘s season finale with Luke Skywalker.

I’m not complaining, it’s just an interesting choice that some might find jarring. Trying to go over-the-top of that moment in The Mandalorian would be foolish. Writer Jon Favreau knows that, so instead of going bigger, they went for more character work with Boba Fett. Temuera Morrison and Ming-Na Wen still have great chemistry together here. The highlight is the whole sequence with Boba getting tribute from the various crime/businesses around Mos Espa.

Fantastic Action Highlights The Opening Chapter Of The Book Of Boba Fett

That ambush scene was pretty breathtaking. Coming back to the point of imagining what Boba Fett can do, this was pretty damn close. I don’t think anyone is going to forget Boba Fett blowing an assassin up with his jetpack. His action scenes in The Mandalorian were highlights and director Robert Rodriguez taps back into that with this episode. It was also nice to see almost all the creatures done with practical effects here. It made the whole episode feel like a serialized adventure from the ’30s.

If that’s what The Book Of Boba Fett is going for, then we’re in for a treat from the monster front. I was guessing that it would be a Rancor, but I really like the design of the beast in this episode. It was a pretty brutal monster and really just a brutal episode overall. That brutality is the difference between this and other Star Wars properties that we’ve seen so far. All the action and movement felt weighty here.

It all led up to a simple moment of Boba finally getting the water from the Sand People. It’s simple writing like that, that sometimes does the best job. It doesn’t need to be complicated. We want to see how Boba got here, and then we want to see where the character is going from here. These shows aren’t going to give it all away in the first episode. This builds intrigue and keeps us going for the future of the series.

So if you’re disappointed, remember, it’s only the first episode. The best of these Disney+ shows like WandaVision and The Mandalorian didn’t give it all away at once.

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