I've seen quite a bit of negativity about this show. I've stayed away from conversations because we've been a few episodes behind throughout.
But we just finished this, and I'm not getting the gripes. Was this a case of unrealized expectations?
I walked into this show knowing nothing about it. Expecting nothing other than to be immersed in the Star Wars culture for a few episodes, and learn what happened to Boba Fett after ROTJ.
I'm fine with what this was.
What was wrong with this?
It had some moments but the overall craft of the writing was
so lazy as the first big criticism from me. I'll go ahead and rant about some specific examples and hope they paint a larger picture (spoilers below):
• Why do the raiders take him prisoner? What's their motivation? Is it to repeatedly rape him like they did with Shmi Skywalker? Doesn't seem like it, since Disney is trying to "humanize" their culture and make them interesting, but then...why? Why does an isolated hidden tribe of nomads take a prisoner that is just going to take up more food and water of which there is very little? And why ignore their documented savage history instead of integrating it?
• Why does Boba decide to become crime lord of Jabba's palace? What's his goal? Is it for a more interesting character reason than they already have all the sets and costumes and renders for Tattooine and they did this series on the cheap? People might say the answer is for riches, which doesn't make sense because (for some inexplicable reason) there's nobody around when Bib Fortuna is on the throne and he could have just emptied the vaults and left to go anywhere. People might say it's for revenge, which would make you think he'd say a single thing about the raiders and that story at least one time ever in the later storyline.
• Why are all these local tribes giving offerings to the new crimelord? He has a crime syndicate of....two total people. How s#!t are these established crime families that they let this happen? If it's because he's so feared, then you'd think that fear would quickly disappear with how often he gets his a$$ beat. Jabba ruled because he had infrastructure, fealty, the Hutts working as a mafia-like family, etc. Boba Fett has Fenic Shand and that's literally it, and everyone's like, "oh thank you for your protection here's a lot of money". What protection? A literal line from the series:
"I'm confused."
"He wants you to pay him."
"What? I'm the crime lord, he should pay me."
A+ work there.
• The biggest gripe I have is this
awful writing crutch where the new characters explain stuff to the old characters that the old ones should well already know. They just write these characters to be convenient exposition dumps moving the "plot" forward. So many times we see Fennic Shand saying things like, "They're used to seeing the Hutts parading around these streets." Boba Fett lived in Jabba's palace for 3 years and worked for him for longer, why is she saying all of this to him and why does he just stay silent acting like he's never set foot in this town? "Jabba rarely left his chambers" Oh but you just said... nvm.
