Disclaimer: This post contains spoilers for The Book of Boba Fett. If you don't want to be spoiled, please turn around and walk back the way you came. Once you have finished the series, if you still want to read this post, it will still be here. Thank you!
So... in true ADHD fashion, I managed to completely forget about some of the points I wanted to touch on in my post for TBoBF. Instead of going back to edit the post, though, I'm going to make a supplemental post. Let's hope I remember everything this time, but I'm not holding my breath.
(This may come off a bit disjointed, as a note.)
I mentioned in the first post that I appreciated that we're getting to see more of the Tuskens as actual people, not just random desert savages. As we traversed the memories of Boba Fett, we got to see the loyalty within their tribe, how they mourn their dead... Their rites of passage. I'm not one to judge cultural differences, generally, but...
That is not a small lizard. I mean, it is! But comparative to where it is about to go, that is not a small lizard at all.
It put me in mind of the brain worm thing from Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (which I have not watched since I was a child, and will probably never watch again)... Granted, the lizard is not as bad as the Ceti eel (which I just had to look up the name of... thanks, Google!). Instead of causing immense amounts of pain, it just sent Fett on a rather intense trip that ended in him getting bear-hugged by a hallucinated tree that somehow managed to give him an actual piece of wood for his gaffi stick, but...
The idea of that whole ass lizard going up his nose, settling who knows where in his head while he's tripping balls, and then coming back out again? I'mma nope out hard on that.
One thing I was initially 'no' on, though, started to grow on me the more I thought about it. Fett spends the first couple of episodes collecting his little ragtag group, one facet of which is the Mods. Their speeders, which give me a decidedly 1950's design feel with their bright colours and shinier-than-Mr-Clean's-bald-head chrome accents (though I saw someone compare them with KitchenAid stand mixers, and that is not something I can unsee) were absolutely jarring against the backdrop of dusty Tatooine.
To be fair, they are still jarring. They're more something you might find on a Core planet, so they stick out like a sore thumb. I think that's sort of the point, though. You have these kids who grew up on the Outer Rim, on the big floating sandbox that is Tatooine. Their best job prospects are being moisture farmers or sleazebags. Their droid body mods and those spiffy speeders they have are both acts of rebellion against their crummy, mundane stations in life, and you can't really blame them for that.
Ya do gotta to wonder, though... They complained about the cost of the water (which, admittedly, was being gouged), but have the mods and the speeders, and those could not have been cheap. One would think they could have just used the credits to give Tatooine the finger and bounce.
Speaking of shiny, though... (I'm trying to make this flow cohesively, yo.) Of all the things to give Din Djarin, the showrunners gave him a fucking Naboo N-1 starfighter? That is absolutely the most impractical thing ever. That's the douche bag who needs to buy a minivan because he's got a brood of kids, but he goes out and buys a fucking crotch rocket instead. Djarin lives on his ship. He works from his ship. He transports bounties on his ship. (I am still upset about the Razor Crest, by the way! She didn't deserve that...) Did I mention the part where he lives on his ship? Technically speaking, he's currently homeless (in more ways than one, but I'll get there in a second).
And while he didn't have Grogu in his care when he accepted it from Peli, he has him back now. (Also, as an aside, can I just say that I absolutely loved that they acknowledged the fans' reaction to that awful name in the show by having Peli straight up call it out as such?) What's he going to do, pull over and find a place to touch down every time the kid needs a nap? Or just have him sleep in the small, hollowed out droid compartment? I have seen some discourse that perhaps the N-1 is temporary, or that he will find a larger ship that can also transport the fighter so he can keep it, but still have something actually functionally conducive to his lifestyle.
I really hope so, yo... But I guess we'll have to wait for season three to actually air (which is supposed to be at some currently unknown point this year, and we would really like a release date, Disney! [Yeah, I know it'll prolly be later, like November or December or sommat... Bleh...]).
'So what happens if you take that thing off? They come after you and kill you?' 'No. You just can't ever put it back on again.' - Cara Dune and Din Djarin (The Mandalorian, Chapter 4: Sanctuary)
I'm sure it did not escape anyone's attention that Din Djarin is still running around with his full armor on. Technically speaking, by Mandalorian Creed, when he removed the helmet at the refinery on Morak he should not have put it back on, but Migs Mayfeld 'didn't see anything' and everyone else died, so... But on the bridge of Moff Gideon's ship? In front of that whole group of people?
Don't get me wrong, the scene was all the feels. Djarin having to say goodbye to Grogu, and the only thing the little guy wants is to see his face once... And he took his helmet off without a second thought, because while the Creed is everything to Din Djarin, Grogu still means more. Watching it, I was legitimately verklempt... Hell, even rewatching it.
I don't really cry at things, but two things in The Mandalorian get me pretty damned close: the destruction of the Razor Crest and that farewell scene on the bridge. Now I have something to add to it from TBoBF: 'You are Mandalorian no more.' Hearing the Armorer say that to him, even though I knew it was coming, broke my heart so much. It makes it worse that the only path Din Djarin has for redemption by way of the Mandalore is to do something he (and everyone else) believes impossible to do.
And so he's been cast out from his covert for defying the Creed. (Which is all the more sad, because now his covert is down to two people... One of which is Paz Vizla, who is a gigantic knob.)
I am really hoping season three takes us to Mandalore...
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