The Book of Boba Fett: Season 1

Famed mercenary Boba Fett has laid claim to the former palace and territory of the crime lord Jabba the Hutt. The civic and criminal gangs which rule Tatooine warily watch to see how events will pan out, with Fett having to fend off challenges from Jabba's cousins, the Twins, and the merciless Pyke Syndicate. As Fett struggles to rule through respect, rather than fear, he revisits his past, how he escaped the Sarlaac beast and how his recovery was helped by unxpected allies.

The Book of Boba Fett is the long, long-awaited Star Wars spin-off focusing on the titular bounty hunter. A fan-favourite character ever since since he debuted in the otherwise woeful Star Wars Holiday Special, Fett received only limited screentime in the original trilogy, adding to his mystique, but was given more backstory in the prequel trilogy and the Clone Wars animated series. The second season of The Mandalorian saw his return as a grizzled veteran out to settle scores.

This series establishes a format it follows through its first four episodes: we follow both a present-day storyline as Fett wrestles with taking and keeping control of Mos Espa and also extensive flashbacks explaining how he survived the events of Return of the Jedi. Sometimes the flashbacks are dominant and the present-day storyline only gets a few scenes and sometimes the reverse. There is one key problem with this narrative structure: neither story has enough juice or momentum to warrant its screen time individually, let alone together.

The flashback stories flirt with dull colonialist tropes as Boba Fett teaches some Tusken Raiders how to be better warriors, whilst their acceptance of him into their tribe teaches him compassion and honour. This is set up to explain why Fett is now kinder, more willing to make friends and allies than the lone-wolf bounty hunter he was first introduced as. In the present day, we see Fett and ally Fennec Shand (Ming-Na Wen) attempting to bring justice to the streets of Mos Espa through respect rather than fear. However, it all feels a bit half-hearted. Jabba inspired fear and respect through his ruthless crushing of the opposition and his power being backed by the Hutts. Boba has no such power base and it's unclear how he and effectively one hired gun and a bunch of droids can hope to replicate Jabba's power. This sets up a storyline as he recruits allies, including an irate Wookie bounty-hunter, a new pet rancor and a bunch of cyborg "mods" who race around the streets of Most Espa on hover-Vespas. It all feels a bit random, especially as the show sets up formidable enemies in the form of a brother and sister team of Hutts, but then immediately exiles them from the story in favour of the altogether vaguer Pyke Syndicate.

The Book of Boba Fett loses its story thread several times in the first four episodes, leaving the viewer to scratch their head about what the through-line of this series is. If Fett is no longer a ruthless, amoral bounty-hunter, why does he want to be a ruthless, amoral crime lord? If he learned respect and honour from the Tuskens living a simple life in the desert, why is he proceeding to take over the big cities with morasses of competing interests? It doesn't help that the show introduces potentially interesting characters and subplots and then does nothing with them.

Jennifer Beals plays the owner of a high-class cantina in Mos Espa and it's hinted that she has an interesting agenda. However, neither her character nor the stories of her cantina are fleshed out in any way. The exceptional Sophie Thatcher from Yellowjackets plays Drash, the leader of the cyborgs biker gang, and gets virtually nothing to do other than take part in a couple of very half-heated action sequences. Why does the Mod gang join forces with Boba? How does he retain their loyalty? Why does everyone treat Boba as a respected and honoured warrior when five seconds ago he was a feared, amoral bounty hunter and ruthless criminal? Why cast Danny Trejo in a fun role and do absolutely nothing more with him?

The Book of Boba Fett does remain watchable thanks to some sharp action set-pieces (particularly a fun train heist), but these questions keep mounting, leaving the viewer scratching their head on why anything is happening. Then the show takes a hard left-turn into real non-sequitur randomness.

With its fifth and sixth episodes, The Book of Boba Fett abruptly turns into Season 2.5 of The Mandalorian. We rejoin the adventures of Din Djarin as he learns to master the Darksabre and tries to pay a visit to Grogu (aka Baby Yoda). The problems with the rest of the series abruptly disappear as the show gains focus and clarity...at the expense of its lead character. Boba Fett disappears for most of these two episodes and instead we get a concentrated thermonuclear blast of fan-service. R2-D2! Luke Skywalker! Ahsoka Tano! Cad Bane! Timothy Olyphant's lawman guy! That X-wing guy! It's all fun and well-handled, but also feels incredibly off-target.

Eventually the producers seem to remember this is the Boba Fett show and re-team the Mandalorian and Boba Fett for the finale, which does almost lives up to its billing. We get a reasonably impressive and long battle sequence, featuring rancors climbing buildings, gigantic versions of the destroyer droids from The Phantom Menace and more. It's visually impressive, if mildly incoherent: a droid fails to gun down Fett's assorted allies when they are standing five feet away and its powerful turbolasers, which took out an armoured personnel carrier in five seconds, is now unable to make much of an impression on a relatively thin stone wall.

Of course, applying cast-iron logic to Star Wars is not a winning strategy, so overlooking such pedantry there is some fun to be had from these battle scenes, particularly the two Mandalorian-armoured warriors working out a rhythm as they learn how to fight as a team (albeit a team that has apparently never heard of the term "cover"). Fett's assembled allies get a bit more time in the sun and story ends in a reasonably interesting place. But it all feels a bit underwhelming.

Some of the problems can be ascribed to the fact that The Mandalorian has just featured two seasons of a taciturn, badass warrior wearing Mandalorian armour and sorting out business, so having a third, and considerably more weakly-plotted, season of exactly the same thing feels redundant. Other issues can be perhaps ascribed to the problems of having a lead actor in his sixties being supposedly an accomplished warrior. Don't get me wrong, Temuera Morrison could certainly break most twenty-year olds in half, but Boba definitely does not live up to his lethal billing as a fighter here. The show also doesn't really address the age problem: Boba should only be around 41 years old at this point, so it's unclear why he looks and acts like a guy twenty years older, aside from the fanservice of using the "right" actor. They'd have been better using Daniel Logan who played the younger Fett in Attack of the Clones who is now in his mid-thirties and would be a better fit for the character's age, or setting the show twenty years later and focusing on a story about an older Boba facing retirement and obsolescence, although of course that would have reduced the chances for tying into the Mandalorian's storyline.

As the first season of The Book of Boba Fett (***), the show just about remains watchable through some effective action sequences, a few nice comic asides and Ming-Na Wen stealing every scene she's in. As an interlude of The Mandalorian (****), the show is altogether more successful, catching us up on what Din and Grogu are up to and setting up Season 3 of The Mandalorian in style. As a show overall, it feels lopsided, and, disappointingly, is at its weakest whenever Boba Fett and his confused motivations are on screen. The season is available now on Disney+ worldwide.

First trailer for STAR WARS: THE BOOK OF BOBA FETT released

Lucasfilm and Disney have unveiled the first trailer for their upcoming Star Wars TV series, The Book of Boba Fett.

A spin-off of The Mandalorian, The Book of Boba Fett picks up after the end of Season 2 of that show. Famed bounty hunter Boba Fett (Temuera Morrison) and associate Fennec Shand (Ming-Na Wen) have taken over the criminal empire of the late Jabba the Hutt on Tatooine, but understandably face resistance from Jabba's other allies and enemies, who want a piece of his estate for themselves.

Jon Favreau and Dave Filoni are producing the show alongside the currently-shooting third season of The Mandalorian and a second, in-pre-production live action series called Ahsoka. Some of the heavy lifting on The Book of Boba Fett is being handled by veteran writer-director Robert Rodriguez (El Mariachi, Spy Kids, Alita: Battle Angel), who previously directed some episodes of The Mandalorian.

The Book of Boba Fett is scheduled to premiere on 29 December this year. It is unclear how many episodes will be in the series, but it is not likely to be more than the eight per season of The Mandalorian. It will be followed by the six-episode Obi-Wan Kenobi mini-series (which recently wrapped shooting) in early 2022.

Star Wars: The Mandalorian - Season 2

The Mandalorian has reluctantly embraced his new role as the guardian of "the Child," a youngster belonging to the same species as Jedi Master Yoda. Deciding he needs to track down the Jedi to return the Child to them, he embarks on a journey across the galaxy, encountering allies new and old and enemies familiar and unfamiliar. His epic quest will lead him to a fateful meeting with former Jedi padawan Ahsoka Tano, agents of the New Republic and soldiers of the Imperial Remnant. However, his movements are being tracked by Moff Gideon, who seeks the Child for his own ends.

The first season of The Mandalorian was a winner, an epic space Western playing out on different planets which tapped into the soul and spirit of Star Wars in a manner not seen in live action for many years. Jon Favreau and Dave Filoni, veterans of the Star Wars animated series The Clone Wars and Rebels, successfully delivered a series of episodes full of action, adventure, warmth, wit, character and, in the form of "Baby Yoda," even charm.

Following up on that breakout season was always going to be tough and the second season of The Mandalorian at times struggles with the format. With Season 1 ramping up from an episodic format at the start of the season to a more serialised feeling at the end, Season 2 reverting to a more monster/planet/villain-of-the-week format for its first few episodes feels a tad jarring. Fortunately these episodes are pretty good: Mando and Cobb Vanth (Deadwood and Justified's Timothy Olyphant) teaming up to take down a krayt dragon and Mando teaming up with Bo-Katan Kryze of Mandalore (Battlestar Galactica's Katee Sackhoff) to take out an Imperial enemy. An intermediary episode, where the Mandalorian and a random alien frog get stuck on an ice planet full of ice spiders, is weird but somewhat amusing (and gives us some solid X-wing action).

The back half of the season is really strong though. Things kick off with the long-expected debut of Rosario Dawson in the fan-favourite animated role of Ahsoka Tano in a gripping, strongly Kurosawa-influenced tale of confrontation and conflict (with some stunning individual images). Things continue with the Mandalorian forming an unholy alliance with Boba Fett (a returning Temuera Morrison from the prequel movies) and reteaming with Season 1's Migs (Bill Burr) to infiltrate an Imperial base, before an all-action finale awash with cool moments and character cameos.

The Mandalorian's strength so far has been tapping into George Lucas's original idea of Star Wars as a series of matinee pulp adventures and delivering that to the hilt. Performances are solid (especially Pedro Pascal as the taciturn hero), the visual effects among the finest ever created for television and the sense of pacing is strong. Quite a few episodes of The Mandalorian come in at well below the traditional 60 minutes (some scraping in at around 35 minutes), and although more would be nice, it's hard to deny the relentless, fierce sense of purpose this gives the show.

The finale also gives a nice moment of closure to the story that began in the debut episode of the series. Clearly, the adventures of the Mandalorian will continue (a third season has been confirmed, and three direct spin-off shows focusing on the New Republic, Ahsoka and Boba Fett are in the planning stages) but this first storyline is now given a reasonably satisfying sense of closure.

The second season of The Mandalorian (****½) continues in much the same vein as the first, delivering an adrenalin shot of pure Star Wars action right to the heart. It is available to watch worldwide now on Disney+.

Season 2 of THE MANDALORIAN gets an airdate

Disney and Lucasfilm have confirmed that Season 2 of The Mandalorian will land on Disney+ on 30 October.

The first season of The Mandalorian was a hit when it arrived on Disney+ at the end of last year, generating critical acclaim as well as a meme for the ages with "Baby Yoda". The second season will pick up shortly after the first and will feature an ongoing conflict between the titular Mandalorian (Pedro Pascal) and Moff Gideon (Giancarlo Esposito). The season will feature some new guest casts including Michael Biehn as a bounter hunter, Timothy Olyphant as Cobb Vanth (from the Star Wars: Aftermath series of novels), Katee Sackhoff as Bot-Katan Kryze (from The Clone Wars and Rebels), Temuera Morrison as a former clone trooper (and allegedly Boba Fett), and Rosario Dawson reportedly playing the role of fan-favourite former Jedi apprentice Ahsoka Tano.

Principal shooting of Season 2 began before Season 1 even aired and concluded just a few weeks before the global pandemic shut down global film production in March. Post-production has been mostly done remotely, although the show's heavy use of virtual sets and greenscreens meant that socially-distanced filming is much more practical for this show than most. Pre-production and planning for a third season is already underway.

Star Wars: The Mandalorian - Season 1

Seven years after the death of the Emperor and Darth Vader, the galaxy is in a precarious state. The New Republic is trying to unite the galaxy again under a democratic banner, opposed by areas where remnants of the Empire still hold sway, but many worlds have become lawless. A Mandalorian warrior finds himself serving as a bounty hunter, taking on commissions to survive...until his latest contract changes everything.

The Mandalorian represents a historic moment for the Star Wars franchise. After forty-three years, it is the first live-action, ongoing TV series in the franchise's history, something people have dreamed of seeing since 1977. For having such weight on its shoulders, it is surprisingly low-key.

The show has a tight focus on the central character, played by Pedro Pascal (Game of Thrones, Narcos), who (almost) never takes his helmet off and is a taciturn warrior. With only a blank helmet to emote through and relatively rare bursts of dialogue, Pascal does a sterling job of giving his character an identifiable motivation, gravitas, charisma and dry humour. The supporting cast, from Carl Weathers (Predator) as the Mando's erstwhile boss, director Werner Herzog as a villain and Gina Carano (Deadpool) as a former Rebel shock trooper turned reluctant ally to the Mandalorian, are also excellent.

The show has a really interesting filming style, with a strong use of both location filming and virtual sets which have been taken to the next level, using techniques developed on showrunner Jon Favreau's recent Disney live-action movies. For the most part these are brilliantly realised, giving the show a sense of realism and scale that almost no science fiction TV series has ever achieved before. What is interesting is also how restrained the show is: this is  a space Western, mostly set on dusty frontier worlds and in seedy cantinas, with shady backroom deals going on which threaten to explode in violence at any moment. The visual effects and battle sequences are also, obviously, exceptional, and the end credits for each episodes are works of art on their own merits.

The structure of the series is also refreshing. In the last year or so it's felt like there's been a slight backlash to constant serialisation as several high-profile shows have retreated from stretching single stories over dozens of episodes to instead mix self-contained narratives with continuing subplots. After this worked well in The Witcher and before it did in Tales from the Loop, The Mandalorian does the same here. Continuing threads run through the season as the Mandalorian tries to survive and protect a mysterious alien child he finds on one of his missions, whilst also dealing with a series of crises-of-the-week. These include defending a village on a planet from attack by mercenaries and helping rescue a prisoner from a prison transport. Eventually there is a reckoning, hinting at a more serialised second season, but the story unfolds much more organically this way. The producers are also happy to have some of the episodes be quite short and focused, wrapping up in 40 minutes rather than dragging out to more than 60 without enough story to fill that time.

Weaknesses are few: the fifth episode is a bit forgettable, I guess, and there's perhaps an overreliance on some staple Star Wars tropes (an audible grown can be heard as they tap the Tatooine well once again), but the execution is otherwise superb, with great writing, direction and effects.

Season 1 of The Mandalorian (****½) finally gives us the live-action Star Wars TV show fans have wanted for forty years, and does an exceptionally good job of it. It is available to watch worldwide now on Disney+. Season 2 of The Mandalorian concluded shooting before the coronavirus pandemic began so will hopefully hit its October 2020 release date.

The Great Marvel Rewatch: Iron Man 2

Tony Stark has revealed to the world that he is Iron Man, which has led to a huge amount of publicity and fame, but it has also led to criticism by corporate rivals and repeated attempts by the US government to seize his technology for their own use. As Stark fends off legal troubles, he also faces a new threat from a former ally of his father's.

Iron Man 2 is the very definition of a standard Hollywood sequel. It's bigger, brasher and noisier than its forebear, operates on a larger scale and clearly has more money running through it. There's more explosions, more Iron Man suits, more shout-outs to the wider Marvel universe and, well, more stuff going on.

What it isn't, necessarily, is more fun. The original Iron Man was entertaining and breezy, although lacking in real story or character depth. Iron Man 2 feels perfunctory and also perhaps a bit too overstuffed at times. There's a lot of shout-outs to Thor (which takes place simultaneously with this movie), SHIELD and Nick Fury have a larger presence and the movie spends some time setting up the character of Black Widow. The net result of this is that erstwhile villains Ivan Vanko (a effective but clearly unchallenged Mickey Rourke) and Justin Hammer (an entertaining but entirely nonthreatening Sam Rockwell) spend most of the movie off-screen. The Marvel "villain problem" is clearly a major issue in this film, with most of the time spent fighting unmanned drones rather than the actual bad guys, who are rather quickly disposed of and don't have much to do.

What the film does do, surprisingly, is dedicate a significant amount of time to Tony Stark's mental state and his character development as he strives to be a better person and face his own mortality, eventually overcoming it, recognising his weaknesses and becoming a more effective leader, setting up his role in The Avengers. This is something the film does quite well - maybe to the point of spending too much time on it - and better than I think the film is often credited for. Iron Man 2 is arguably the closest we get in the MCU to seeing what these characters are doing in their down time when the world isn't under threat of imminent annihilation.

The result is that Iron Man 2 (***½)  a bit of an oddball movie. The villains are decidedly non-threatening and the film is more concerned with the characters' internal lives and relationships than with heroics. But that's also something of a strength, especially given the strength of the cast. The result is a movie that's less straight-up fun than its forebear, but balances that out with stronger characterisation and better worldbuilding.

The Great Marvel Rewatch: Iron Man

Ahead of the release of Avengers: Endgame in a month's time, which will conclude both Phase Three of the Marvel Cinematic Universe and also conclude the storylines that have been building since the MCU launched in 2008, I will be rewatching all of the Marvel movies released to date, in some cases revisiting older reviews and in others issuing new reviews. Let's do this.

Stark Industries is one of the US military's most advanced and reliable weapons contractors, at least until its chief executive and resident inventor-genius Tony Stark is kidnapped by Afghan terrorists. Escaping with the help of a local translator - and a home-made cybernetic suit of immense destructive power - Stark sets about revamping his company's ethos, something that does not meet with the approval of his fellows.

Back in 2008, Iron Man was a simple knockabout popcorn flick which seemingly had no great ambition beyond being a fun superhero movie. Contrasted against the other big superhero flick of the year, the intense-but-overwrought-and-overlong The Dark Knight, it came off as breezy and fun, although it also risked being seen as lightweight and disposable. My initial reception to the film was that it was a mediocre flick that was single-handedly saved by some fine performances, most obviously Robert Downey Jr. but also Gwyneth Paltrow, Shaun Toub, Jeff Bridges and Terrence Howard providing able foils (Faran Tahir is distinctly under-used as seeming antagonist Raza though).

My other complaint was that the film was kind of stupid, with Stark building his first Iron Man suit out of leftover missile components in a cave in the Afghan mountains, which was less "unlikely" as "completely implausible." It may be my appreciation for cheesy comic book antics has increased in the meantime, but on this rewatch I found the development to be more forgivable, although the fact that the Afghan terrorists somehow don't cotton on that something is wrong despite having 24 hour video surveillance of what Stark is doing remains ridiculous.

Viewed on its own merits, Iron Man is much as it was in 2008: a fun, less serious and more lightweight superhero movie which is saved from being forgettable by some good laughs and Robert Downey Jr.'s relaxed performance as Stark, which is arrogant enough to make you initially dislike him but then charming and centred enough to make you care about his redemption arc. On this basis, the film works fine.

Of course, it is now impossible to rewatch Iron Man without being aware of the twenty (and counting) films that follow in its wake. It definitely disappears into the lower-middle end of the full pack of MCU movies, but it's fun to see the worldbuilding and scene-setting going on for later movies: Clark Gregg's presence as Agent Coulson (struggling to find a good name for SHIELD); Obadiah Stane's massive armour clearly being an inspiration for the later "Hulkbuster" suit; and of course the first post-credits sequence, which introduces Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury and foreshadows the formation of the Avengers. From such small seeds a huge legacy was generated.

Iron Man (***½) is a lot of fun, and is a more enjoyable in hindsight than I was expecting, but it's clear that Marvel weren't quite the finely-oiled machine they are now.

Note: the original version of this review was published in 2008 and yikes, I was pretty harsh on it. I must be getting soft in my old age.

GAME OF THRONES and NARCOS star cast in STAR WARS TV series THE MANDALORIAN

Pedro Pascal has been cast in the lead role of the first-ever Star Wars live-action TV series, The Mandalorian.

Pascal is a Chilean-American actor who first debuted on American TV in 1999 (most notably playing a vampire in a fourth season episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer). He hit the big time in 2014 when he was cast as Oberyn Martell, the Red Viper of Dorne, in HBO's Game of Thrones. Off the back of that role he was cast as police detective Javier Pena in Netflix's Narcos. He played the role in the first three seasons of the series, attracting critical acclaim.

Pascal is set to play a Mandalorian warrior in the new TV series, which is set seven years after the events of Return of the Jedi and twenty-three years before the events of The Force Awakens. Not much else is known about the series, although early set photographs suggest that the action will partially take place on a desert planet with architecture highly reminiscent of Tatooine.

Reportedly Pascal has not yet started shooting, although publicity images have already been released showing a Mandalorian warrior on set. Presumably this was done with a stand-in either for early shooting or expressly for publicity purposes.

Iron Man director Jon Favreau is writing and producing the first season with The Clone Wars and Rebels writer-producer Dave Filoni lending a hand (and directing the first episode).

The Mandalorian will debut on the new streaming service Disney+, probably in the latter part of 2019. Lucasfilm are also planning a prequel mini-series to the film Rogue One, with Diego Luna set to reprise his role of Cassian Andor from that film.

Live-action STAR WARS TV series gets a name

Showrunner Jon Favreau has confirmed that the first-ever live-action Star Wars television series will be called The Mandalorian.

Set seven years after the events of Return of the Jedi, The Mandalorian follows the adventures of a "lone gunfighter" who is following in the footsteps of Jango and Boba Fett, who wore iconic Mandalorian battle armour in the movies. The Mandalorians were also a key part of both the Clone Wars and Rebels animated series.

Shooting on The Mandalorian begins in the next few weeks, with sets being erected that look suspiciously Tatooine-like. The show is expected to launch in late 2019 or early 2020 on Disney's new streaming service, which they hope will go head-to-head with Netflix and Amazon Video.

Jon Favreau reveals more about the live-action STAR WARS TV show

Jon Favreau has been helping publicise the new Star Wars movie, Solo (in which he voices an alien creature), and has taken time to talk about the new live-action TV series he is helming for Disney's new streaming service.

According to Favreau, the new Star Wars series will take place seven years after the events of Return of the Jedi and twenty-three years before the events of The Force Awakens. The series will draw on some of the CG technology pioneered by his movie The Jungle Book to depict truly unusual and weird aliens.

Half of the first season for the show has been written already. Disney are hoping to use the show (alongside an unspecified Marvel Cinematic Universe project) to launch their new streaming service in late 2019.