The Book of Boba Fett proves once again Star Wars is at its best when it gets weird
By Meg Dowell
This post contains spoilers for The Book of Boba Fett Chapter 2 “The Tribes of Tatooine.”
With each new chapter of The Book of Boba Fett, it becomes clearer that the series isn’t even trying to fall in line with what Star Wars audiences expected a show about an iconic bounty hunter to be. It’s not your typical Western-inspired “hero sets out to handle the bad guys” story. It’s that … with some pretty weird twists. That’s nothing new for Star Wars, though, especially in its animated and live-action TV shows.
Sand trains. Hallucinogenic lizards. Hyperspace-transversing wolves. Brain worms. When Star Wars gets weird, it gets really weird. But it just so happens that when Star Was gets really weird, it also gets really, really good.
Take Chapter 2 of The Book of Boba Fett, for example. A train in the desert operated by a pretty disloyal conductor droid. A tiny lizard that is, according to Tusken Raider custom, meant to be swallowed. And when such swallowing occurs, a rite-of-passage fever dream results in the first step of crafting one’s very own gaffi stick.
Those closing scenes of the episode wouldn’t have been so powerful if it weren’t for the weird events that led to them. And that’s why things like this work so well in Star Wars as a whole. Star Wars has always leaned more heavily into fantasy than science fiction (though elements of both are present throughout), and what is fantasy if not a story that takes you completely out of the real world and into a retired bounty hunter’s reptilian-induced hallucinations?
The loth-wolves in Star Wars Rebels propel Ezra into his final act of character development, and technically, the “space whales” from the same series have a similar effect. They’re super weird, yes. But so is the fact that a princess, farm boy, wizard, smuggler, and giant walking carpet managed to escape a planet-destroying death sphere.
Star Wars has always been weird. And if Boba Fett has anything to say about it, it’s only going to get weirder. All things are as they should be.
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The Book of Boba Fett is streaming now exclusively on Disney+.