This week we’re looking at new friendships! Timeline confusion! Inappropriate rinsing of stomach acids!
Recap
Fett is lying in his bacta tank and thinking about his actions following the mass murder of his Tusken tribe. After going to Jabba’s Palace to look in on his ship and finding it guarded, he heads out into the desert with his bantha steed. A moment later, he sees flares in the distance. He follows to their location and finds Fennec’s body left for dead. Boba takes her to a mod shop on the outskirts of Mos Espa and asks the worker there to fix her up or she’ll die. After handing over a sack of credits, the man gets to work and rebuilds Fennec’s insides.
When Fennec wakes, Fett explains that he saved her in order to get her help: He wants to get his ship back, and he can’t manage it alone. They do recon, figure out how many people are guarding and working in the palace, and hatch a plan to steal the ship back. It’s a little touch and go, but they manage to free Slave I from the palace’s docking bay. Fett tells Fennec that she’s now released from his service, but she decides to stick around and see what his next moves are—the first one turns out to be exterminating the Nikto bikers. Then he takes them to the Sarlacc Pit, where he believes his armor is lying in wait. Searching the pit from the ship almost gets them eaten until Fennec explodes the thing with a sonic mine. Boba goes spelunking in its remains, but the armor is nowhere to be found.
Boba explains to Fennec that he wants to get rid of Bib and take over Tatooine’s crime syndicate. He believes that mercenaries are treated poorly by the people handing out their jobs, and is certain he could do better at it. Fennec says that she wants to stay independent, but Fett assures her that he will give her loyalty and a cut of everything they make if she stays with him. She suggests that the Tuskens made him soft, but Boba believes the opposite, and knows what’s possible with a “tribe.”
When Boba wakes up from his bacta nap, he’s informed that he’s now fully healed. While there’s nothing to be currently done, he suggests heading into the city because it’s good for people to see him. At the Sanctuary, Krrsantan is drinking and getting angered at the sight of a crew of Trandoshans enjoying themselves. He gets up and begins to beat and slaughter them, only to have Garsa Fwip try to intervene and appeal to his better nature—Krrsantan isn’t interested. Fett compliments Fwip’s efforts and suggests that Krrsantan needs some work.
Boba and Fennec gather Tatooine’s minor crime organizers at their table to discuss what’s happening with the Pykes. Fett suggests that they all side with him, but they fail to see the value in that stance, so he offers a compromise instead—they refuse to turn against him and work for the Pykes in this fight. They all seem happy enough with that arrangement and leave. Boba tells Fennec he knows these people will only act in their own self-interest, and while they’ve got treasure, what they need is muscle. Fennec notes that treasure can buy them some muscle… and a choice music cue makes it clear that someone is about to hire Din Djarin.
Commentary
Aaand we’re back to 87% flashback. Though, now that he’s all healed and doesn’t need any more treatments, I’m assuming those are over? Since, as we’ve seen, the past is just a bacta-recovery dream away. No more bacta, no more past. (That’s how the saying goes, I’m sure of it.)
Buy the Book
The Way Spring Arrives and Other Stories
If this episode proved anything at all, though, it’s that these shows have absolutely no interest in indicating passage of time in a reliable or sensical way. Fett was living amongst the Tuskens for years? Years? That’s a thing that maybe should have been made a lot clearer? Kind of makes that whole genocide thing seem underserved (which it already was, this just makes it worse). Kind of also makes it really confusing as to how all of these things could have possibly taken so long to come up. Was he living there for years before the Pykes murdered a bunch of them from their train? Were years the amount of time it took Fett to train them for the hijacking? Did the years occur after the train job and he’s only just going to collect their tribute from the Pykes now? WHEN DID YEARS HAPPEN? None of these possibilities are satisfactory because the plotting is extremely shoddy, and I’m gonna stay annoyed about it.
That’s without getting into the fact that it’s an extremely bad look to have Fett understand “tribe” dynamics from the Tuskens and frame that as a new strength he will take into leadership when they all had to die for his story to move forward. They effectively fridged an entire community of indigenous people for this narrative and really didn’t see a problem with it. You could have had him learn this from other Mandalorians, or from, you know, that entire clone army based on his dad—they’re both groups that believe in community and interdependence for strength. Even just a mention of either one would help to take some of the sting off of how the Tuskens are being used here.
I mean, Boba’s already got all those ideals within him, doesn’t he? Mr. Excuse-Me-While-I-Cuddle-This-Bantha-and-Free-Her-Into-the-Desert-to-Go-Make-Tiny-Banthas? Just watching Fennec watch him with this constant expression of gruff dismay, you can see the inner workings of her brain going, sir, do you have any idea what your reputation is outside of this desert, sir, no one would believe me if I told them what you were doing here, sir, I am beside myself, make me deceased again, I cannot stay alive to watch this, did you really just tell me not to push your buttons, SIR.
She’s right to look askance, but she’s also right to stay, like I fully believe that Fennec’s thinking, welp, might as well see how this turns out, and if I’m instrumental in completely reconstructing organized crime in the galaxy, that could be a fun way to spend my next life, I guess. Everything’s weird now, alright? The Empire is gone after only being around for about two decades—anything is possible. Meanwhile, Fett is actually managing to insinuate himself expertly into the workings of things by being The Most Reasonable Guy. It was unclear in those first few episodes, but now we can see that this is what he means by respect—I’ll treat you like a person. I won’t ask for more than what makes sense. In return, I expect you to pay your taxes on time and do your job.
So you know, if Boba Fett wanted to be my boss, I’m extremely down with that.
The idea of cyborg modification shops being like tattoo shops is probably my favorite thing they’ve shown so far on this series? I mean, the modifications done to Fennec are still wild (how can she eat food though?) but the conceit is great regardless, and the attitude of “pfft you need an appointment gtfo” is exactly the kind of vibe you’d get from any tattoo parlor in my neighborhood.
But I’ve also got questions about how Sarlacc stomach acid works and why both Boba and Fennec seemed to think he should just rinse that stomach acid off with water. Maybe a little bit of stomach acid is great for the skin? New Tatooine epidermal treatment? I’m guessing that Jawas would come up with something like that once they came across the corpse. Look for it in your local Mos Espa stores.
Bits and Beskar:
- After making the comment last week about their use of a plot bit from The Courtship of Princess Leia, I’ve just learned that the book’s author, Dave Wolverton, died a few days ago. A salute to you, good sir.
- Why do all SF screen narratives with body mod plot lines inevitably feature some guy with a weird multitool arm, like who decided that was useful or cool, it genuinely seems like it would be the opposite.
- Okay, so the bunny droid switched itself off, but like… is that the equivalent of playing dead, or more like the droid equivalent of suicide? I can’t decide which it would be from the droid’s perspective.
- Of the two chef droids, one is EV-9D9 (who processed 3PO and R2 at the palace in ROTJ), and the other… is doing a very passable General Grievous impression with those cleavers.
- Obviously, Krrsantan has some anger at the Trandoshans per the usual feud, but it seems possible that there’s a more personal history at work, and that Trandoshans were perhaps in charge of the gladiator games he fought in? Or that he had to fight them regularly? There’s clearly stuff there.
- Okay, I get that for dramatic purposes it’s fun to have rancor teen claw up through the floor and scare everyone, but… the ceilings of the cave area aren’t that low and the rancor’s not fully grown yet, so… I mean, I asked my partner how he thought the li’l rancor managed it, and without missing a beat he goes “They gave him a step stool,” which is an excellent visual, but also definitely not what happened.
- Also, not to get stuck on our lorge friends, but Fett feeds both the rancor and the bantha these tiny bits of meat (which, kinda freaky that banthas eat meat in the first place), but they’re both huge animals and I would really love to know how one actually keeps them fed on a desert world.
- MANDO DAD REUNION COMING. Sorry, I’m just excited to listen to their theme songs do battle.
See you next week!
Emmet Asher-Perrin hopes that bantha is doing great, though. You can bug them on Twitter, and read more of their work here and elsewhere.
I only caught up now, but I loved this episode. I loved to see how Boba saved Fennec and how he won her loyalty. Because that all happened off screen during The Mandalorian and I wondered about that.
For the record I may be biased about loving this show because Ming-Na Wen could present a cooking show and I’d watch it. And I am a lazy cook…
Plotwise, I am expecting that Boba’s connection to the Sand People/ Tuskans will become a major thing in defeating the Pyke Syndicate. Call them SW’s own Fremens.
On a total side note, and that is a thought that settled with me in the eighties, Boba Fett’s space ship still looks like a flying clothing ironer…
That’s more like it. My only question is: why wasn’t this the pilot episode? It did a much cleaner, faster job of covering Boba’s backstory and setting him up as a crime lord. Just throw in a montage of him living with the Tuskens and you’ve got it covered.
Honestly, this series reads like a stack of scripts were dropped, mixed up, and taped back together in a hurry. There’s good stuff in there, of course, but editing is helpful.
@2, I agree completely. The whole thing has the feeling like there were some disjointed ideas that they wanted to use and they just kind of threw them together. I have been really disappointed with the editing and pacing for the series so far.
It was a lot of fun to finally see Boba and Fennec’s backstory and how they bonded. We’ve seen too little of their interplay up to now. Plus I love it that the thing that motivates Boba Fett, the guy who’s most famous for getting (seemingly) killed while doing a petty job for Jabba the Hutt, is that he’s sick of mercenaries like him getting killed because of the dumb jobs they get sent on. It’s like he’s become the patron saint of redshirts.
Speaking of Star Trek security officers, does anyone else think that Krrsantan’s eyes and expressions remind them of Worf? Except for his eyebrow lift, which is more like Spock.
As for the bunny droid, that looked like a normal rocker switch, so if it can be turned off, it can presumably get turned on again.
Thoughts:
That rancor had really, really good timing, too. Best guess, Fennec found some scaffolding in the dungeon while on her lunch break one day. She got Danny Trejo and The Rancor to help put the thing together and then wait quietly underneath for an awkward pause in the conversation. It would be fun to see an alternative camera angle of that scene, where Li’l Ranc and Trejo are trying not to giggle as they wait. What I don’t get is why the Trandoshans and Aqualish pull their chairs right back up to the table…I woulda kept a little distance, myself.
I really wanted the bantha to keep coming back. I mean, no way it didn’t clock that skeleton in the desert and think that being in Boba’s tribe was a much better idea than going it alone. Those things totally remind me of the lions and dragons you see in Chinese parades, btw…it’s the way they move their heads.
I read the end of the rat catcher droid scene as it plainly putting itself in hibernation mode so that it showed it was 100% not a threat and did not need to be violently silenced. Great Indiana Jones homage with the cleaver droid, though.
The mod shop is clearly run by a reformed Borg. The makeup dept. forgot to attach the pointlessly-wandering-laser-pointer-eye though.
If the Sarlacc takes a whole thousand years to digest its food, it’s probably a pretty weak acid.
Maybe I’m missing something here, but why did Fett think his armour would be in the Sarlacc pit when he is seen in the first episode escaping with it on?
@5/Marie: “If the Sarlacc takes a whole thousand years to digest its food, it’s probably a pretty weak acid.”
Either that or Tatooine has very short years. If that were a red dwarf binary, it could have an orbital period of mere weeks.
@6/Thegn: “Maybe I’m missing something here, but why did Fett think his armour would be in the Sarlacc pit when he is seen in the first episode escaping with it on?”
I wondered that too. Best guess, since he passed out right after getting free, then woke up without his armor, maybe he just didn’t clearly remember what happened and assumed he somehow left the armor in the Sarlacc.
@5, Rancors are very intelligent, and they had just threatened Boba. I also suspect a combination of jumping and climbing ability possessed by the Rancor.
With regards to feeding the Bantha and Rancor, those scenes felt more like giving them a treat. Banthas are native to Tatooine, and are primarily herbivores (and in ANH, were played by elephants). While the Rancor bit felt like feeding table scraps to a puppy (and his first order after bonding with the Rancor was to ask Space Machete to make sure he was fed, in contrast to Jabba, who kept his Rancor starved).
The bunny droid (for lack of a better name) was still active and in Boba’s service later on. You can see it briefly in the scene where the rancor rattles its cage.
The scooter riding cyborgs are called Mods. I cannot express how much I like that.
@9: The subtitles called it a LEP droid.
@10/Patrick:”The scooter riding cyborgs are called Mods. I cannot express how much I like that.”
In my novel Only Superhuman, I referred to genetically or bionically modified humans as mods. So I like it too.
“The subtitles called it a LEP droid.”
Undoubtedly a pun on Lepus, the Latin word for hare.
@11 Calling them “Mods” is also a pun, because their design is evocative of the Mod subculture.
@6 and @7, Re: Boba’s armour.
I never liked Jawas even in the original movies. After what I saw of them in The Mandalorian and now in this show, that is becoming into a dislike of the size that I would applaud somebody, anybody, to size up a force to totally eradicate them from Tatooine and the Galaxy.
(I know, that is not rational of me)
Boba Fett needs good fighters to deal with the Pkye Syndicate. I would love to see Boba and Fennec Shand recruit the Armorer (played by Emily Swallow in Mandalorian Season 1) and a few new Mandalorians hiding in coverts looking for work. I wonder if Fennec knows how to contact Omega (Boba clone sister!) and the Bad Batch to get their help (maybe in Ep 6). Of course, I would love to see Din Djarin and Bo-Katan Kryze (and their light cruiser) in the last episode.
I really liked seeing how Boba and Fennec’s relationsip developed. And seeing Fennec be awesome during the Battle of the Hangar. And save them with that sonic depth charge thingie. And corner bunny droid after the boss made a fool of himself. I loved the cantina scene and the owner’s attempt to calm things down, even though it failed, and we finally got to actually see a wookie rip someone’s arm off. And I look forward to Krrsantan being part of the team.
This whole story just bubbles on and meanders around like it was being told around the table at a bar years later. “Hey, that reminds me of the time…” But more and more, it’s now clear where it’s going.
But can a lizard man in Star Wars grow a new arm? Hmm…
Yeah, this episode is the first one that really didn’t work for me. First of all, there were stupid continunity errors with the Mandalorian episode it references (although I loved the little music nod when the flares showed up). One, Boba was wearing spurs when he approached Fennec in that end scene (since the sound design launched all sorts of speculation), but clearly does not here. Like, okay, I get it, it was just meant to be a little teaser. Also, I could have sworn EV-9D9 was bartending in the Mos Eisley cantina in that same episode. Maybe it’s just a different droid, or maybe she has a side gig, I don’t know, haha.
But I’m also still unclear on the motivations – why does Boba think Bib Fortuna betrayed him? I was hoping for some more payoff with the Pikes/speeder gang (even Fennec seems skeptical it was really them). I guess more of that is coming later.
I am in complete agreement with you about dueling soundtracks. :D
I definitely agree that the fact that the Tusken tribe is totes dead just feels really cheap. I DO like that he has recognized the importance of a tribe, but killing them, seriously? (I think it’s understandable that he did NOT learn this from other clones/Mandalorians since I am pretty sure Jango had a more solitary life). And I completely agree about having no idea about the timing of this show! I’m also kinda perplexed at the point of sonic charging the Sarlaac (and I LOVE the sonic charges). I guess Boba was unconcscious (mostly) so doesn’t realize the Jawas took it, but we as viewers DO, so it just kinda dragged for me and I also hate that a very cool and possibly endangered creature was killed for something that we know was pointless.
I did really enjoy the mod parlor…I love seeing all these little bits of Tatooine culture.
@17/Lisamarie: “I’m also kinda perplexed at the point of sonic charging the Sarlaac (and I LOVE the sonic charges).”
For me, this is the only time the sonic charges have made sense, because there’s an atmosphere and solid matter for the sound to propagate through. The sonic charges going off in space were a cool visual in Episode 2, and I loved the sound effect on a movie theater audio system, but even within the context of Star Wars‘s fantasy universe, the idea of using sound weapons in a vacuum was unbelievably dumb.
@18 – well, obviously, Star Wars has an aether ;)
Anyway, I totally get it, and it’s one of my favorite sound effects, so I love it and it’s cool to see it used in an atmospheric context (although I believe it was used in atmosphere in the Mandolorian as well). I just mean that from a story purpose, I found that scene kind of unsatisfying because it just felt like it was there to be ‘hey, remember that cool thing from the prequels? let’s BLOW UP THE SARLAAC with it’ even though we as viewers know it will not have any type of payoff whatsoever. (I mean, okay, maybe in the finale the dead sarlaac will have some huge payoff, so I’ll eat my hat if that’s the case). I also was a little skeptical that it was strong enough to counter Slave I’s thrusters but I guess if it hadn’t gotten enough momentum yet that could be the case.
Unfortunately most of the cool creatures in Star Wars get this fate -I still feel sad about the big space squid that got sucked into the Maw in Solo.
Not to mention that poor rancor ;)
Bunny droid = Dobby the House Elf. Y/N?
@19/Lisamarie: “I just mean that from a story purpose, I found that scene kind of unsatisfying because it just felt like it was there to be ‘hey, remember that cool thing from the prequels? let’s BLOW UP THE SARLAAC with it’ even though we as viewers know it will not have any type of payoff whatsoever.”
I figured it was just because it was the only droppable ordnance canonically established as being used by The Spaceship Formerly Known as Slave 1. (Disney’s carefully avoiding using that name in merchandising and publicity. Force forbid that a bad guy should have a ship named after a bad thing, especially since they’re turning him into a lovable antihero.)
And isn’t the death of the Sarlacc the payoff in itself? Or at least the payback? True, it was Fennec that delivered the blow instead of Boba, but I figure the only reason Boba didn’t blast it himself was that he thought his armor was down there.
“Unfortunately most of the cool creatures in Star Wars get this fate”
The New Republic, or whatever Newer New Republic is established after the sequels, needs to get cracking on establishing an Environmental Protection Agency. Right after they establish an Occupational Safety & Health Administration and start installing safety railings.
@16 You are correct, Trandoshans can grow back limbs. One has been doing that in the High Republic comic series, and then his arm got taken over by alien plant parasites. It’s tough to be a Trandoshan.
The rabbit/rat-catcher droid was back up and running during the dinner scene.
The mod dude is played by Stephen “Thundercat” Bruner, former bassist with Suicidal Tendencies frequent collaborator with Flying Lotus and Kendrick Lamar.
I suspect the “tech dude with multitool for an arm” trope originates with Heinlein’s The Moon is a Harsh Mistress.
@21 hahaha, YES they do. Now I kinda want somebody to write in a character like that. Actually I do kind of have that type of headcanon about how cool it must be to be a xenobiologist or microbiologist in the SW universe (a character I created dabbles in the latter, and her father dabbled in the former; both were Jedi/Force users but that’s neither here nor there);. I THINK there was a character in one of the latter scenes of CW that was implied to be a Jedi scientist and I was just like yes please! I just think that would be such a cool intersection of study, especially as it pertains to things like midichlorians, healing, Force sensitivity, communing with microbes/plants/animals to influence nature (or get a read of what’s going on)…anyway obviously not what this show is about. But I’m still sad about the Sarlaac ;)
(But for real, lightsaber fights are cool but I would love to here more about what all the non badass Jedi do – obviously there is negotiating/diplomacy, and philosophers but it just seems like there’s a lot of other ground that could be tread. In the old EU one of my favorite characters was basically a balladier which I also thought was cool.).
ANYWAY I guess overall I just think the Sarlaac scene didn’t even have to happen at all. It kind of dragged for me because I KNEW he wasn’t going to find his armor there. It just kind of felt like they threw it in just because it would be cool to blow it up, or because they needed to add it for pacing reasons. At some point I figure he’ll remember the Jawas took his armor, but I guess they couldn’t have him figure that out yet because maybe they are trying to stretch the flashback story aspect out. I don’t know – it just felt kind of clumsy. Of course, maybe it WILL add something in the future, I don’t know – it’s always hard to judge these shows as they are coming out. I just don’t see why it had to die at all! (I honestly can’t remember if ithey had already established it was gone in the Mandalorian…).
Hah, yeah, I definitely noticed they aren’t calling it the Slave I. I mean, I kinda get it but I also had the same thought as you – even if he wasn’t one of the Bad Guys and had his own code, he still was on the fringes of things. But I do suppose they are trying to soften him a bit. Then again, maybe there will be an in story reason why he will want to re-christen it since he does seem to be embracing a more community-focused mindset. But the ironic thing about that is that the Tuskens WOULD have used him as a slave (for all intents and purposes) if he hadn’t proven himself in battle. Like, I doubt that Rodian, even if he hadn’t died, would ever have been accepted into the tribe. I love what they did with the Tuskens – until they just killed them off – but it is always in the back of my mind that these warrior/honor based cultures where you have to survive in a harsh climate were not some utopia for people like me!
Interestingly, back before Attack of the Clones came out there was a loony theory that Boba Fett was actually Kistser (Anakin’s friend in Mos Espa), and that ‘Slave I’ was a nod to his past as a slave.
Obviously I have lots of opinions – this may not be the best episode but I AM really digging just getting to see more of the non-Skywalker related stuff and just hanging around the universe.
Also, that was a hilarious dodge of using the name Slave I. I understand their reluctance to use it, (Never really got why a bounty hunter would call his ship that anyway. Shouldn’t it be Hunter I or something?) but this series is also set on a planet where actual slavery exists. You know, it’s a big part of Anakin’s story. Not to mention all those droids and their “masters” out there in Star Wars land.
Hey, maybe it’s time for an Emancipation Proclamation in this universe. Solo touched on it, and it was one of the better scenes in that movie, in my opinion.
I think this episode worked better as a coherent and entertaining story than the first three, though it does feel like someone trying to bring order to the plot salad of previous scripts. It never made sense in the first 2.5 episodes that Boba could project power with one assassin and two guards as his staff; picking up the Mods and hiring muscle helps explain why people should listen to Boba, though it should have happened much earlier.
The visit to the sarlacc pit was a bit off; they clearly know Boba survived and escaped the pit because he was wearing the armor, so they know the armor got out of the pit with him. Boba would more likely have just bombed the sarlacc out of revenge, but that would have been too much like his slaughter of the biker gang, and wouldn’t have given Fennec anything to do other than watch.
I’m with Em on wanting to know when these “years” were. The timeline is a total mess here, and it really feels like Favreau is just kinda wingin’ it.
But I loved seeing how Fett and Fennec actually got together, and I absolutely adore Fett’s motivation: he’s tired of mercenaries dying because of dumbshit employers, so he’s gonna be the employer who isn’t dumbshit, dadgummit.
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
27/krad: Oh, yeah, that explains it. Boba’s trying to be the cool boss he wishes he’d had. It makes so much sense now.
The episode was an improvement. At least Boba started looking like a halfway competent crime lord, excepting that last scene where the concept of using money to buy muscle had to be spelled out to a former bounty hunter. But meeting with the local crime lords and the like should have taken place in the first episode, not the fourth.
And the timeline thing really bugs me as well. His time with the Tuskens seemed more in line with months than years. Give us a quick montage to show the passage of time. Probably can’t do seasons on Tatooine, but you could age up the kid who was guarding him in the first episode so we know he’s been there a long time.
I also was a bit confused about where the time jump happened; my best guess was that it was after he found all the Tuskans dead. It shows us he was watching Jabba’s palace for a while; three or so years is pushing it but that makes the most sense so far. I liked the mod parlor and hope we see more of the Technicolor Biker Gang’s mods. And the Krrsantan scene was fun, but it would be completely lost on anyone who hasn’t seen that one specific Clone Wars arc or read any of the comics. “Why did the wookie just attack the lizards? What’s happening?” At least in Mandalorian they somewhat explained Bo Katan and her cronies.
One problem I had was the rancor stunt. I get that it was supposed to say “I have a rancor, and I would hate to feed anyone to it”, but it didn’t stop the immediate problem: the crime lords could still totally gang up on Fett and Shand and be done with it, giant monster in the basement not withstanding. What, exactly, does showing them he has a rancor do? It can’t get them up there. Boba could throw them in, but at that point it’s easier to just shoot them. This is an extension of a larger problem I’ve always had with the rancor pit – it is only useful if someone was standing right on the one trapdoor. If anyone, say, stood further back on the metal grating, it’s no use. Sure, a guard could push you in, but then why have a trapdoor in the first place if there is a service door downstairs? And anyone had been in the court for a good while, they would see and mark where the trapdoor is and make sure never to stand there. So it’s only good for first-timers who happen to stand right on the correct spot.
I’m a big fan of using leitmotifs in scores (and I can’t wait for more Mandalorian), so the final musical cue made me very excited!
Regarding the timeline, I can only assume it took him a few years (apparently, around 5) to go from “Dude tied to a stake we let the kids play with” to “one of the tribe”. It’s the only gap that makes sense.
Didn’t ROTJ say that it would take a thousand years to die inside the Sarlacc? Which implies that it has some kind of preservation/stasis effect. (Maybe a sedentary creature living in a hole in a barren desert doesn’t get meals very often and has to digest its prey really slowly.) So maybe the idea was that Boba was unconscious in the Sarlacc for years before he somehow woke up? I’m not at all convinced of that, but I’m just putting it on the table as one possibility.
Star Wars has always been cavalier about gravity. Land vehicles can hover, but AT-AT’s need legs. It’s no surprise that the rancor can reach the floor grate. He has that hovering sledge to use. What’s odd is that the Hutt twins needed a dozen litter bearers when they delivered the rancor on his sledge.
I like the stasis Sarlacc theory. It’s the most simple, straightforward way to go about it. But… then there’s the Jawas and Tuskens showing up shortly after Boba escapes. That seems to suggest a shorter period of time. Perhaps a few days.
I mean the Jawas appear to have a sixth sense for when fresh junk hits the ground; for example, within minutes of Moff Gideon’s fighter crashing in the middle of nowhere they were picking at the wreckage. So, would it take them years to find the wreck of the sail barge? The blast would probably alert them, and there were survivors to spread the news.
@33 My guess is that the Twins using slaves is a status symbol – anyone could afford repulsers, but only the super rich and/or powerful can afford enough slaves to carry the litter. Sort of like why Star Destroyers have such exposed bridges: Sure, they can be put in a much more secure spot, but it’s a testament to the Empire’s power that they don’t need to.
@35 I agree, the hutts were on a hover platform, the slaves were just for show (or perhaps trained as guards as well).
The Hutt twin’s money might be better spent on a portable fan and antiperspirant.
I like the suggestion that this is where they should have started, although we’d probably be demanding the episode where Fett got out of the sarlac if that happened.
Fett and Fennec: I felt like they went back a lot farther than this showed. I seem them as two bounty hunters constantly running into each other, sometimes on the same side, sometimes not, and constantly making little asides to their shared past.
Fett: “You jumped up and shot me without warning.”
Fennec: “You saw me jump up. How much more warning did you need?”
I can see Fett having spent years with the Tuskens. But, in that case, we needed it to be clear Fett was coming in to pick up a payoff that hadn’t been delivered after years of regular payments.
I can see Bib Fortuna having betrayed Boba Fett, but they needed to slip that into the plot somewhere. The most sensible one would have been for the Pykes to be working under his protection and for him to be the one arranging payment to the Tuskens–until he decided not to do it and to cooperate in killing off the Tuskens.
As of last week, I had a mental picture what Fett’s main goal is. As Daymo, he can create the kind of stability where groups like the Pykes can be forced out and vulnerable people (like Tuskens) are safe. Hopefully, that will still be one of his main goals.
I also thought about the possibility of Boba being in the Sarlacc for an extended period, but that just leads to that meme with Luke calling out the thousand-year digestion thing as being ridiculous given people can’t survive more than a few days without food or water. Sure, the Sarlacc might take a really long time to digest you, but that doesn’t mean it has to keep you alive the entire time. In fact, providing you with enough resources to stay alive while it slowly digests you would be counterproductive in an environment with such limited resources that it needs to slowly draw out such meals in the first place. Regardless, it is something the show should, well, show, or at least give some mention to.
It wasn’t years inside the sarlacc. There were still debris of Jabba’s pleasure barge around when we wee Fett leave the creature. The jawas and the sand people are starting to scavenge the things from that wreckage when they catch Fett.
@38/Ellynne: “Fett and Fennec: I felt like they went back a lot farther than this showed. I seem them as two bounty hunters constantly running into each other, sometimes on the same side, sometimes not, and constantly making little asides to their shared past.”
Fennec may have started out as a bounty hunter, as we saw in The Bad Batch, but that was while Boba was still an adolescent. By the time the Empire fell, she’d become a mercenary and master assassin. So I’m not sure she and Boba would’ve really been in the same circles.
@40/Ryamano: Okay, good point. I knew my suggestion was a long shot.
So I guess that means his time with the Tusken was longer than it seemed. That makes sense, given how much they influenced him.
Well, let’s look at the basic timeline:
Fett falls into the Sarlaac.
Fett wakes up, burns his way free.
Fett crawls out, gets rolled by Jawas.
He’s found by the Tusken, dragged to their camp, and left tied to a stake.
He almost escapes, but a bloody Rodian betrays him.
Fett, the Rodian, and a Sandbrat go hunting for melons.
A Harryhausen monster attacks them, and boba saves the kid.
They return to the tribe, and he;’s accepted as one of them.
All of these likely take place in pretty closes succession. But we don’t know how much time passes before he learns how to use a gaderffii stick, and helps with the train. That could easily be years of slowly learning their ways.
And while I’ll never object to hearing the wonderful BRAHMMMM of the sonic mine, that whole Sarlacc scene was deeply silly within the context of the entire episode. Considering that, you know, Fennec has a little probe that could map the Sarlacc’s innards and look for Boba’s armor….
Back in the old EU, one of the first Boba Fett stories had the concept that the Sarlaac had a kind of hive mind consciousness that absorbed its prey and kept it alive as it digested. It was pretty crazy, lol.
But yeah, I definitely figured the ‘slowly digested over a thousand years’ was a bit of theatric hyperbole in that it may digest you slowly, but the person would probably die fairly soon (but still unpleasantly/drawn out).
My interpretation of the timeline was that Boba spent several years training and living with the Tuskens (I think he does say as much) – it’s possible there was more of a gap shown from the melon hunt until the train attack, and then another gap of time where he was living with them fully accepted. There also could have been an undisclosed amount of time where he was riding around with his Bantha alone.
There’s something I wanted to point out regarding the previous episode, but that post is closed for comments, so I hope it’s okay if I mention it here instead. Portraying the rancor as an “abused fighting dog”, as one commenter put it, isn’t actually a retcon. In the novelization of Return of the Jedi, the author embellishes on the scene in the rancor pit. Luke realizes that the rancor isn’t malicious by nature, but is lashing out in hunger and pain (although there’s no suggestion of it being sentient). He kills it in self-defense and to put it out of its misery, but it’s treated as a regretful necessity.