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"I'm tired of our kind dying because of the idiocy of others. We're smarter than them. It's time we took our shot."
Boba Fett

Star Wars: The Book of Boba Fett, marketed as simply The Book of Boba Fett, is a Disney+ Crime / Space Western series set in the Star Wars universe, serving as the first Spin-Off of The Mandalorian. Robert Rodriguez is the showrunner, seconded by producers/writers Jon Favreau and Dave Filoni, with Rodriguez, Filoni, Steph Green, Kevin Tancharoen, and Bryce Dallas Howard directing. It premiered on December 29, 2021.

After reclaiming his father's armor and deposing Bib Fortuna, former bounty hunter Boba Fett (Temuera Morrison) sets out to claim the late Jabba the Hutt's place as ruler of Tatooine's criminal underworld, aided by his new partner, Fennec Shand (Ming-Na Wen). While consolidating control over Jabba's former syndicate, Boba and Fennec must deal with threats from both the Hutt Clan and rival cartels. Their exploits are interspersed with looks at Boba's whereabouts after Jabba's downfall.

Followed by Obi-Wan Kenobi in production order.

Previews: Official Trailer


The Book of Boba Fett provides examples of:

  • Affably Evil: Fett is a ruthless criminal who intends to become the kingpin of galactic crime. Nonetheless, he is unwaveringly polite to his associates and Jabba's former captains, and insists that he intends his new criminal empire to be one where everyone involved profits.
    Boba: I'm here to make a proposal that's mutually beneficial. Why speak of conflict, when cooperation can make us all rich?
  • All There in the Script: The couple whom Boba saves from the biker gang in the second episode are Camie Marstrap and Laze "Fixer" Loneozner, two very obscure characters from the original Star Wars trilogy (they were two acquaintances of Luke's who appeared in a deleted scene in the original film, which was retained in the novelization and the radio drama adaptation). But their names are never stated in the actual episode, leaving most viewers to conclude that they're just nameless extras.
  • All There in the Stinger: Boba's overthrow of Bib Fortuna, which sets up the series, is only depicted in The Stinger of Chapter 16 of The Mandalorian. If you missed it, you'll be left wondering why Boba is suddenly living in Jabba's palace as a crime lord. It does, however, get replayed in Chapter 4, at the very end of Boba's flashbacks.
  • Ascended to Carnivorism: While herbivorous by nature, Banthas will situationally consume meat when pressed by hunger, such as the female Bantha who happily accepts the cooked remains of a Womp Rat that Boba Fett feeds her.
  • Back for the Dead: Cad Bane makes his live-action debut in Chapter 6, only to be killed by Boba in Chapter 7.
  • Badass in Distress: The Flashback sequences of the pilot are this for Boba's life following the events of Return of the Jedi and before season 2 of The Mandalorian, showing him being horrifically scarred by the acid of the Sarlacc pit, losing his armor to the Jawas, and being Made a Slave by the Tusken Raiders.
  • Bald Head of Toughness: Boba Fett is bald and has survived not only the Sarlacc but Tusken enslavement, fighting against other syndicates, repeated assassination attempts, and battles against Imperial holdouts.
  • Bald of Authority: Five years after being thrown into the Sarlacc Pit in Return of the Jedi, the completely bald, former bounty hunter Boba Fett seizes control of Jabba the Hutt's criminal empire and becomes Daimyo of Tatooine.
  • Benevolent Dictator: Boba Fett, after killing the former crime leader, attempts to assert himself as crime lord of Mos Espa without resorting to the cruelty of the previous daimyos (Jabba the Hutt and Bib Fortuna), despite the scheming of the city gangs and attempts by off-world syndicates to move in.
  • Black-and-Grey Morality: While Boba is still a crime lord, he is one that rules with respect, looks for ways to settle conflict without resorting to violence, and makes sure everyone involved in his operation's benefits. The other crime lords, as well as the Pykes, on the other hand, are unabashedly evil and ruthless. This is one of the reasons he has difficulty uniting the former against the latter, and he ultimately fails to do so when the lords turn on him in Chapter 7.
  • Bodyguarding a Badass: The two Gamorrean guards Boba takes on serve as these to him, but it's a downplayed example, as he still hasn't entirely recovered from his five year ordeal in the Tatooine desert, and needs regular sessions in a bacta tank. The Gamorreans do end up saving him after Boba collapses fighting the assassins at the end of the first episode, and take him back to the tank while Fennec deals with the remaining assassins.
  • The Bus Came Back: A mixture of this and Canon Immigration occur in the second episode, which features cameos by Camie Marstrap and Laze Loneozner. These characters first appeared in scenes from A New Hope that were cut to improve the film's pacing (and because they felt too similar to Lucas's previous film American Graffiti); they were among Luke's friends who hung out at Tosche Station.
  • Call-Forward: Luke's appearance in Chapter 6 shows him as very eager to train Grogu as a Jedi, as Din points out he went against Ahsoka's wishes of not training him, despite the risks of Grogu falling to the Dark Side due to his attachment to the Mandalorian. This hints at Luke being too confident in his teaching abilities and his ability to successfully make Grogu a Jedi, an attitude that eventually would bring disaster for his Jedi academy.
  • Central Theme: Respect versus fear, and how much power each one actually has:
    • Boba led a life that turned on inspiring fear; as the most fearsome bounty hunter in the galaxy, there was little he could not afford, but upon being swallowed by the Sarlacc and enslaved by the Tusken, Fett quickly realized that the fear that made him powerful could vanish in seconds, and with it all the power it brought him, while respect actually led him to be happy. So he embraces that philosophy, and, though it takes time, it gains him allies like Fennec Shand and Din Djarin, and later a true home in Tatooine.
    • Meanwhile, the downsides of fear can best be seen with Cad Bane, fittingly enough, who tries to use it on the citizens of Freetown to keep them in line, but after so many years of raiders, the Empire, and too much violence, fear proves once again to be a brittle and ineffective way of handling things, pissing off the citizens of Freetown and leading to Bane's death and the defeat of the Pykes.
  • The Chains of Commanding: The series hints multiple times that all of the crime lords seen in the Star Wars canon operate the way they do under the expectation that this is how it's supposed to be, and it's easier to take the path of least resistance by playing that role, while Boba — a clever and resourceful bounty hunter, yet inexperienced in his new line of work — is having trouble making his rule legitimate in the others' eyes because he's not conforming to the usual stereotypes. Mok Shaiz tells him outright that "running a family is more complicated than bounty hunting".
  • Chase Scene: The Mods, who Boba just hired, pursue the mayor's majordomo through the densely-packed streets of Mos Espa on swoops and in a land speeder, respectively. The chase is noticeably not as fast as is usual in typical action movies, but these are after all a bunch of kids and a bureaucrat doing this in a crowded urban environment.
  • Chekhov's Gunman: A flashback in Episode 4 shows how Boba saved Fennec's life with the help of a cybernetics modifier played by Stephen "Thundercat" Bruner. The character returns in The Stinger, seemingly to similarly patch up Cobb Vanth, who had been shot by Cad Bane in the penultimate episode.
  • Continuity Nod:
    • All the way back to A New Hope. While the Tuskens are bringing Boba back to his camp, they are riding single file to hide their numbers.
    • Every scene around the Sarlacc Pit shows the spectacular wreckage of Jabba's sail barge, untouched after all these years.
    • Boba kills the desert beast exactly the same way Leia killed Jabba the Hutt in Return of the Jedi: strangling it to death with metal chains.
    • The chase after Mok Shaiz's majordomo is ended when one of Boba's new enforcers runs her bike up some stairs and gets above him, cutting him off, rather reminiscent of how a young Anakin Skywalker got the lead he needed in the pod race in The Phantom Menace.
    • A nice musical double-whammy in "Stranger in a Strange Land", when Boba and Fennec visit the Sanctuary. Not only is Max Rebo with the house band on the keyboards, but they're playing a lounge variation of "Mad About Me" — a.k.a. the Cantina Song. Not terribly surprising, as this is canonically a hugely popular song on Tatooine, but it's nice to hear.
    • Boba discovers that the camp of his Tusken friends has been torched and everyone killed in a very similar way to how Luke Skywalker discovers what happened to Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru in A New Hope. He makes more ceremony of burning the corpses than 3PO did with those Jawas, though.
    • A cook droid in Jabba's palace dramatically unfurls its numerous arms, each holding a cleaver or knife, and proceeds to spin them menacingly in a manner near-identical to General Grievous with his lightsabers in Revenge of the Sith.
  • Curb-Stomp Battle:
    • Boba vs. the Tusken lead warrior. He is injured, very dehydrated, and fighting with a stick against someone who has been using a gaderffii stick in real combat for decades.
    • When he was "settling old scores", Boba chose to wipe out the Kintan Striders using Slave I, giving them exactly as much chance at retaliation as they supposedly gave the Tuskens. The entire swoop gang is blown apart and scattered over the dunes in mere seconds.
    • When a group of Pyke goons attempt to surprise-draw on Cobb Vanth, they find themselves woefully outgunned, as he takes three of them out in a single second, two using only one shot. The fourth, caught reaching but without his hand on a weapon, surrenders almost immediately.
    • As great as Cobb reminds us he is at blaster-slinging, he's not a match for Cad Bane; his deputy Scott, meanwhile, never had a chance in hell of getting the drop on him, with Bane pumping four bolts into his chest before the poor guy's body hits the ground. While not exactly a rescue, it might've been the only thing that saved Cobb from instant death, as Bane walks away after shooting Vanth in the shoulder instead.
  • Dented Iron: Boba gained nasty scars all over his head, skin, and face after his time in the Sarlacc's digestive tract. His health took quite a hit too, to the point he was in no position to fight back when his armour was stolen by Jawas. While the worst of it has been healed by proper medical care, he's still not at his best. After he and Fennec are ambushed in Mos Espa, he has to send her off after the two remaining assailants while his bodyguards get him to his bacta tank. Throughout the series, he continues to have to recover each night in the bacta tank.
  • Due to the Dead: The Tusken Tribe has a distinct funeral ritual involving gathering the dead and their belongings for a pyre. After the train initially blasts through the tribe in "The Tribes of Tatooine" they gather their dead for the ceremony. In "The Streets of Mos Espa," when Boba discovers the tribe massacred, he works into the night to perform the ceremony and put the dead to rest.
  • Enemy Eats Your Lunch: Double Subverted: The Fixer's drink is grabbed by thugs, who take a sip of it. Cue the Fixer getting into a fight with said thugs, followed by Boba Fett waltsing in the door and killing the thugs...and then taking a sip of The Fixer's drink.
  • Every Scar Has a Story: As suspected by many fans, Boba's scars are a result of his time in the Sarlacc pit.
  • Evil Cannot Comprehend Good:
    • This is something of a theme of the series. Boba intends to rule as a benevolent lord, but the people of Mos Espa expect a cruel and vicious one. It takes time for Boba's tactics of honor and respect to win him loyalty of more than just a handful of warriors.
    • Cad Bane and the Pykes believed that killing Cobb Vanth would cause the people of Freetown to surrender. It didn’t occur to them that this would make him a martyr figure for whom they would seek justice.
  • Evil Counterpart: The series shows Boba to have grown into a wiser, more cooperative man, not so quick to violence when other methods will work, who has left his bounty hunting days behind for a new path as daimyo, and is starting to feel the weight of his age and injuries. In response to the threat he poses, the Pykes send in Cad Bane, a cold-blooded mercenary who only avoids killing for the most ruthless of pragmatic reasons, has been doing his job longer than Boba's been alive, and doesn't seem to have missed a step in all those years.
  • Evil Power Vacuum: While Jabba's operations have largely carried on uninterrupted, thanks to Bib Fortuna quickly taking over, the death of the Hutt himself has made other crime lords more bold, because Jabba was uniquely feared, a reputation even a famed bounty hunter like Boba Fett can't match.
  • Fake Shemp: An unknown number of scenes for Boba and Din consist of a body double dubbed over by either Temuera Morrison or Pedro Pascal. In Din's case, principal photography for The Book of Boba Fett overlapped with Pascal's schedules for filming The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent, advertising Casillero del Diablo wine, presenting at the BAFTAs, and filming The Bubble.
  • Fang Thpeak: The Klatoonians in particular have trouble speaking through their prosthetics.
  • Fed to the Beast:
    • Fennec helpfully reminds the mayor's majordomo that if he'd disrespected Jabba the Hutt the way he's disrespecting Boba, he'd have been fed to Jabba's "menagerie", like Oola, the luckless Gamorrean guard, and Luke Skywalker in Return of the Jedi.
    • They use this as a bluff on the captured assassin in episode two. He spills the beans just as we get a reminder that the rancor is dead.
    • Used as a subtle threat in episode 4; when one of the crime family heads asks what's stopping them from just killing Boba, the rancor calf thrusts a claw through the floor grate they're dining on top of and roars. Boba chuckles and says it must be hungry.
  • Framing Device: Flashbacks to Boba's past, including his escape from the Sarlacc's stomach, loss of his armour, and capture by the Tuskens, are shown as dreams he has during his healing sessions and nightly sleep in his bacta tank.
  • Friend-or-Idol Decision: Luke asks Grogu to choose between his Jedi training and ever seeing or having a connection with Din (and by extension, choosing between the Jedi way and the Mandalorian way) again. Grogu chooses Din, and Luke has R2 fly Grogu to Tatooine to reunite them.
  • Full-Frontal Assault: Downplayed. When the Hutts send Krrsantan, a huge and monstrous Wookiee, to attack Boba in his bacta tank, Boba tries to defend himself in his underwear using the weapons he keeps surrounding him in his room. By the time the mods show up to help and drag the wookie off, he uses the opportunity to put on a robe.
  • Geographic Flexibility:
    • The downtown area of Mos Espa lies inside a crater with a tall tower in the center. This wasn't visible at all when Mos Espa first appeared in The Phantom Menace, but maybe Qui-Gon, Padmé and Jar Jar only ever went to the outskirts of the city.
    • Until now, there had never been any on-screen evidence for how far apart Mos Espa and Mos Eisley are. The Complete Locations book (which isn't necessarily canon now) suggests that the distance is at least a couple hundred kilometers. In Chapter 5 of this series, Din Djarin takes off in his new N-1 starfighter from Mos Eisley and immediately arrives at Beggar's Canyon, which the podracers in The Phantom Menace flew through starting from Mos Espa. This means that Mos Eisley and Mos Espa are separated only by the podracer course.
  • Good Cannot Comprehend Evil: More like Villainous Valor cannot comprehend Dirty Coward. Boba Fett believed the other crime bosses would remain neutral because they knew that if given the chance, the Pykes would completely take over their operations and reduce them to puppets. He didn’t anticipate that they would simply acquiesce to whoever made the scariest threats.
  • Good Scars, Evil Scars:
    • Boba is covered with horrific acid burns following his time in the Sarlacc; it takes lots and lots of time in bacta tank to overcome them.
    • It's hard to tell under his fur, but Krrsantan has a big scar on his forehead.
  • Handicapped Badass: Even five years later, Boba's relatively short time in the Sarlacc Pit has left its mark on him. He's shown to not be at his physical best in fights, and has to spend his nights sleeping in a bacta tank to heal his wounds.
  • Healing Vat: Between looming clone degeneration, two dunks in a Sarlacc's gut, and exposure to the harsh desert winds of Tatooine, Boba must spend his sleeping hours in a personal bacta pod to alleviate his Dented Iron condition. Though technically a bed instead of a tank where the patient stands (or floats) upright, it is still a full-immersion device. He's willing to allow subordinates to use it as well, as he does for one of his Gamorrean thugs after getting a savaging from Black Krrsantan. The Stinger to the Season 1 finale reveals that he'll do the same for allies, in this case Cobb Vanth.
  • Hidden Depths: The Tusken Raiders, a.k.a. Sandpeople, were only seen as violent thieves and kidnappers in the films. Now, they are revealed as a sophisticated and cultured people living in a vast open environment, akin to the Plains tribes of Native Americans. Boba's backstory in the series could be regarded as Dances with Wolves set on Tatooine.
  • Honor Before Reason:
    • Boba, as opposed to the typical criminal despots that plague Tatooine, chooses to rule as a benevolent, but efficient, daimyo. This is despite Fennec pointing out that his attitude is at odds with the expectations of his new position, and in fact is less effective than simply sticking with the tried and true method. It's established through flashbacks that he gained this philosophy from his experience with the Tusken Raiders.
    • Despite only having extremely few members left to rebuild the covert, the Armorer still banishes Din on account of him having broken the Creed. He only has the slimmest chance to atone too, as the only way to do so is to baptize himself in the living waters beneath the mines of Mandalore, which were destroyed during the Purge.
  • Hover Bike:
    • The second episode has Boba single-handedly thrash all the members of a swoop gang on Tatooine and steal all their bikes to employ in a plan to help his adoptive Tusken tribe overcome a speeder train that frequently terrorizes them while traversing the Tusken tribe's territory.
    • He later hires an entire swoop gang, the Mods, who have decorated swoops and show off their skills riding them while hunting down someone.
  • How We Got Here: Boba's dreams work to fill in gaps in between his apparent death and his meeting with Din Djarin.
  • Imprinting: The rancor calf is wearing blinders because it imprints on the first human it sees. Played with when the trainer implies he intended for himself to be the first person it sees (because "it was bred from champions for fighting" and he saved it to train himself), but then decides it should see Boba first instead.
  • In-Camera Effects: In "Return of the Mandalorian", The Oner in which Din takes the elevator up to the bar and goes back down shows off the capabilities of the ILM StageCraft volume. Instead of building a working elevator, the crew can build a one-level set and animate the entire background to simulate the elevator going to different floors.
  • Interquel: Like The Mandalorian, the show is set between the events of the original trilogy and the sequel trilogy. It's ambiguous, but Boba's escape from the Sarlacc and his time with the Tuskens suggests that the events of the Mandalorian take place just a few years after the destruction of the Death Starnote , while Boba's time in Mos Espa is a few years after that.
  • I Owe You My Life: When presented with two Gamorrean guards being kept prisoner who remained loyal to Jabba and Bib Fortuna instead of joining Boba immediately, Fett is told to torture them to death to set an example. Fett instead promises to spare their lives if they offer the same loyalty to him. While Fennec and 8D8 are unsure about this, it pays off when the Gamorreans save his life from assassins and drag him to safety.
  • Jump Scare:
    • A rarity in Star Wars movies/shows, when in Chapter 4 the Sarlacc suddenly attacks Boba's ship while he has it pressed against its mouth opening, shining a light in to see if he can spot his armor.
    • In the very same episode, Baby Rancor doles out a well-timed jump scare when the head of one of the Mos Espa crime families aggressively asks why they shouldn't just kill Boba and take what they want. Boba presumably deliberately chose to have the dinner with the family heads over the rancor pit just so his new favorite critter could introduce himself in such a manner.
  • Kill It Through Its Stomach: It's revealed how Boba escaped the Sarlacc's stomach: he used his flamethrower to burn through the creature's gut, then clawed his way out and back up to the surface. Chapter 4 reveals that the creature survived, as Boba and Fennec find out the hard way when they return to search for Boba's armor. After the beast nearly swallows the Slave I, Fennec drops a seismic charge into the Sarlacc's beak, finally killing it.
  • Late-Arrival Spoiler:
    • The advertisements reveal the identity of the shadowy figure at the end of The Mandalorian "Chapter 5: The Gunslinger", which Mandalorian itself didn't reveal until "Chapter 9: The Marshal" ended with Boba Fett watching the Mandalorian from afar. The ads also confirm that Boba healed Fennec Shand's fatal gun wounds after "The Gunslinger", which Mando didn't learn until "Chapter 14: The Tragedy".
    • Beginning with this TV spot and its YouTube thumbnail, posted online three days after Chapter 5 premiered, the advertisements confirm Din Djarin accepting an offer to fight alongside Boba in the gang war, as well as The Mandalorian "Chapter 16: The Rescue" declaring Din the new owner of the Darksaber.
    • Three days after Chapter 6, this TV spot showed the start of the showdown between Cad Bane and Cobb Vanth.
  • Leitmotif: At the end of episode 4, after Fennec reminds Boba he can hire some muscle if he knows where to look, the Mandalorian's leitmotif plays.
  • Like an Old Married Couple: Boba and Fennec seem to have developed this relationship dynamic. Fennec rolls her eyes over Boba not being exactly keen on her more pragmatic solutions, but frets over Boba's well-being (such as chiding him for diving into the dead Sarlacc to find his armor while rinsing the acid off of him and recommending a bacta tank for his scars). Boba seems to think that Fennec can be a bit bloodthirsty, but certainly isn't going to abandon her in a bad-odds fight simply because he has a jetpack.
  • Lock-and-Load Montage: Upon exiting the bacta tank, we see a montage of Boba putting on his full armor and equipment, with the help of some servant droids.
  • Logo Joke: The trailer and TV spots paint the Lucasfilm Vanity Plate in chipped green and red tones reminiscent of Boba's armor.
  • Made a Slave: After emerging from the Sarlacc's stomach, Boba was captured by a tribe of Tusken Raiders and kept as a slave, as seen in flashbacks. He's later set free when he saves a Tusken child.
  • Marquee Alter Ego: Like The Mandalorian Season 2, this show and its promos unveil Boba's face much more often than the Original Trilogy did. The healing of Boba's scars takes this to another level, as now Temuera Morrison can perform with less prosthetic makeup covering his face. Chapter 6 in particular never shows Boba wearing his helmet.
  • Missing Steps Plan: Boba clearly did not think through his plan to become Tatooine's new crime lord. Killing Bib Fortuna was a clear first step, but that just put a massive target on his back. He seems to have not thought ahead as to how to solidify his position and recruit the people necessary to run such an enterprise. He's just improvising as new threats pop up.
  • Miss Kitty: Garsa Fwip, the proprietress of the Sanctuary, presents herself as one, especially considering her employing various Twi'leks in Stripperific gear, and the general stereotypes of Twi'lek women.
  • Mook: The Pyke Syndicate has an almost inexhaustible supply of Pyke thugs that ultimately attack our heroes in waves.
  • Multiple Reference Pun: Boba Fett recruits a youth gang called the Mods. Their name refers both to their cybernetic modifications and the Scooter-Riding Mod fashion aesthetic they cultivate.
  • National Weapon: We see that the gaderffii stick has a religious significance to the Tusken nation, and acquisition of one involves a Mushroom Samba journey to collect the wood that it is made of. The Tusken tribe that adopts Boba deems him worthy to carry one, and the second chapter ends with the Tuskens performing a ritual dance using the sticks celebrating the occasion when he completes his.
  • Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: The heroes of the original trilogy did this when they killed Jabba the Hutt. With Jabba dead, Bib Fortuna took control of his organization. Unfortunately, Bib was incompetent and weak. Other crime syndicates took advantage and made life on Tatooine even worse.
  • Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: In the end, the Pykes were the architects of the destruction of their own operation on Tatooine. If they had just paid Boba's Tusken tribe instead of wiping them out, Boba would've stayed living with them in the desert and never made a move to take over as Daimyo of Mos Espa.
  • No Honor Among Thieves: In spite of their promises to stay neutral, the Trandoshan, Aqualish, and Klatooinian captains turn on Boba regardless because they don't trust him to handle the Syndicate in the first place, and would rather suffer the consequences of being under the Pykes' thumb than the consequences of not providing the Syndicate aid during its time of need. The Pykes, in turn, have no intention of supporting them, and are just about to turn tail and leave the crime families to war with Fett on their own when Fennec intrudes to kill them all. Their combined cowardice and backstabbing ultimately leads to their deaths.
  • Nominal Hero: Boba Fett is a crime lord whose sole motivation is to consolidate his newfound power. The only things making him worth rooting for are his strict sense of honor, desire to rule with respect rather than fear, and the fact that his enemies are also notorious crime lords who are far worse than him.
  • Oddly Small Organization: At the beginning of Chapter 7, Boba is only really in command of Fennec, two Gamorrean guards, four Scooter Riding Mods, Black Krrsantan, the Rancor, and its keeper. Din Djarin is merely lending temporary assistance. Boba does note that he's short on manpower, but you'd expect him to have dozens if not hundreds or more under his command to maintain control of a city, let alone an entire planet.
  • Orphaned Etymology: Boba's new title as the crime boss of Tatooine is daimyo, a Japanese title for a feudal lord. Likewise, the Latin term majordomo — meaning "head of the staff" — gets used a few times, as it's already been introduced as Bib Fortuna's old title.
  • Out of Focus: Oddly enough, Boba Fett himself in the fifth and sixth episodes, the former of which he's completely absent from, and the latter of which he only appears in in one non-speaking scene. Those two episodes instead spend a lot of time setting the stage for the season finale and paving the way for future stories with characters from The Mandalorian.
  • Le Parkour: The assassins that attack Boba and Fennec try to escape by doing acrobatics across the rooftops of Tatooine. Fennec follows just as capably, and actually manages to get around them when forced to dive for cover from a barrage of throwing knives.
  • The Peter Principle: One running theme directly related to Boba's ascension to daimyo/crime lord is the fact that the skillset one gains in bounty-hunting (such as Asskicking Leads to Leadership) is not automatically transferable to actually running a criminal crew (i.e. The Chains of Commanding and similar concerns). That said, Boba seems directly aware of this challenge in his career shift, as he admits to Fennec in Episode 4, but prefers to try to hack it as a crime lord than face the continued risks of being a bounty hunter, (especially one with unscrupulous employers, as the case of Black Krrsantan shows).
  • The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything: Boba Fett announces his intent to be a crime lord in Tatooine, but in practice he isn't actually seen doing anything beyond collecting protection money. Fennec does reference the spice smuggling aspect of Hutt's former criminal enterprise, but Fett decides to abandon it as well, stating he wants to be a different breed of crime lord, eschewing the more violent and sadistic aspects of the position. In the finale, he seems to be treated by the people of Mos Espa as an actual feudal lord, not the criminal type.
  • Pragmatic Villainy:
    • Thanks to some introspection and experiences after nearly dying, Boba has chosen to live his life more pragmatically rather than running on pure ruthlessness, choosing things that are more mutually beneficial for everyone involved to gain more allies rather than create more enemies than he needs. This has, surprisingly, worked out for him more often than not.
      • The House of Fett poises itself to rule generously, intelligently, and meticulously. Boba's entire stated reason for wanting to create his own crime syndicate in "The Gathering Storm" is that he's seen too many hunters fall victim to the foolishness of greedy, backstabbing, prideful crime lords, and that he, an experienced mercenary with a code of ethics, could succeed where they failed.
        Boba Fett: How many times have you been hired to do a job that was avoidable — if they only took the time to think, how much money could've been made? How many lives could've been saved? [...] I'm tired of our kind dying because of the idiocy of others. We're smarter than them. It's time we took our shot.
      • Much to Fennec's surprise, Boba doesn't intend to flaunt his power by killing prisoners to set an example; he insists it's to show a new kind of rule for his unruly subjects — a rule of respect, rather than fear. The other, unspoken reason is that they're short-staffed at the palace, and torturing and executing the Gamorreans would be both a waste of potential allies and a blight on their recruitment efforts. It pays off when the Gamorrean guards he spared and recruited save him and Fennec, and can then be trusted enough to carry him back to the palace and secure him in his pod.
      • Similarly, after the watermonger Lortha Peel tries to hire Boba to eliminate some speeder bikers that have been giving him grief, Boba learns that they're just fighting his outrageous price gouging and don't have the opportunities to seek employment because nobody will take a chance on them. Boba thus hires them for his organization, and orders Peel to charge a fair price while compensating him at market value for the water. In one fell swoop, Boba makes himself a hero to the people of Mos Espa for saving them from both the scam and the bikers' violence, he eliminates a small-time crook running a hustle that's not under his control, and he gains a loyal gang of specialized units for fighting, racing, and recon.
      • Fennec points out that the Hutts established a precedent of riding into town like wealthy nobles, carried on a litter of servants. Boba prefers to ignobly walk on his own two feet — making him more of a potential target for assassins, but also presenting himself to Mos Espa as a man of the people, and building goodwill and trust in the process.
      • When Mok Shaiz's majordomo arrives in place of the mayor and demands tribute, with every word a slight against Boba's new regime, Boba does not avenge the insult and challenge presented by killing the man; he's only an employee, not the mayor himself, and killing him would escalate the conflict rather than end it.
      • Fett does not take offense at referring to previous regimes before him by name, as his droid secretary 8D8 assumes he would. He is a little put off by 8D8 thinking Boba's pride is so fragile, though.
      • So as to not to chafe anyone's ego, Boba's proposal during the summit dinner with the captains is only for a temporary alliance, for the families to present a united front until the interloping Pykes have been eradicated. When the Klatooinian counters, reasonably, that the Pykes only seek war with Fett and such a risk would be unnecessary, Boba merely asks that they remain neutral in the conflict instead, which they agree to. As Boba says to Fennec later, the bosses can always be counted on to act in pure self-interest, and his deal is better for business than whatever conditions the Pyke Syndicate would force on them.
      • When Din comes to Boba and states the single condition of Freetown's offer (that they'll fight with his organization against the Pykes only if he gives up the spice trade), Boba ponders for only a moment, then agrees, surprising Fennec. Not only is spice dealing unethical and distasteful to him, it's only been a source of misery for his budding empire: the Pyke Syndicate is so hungry to usurp Jabba's former trade from him that they've started a gang war, and it undermines the city he seeks to rule, keeping it mired in poverty and petty crime rather than growing into a valuable metropolis.
    • While the Twins have a vested interest in controlling Mos Espa — seeing it as their family inheritance from Jabba — they aren't willing to get into a three-way gang war over it, even though they have the resources to put up a fair fight against both; when they learn the Pyke Syndicate is now involved, they withdraw from the planet and focus elsewhere, hinting that they'll return to challenge the victor.
      "Bloodshed is bad for business. We can deal with this later."
  • Previews Pulse: One trailer is punctuated with the sound of a seismic charge detonation.
  • Progressively Prettier: Now that he has access to Jabba's facilities, Boba Fett is receiving proper medical attention, resulting in him now lacking some of the worst scars that he received after his time in the Sarlacc, as seen in The Mandalorian. By Chapter 4, he's completely healed.
  • Required Spinoff Crossover: Halfway through the season, Fett and Shand decide to bolster their forces by hiring the Mandalorian. Chapter 5 in particular focuses entirely on the Mandalorian and serves more as an episode of his series than Fett's, before 6-7 get him more progressively involved in the main plot. The end credits of Chapters 5-7 all list Pedro Pascal as the third-most important cast member, rather than filing him under the "Co-Starring (in order of appearance)" section.
  • Ring World Planet: When we catch back up with the Mandalorian in Chapter 5, he's trying to locate the remnants of his covert, who turn out to be living in the undercity of one of these.
  • Schrödinger's Canon:
    • Rancors being peaceful creatures unless provoked or mistreated was something Luke realized about Jabba's rancor in the novelization for Return of the Jedi.
    • The Rancor trainer mentions tales of the Witches of Dathomir riding rancors into battle. In Legends (more specifically, in The Courtship of Princess Leia), they indeed did.
    • When admiring the baby Rancor, Boba mentions having ridden beasts much larger than it. Which he did back in his debut on The Star Wars Holiday Special.
  • The Scottish Trope: In the opening to Chapter 3, 8D8 believes this trope to be in effect in regards to Jabba's name, but it's subverted when Boba assures him he can say it freely.
  • Self-Fulfilling Prophecy: The Pyke Syndicate fears attacks on their spice train by Tuskens, so they fire on any Tuskens they see while passing through the desert. This obviously provokes the Tuskens into firing back, and ultimately leads to Boba helping the tribe who took him in organize a raid on the train simply to stop being killed.
  • Shout-Out:
    • The desert creature that attacks Boba, the Rodian, and the Tusken raider (plus his pet) at the end of Chapter 1 looks a lot like Ray Harryhausen's Kraken from 1981's Clash of the Titans (itself a Reused Character Design from 20 Million Miles to Earth, also by Harryhausen), right down to its facial structure and number of limbs. It's also structured and walks like a centaur and Boba does a Big Guy Rodeo on it — Harryhausen created a Stop Motion centaur for The Golden Voyage of Sinbad, in which one of Sinbad's men also does a Big Guy Rodeo on it. Phil Tippett has stated that Harryhausen was a big influence on him, so it seems very fitting.
    • The mayor's majordomo sideswipes and crashes his land speeder into a wall in Chapter 3, resulting in it being filled with produce à la Biff Tannen having his car filled with manure in Back to the Future.
    • The Imperial KX and Probe droids walking through the fiery remains of Mandalore following the Empire bombarding the planet brings to mind the apocalyptic future scenes from the Terminator series.
    • Cad Bane's first appearance in the sixth episode as a shimmering silhouette in the distance is one to the first appearance of the titular character from High Plains Drifter.
    • In the sixth episode, Garsa Fwip's cantina is bombed by two Pykes, who enter the bar and leave behind a camtono containing an explosive. The setup of the scene, as well as the fact that someone in the bar attempts to return the camtono to its owners before it explodes, resembles a similar moment in The Untouchables.
    • The rancor climbing the tower in the finale is an obvious homage to King Kong, right down to the credits production art depicting the rancor clutching a twi'lek slave girl during its ascent.
    • Luke allows Grogu to choose whether to stay and train as a Jedi or to go back to Din Djarin by placing down both a lightsaber and Din's gift. Which item he chooses decides his path. This echoes how in Lone Wolf and Cub Ogami Ittō has his infant son choose whether to follow his father or mother (the latter into death) by placing a sword and a ball in front of him, a tradition followed in less high-stakes forms by various East Asian cultures.
    • Fennec getting rid of the mob bosses of Mos Espa, Mayor Mok Shaiz and eventually the Pyke boss plays out a lot like the first scene of The Professional, when Léon kills a mobster's guards (including one via strangling him from the ceiling, she does it to Mok Shaiz here) in total impunity, leaving the mobster (the Pyke boss here) alone, totally panicked and firing in random directions with his gun. Both Léon and Fennec take the mobster/Pyke boss from behind, only here Fennec is there to kill him instead of intimidating him.
  • Smug Snake: The Twi'lek majordomo of the Mayor of Mos Espa, who comes in his master's stead, offers no tribute to Boba but then demands tribute from him in turn, all while speaking in a polite yet clearly condescending tone of voice. Reinforced later when Boba and Fennec go to the town hall to demand an audience with the mayor; the perfectly-acquiescing majordomo retreats into the mayor's office (to "rearrange his schedule"), then locks the door while he tries to leg it in a land speeder.
  • Space Fighter: New Republic X-wings and Luke's X-wing make appearances, along with an old N-1 that Mando bought and upgraded to replace the Razor Crest.
  • The Starscream: One of Jabba's former captains that Boba invites to dinner brings up this scenario, asking what's stopping them from killing him and taking what they want. Boba's response is to nonverbally indicate that he has a Rancor.
  • The Stinger: For the season 1 finale's second-to-last scene, Boba says he can't jump in his bacta tank because someone's using it. The astute viewer may remember that Boba promised Black Krrsantan he could use it, but the Wookiee saunters up seconds later. An oversight? Nope, the stinger reveals Cobb Vanth survived his encounter with Cad Bane and is now healing up in the bacta tank, and the modder doc who fixed up Fennec is getting ready to work on replacing his lost arm.
  • Stupid Evil: Boba perceiving and getting fed up with this in the criminal overlords that frequently employed him and his peers is his motivation for claiming his own criminal lordship.
  • Too Important to Walk: The Hutt Twins are carried on a litter, which is apparently common for Tatooine's elite. The locals find it strange that someone of Boba's position walks on his own two feet. The Hutt Twins further rub in their importance by forcing a large amount of slaves to carry them around, rather than going for the more practical choice of a platform with repulsor lifts.
  • Took a Level in Kindness: For Boba Fett, clearly, on a quest to find a life other than being a feared bounty hunter, but also for Tatooine. It was introduced as the place farthest from the bright center of the galaxy, with hostile natives, thieving scavengers, and cities that are wretched hives of scum and villainy. The prequels double down, showing that it engages in routine blood sports (the pod races) and society-wide slavery. The Mandalorian started redeeming it with Cobb Vanth and Mos Pelga (now Freetown), but this series keeps the focus on the planet and shows that the majority of its inhabitants are just regular people who keep their heads down and want nothing more than for all the crime lords to just go away, and prove willing to fight when their backs are against the wall.
  • Two Lines, No Waiting: Present in the first four episodes. There are the segments set in the present (that is, post Mandalorian season two), which deal with Boba and Fennec navigating the Tatooine criminal underworld as newly minted crime lords, then there are Boba’s dreams in his healing pods, acting as flashbacks that depict Boba’s time with the Tusken Raiders following his escape from the Sarlacc’s stomach.
  • Undying Loyalty: The greatest asset of Fett's style of rule is his ability to inspire this. He manages to convince Fennec first before he formally made his claim, and then the two Gamorrean guards, and then the Mod gangs, and then even fearsome Black Krrsantan (who was previously hired to assassinate him) to follow him. Din Djarin decides to throw down for him in the battle against the Pykes pro bono too. And even the notoriously independent Freetown Militia are willing to cast their lot in with him as well. His secret is that he understands the necessity of reciprocating loyalty: Fennec was the first that he promised a piece of the spoils in his lordship, the Gammoreans were spared the execution block if they bent the knee, Black Krrsantan was simply let free instead of sold as a slave when the Hutt Twins abandoned him to Boba, the Mods and Krrsantan were both offered employment as Boba's henchmen, and the Freetowners were rewarded by having their beloved Marshall, Cobb Vanth, made whole again via a bacta tank dunk and some Mod-style cybernetic reconstruction on Boba's dime after he was on the wrong end of Cad Bane's quickdraw. Din signed up readily for free because Boba previously creatively interpreted an agreement with Din made under more adversarial circumstances to say he still owed Din in "ensuring the Child (a.k.a. Grogu) was safe" after he recovered his armor from Din's possession and the Imperial Remnant abducted Grogu.
  • Virtue Is Weakness: An absurd amount of the troubles Fett endures through the season come down to all of the other criminals in Tatooine seeing his decision of offering alliances with no funny (or deadly) business as a weakness; a "he should be easy to kill and rob" weakness at that.
  • What Measure Is a Mook?: The series takes a closer look at some of the classic Star Wars mooks, such as the Tusken raiders and Jabba's Gamorrean guards, giving them more characterization and personality.
  • "You Used to Be Better" Speech: Garsa Fwip's speech to Black Krrsantan after he goes on a drunken rampage and beats up on some Trandoshans in the Sanctuary. It doesn't work, as Black K rips the arm off of a Trandoshan and more or less gets kicked out of the place. Boba's mild reaction?
    Boba Fett: It was worth a shot.

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"It's Tatooine!"

We haven't been here before...

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