TBOBF - Jan 16

 Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, and you can always count on your family to make it worse, so let us briefly talk about Boba Fett instead. We are already 2 or 3 weeks into 2022, so it is time for me to make my first blog entry of the year anyhow…

…Well, here is the tricky part – there is not much to talk about in regards to ‘The Book of Boba Fett’: like almost anything that is associated with Disney, the technical side of things is done perfectly, but otherwise…

But otherwise, if you look at the Disney/SW situation, then you will notice something else: it is stuck. It is stuck within the framework of the first two trilogies, done without Disney’s involvement and investment in Lucasfilm™, and while ‘The Mandalorian’ tested those borders, ‘The Book of Boba Fett’ – not so much, at least not in the first three episodes; ‘The Book of Boba Fett is taking place sometime around the original trilogy…ok, sometime after the SW6 film, but so far it is ignoring the greater galaxy far away and is centered around a certain town on Tattooine instead. In ‘The Mandalorian’, we travelled all over the place, but then… first, Gina Carano made a daft and a politically inapt statement, she was fired, her SW character Cara Dune was scrapped, the end. Where did this leave us?

…With the titular character handling over Grogu the Yoda Baby over to Luke Skywalker, leaving fans wondering, just what has happened to the tyke between ‘The Mandalorian’ S2 finale and the SW7-9 films that he either sat out Luke Skywalker getting his ass handed over to him practically by everyone else, or else Grogu was in the posse that joined the Dark Side and handed Luke Skywalker his ass. Neither possibility is good, so for the moment Grogu and the rest of the remaining ‘Mandalorian’ cast are benched, and we got ‘The Book of Boba Fett’, which is detached – in a large part - from the rest of the SW universe. The fan community is not too impressed, and so ‘The Book of Boba Fett’ is not flourishing as much as it could have been. Anything else?

Yes, the AoS, for I would not be talking about Disney’s latest SW misadventure without it. Yes, DC seems to have come up with its’ own take on the show’s initial premise in the ‘Peacemaker’ series, which is actually the redemption arc Grant Ward should’ve had; the titular character is his variant, the rest of the crew are the variant AoS, save for the Vigilante, who is essentially a Deadpool variant instead. Marvel’s loss is DC’s gain – if Deadpool was a regular on the AoS show, it would have been much more popular and successful than how it was. Instead, we got Ms. Ming-Na Wen making a smooth and a casual reply to the question – is AoS coming back? – that amounts to her saying nothing and promising nothing, which is much more diplomatic than anything that Chloe Bennett would’ve said, but I digress.

First, Ms. Ming-Na is a talented actress, who knows that who pays for the music dances the girl, and does not go against Disney/MCU’s grain, as Chloe Bennett seems to have had. Second, AoS is over for good. Whatever it was supposed to be initially, in the end it was a clunky Frankenstein’s monster of a show, which had cannibalized the other cancelled MCU shows, such as ‘InHumans’, ‘Ghost Rider’, and even the cancelled third season of AC, but we’ve discussed it in the past.

Third, Disney/MCU has re-started that issue themselves in ‘Hawkeye’ – yes, we’ve talked about this before, but again, I’ll note that given how the audience’s/the fans’ reaction to the suggestion that Laura was the ‘true’ Mockingbird all along was ambiguous, Disney/MCU quickly squashed the discussions on this topic, and used the latest ‘Spider-Man’ movie to cover-up its’ tracks. However,

…However, there are traces of AoS in ‘No Way Home’ as well; the way that team Spider-Man deals with the extradimensional villains isn’t too different from the Tahiti method that AoS used on Cal, so clearly, the way that AoS had re-used its’ recycled ideas has spread to the rest of MCU by now. Oh dear, we will have to wait and see as to what will come out of it.

For now, though, this is it. See you all soon!