Create a free profile to get unlimited access to exclusive videos, sweepstakes, and more!
The 13 coolest, wildest and 'Star Wars'-iest moments from 'The Book of Boba Fett' Season 1
This season has been a real lizard up the nose!
The finale of The Book of Boba Fett has come, and we really had no idea what to expect. The streaming live-action Star Wars series told a weird and wild tale for its first four chapters, and then it devolved into a galactic free-for-all.
Boba Fett (Temuera Morrison), Fennec Shand (Ming-Na Wen), and the steadily growing cast gave us memorable moments with every episode. For lack of a better way to say it, Season 1 of this series was packed full of awesome s**t. Let’s take a tour through that awesome s**t, because it was so wizard.
**SPOILER WARNING: From this point forward, there will be spoilers for episodes 1 through 6 of The Book of Boba Fett. If you are not caught up, then jetpack out of here.**
Rebirth
Right at the start, the series showed us how Boba survived his Sarlacc encounter in Star Wars: Return of the Jedi. His beskar armor kept him alive, and using his array of tricks, he managed to be be reborn out of the Tatooine sands. He may have been cloned on a water planet, but he was remade in the sand.
Jawas stripped him bare, but a tribe of Tusken Raiders took him in. As he got to learn their ways, it became clear that Fett was reevaluating his life. He was done working for idiots, and he was done being alone. He learned the value of having a tribe, and he proceeded to form one of his own. Morrison performed every moment to perfection.
Fett vs. Harryhausen
Fett got some respect from his Tusken captors after he defeated a sand creature towards the end of Chapter 1. It’s not just any sand creature either, it’s a multi-limbed behemoth that emerges from the sand and looks like it walked right out of Jason and the Argonauts.
This Ray Harryhausen-inspired beast takes out a useless Rodian, but it’s no match for Mr. Fett. Some claim that this show has made Boba soft. To that, we point to this scene, where Boba wraps a chain around this thing’s neck and chokes it to bloody death, then stands proud in the Tatooine suns after doing so.
No armor, no blaster, just a chain. The Harryhausen beast didn’t stand a chance. Didn’t seem so “soft” to us.
Throw the Pykes From the Train
The biggest action sequence in Chapter 2 featured Boba and the Tusken tribe going after a hover train full of Pykes. The train sped along the sands thanks to a pod engine, and it was driven by a droid. After learning how to ride speeders, the Tuskens embark on the merry chase of “Sandpiercer.”
There are Tuskens jumping from speeder to speeder, from speeder to train, and then there are also both Tuskens and Pykes getting blasted by the pod engine. The Tusken Warrior takes out everyone on the inside while Boba and friends move along the top. It’s a heady blast of action, and it ends with Boba telling the Pykes that they now have to pay tribute to the Tuskens.
This backfired in the present storyline, but it remains one hell of a scene.
When Boba Met Fennec
Chapter 4 had many scenes between Boba and Fennec, including their first official meeting. Boba helped her after she was left for dead (bringing her to a cyberpunk mod parlor), and then the two got close while discussing their career paths. She helped him recover his starship, and then she stayed along for the ride.
Their bond is a highlight of the entire series. The flashback scenes between Morrison and Ming-Na Wen were great, and they deepen every moment that features them in the present. She is the first member of Boba’s new family, and she’s a pivotal one. They are past the need to do everything by themselves; it’s no bad thing to have someone on your side, and to be on their side in return.
Fire From the sky
As soon as Boba and Fennec recover his starship, Boba says that he has a few scores to settle. One of the biggest is with the Nikto speeder gang that wiped out the Tusken tribe that took him in. He believed they did, anyway. Fennec cast doubt on that, and rightfully so. The Pykes were ultimately responsible.
The Nikto gang were still giant bags of druk, so we don't mind what happens to them. They speed along their merry way in the desert as Boba’s ship starts to approach. We’ve already seen him beat the kriff out of these a-holes in a previous flashback (with nothing but a rifle and a training stick), but Boba’s ready to close his book on these morons. He guns them all down, and takes the last speeder out with a missile for the sake of variety.
Death rained on the Nikto gang from above, and none of them had packed an umbrella.
Mando, the Darksaber, and the Great Purge
The first four chapters of this series focused on Boba Fett, which made sense considering the show's title. Chapter 5 came along and Boba did not appear once. The action shifted over to Din Djarin of The Mandalorian (Pedro Pascal), and a visit from Fennec at the episode’s end that tied things back.
Catching up with Mando was joyous. He nabbed a quick bounty with the help of the Darksaber, and he quickly showed that he’s not very good with it. On an unnamed ring station he reunited with the mysterious Armorer (Emily Swallow), and she recounted some Darksaber history for him. Viewers of Star Wars Rebels already knew most of it, but it was still good to get another perspective.
We then got a glimpse of the “great purge” itself, a piece of Mandalorian history that has been referred to on The Mandalorian before but not yet seen. The Armorer tried to train Mando to use the Darksaber (making us fondly recall the Rebels S3 episode “Trials of the Darksaber”), and then Paz Vizsla decided to challenge Mando for it. Mando wins the duel, but then has to admit that he has removed his helmet in the past. This particular Mando sect, the “Children of the Watch,” are firmly against that. The Armorer proclaimed that he’s no longer a Mandalorian. To become one again, he’ll have to go on a quest that we imagine could be included in Season 3 of his own series.
Test Drive
The series wasn’t done giving us the unexpected. Chapter 5 stayed with Mando, going to Tatooine with him as he rebuilt a starship with Peli Motto (Amy Sedaris). She didn’t find him any old junker, she found him an N-1 Starfighter that is straight out of Star Wars: The Phantom Menace.
They pimp the kriff out of this ride, and Dom Toretto would be jealous of it by the time they’re done. It takes the place of Mando’s Razor Crest for now, and he tested it out by flying through some of the old podracing course. When he landed, he had a one-word response as to how the flight went: “Wizard.”
Cobb vs. Cad
Timothy Olyphant returned to Star Wars as Cobb Vanth in Chapter 6, and towards the end of the episode, we got a true Western showdown. Vanth, played by the same man who played Seth Bullock (Deadwood) and Raylan Givens (Justified), has a stand-off with a legend who has come to live-action after having quite a run on both Star Wars: The Clone Wars and Star Wars: The Bad Batch.
Cad Bane, himself inspired by Lee Van Cleef, was the Duros who came out of the desert to challenge Bullock/Givens/Vanth/Olyphant. We have wanted to see Cad Bane in live-action for a very long time, and we could not have asked for a more perfect re-introduction.
Still voiced by Corey Burton, Bane (on the side of the Pykes) wounded Vanth. He also pumped about 15 shots into a useless deputy. If you do an internet search for “awesome s**t,” this scene will play.
Old Friend of the Family
The hits started coming long before that scene in Chapter 6, as Mando went looking for Grogu. Because Grogu is training with Luke Skywalker, we saw Luke again. Mark Hamill was back, again, and so was Ahsoka Tano (Rosario Dawson).
For some reason, we never dared to hope for a scene where these two were together, but it happened. Not only did Ahsoka refer to herself as an “old friend of the family” to Mando, she later told Luke that he was like his father. The former padawan to Anakin Skywalker would know.
The short scene conjured all kinds of other other scenes in our imaginations, because at this point it’s all out in the open for the both of them. Luke would have told Ahsoka that Anakin turned back to the light before the end, and a great weight likely lifted off of Ahsoka’s heart. Ahsoka certainly had no shortage of stories about Anakin to tell Luke, either.
The real emotional punch here is imagining Ahsoka telling Luke about someone he never knew at all. In Star Wars: Return of the Jedi, Luke says that he has no memory of his mother. Ahsoka knew Padmé Amidala well, and we'd like to think that she told Luke all about what an incredible person his mother was.
Skywalker’s Grogu Gambit
At the close of Chapter 6, Luke offered Grogu a choice. He could either choose the beskar armor that Mando left for him, or Yoda’s actual lightsaber. He could only pick one. If he chooses the armor, Luke says he’ll go back to Mando… but he will not be able to follow the path of the Jedi any further.
It was Luke’s attachments that brought Anakin Skywalker back to the light, and this was against the advice of both Yoda and Obi-Wan Kenobi. Luke found a new way forward, trained as a Jedi in a most unconventional way, and is now going back to strict Jedi doctrine so soon after that? Luke’s rigidity has possibly begun, with the seeds of his future failures (which he talks about in Star Wars: The Last Jedi) on full display.
We don't know what really happened after we cut away from Luke, all we know is that Grogu showed up in the finale with the armor. We look forward to learning more about what went down between the two of them.
Boba vs. Cad
The long-awaited standoff between Cad Bane and Boba Fett finally happened, and the stakes were winner take all. It was really a showdown of selfishness (Bane) and service (Boba), as Bane's final "lesson" to Boba was all about looking out for himself. Boba has been reborn. He is no longer that man.
He may have gone in for the solo life at some point, but he has a tribe now. Contrary to what Boba says, this doesn't make him soft. It makes him strong. The symbolism is clear when Bane has Boba at gunpoint, but Boba uses his gaderffii stick to disarm and kill Bane. It's the final beat of Boba's new view of things taking out the old, and an old part of his childhood (and a seriously bad influence) went with it. Sadly, the legendary Cad Bane had to go too... but it only made the theme hit home harder. A life of selfishness will leave you old, alone, hatless, and dead in the street.
Rancor Rampage
In Chapter 3, a pair of Hutt twins give Boba the gift of a Rancor. It comes with a Keeper played by Danny Trejo, and Boba says that he'd like to learn how to ride it. We wanted to see this, we wanted it badly... the finale provided.
The entire Battle of Mos Espa was insanely well-done, but it was Boba crashing through everything on the back of the Rancor that put it all over the top. They fought giant droids, Boba shot Pykes from its back, and the Rancor ate one of the Pykes whole. The Rancor didn't want to calm down after everything was done, but thankfully Grogu was on hand to pull some fancy force tricks.
This particular Rancor will live another day. According to the Keeper, he has imprinted on Boba. We all love Boba's seven minutes (or less) in Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back, but why would you not want to see him ride a Rancor into battle?
The Journey of the Lizard
For us, the most awesome s**t in Season 1 of this series took place towards the end of Chapter 2. It was so incredibly weird that we couldn’t help but instantly love it. It it utterly unlike anything else in the Star Wars canon.
The Tuskens offered Boba a gift of a tiny lizard. The lizard jumped right up Boba’s nose, and he proceeded to have a fever dream that led him to what he thought was a tree surrounded by water. Cloned in water yet reborn in sand, Boba approached the tree and broke off a branch. When he returned to the Tuskens, the lizard exited his nose. The branch was used to create Boba's own gaderffii stick.
We love that the Tuskens have this right of passage in their culture. We love that it involves a special lizard going up someone’s nose. How do they get it up their noses with that headgear they wear? Who knows, but that lizard probably finds a way.
Boba Fett taking the walk to the tree (which may or may not be real) plays like something out of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, all of it thanks to a little lizard up his nose. As we’ve said, it’s completely unlike any Star Wars scene that has come before it, yet it feels perfectly at home in the saga.
All episodes of The Book of Boba Fett Season 1 are available to stream on Disney+ right now.
