I usually use my wall for random media thoughts on what I have watched recently, but I figured it would be nice to make it a forum thread. This will contain random thoughts on what I have just watched. I tend to focus on movies or shows, and I also like highlighting the business side of the film industry.
For my first media thoughts, I'd like to chat a bit about the newest two episodes of "The Book of Boba Fett".
Spoilers ahead for Book of Boba Fett and the Mandalorian. You have been warned
1) It's very telling that the most popular episodes of The Book of Boba Fett are ones he's not even in. (He was in Episode 6 for a good 20 seconds, not a single line of dialogue.)
Some backstory: Back during The Mandalorian Season 2's filming, Pedro Pascal had a bit of a falling out with Lucasfilms. If I remember correctly, it was because Pedro wanted more of a lead role with the show and felt like he wasn't being given the screen time --and more specifically, the face time-- that he deserved for his own show. The Mandalorian Season 2 was a show that focused on building the Star Wars Live Action TV Universe into an entire behemoth on Disney Plus, with reveals like Ahsoka, Luke, and more on it. It paved the way for multiple new shows, but at the cost of sidelining Din Djarin's storyline. Pedro, rightfully so, wasn't a fan of being sidelined on his own show.
Disney's response? Continue production with or without Pascal. You see, the whole gimmick about The Mandalorian was that it's sacred for him to keep his helmet on (something definitely not important lore-wise up until this show) which, for business reasons, allowed the show to film with a stand in for Pedro Pascal, and he can come in at a later date to do voice-overs. He wouldn't ever have to actually be on set. Even if there was a scene or two where the character took off his helmet, they could digitally put it his face in afterwards.
Pascal was not a fan of this, and wanted to stop production of The Mandalorian completely. After all, the show was nothing without him, right? He was the face of the most popular Disney Plus show, after all, right?
Well, not entirely. You see, it's the helmet design, the archetype of a faceless hero. And what massively popular character was re-introduced in Season 2 of the Mandalorian? None other than Boba Fett. Disney's play was to remove Pedro from the show completely, with an ultimatum that if he doesn't cave into their demands and be modest and a team player, they would remove him from the universe entirely and phase out his character. They made a public show of this by postponing Mandalorian Season 3 in favor of "The Book of Boba Fett", a spin off that revolved around Boba Fett, and already established character who's potential and popularity was sky-high at the time, as exacerbated by an explosive return in The Mandalorian.
1) It's very telling that the most popular episodes of The Book of Boba Fett are ones he's not even in.
Continued!
Disney's public play with postponing the Mandalorian (or even downright discontinuing The Mandalorian in favor for Ahsoka, Rangers of the New Republic (back when Gina Carano was still working with Disney), and a potential show revolving around Bo-Katan) in favor of a spin-off confused a lot of casual fans and showed just how glaringly the differences of Disney's commanding vision and Pedro Pascal's complaints. Those who were in the know regarding this business dispute was shocked to see it so blatantly confirmed with the announcement of the Book of Boba Fett. This was clearly a last minute decision on Disney's part.
Why was it so clearly a last minute decision? Well, just take a look at The Book of Boba Fett as clear evidence.
Episodes 1-4 of Boba Fett felt mind-boggling slow on its pace, with two incomplete stories being told with no compelling plot points that pushed their narratives. Their premises were interesting --at first. The story of how Boba Fett survived the Sarlacc Pit? Interesting! The story of Boba Fett retaking the throne of his former employer? Also interesting! For fans of Fett, this was finally a potential to tell the story of a character who had no lines in the original trilogy. It was a blank slate! It was so much opportunity and Disney absolutely squandered that opportunity by making past!Fett have a boring storyline that went nowhere with the Tusken Raiders (a storyline that, given other circumstances, would have been compelling, but failed where it was put) and making present!Fett a boring pushover whose decisions made no sense (and were constantly questioned by those around him --most notably, his right hand, Fennec Shand.)
It was clear that Disney rushed together a premise with no follow through. Episodes 1-4 seemed incomplete at best and just dragging through the same plot points over and over again at worst. There was then a half-laid plan to "bring together the squad" that you see in a lot of stories, but said squads were weak and not compelling. (the Mods felt CW-worthy, not Star Wars worthy). And who did they bring in to bring the groups together? None other than the very character they wanted to get rid of in the first place: The Mandalorian.
2) Boba Fett is sidelined in his own show. Other agendas are pushed forward at the cost of Boba Fett.
Besides what was a small detour of basically Mandalorian Season 2.5 in episode 5 and 6, the Book of Boba Fett was a disaster. It ruined what could have been Boba Fett's glorious return to Star Wars in favor of making him a nice person? The tonality of the show felt like it didn't know what it wanted to be or who it wanted Boba Fett to be. It had no real meaning or messages in the show, and it felt rushed and horribly slow at the same time.
It is so saddening that the best episodes of the Book of Boba Fett (and arguably some of the best Star Wars content this generation) were episodes that completely sidelined Boba Fett in favoring of continuing arcs from a different show. I wish I could talk about those episodes without talking about what a disgrace they were to the show they were in, because they were completely amazing episodes!
Bryce Dallas Howard served some of the best Star Wars content since The Clone Wars, with satisfying callbacks, amazing cinematography, intense fighting, and good meanings and messages in Episode 5. And in Episode 6, Dave Filoni showed that he truly understands Star Wars like no other person since George Lucas (and possibly even more so than him). Dave Filoni showed us the best portrayal of Luke since the OT, which stunning CGI (that I will talk about later), amazing shots, and just a magnificent episode. It also set up a lot of different threads that we shall see in The Mandalorian Season 3, Ahsoka, and more (although some of those threads were tarnished by the finale to the Book of Boba Fett as they were rushed into the finale instead of being saved with The Mandalorian Season 3)
I sincerely doubt that there will ever be a Book of Boba Fett Season 2 (even though Disney+ says it's a Season Finale and not a Series Finale) for several reasons. 1) Disney does not know what they are doing with Boba Fett. The finale proved just that. At the end of it, when he has finally claimed his throne, he says that this isn't a job for them. Like... ??????? then why did this show happen? What was the in story reason?
2) The only decent supporting cast for The Book of Boba Fett were characters from The Mandalorian (with the exception of the Wookie-who's-name-i-cannot-spell).
3) The only decent storyline is from The Mandalorian.
and lastly, 4) Disney tried to separate Pedro Pascal from the Disney+ Star Wars Universe and failed. And better yet, they acknowledge their failure by bringing Din Djarin back halfway through the series. They made a risky play and backed out of it before they could even see if it was a failure or a success. Pedro Pascal is now squarely back in the driver seat of the Disney+ Star Wars Universe, whether Disney themselves like it or not. (I'll talk about some more paths Disney can take later).
Now that we're done talking about the disaster of The Book of Boba Fett, let's talk about something that this show has done that will change the future of movies and shows forever, and that is Episode 6 of the Book of Boba Fett.
First, some backstory (because I do love me some backstory) : Since Disney's acquisition of Star Wars, there was a huge question on everyone's mind in the industry; an elephant in the room, if you will: what are they going to do with the actors from the Original Trilogy, who were now well into their 50s and 60s. At the time, the Prequels were not most people's cup of tea, so the obvious path forward was pushing the timeline forward, not backwards. But when? Right after Return of the Jedi? Well, that wouldn't work, because the actors themselves had aged a good 30 years from the OT. Well, how about pushing the story 30 years ahead to keep with the actors' ages? Well, then you just gloss over a huge storyline of what happened after Return of the Jedi. How do you get from that to 30 years in the future?
One solution to this: use CGI to de-age the original actors. Essentially, Disney could have their cake and eat it, too. The only problem? Humans are designed with this funny thing where they can tell when things are not humans, especially when things look nearly human but just... not quite there. It's called the Uncanny Valley, and CGI has had a tumultuous history with it. And now Star Wars was going to tackle it. But, Star Wars has had a history of bad CGI, and fans of the Original Trilogy did not take too kindly to the Prequel Trilogy relying so heavily on CGI. If Disney was to do this, they would have to do it right, or face the wrath of the Star Wars fandom (something Disney and Lucasfilms would find themselves doing all too often, but that's for a different story). And so, Disney got to work!
Grand Moff Tarkin in Rogue One
Princess Leia in Rogue One
Their first two attempts were in Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. The first one was of Grand Moff Tarkin, a character whose actor passed away. The second one was of Princess Leia, a character whose actor would tragically pass away not much after this movie. There was a huge controversy surrounding this movie because of Disney's usage of Peter Cushing's image and voice when he was not alive anymore. The morality of using someone's likeness and their voice after they're dead and unable to consent? That was something never talked about before or even thought about before in the movie industry. But now that Disney, the largest movie industry in the world, had done it, anyone could. Where was the limit? Who would get paid for their likeness being used, what if a company had person saying something controversial or against their ethics when they were alive? All of this and more were in question when these first two attempts were done in Rogue One. And the painting on the wall for them to use this technology on the OT actors once they had passed were certainly there. It was a confusing time, to say the least. But imbedded in all of this controversy was a glimmer of hope for OT fans. The Sequels sorely missed the opportunity to get the original trinity back together with the tragic passing of Carrie Fisher, and it was thought it would never happen, nor would the story of what happened after Return of the Jedi ever be explored. With this morally ambiguous exploration in post-humous CGI acting, the doors were opening. The major question was would Disney do it, and would those were still alive be up for it? Well, the question was answered in The Mandalorian Season 2 finale.
This was a huge step forward in de-aging technology. Mark Hammill returned to voice and act in this, and this was an entire scene with it. However, it still had that unfortunate uncanny valley feeling to it, with Luke just not looking like a human in it. While the scene itself was amazing, it was amazing despite the huge elephant in the room of the frankly horrible CGI done to de-age Mark Hammill to Luke Skywalker. It was unsure if the movie industry would be able to de-age people enough to pass the uncanny valley test, or that it was even possible to do so. Perhaps these awkward attempts at de-aging were all that we will get, and we should go in with a major suspension of disbelief.
That changed with Episode 6 of the Book of Boba Fett.
This work is truly astonishing. I mean, personally I couldn't tell it was CGI except for a few times. I thought they just found a really good fit for a body double of Luke. With the help of a fan who specialized in deep-faking, Disney and Lucasfilms were able to experiment with breaking the boundaries of de-aging and CGI technology. And, this entire episode was extremely deliberate on their part, along with the part of Director and co-writer Dave Filoni.
- Each scene involving Luke had him moving slowly, talking slowly, expressing slowly. - the language Luke used was deliberate to aid in the CGI - care was taken to not zoom into Luke's face unless deliberate, where he didn't move very much when it was zoomed in.
(you can watch an amazing Youtube breakdown of these scenes and this episode here.)
This scene had an amazing amount of care and thought put in place to make it as realistic as possible. Is the technology complete and compelling enough to support an entire feature-length film? No. Filoni, the animators, Mark Hammill, the body double, they all worked in tandem to make this as seamless as possible when working against the constraints of today's CGI. The technology isn't there yet, but this has shown that it can, and will, get there.
I do not exaggerate when I say that this is the future of film. If you watched this episode, you witnessed a breakthrough in film that will change it forever. Whether it is a positive or negative change... only time will tell.
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