We’re just a couple of weeks away from the premiere of The Book of Boba Fett, and recently Lucasfilm has given us a number of new TV spots that, in a sense, have given us both a lot of new footage and nearly nothing at all.
What I mean by that is that there are quite a few new spots, and I’ve actually been impressed how much new footage they each contain. We’ve only gotten one actual trailer, but these spots make it feel like more. So in that sense, they’ve been showing a lot. But in another sense, all of the footage we’ve seen so far actually has told us precious little about the plot, and I’m fully expecting almost all of the footage to come from the first episode or two. This is the pattern Star Wars has used recently on The Mandalorian, and I actually think it makes it more exciting – for example, in The Mandalorian season two we had seen everything in the trailers by mid-season, leaving plenty of intrigue for the remainder of the episodes. I fully expect the same situation here.
The latest TV spot for this new series was released today, titled “Ready,” and it puts a focus on Fennec Shand. Check it out:
There are plenty of images we’ve already seen, but also plenty of new ones. So let’s break down the new shots that we got in this spot and do a bit of responsible speculation!
This spot both begins and ends with Fennec at Boba’s side as he sits on Jabba’s Throne. In the first, it looks like she is advising him as someone enters the room off-screen, while in the second one it looks like she’s by Boba’s side as they listen to someone standing in front of them. Whatever the case, these shots are certainly intended to show how these two are working closely together, just as we’ve seen in The Mandalorian as well.
The first line we hear in the trailer is the now-familiar line from Boba saying, “Jabba ruled with fear. I intend to rule with respect.” We then hear a new line, this one from Fennec, saying, “In difficult times, fear is a sure bet.” This is very interesting to me, because it seems to be countering Boba’s other statement that up to this point has been taken to define how he’s going to act in this show. We know that he’s still got quite a bit of rage and isn’t exactly a good guy, but he does seem to have a moral code that is causing him to rule differently than Jabba did. This makes sense too, when you consider Boba’s interesting history with Jabba. But here’s the new question raised here: does Fennec agree with his approach?
It sounds like she’s suggesting that Boba shouldn’t discount the role of fear in leading, particularly in these times and with these people. And I’m still skeptical that Boba won’t utilize fear in how he does things, but if he’s intent on ruling differently than Jabba did, could it mean that he’ll come into conflict with Fennec, his right-hand advisor and ally? I hadn’t really considered this before, but now I’m at least wondering if it’s a possibility that during the course of the show Fennec and Fett grow to be at odds. We still don’t know of any antagonist in this series, and we’ve been assuming that the tense relationships between these criminal syndicates is enough to drive that (which it probably is!). But could it be that Fennec will come to be the one standing in Fett’s way the most? I’m not sure if I’m ready to fully go there and predict it’ll happen, but this line at least got me thinking about it, which is something that hadn’t previously occurred to me to wonder.
This is another shot of the two Nikto who are harassing these two people until Boba Fett shows up. We saw a few other glimpses of this in a previous spot, and I speculated that it might be Fixer and Camie. But now, having seen this clearer picture… I’m just as convinced as ever that it’s them. It certainly looks like them, and it would be an awesome connection. We’ll have to see if this is really the direction they go, but I really like the thought of it.
Another scene that we’ve glimpsed before is this one of the thugs jumping around on the rooftops, but now we get more to the story: Fennec Shand is as well! And here, it looks like she’s actually the one pursuing them, rather than the other way around. Then she winds up confronting the two of them. This gives some more context to what is going on here. And given the fact that the one man looks a lot like the prisoner we see Fennec bring to Jabba’s Palace, and then to meet the Ithorian boss, I wonder if this is early in the show as Fennec tracks them down and takes one of them prisoner, for some reason.
We get a few brief shots of Fennec and Boba, but it’s the lines that we hear that are most significant. Fennec says, “These are just the first wave. They’re going to war.” Boba then responds, “Then we will be ready.” I think this might be one of the most significant lines we’ve heard so far to let us know what this show is about (not that there’s been many at all…). The other significant line is the one Boba says about how he’s intending to rule differently than Jabba, which tells us that a driving part of the series is going to be Boba establishing himself as a crime boss in Jabba’s place. This line then gives us another angle as to what’s happening, and it’s that the syndicates (or whoever they are) are preparing to go to war. I think this could get really interesting, and I’d love to see a lot more conflict between these crime syndicates in this period where the New Republic doesn’t really govern in the Outer Rim.
The one other new shot worth mentioning is from a scene we’ve seen frequently, and it’s Boba and Fennec fighting against these thugs who surround them. But here, we see Boba wielding one of their electrostaffs (as is Fennec, if you look closely in the background), so they’re clearly handling themselves ok. And Boba looks quite intense and ready to strike.
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