Weekly Briefing from the North Texas Apocalypse Bunker, 1/21/22
Home Sweet Home Edition
Administration would like to formally welcome our newest resident at the Bunker, Codename: Jes, who is taking over the coveted position of Director of Bunker Operations. Jes comes to us from the Central Texas Wastelands where she was born and raised. Her travels from Central to North Texas were as expected: the journey started out, 70 degrees and sunny, and ended overcast, 25 degrees, with winds screaming out of the north at 30 miles per hour. Congratulations, North Texas, for representing on day one!
The Bunker hasn’t been this messy since the last attack of the Feral Nieces and Nephews. Crates everywhere; equipment laying out, uncovered; boxes upon boxes of clothes, shoes, books. However, despite the upheaval, we mustn’t let standards slip. The bunker mess hall is more than up for the challenge of meal prep for the entire staff.
The Bunker Mascot, fully recuperated and initially ecstatic to find herself back home again, has been tiptoeing through the many temporary staging areas for cargo and essentials and giving us both the side eye. She has managed to navigate the stairs handily, after being assured by several people that she could, in fact, do it.
Things will be quiet for a few weeks as we work together to re-establish order amidst the chaos. Schedules have to be worked out. Bed sides negotiated. Daily Bunker Living will be anything but, at least until mid-February. You can surely expect updates, photos, and other various and sundry reports as we work through the various New Bunker Resident checklists.
Patreon is Nigh!
Those of you who have been reading my stuff for years and advocating for a Patreon account to buy into, you may (a) rejoice, and (b) shut the hell up about it, because it’s finally happening. I’m putting together the finishing touches on patron tiers and lining up some interactive avenues for people who join in. The focus of the Patreon will be my gaming projects and contents including Polite Society: Heists and Capers in a world of Rogues, Thieves, and Scoundrels (a 5e book), the upcoming 'zine, Risky Business: Resources for Roguish RPGs and other 'zines, gaming projects, and the odd short story or fiction project as they come up.
My Patreon will be tied to the NTAB, and will follow the launch of the website, which will be both a landing pad and a launch pad for my various projects and endeavors. This newsletter (and the website) will always be free, and will always be available, even if you don’t support the Patreon or the podcast or anything else.
In Other News...
You may have noticed an absence of flair on my upper lip. This is because trimming facial hair is an art, not a science, and if your head isn’t in the game, you can end up with an uneven mustache. Or worse, you can shave under a few hairs too many and then one side is thin and the other side is thick. So you try to even it up on the thick side, and now that side is shorter, and the thin side is longer. In a frustration, you trim both ends evenly, and now you’re looking at yourself in the mirror and you realize you’ve shaved down to a Hitler. And then you have no choice but to scrape it all off and start over.
Looking this pretty is hard, folks.
Weekly Report from the N.T.A.B. Division of Media Review
The Book of Boba Fett (Disney+)
It seemed like such a good idea, didn’t it? After all, with the knocked-it-out-of-the-overpriced-amusement-park success of The Mandalorian (a proof-of-concept show if ever there was one), and the subsequent re-appearance of Boba Fett therein, it seemed like a natural for a show about the inarguably most popular overall character in the Star Wars Universe...and therein lies the problem.
I’ve been watching the show, along with everyone else, and I’ve been watching people lose their freaking minds over how bad the series is. It’s slow, it’s boring, it’s stupid, it’s lazy writing, it’s, it’s, it’s... well, I guess what it is depends entirely on the X-Y-Z axis of How much of the now-apocryphal Expanded Universe you still cling to; What generation of Star Wars fan you identify as; and how closely the show matches what you’ve been carrying around in your head for the past 25 to 40 years as the solution to how Boba Fett got out of the Sarlacc Pit and what he did next. For the record, my graph point plots out as 5, 1, and 0.
It's easy to forget that Star Wars fans have always been slightly cannibalistic. I have never warmed to the Ewoks. Ever. Not even the very first time I saw Return of the Jedi in a theater, in 1983. But that didn’t keep me from enjoying the rest of the movie, which is significant and epic in turn. Memorable scenes, quotable lines, all hanging plots resolved, you name it. I just don’t like the Ewoks, and I’ll tell you that to your face. It doesn’t make me any less of a Star Wars fan, and considering that I grew up with the movies, and I’m into the franchise for tens of thousands of dollars, I can, and will, say whatever I want about it. I have bought and paid for that right.
On the other hand...I’m keenly aware of what a thankless job it would be writing and creating in that universe. It’s one thing when you’re doing Clone Wars or The Mandalorian, where people have no expectation and every episode is a delight. It’s quite another when you take a character with six minutes of screen time, no real origin, and the least bad-ass way of getting taken out ever shown in a movie, and you have a National Park forest of headcanon to navigate.
I have great sympathy for Dave Filoni, John Favreau, and Robert Rodriguez. Every entertaining thing that they did for The Mandalorian has been attempted with The Book of Boba Fett, and as of the fourth episode, has not met with the approval of the collected members of the Boba Fett Rules and Everyone Else Drools Fan Club, and they have, as one irritating Internet Pundit, vocalized their weekly disappointment in the strongest of terms. Why? Isn’t this what you wanted? Haven’t you asked for this all of your adult life? Why are you so disappointed?
They are disappointed because it’s Boba Fett, the most storied, and most unexplained, character in the whole Star Wars canon. If it was some other dude in armor—hell, if it had been season three of The Mandalorian—no one would be kvetching about any of it. But we all have a Platonic Ideal for Boba Fett in our heads, and if you never checked the boxes “Got Rescued by Tuskan Raiders” and “Starts his own Crime Syndicate” on your personally-filled out character sheet for Boba Fett, then you can just pooh-pooh all of it.
There have been many technical complaints, as well; slow pacing, slow fights, and on and on and on. The trouble is, I don’t care. This Boba Fett has been out of action for a while. Everyone thought he was dead. A big chunk of time between Return of the Jedi and The Mandalorian was him just surviving. I don’t know why this is bothersome to some of the Internet Scamps. I mean, they just sat through two seasons of a mystery man who has trouble being a bad-ass, despite the fact that he is one. It’s always more fun, more rewarding, to see our main character struggle and overcome adversity. So let it be with Boba Fett.
This series was doomed from the start. Considering that I never, not ever, thought I’d get a Boba Fett television show that looks as good as a feature length movie beamed into my house using computers, I’m enjoying it thoroughly. I say this as someone who speculated, at length, and in great detail what happened after the original wardrobe malfunction.
Strictly viewing this show as the Favreau/Filoni world-building project that it is, there’s a lot to like. The background about the Tuskan Raiders, and the deep, Sarlaccian depths of the fan service call backs that they keep serving up, everything from referencing Ralph McQuarrie concept art to bringing beloved (or at least interesting) characters from the comics into the flesh-and-blood Star Wars Universe, has all been most welcome and wonderful to behold...and why shouldn’t it be? Nearly every episode of The Mandalorian did the same thing.
The Book of Boba Fett an eight-part series. Saying you hate the show after one episode is like watching the first 20 minutes of King Kong and then complaining that there’s no giant gorillas or dinosaurs in the movie. Give it a chance, willya?
They just dropped episode 4. Most of the story has been filling the gaps in our knowledge. How did Fett get out of the pit? Where was he during all of the post-Jedi wrap-up? What happened to the ship? How did he and Fennec decide to partner up? Lots of hanging questions that fans sorta wanted answered; just, you know, not in place of Boba Fett killing everything, like he did in that one episode of The Mandalorian.
It's almost a certainty that we’ll see Mando and his people in the next episode. Who knows how it’ll wrap up? But I’m enjoying an older, wiser, more credible Boba Fett, deciding to do it a different way, but still on the shadier side of things. After all, I’ve been reading his other adventures for years. I want something new. Maybe I’m one of the only ones. But I bet you this, if nothing else. I bet that when the eighth episode is done, everyone who was griping will fall strangely silent. I trust those creators that much, I’m willing to bet they pull it out. Or maybe I’m just not willing to throw a series under the bus because the first episode didn’t meet my feverish expectations. I’m funny like that.
To me, after that pivot from Empire to Jedi, Boba Fett was a bad joke. And because of it I never followed any of the now disavowed EU canon. And his bland yet awkward origin from Attack did nothing to improve that standing.
What the Boba Fett character needed was a redemption story, and to me that’s what Book is.
His fabulous past reputation is now irrelevant at best, if not a hindrance. His current reputation is that he’s dead. His bounty hunting days are over. He is past his prime. He will probably spend the rest of his life recovering from unspeakably horrible injuries. And all he’s just looking for is a settle up dodge to ride out the rest of his life with relative security, comfort and dignity.
So he’s an underdog. It’s a redemption story!
Sure, some fans might have wanted a BF in his prime pre-Empire look at the character, and this certainly isn’t that.
But that stuff has already been done elsewhere. You can’t legitimately say that this isn’t a valid approach.
Frankly, my one complaint (and I mean it…we are really enjoying the show) is that he barely bothers to wear the helmet anymore. No offense to Morrison, but I’d much rather he wear that helmet more.