BEWARE SPOILERS: The Book Of Boba Fett has begun and Fantha Tracks will be offering our own episode guide for your weekly entertainment. Here, we will post every reference, Easter egg and everything named and unnamed per episode along with fun trivia in-between that we have spotted.
Chapter 1: Stranger In A Strange Land
Official summary: Boba Fett holds court.
Trivia
Once again, the title logos with the various helmets and droid faces flashing by has been changed. Fennec’s helmet has been added and can be seen after C-3PO’s face. After Fennec’s helmet we now also see Boba Fett’s helmet.
The establishing shot shows a slightly different angle of the Palace, with a glimpse visible of the hangar door opening. But more about that in a later episode guide. After the establishing shot we see the familiar hallway from Return of the Jedi and a recreation of the throne room set that was made for the series.
Then we see a new room in which Boba Fett heals in a bacta pod. The droids we see him help putting the armor on and who are attending to him are all new and CGI.
While in his bacta pod Boba flashes back to his life on Kamino (in what appears to be new footage), the death of his father (using footage from Episode II: Attack of the Clones) and his escape from the Sarlacc. The escape was something that fans really wanted to see, and it turns out that it was not that different from previous escapes seen in Legends publications. This was seen in the Marvel comic Star Wars #81: Jawas of Doom (the writer Mary Jo Duffy had explicit directions from Lucas to have Fett be back in the Sarlacc by the end of the story) and The Bounty Hunter Wars trilogy of novels. It was Dark Empire that first properly showed Boba Fett having escaped from the Sarlacc.
We do wonder why there is a stormtrooper inside the Sarlacc however and how it ended up in there.
It is possible that Boba may have been able to escape because the Sarlacc appears to be dead. The tentacles are not moving in the shot that shows the wreckage of the Khetanna and the skiffs.
A more humorous take on Boba Fett in the Sarlacc can be seen in two sketches in Robot Chicken: Star Wars Episode III, which also ends with Boba Fett taking over the Palace.
Boba Fett ends up a prisoner by the Tusken Raiders. While taking visual cues from the movies, and the use of massiffs first seen in Attack of the Clones, there are a couple differences to mark this being a different clan then the ones we saw before. They wear more black robes and their tents are clearly not made from skin and bones as the ones from the camp seen in Attack of the Clones.
The Tusken Chief is played by Xavier Jimenez, who played a Tusken Raider before in The Mandalorian – Chapter 9: The Marshall.
Back in the present Boba holds an audience for people who want to gain his favor. Boba has an 8D-series smelter droid, but as he points out: those droids are not helpful for translations at all. Despite this droid being called 8D8 in the subtitles, the end credits reveal that its designation is actually UK2-B, played by performance artist Chris Bartlett.
The term daimyo is used, which is an ancient term from Japan used by powerful Japanese magnates / feudal lords.
The Aqualish don has his name revealed in the end credits: Garfalaquox played by Barry Lowin, who earlier played a shore trooper in The Mandalorian Chapter 15: The Believer and was one of the body doubles for Din Djarin.
The director for this episode was Robert Rodriguez, who also did the voice for Dokk Strassi while Stephen Oyoung was the performer on set. Dokk Strassi brings in a Wookiee pelt, referencing once again the rivalry between the Trandoshans and the Wookiees.
Mok Shaiz is the mayor of Mos Espa and has a Twi’lek Majordomo that was not given a name but was played by David Pasquesi.
The bounty hunter that brings in the Gamorrean Guards (played by Collin Hymes and Frank Trigg) is also unnamed and has no actor attached to the role.
The dialogue seems to imply that the city where Boba and Fennec go to next is Mos Espa, but it looks vastly different then what we saw before. Now just going by the movies, you see only the outskirts and some hangar bays, but those are absent also in this big establishing shot. Original concepts for A New Hope had Tatooine cities be underground and in craters, which was later reused for the sinkhole planet of Utapau in Revenge of the Sith. Now we finally see a Tatooine city using this concept as it was originally envisioned.
On the streets you can see: a Kyuzo talking to a Melbu, a loadlifter droid, a Rodian and some Jawas.
Inside the Sanctuary of Garsa Fwip (played by Jennifer Beals who is known from Flashdance) you can see: A RX pilot droid as a card dealer, a Hask bartender, an Advosze and some previously seen but unnamed species.
Also, a new composition by John Williams can be heard, ‘Cantina Latina’, performed and produced by Robert Rodriguez and Mark Del Castillo and played onscreen by an Ortolan (Max Rebo who survived? Or someone new from the same species?) and a Bith musician who plays a new guitar-like instrument. Thanks to John Tenuto for spotting that and bringing it to our attention.
The assassins who attack belong to the Night Wind as per the end credits where Paul Darnell is credited as such. It can be assumed that he is the one they take prisoner. Night Wind is a new organization, but the name has been used twice before in Legends. Once as the name for a YT-1300 light freighter used in Supernova, a WEG RPG adventure. The second time it was used was also in a WEG RPG adventure named Goroth: Slave of the Empire, in which it was a resistance group that was actually put in place and controlled by the Empire on Goroth Prime. This group was also known as the J’Mer Sab.
Boba Fett, carelessly and annoyed, shoots a rocket at one of the fleeing assassins, who gets disintegrated. This seems to fit with the famous warning of Darth Vader in The Empire Strikes Back: “No Disintegrations.”
Back in the flashback we may not have the Rodian prisoner subtitled, but the words poodoo and sleemo are heard, making the intent of the message quite clear. Another word introduced with the Prequels that returns is youngling.
The sand creature looks a lot like the spitapillar from the Super Nintendo game Super Star Wars, which would not be the first time that its, let’s say more unique, elements were brought into the canon. It also resembles the Kraken from Clash Of The Titans. Thanks to Tim Veekhoven of TeeKay-421, the Belgian Star Wars Fanclub for pointing that out.
Star Wars: Return Of The Jedi: Vintage Collection Action Figure 3-Pack: Skiff Guards @ ForbiddenPlanet.com