The Book of Boba Fett is so busy it forgets to make Boba Fett interesting
https://www.theverge.com/22925214/the-book-of-boba-fett-season-finale-review-star-wars-disney-plus
Agree on all accounts
That article was 100% spot on.
Well, a lot of it is. But I think it misses the mark in its conclusion when it says, "But like midichlorians or Solo, the series is more proof that attempting to explain everything in Star Wars takes away a bit of the magic that made it so cool in the first place. Sometimes, less is more — but in a world where the entire Disney Plus streaming service hinges on new Star Wars shows, it’s likely that “more” is all we’ll get of these characters."
Honestly, that isn't really the main problem here. Yeah, we didn't really
need a Boba Fett backstory. I guess I don't really disagree with that. But I'm not disappointed that they tried to give us one. I'm just disappointed that it was executed so poorly. As with other Star Wars "fails," the bones of a really good story are here. They just made a mess of it.
One other issue that I'll mention that hasn't been expressly pointed out: The scale of the conflict was off. I had this same complaint for Thor: Ragnarok when we get to see that the "realm" of Asgard is actually more the size of a town with a relatively small population. The scale problem in this show was different. Mos Espa and Tatooine as a whole were actually fine. But then we get the seemingly massive Pyke syndicate, plus Cad Bane, plus a couple of scorpion droids vs. Boba Fett and a dozen or so companions of widely varying levels of competence. This is such an imbalanced fight. It was basically that even much earlier in the show when it is Fett, Agent May, and 2 Gammorians telling an entire town that they are now in charge. That isn't even remotely how things work. He needed to have rallied some kind of army or group of thugs behind him to provide some sort of reasonable threat to those that would challenge him coming in and declaring himself in charge.
On top of that, in the final episode, while it could have been a cool underdog story, it didn't come across that way. Here's an example of a good underdog story that, despite completely one-sided odds, makes you believe the otherwise unbelievable outcome: John Rambo vs. Sheriff Teasle (and the entire Sheriff's Department of Hope, WA), plus surrounding police/sheriff's departments, plus a local citizen's militia, plus the National Guard. You all know the story, so I won't bore you by repeating the details. But it works and we believe it and we root for the underdog because: (1) we learn that there is a lot more to his character than meets the eye, and he actually has training and skills to deal with the situation; (2) he uses the environment, traps, etc. to gain and use advantages; (3) he overcomes the odds and wins, not just through luck and happenstance, but because he uses 1 and 2 in ways that don't require an unacceptable suspension of belief; and (4) we are given enough about the characters to understand their motivations and to make us
want to root for Rambo.
None of that happens in The Book of Boba Fett. He and his way-too-small of a crew are put into ridiculous situations, are constantly outmaneuvered by the bad buys, don't have any sort of a plan, and still win because...well, just because. We don't get anything remotely resembling the above, and that is why, despite being fun, action-packed eye candy and fan service, the last episode (and the series as a whole) falls so flat for me. And it was fun. And the fan service was fine--I can overcome the eyerolls and just roll with it if there is a good payoff. It just lacked any sort of believability and ethos that could enable me to suspend enough belief, and lack of credible basis to suspend enough belief, to ultimately be satisfying. Even for a show whose goal of defining "satisfying" merely as, "hey, that was really fun."