The Book of Boba Fett released at the tail end of 2021 and the beginning of this year to mixed reception, as the latest Star Wars Disney+ series focused heavily on characters like Din Djarin and Grogu while, at times, sidelining the title character, played by Temuera Morrison.
While the reception from fans and critics has been far from outright negative, it certainly doesn’t appear to be quite as beloved as the first two seasons of The Mandalorian, which featured the same writers and showrunners in the form of Jon Favreau and Dave Filoni.
This was the first time that Boba Fett headlined a live-action project of his own, and although his origins were revealed in Attack of the Clones and The Clone Wars animated series, not much was known about the bounty hunter going into this series. Despite a blank slate to work with, The Book of Boba Fett at times failed to capitalize on the room that they had with the character to work with, and the series ultimately didn’t enhance the audiences’ understanding of the anti-hero in any significant way.
While some might view this as a positive, the lack of a strong arc for Fett in the show, as a result of the unexplored aspects of his character, ultimately seemed to hinder the seven episode first season. Conversely, Star Wars’ next Disney+ series, Obi-Wan Kenobi, has a central hero that was one of the main characters of the Skywalker Saga, having already been established in countless films and animated shows. This familiarity of Obi-Wan is a major advantage that the upcoming series has over The Book of Boba Fett.
As stated, Obi-Wan has appeared in several Star Wars movies to date, and was one of the central characters in 1977’s A New Hope, the first in the franchise. Although he died in that film at the hands of Darth Vader, his former apprentice, Kenobi went on to appear in the latter two original trilogy films as a force ghost. These first three Star Wars films firmly established Obi-Wan as a samurai-like warrior, and a selfless Jedi that is dedicated to the cause and, in particular, Luke Skywalker. Although he only had a handful of scenes in The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, his character was expanded upon significantly in these films as it was revealed that he withheld the information about Luke’s lineage with Darth Vader, and that he wrongly believed the only way to stop the Empire was to destroy the Sith Lord when it was actually the younger Skywalker’s compassion that saved the galaxy.
Given that the new Obi-Wan Kenobi series is the closest live action project to date that features the famous Jedi first played by Alec Guinness, the events of the original trilogy and the excellent character work is bound to be explored even further. This means that Deborah Chow and Joby Harold, who directed and wrote the series respectively, are building upon a pre-established character and his arc rather than creating a hero from the ground up, something that Jon Favreau seemed to struggle with at times on The Book of Boba Fett.
The prequels furthered Obi-Wan as a character even more as he took on a more central role in the films that told his origins and his relationship with Anakin Skywalker. The guilt that Kenobi felt over his fallen padawan in the original trilogy is made even more tragic by the prequels’ exploration of the relationship between the two, thus furthering Obi-Wan’s arc in a big way. Obi-Wan’s firm characterization is even seen in countless episode of The Clone Wars and many novels and comic books, the most recent of which being the upcoming Star Wars: Brotherhood, which is set in between Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith and follows Ewan McGregor’s character and Anakin.
All of this is bound to be a big advantage for Obi-Wan Kenobi, especially as the writers don’t have to navigate an unexplored character that, despite the lack of knowledge on him, still had some ground rules to follow. Favreau and co. needing to deal with fan expectations of what Boba Fett would act like and the plot of the show more broadly was again a point of contention for the series.
Some fans were disappointed that Fett wasn’t a ruthless, cold-hearted killer that he appeared to be in the original trilogy, or even The Clone Wars, and the plot of Boba wanting to become a leader of Mos Espa for seemingly no reason other than to help its people was too divergent to the previous versions of the character for some viewers. Despite the fact that so little was known about him, the expectations surrounding Boba made this a very difficult show to navigate. Meanwhile, Obi-Wan Kenobi has a character than fans are well aware of, far more than Boba, and there seems to be a clear consensus on direction of the hero.
Overall, The Book of Boba Fett was a series that many saw as flawed due to its character work (or lack thereof) with the title protagonist, but it seems unlikely that Obi-Wan Kenobi will struggle with this, as there are several films, shows, books, and comics to fall back on and look to for reference.
Obi-Wan Kenobi premieres May 27.