Nipples & Bacta Tanks: Why the Book of Boba Fett Failed

By Owen Quinn author of the Time Warriors and Zombie Blues

copyright Owen Quinn

It was a time when every kid on the planet created brand new Star Wars in their imaginations. If reality is powered by dreams and wishes of the young then it was changed forever in the years when the original Star Wars rocked the world.

When I was a kid all we had were the original Star Wars movies and the Holiday Special. Everybody wished that George Lucas would make more Star Wars to feed our collective hunger but it never happened. Rumours persisted of new movies and a live action series but again to no avail.

Then the prequels happened and the Phantom Menace kicked us collectively hard in the balls. Our own adventures were our most treasured Star Wars moments while we were reminded of that old saying ‘be careful what you wish for’.

But the final three movies were to be made by Disney rather than George which is a whole other series of articles. When that deal was signed we knew that we were about to get swamped by a deluge of Star Wars. To be honest it is an easy money maker for Disney and every last inch of the universe is examined and prepped for a live action or animated treatment.

But for every Mandalorian there is a Book of Boba Fett.

It is also a sad indication of how little Disney does not really understand Star Wars. While The Mandalorian really took off in its second season, all the executives saw was those Mando helmets. They greenlit a show that couldn’t possibly fail because fans would lap it up and success would be assured.

Well, somebody miscalculated…very badly.

The Book of Boba Fett should have been the definitive bounty hunter show that cemented the legend of Boba Fett in fan’s memories and the genre for eternity. It wasn’t so why did it fail so badly?

The main reason is because Disney does not understand the character at all.

Boba Fett first appeared in cartoon form in the Holiday Special encountering Luke and the droids. Immediately fans sat up like the ears of a dog, fascinated by this new mysterious character who never took his helmet off. George was being clever because Fett was going to feature heavily in The Empire Strikes Back. We all know he wanted Han to collect Jabba’s bounty and nothing was going to stop him. His armour was so distinctive that they knew there was something special about this new character just from look alone.

His distinctive ship, Slave 1, became a top selling toy and everyone wanted the Boba figure. He was part of a major Kenner promo where you got him through the mail so it was Boba hype was at fever pitch.

He had 5 lines in total consisting of 27 words with screen time of 6 minutes and 32 seconds in Empire. 13 seconds of that were shots of Slave 1.

It is minimal but the effect was immediate. Everyone wanted to know who this character was and what lay under the helmet. While the prequels answered this to a degree, back in Empire’s days George cleverly kept all this to a minimum to stir the fervour. This is a great way to keep the audience’s interest and letting their own imaginations fill in the gaps. Such was that thirst for Fett that George Lucas got a huge kickback to how he killed Fett off in Return of the Jedi. The jaws of the Sarlacc were not for the likes of him so fan fiction reversed that death.

To them, Fett simply used his jet pack to escape being digested and returned to his life. Rumours of one’s death greatly benefit the life and profits of a bounty hunter.  

Indeed the Star Wars comic gave him the same get out clause to the joy of fans everywhere.

Yet, they still knew little to nothing about Boba Fett’s identity or background.

The mistake Disney made was the same one that Rob Zombie’s Halloween movies did with the character of Michael Meyers. We don’t need to know why a person is evil. Most times there is no reason; they are simply born with that darkness that will manifest with age. So Michael Meyers turns out the way he does due to his alcoholic abused childhood. That train of thought is so lazy and insulting to any child in that situation in real life. It just goes to show how insular and ignorant studio thinking can be.

Similarly we know Boba Fett as a child and see how he ended up as a bounty hunter given his father’s death at the hands of the Jedi. But everything after that is a blank. We still know nothing about him between being alone in the universe to becoming the most feared bounty hunter who dares speak back to Darth Vader.

Now the Star Wars database and publications have filled a lot of this in but in relation to canon, we can only go by what is played out on the big screen and television show.

We know because of the prequel what Boba Fett looks like because he is a clone of Jango Fett but isn’t it better to keep the helmet on like a Mandalorian is supposed to so we don’t get to see that confirmed?

The Mandalorian has removed his helmet on occasion but is struggling to redeem himself for that.

The first misstep from Disney was not including the jet pack escape from the Sarlacc like the comic. Instead we get a boring climbing out of the sand scene, What a great dramatic shot lost of his injured body smashing from the belly of the beast which would have made fans cheer. Disney is good at wish lists yet screwed this one up. They were probably in negotiation with getting Liam Neeson back for one minute of screen time in Kenobi.

Secondly, when he returns to our screens in The Mandalorian to retrieve his armour, we see his face. For me, through a sense of duty and honour to his father, Fett would have maintained some sort of covering to his face. How dramatic and cool would it be that his face is covered when he demands his armour and in the following shot we have Fett restored in full armour without getting a glimpse of his face at all?

Remember the shot of Vader in his chamber and the glimpse of the back of his scarred helmet just as his helmet goes on?

With some clever directing the same could have been achieved with the bacta tank scenes but sadly we get full visuals of everything including Fett nipples. I’m sure George never wanted that shot. There is no mystery any more as you literally see Fett naked to the viewer wearing only white pants, a far cry from the original intention of revealing as little as possible.

Outside of the storytelling itself, including the dreary Fett becomes a Tusken Raider idol aka Kung Fu master, the Fett we saw wants Jabba’s territory so promptly kills a bloated Bib Fortuna and takes the throne. It is a dramatic shot that promises so much and delivers nothing.

It can be argued that his method of taking over by being merciful is actually the tact of a master strategist who has no problem killing someone as quickly as he extends a morsel of mercy. That would be classic Fett but this version is so diluted; only the armour reminds you who he is.

The full impact of how they have messed up the character, as well as his solo platform, is seen as soon as the Mandalorian appears. He is the best part of The Book of Boba Fett, affectionately known as The Mandalorian Season 2.5. Immediately the screen is lit up by Mando and Boba Fett doesn’t even appear in his own show. If they were trying to be clever then it backfired dreadfully sealing the coffin of Boba Fett series two.

This reminds me of Jodi Whittaker’s final Doctor Who story, Power of the Doctor. This should have been her chance to shine in an epic send off. Instead they brought in five other Doctors; two of which stole the limelight with their respective companions, Ace and Tegan.

Fett has a tendency to talk a lot here which even actor Temuera Morrison had issues with. He tried to get the writers to give actress Ming-Na Wen, Fennec Shand, some of his lines to maintain the Boba Fett air. Sadly this was not to be but it speaks volumes when the main character is suggesting this.

The Book of Boba Fett should have been amazing but instead was diluted to a piss poor version of someone that was not the bounty hunter fans know and love. Like the Thomas Jane Punisher movie, it wasn’t really The Punisher, more ‘the avenger’ because he sought revenge on those that murdered his family. The Punisher only deals with those who have done wrong. The Wrong Turn remake was named incorrectly; there wasn’t a mad inbred cannibal in sight; just a bunch of isolationists.

Equally The Book of Boba Fett was about someone we don’t even recognise. Shame on whoever made this creative decision.

On one last note, the ship is called Slave 1, not Boba Fett’s ship as the merchandising is trying to sell it as. The Mandalorian is a blank slate where anything can be written but Disney need to embrace the established and build on that rather than what they think should be done. You did it with Luke Skywalker so you need to think along those lines going forward.

Disney took a great product and messed it up big time. Let’s hope they have learned a lesson.

From Season 2 trailer released

By Owen Quinn author of the Time Warriors and Zombie Blues

All copyright MGM

When night falls, the terror comes.

Last year brought a new gen to our collective intentions and I immediately fell in love with this new horror show From. Horror is at the very core here as in the opening scene a little girl and her mother are ripped apart by a demon at a window masquerading as someone they know. Soon we learn that we are in a town that you cannot leave except through death itself. You are safe during the day but when night falls creatures emerge from the forest eager to kill any and all humans not protected behind locked doors and windows. It feels very much Stephen King meets Lost. Mystery upon mystery unfolded especially in the last couple of episodes leaving us on a cliffhanger that left me wanting more.

There is a genuine sense of fear and creepiness in this show from the very first episode so I cannot wait until April the 24th when it hits our screens again.

The Time Warriors: Tempest: Out Now!

By Owen Quinn author of the Time Warriors and Zombie Blues

Copyright Owen Quinn

Given the amount of stories written as part of the first set of Time Warriors books, I found they had to be split into four volumes.

Tempest ties together all the events from the first three volumes, First Footsteps, The Voalox Horror and Red Water as the Family finally make their move and launch their final assault to take the Juggernaught. As each of the Warriors are targeted, they can trust no one as the walls close in.

What is Area 52? What are they really working on? What are the Weavers hiding?

Varran must face the consequences of his actions; consequences born the day his homeworld died.

Get your copy today at Amazon https://www.amazon.co.uk/Time-Warriors-Tempest-Book/dp/1463594283/ref=sr_1_1?crid=G5W2SCJFA4IO&keywords=the+time+warriors+tempest&qid=1678744295&sprefix=the+time+warriors+tempest%2Caps%2C207&sr=8-1

The Trouble with the Winchesters

By Owen Quinn author of the Time Warriors and Zombie Blues

SPOILERS AHEAD

copyright CW

As much as I’VE enjoyed the first season of The Winchesters, I couldn’t help but listen to the niggling voice in the back of my head.

Young John Winchester and Mary Campbell working side by side battling demons and monsters just like their sons? That sounds great and we will get to learn more of the Winchester’s story from the beginning. There’s a slight problem with this the voice kept saying as I tested my memory by doing a bit of googling. Sure enough, I was right.

This never happened.

In the parent show Supernatural, Dean is sent back in time to 1973 by angel Castiel in season 4 episode 3 In The Beginning.

There he meets his parents. Dean persuades his father to buy the Impala and discovers that his mother Mary has kept her future husband in the dark about her hunting life. Dean also gets to meet the surly Samuel Campbell, his grandfather and his sweet grandmother. However by the end of that episode both his grandparents are dead and Mary has been forced to make a deal with the Yellow Eyed Demon to bring John back from the dead. However all she has done is set in motion the future and her own death despite Dean’s attempts to persuade her otherwise. This has all been a plan by the angels for Dean to find the Colt; the only weapon that can kill Lucifer.

In a direct sequel to In the Beginning, both Sam and Dean and a weakened Castiel travel back in time to stop vengeful angel Anna Hilton from murdering the Winchesters. If that happens they will be able to erase Sam and Dean from ever being born and Lucifer will not rise.

In this episode Mary and John are living a supernatural free life but the angels soon bring them back into it. It is only now in this episode that John discovers the world of the supernatural and that Mary is a hunter.  He gives himself to Archangel Michael who stops Anna and wipes Mary and John’s minds of all that happened returning Sam, Dean and Castiel back to the present.

It is further established that when Mary is killed by the Yellow Eyed demon, John discovers the world of the hinters at that point and becomes one to avenge his wife. This action sets Dean and Sam on the path they were always destined to walk.

So how then could the Winchesters series possibly be correct given the history established in Supernatural?

Each episode is narrated by Dean who tells us he is piecing together the story of his parents’ life together and there may be a few surprises along the way.

Are we looking at a previously unknown genesis for The Winchesters that Dean has discovered? Now all this narration had to occur before Dean’s death in the series finale but what has he discovered and did Sam know?

The answer may well have been mentioned in the series already when, as almost a throwaway line, there is mention of a spell that can wipe anyone’s mind. Could this seemingly harmless line be how John has no recollection of his years as a monster fighter? Indeed in the 300th episode Lebanon, it is unclear whether John knows about the Men of Letters or is he just processing what Dean andd Sam have told him given they now live in the Men of Letters bunker at that point. Mary is fully aware of her hunter past and presumably is keeping John’s past a secret from him too. So will the series have a limited shelf life with some major cataclysm causing the spell to be invoked and John to be the John we meet in the Supernatural series?

We have already seen two old familiar characters return to the show; Archangel Gabriel in the guise of the Trickster Loki and the witch Rowena, mother of Crowley. Right now anything is possible in the show. There is talk of a Spiderman No Way Home crossover where all three versions of John will meet.

Which should have tipped me off to what the viewers were actually watching. In the season finale Dean himself turns up and it is revealed that it was he who gave John the letter from his father. In effect Dean has seemingly changed histroy. In our Supernatural John beleived hs father ran away and abandoned him. Dean shared this hatred of his grandfather when they met in the parent series. By delivering the letter Dean ensures that John knows that his father never left him intentionally and how much he loved him. A mystery that haunted and tortured John Winchester for years is nipped in the bud freeing up at least part of the pain that filtered into Dean and Sam’s lives.

However it is much bigger than that as we discover this version of Dean is the one that died in the series finale and is in heaven. We saw Dean find the Impala in heaven and drive off. He reveals he found himself able to visit multiple universes and that this John and Mary are not his parents.

We are in a totally different unoverse.

Bobby Singer is with Dean and they have nudged events here to help the Monster Club stop the Akrida. It is revealed that God created the Akrida to wipe every universe out in the event Dean and Sam stopped (Chuck) God somehow. The new God Jack appears scolding Dean but he argues that he had no choice but to intervene. If the Akroda were not stopped here then their universe where Sam is alone would have fallen too. All Dean was looking for was a universe where his family had a happy ending. It seems this one is the closest he could find. He hands John his journal to help him in the battles ahead but Dean is content that not only are his parents together and in love but they now have an advantage our John and Mary never had.

While this is a lovely and touching scene, it feels flat to me. It is great to see Dean, Jack and Bobby again and wish they could stay longer for a couple of episodes but the whole multiverse thing is now becoming stale. I feel it would have been much better if they had taken the hidden history route with an impending tragedy where John would have his memory of monsters wiped so it dovetailed into established history.

As it is now we get a whole new history but the question is would this John and Mary really bring kids into this life? Will Sam and Dean ever be born in this reality?

While my instincts may have been right about the discrepancies, at the end of the day it was probably the only way to go without being tied down by established history. Now we have a whole new future to unfold bringing a whole new slurry of enemies. But will Mary listen to Dean’s warning and kill the Yellow Eyed Demon before he destroys their lives like he did before?

Now we have a whole new road to travel.

The Time Warriors: The Moon Once More & Other Stories Checklist

By Owen Quinn author of the Time Warriors and Zombie Blues

copyright Owen Quinn

THE GIFT:

I had already started to expand the supporting cast as it helps add to the mythos and expands our main characters.

Robert is Tyran’s brother and a real millionaire’s son, living a lifestyle using his father’s success and name. In Tempest he had been tricked by one of the Family’s operatives Sharon into thinking she was pregnanat with his child when in fact he was being used to gain access to the Juggernaught.

A lesson I learned from Doctor Who writer Malcolm Hulke was to give life to even the smallest of characters. With Robert I wanted to see the consequences of the trauma they had all been through in Tempest. Is it possible that people can change for the better through pain or is it a temporary reaction?

In The Gift at the request of his father and Varran’s graciousness, Robert is spending time with the Time Warriors especially where his sister Tyran can keep an eye on him. While exploring another world, they come across Zara, a girl being hunted. Rescuing her they discover she is from a world where her gift in communicating with the dead makes her hughly prized and a prisoner for life in a golden cage. Varran is uneasy as it goes against his beliefs and an argument breaks out between them all. Robert takes Zara and they go off the grid.

The story focuses on just them in a cabin where no one can find them and over the weeks Zara brings Robert an inner peace he has never known. He teaches her about Earth customs and they fall in love. But tragedy is just around the corner threatening their new found happiness…

There was a scene originally where Zara and Robert have sex for the first time but upon reflection I cut it so it was implied rather than shown.

It’s an enjoyable coming of age story.

FIRE AND ICE:

This was designed as an intro to Rachel following her return to Michael in Tempest. Rachel finds herself in another reality where the Earth has been invaded by the reptilian Saurians. Fighting to free humanity is a seemingly one man band, Yuri. Escaping with him, Rachel discovers there is more to the invasion than meets the eye.

This is an action packed story which allows Rachel to showcase herself as the newest member of the team. Hopefully between this and Tempest, she will endeared hrself to the readers.

IRISH EYES:

In a famine stricken village in Ireland Varran finds something alien is terrorising the shrinking population. Can he help stop the starving villagers from leaving to America and stop whatever it is that is stalking them? With the help of a local teacher, Varran suddenly finds there is more to fight for than he realised.

As you know I love a village under seige and I thought it would fun to not only explore part of Varran’s past but set a story during the Irish famine to educate people on what happened and the reasons behind it. Irish Eyes became a lot more poignant than I intended but also became a nice exploration of what motivates Varran to help a strange planet.

TWISTED:

Alternate future time when Michael and Jacke are thrown into a world which knows about the Xerebans and the Juggernaught is a stripped out hulk in Hyde Park. Internment camps hold thousands of people, Tyran is in the resistance and Varran is working with one General Castle who has an agenda to wipe out every last Xereban who have secretly invaded the Earth. Hunted by the government Michael and Jacke must fnd a way home before they are captured and executed.

I love alternate world stories like Star Trek’s Mirror Universe so this one had to be done. It’s a joy to put our characters in different situations and see different versions of themselves. You can do anything you want and push the envelope.

TRINITY:

In ancient Ireland something alien has buried itself beneath the land watching and waiting. The Warriors arrive and are helped out of trouble by a young shepherd boy. He is plagued by visions and when alien parasites begin attacking the human and animal population, the fight is on to stop the monstrous Soogara from making Ireland their new power base. With every life on the planet on the line, Maewyn the shepherd boy must fight alone when the Warriors fall.

THE MOON ONCE MORE:

With this story I wanted to see what it would be like for a seemingly ageless being like Varran to watch helplessly as a friend dies. This is set in a hospital room where Varran sits by the bedside of his terminally ill friend, Derek. Would Varran be jealous or sad as he listens to the clock tick tock its way to Derek’s last breath?

This one is essentially a stage play with two people in one room. This allows a bit more intensity and reflective dialogue with the clock a constant reminder that time is running out. So what does that mean for a Time Warrior?

Phantasmagoria #22 on sale now

Issue 22, Spring 2023, releasing at the end of next week. Featuring exclusive fiction, Dwayne Boyd, Lionel and Patricia Fanthorpe, Noel K. Hannan, Graham Masterton and Karolina Mogielska, Butch Patrick and Paul Tremblay. Also: Charles Black tribute, Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman, Supernatural, The Prisoner, Audrey Rose, Gothic Horror and vampires, artwork, reviews and more!