In case you missed it, a brief, post-credit epilogue to the finale of season two of The Mandalorian on Disney+ teased a new Star Wars TV show, to be released in December of this year: The Book of Boba Fett. It’s a curious title for a television show, and for Star Wars, and for a show about Boba Fett. We don’t typically associate books with the Star Wars universe; datapads and holocrons yes, but books, when they appear, are antiquated Jedi accouterment, not things of bounty hunters.
I have a confession to make. Mass this past Sunday included a reading from the book of the prophet Jonah, and in the quiet space after the homily, my mind churned with thematic possibilities for Boba Fett, undoubtedly while I should have been praying. Whoops. But Star Wars has a penchant for incorporating Biblical themes into its narratives, increasingly so under Dave Filoni, whose creative hand shapes Star Wars television. For example, in Star Wars: Rebels, Biblical names like Kanan and Ezra orient audiences to their respective characters: an exiled, wayward Jedi and the prophetic Padawan who brings him home. Thus supposing Biblical imagery will inform The Book of Boba Fett is no great stretch (or sin, I hope); the show’s enigmatic title already lends a scriptural gravitas. And it doesn’t take a scripture scholar to align Boba Fett with the prophet Jonah, with whom he shares the strange experience of misadventuring himself into the belly of a great beast. And yet both are spared.
Continue reading “In the Belly of the Beast”