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Warning: this article contains full spoilers for The Book of Boba Fett Episode 6!

Episode 6 of The Book of Boba Fett on Disney+ offers plenty of new information regarding the state of the Jedi in this era of the Star Wars universe. What would you expect from an episode featuring the return of Jedi Master Luke Skywalker, Ahsoka Tano, and Grogu aka Baby Yoda? We’re going to break down all of the new Jedi lore revealed in the episode.

Be sure to check out IGN's review of The Book of Boba Fett, Episode 6!

Luke Is Building His Jedi Academy

When the Mandalorian arrives on the unnamed forest planet, he’s greeted by everyone’s favorite astromech R2-D2, who leads him to the construction site of Luke’s new Jedi Academy. Dozens of ant-droids are seen scouring the area for stones to use to assemble a crude building. While waiting to be taken to his Mandalorian Foundling, Ahsoka Tano arrives and tells Mando the structure is the beginning of what will become a great school.

As shown in The Last Jedi, this place of learning will eventually become a place of tragedy when a young Ben Solo aka Kylo Ren turns to the Dark Side and burns down the Jedi Temple after being confronted by his master Luke Skywalker. Knowing this, it does lend a certain sense of irony to Ahsoka’s comment to Mando about Grogu’s safety: “There is no place in the galaxy more safe than here with Luke.”

Luke Passes on the Teachings of Yoda and Obi-Wan Kenobi

Many of the lessons that Luke teaches Grogu are the very same that Yoda and Obi-Wan Kenobi once taught to him.

• Luke leaves Grogu in awe when he lifts numerous frogs from the pond all at once, just like Yoda astonished Luke by raising the X-Wing from the Dagobah swamp. And on their walk through the forest, Luke recalls to Grogu the words of wisdom Yoda gave him in that moment, “Size matters not.”
• As Luke trains by running, jumping, and flipping through the forest, he carries Grogu on his back just like he once carried Yoda on his back during his own training. Only now he’s carrying his apprentice instead of his master.
• When teaching Grogu to Force-jump, Luke says, "You're trying too hard. Don't try. Do." which echoes Yoda's classic, "Do. Or do not. There is no try."
• Luke trains Grogu with a Training Remote, the same kind that Obi-Wan used to teach Luke about the Force while deflecting blaster bolts in A New Hope.

Grogu Remembers Order 66

Luke tells Grogu about his old master, Yoda, and when he tries to help Grogu remember his past using the Force, he triggers a traumatic flashback and gives us some new information about Grogu’s origin. We see a swadling Grogu look on in horror as three Jedi are killed by attacking Clone Troopers. This scene appears to be taking place inside the Jedi Temple on Coruscant after Palpatine commanded the Clones to execute Order 66, as seen in Revenge of the Sith.

We don’t see the faces of the three Jedi, but the long-haired one in the middle could possibly be Cin Drallig. That would mean the other two are his Padawans, Whie Malreaux and Bene. In Revenge of the Sith, these Jedi can be seen fighting Anakin Skywalker in the hologram recording discovered by Obi-Wan Kenobi. It was presumed they died fighting the freshly minted Darth Vader as he laid siege to the Jedi Temple, but perhaps they escaped Anakin, fled to protect Grogu, and were gunned down. In The Mandalorian Season 2, Ahsoka did say that Grogu was taught by many masters, so it could be that Grogu was under the care of Cin Drallig at the time of Order 66.

Grogu’s flashback ends in cliffhanger style with the Clones closing in on him, not revealing how he survived Order 66 and leaving us to wonder who saved Grogu from the Clone Troopers. If we see Grogu again, and we certainly hope we do in The Mandalorian Season 3, then we hope to finally learn the answer to get a complete picture of his backstory.

Ahsoka and Luke Talk About Darth Vader

It was a bit of a surprise to see Ahsoka Tano visiting Luke’s fledgling Jedi Academy given that the last time we saw her she was on the hunt for Thrawn (and presumably lost Jedi Ezra Bridger) and, as Mando recalled, she chose not to train Grogu. Perhaps a meeting between Ahsoka and Luke was too good to pass up, not to mention they want to tease Ahsoka once more before the start of her own Disney+ series.

Given that Ahsoka was trained by Luke’s father, the two would naturally have quite a bit to talk about now that she’s meeting her master’s son. We aren’t privy to what they discussed off-screen, but we do get a tender moment between them when Luke shares his concerns over Grogu’s training and Ahsoka says, “So much like your father.” Perhaps Luke taking on his first apprentice reminds her of when Anakin first started training her.

Luke Has Yoda’s Lightsaber

The final scene shows Luke presenting Yoda’s lightsaber to Grogu (more on this scene in a moment), which is a surprise given that Yoda’s lightsaber was knocked away during Yoda’s duel with Darth Sidious in Revenge of the Sith.

We never saw Yoda recover his lightsaber, so it was presumed lost, but the same thing could be said about the lightsaber Luke lost (along with his hand) at the end of The Empire Strikes Back, and that somehow found its way to a chest in the basement of Maz Kanata’s castle in The Force Awakens. Marvel Comics eventually told the story of that lightsaber’s journey, so perhaps we’ll one day learn how Yoda’s lightsaber made its way to Luke. Maybe Palpatine kept it as a trophy and Luke came across it while raiding the fallen Empire’s bases after the events of Return of the Jedi.

Grogu’s Choice: Foundling or Padawan?

We learn in the episode that Luke only has one student, and it looks like that student may decide to drop out. Grogu is presented with a choice: either take Yoda’s lightsaber and learn to become a Jedi or take Mando’s Beskar armor gift and become a Mandalorian foundling once more. It’s hard to imagine The Mandalorian series continuing without Grogu by Mando’s side, so we’d like to think Grogu will choose to reunite with his foster father, but we’ll have to wait and see (probably until the debut of The Mandalorian Season 3) to see what choice he makes.

That would leave Luke to start over from scratch, but don’t feel so bad for him. Luke eventually finds numerous Jedi younglings across the galaxy and teaches them the ways of the Force at his school. But as we know, Kylo Ren destroys everything Luke built, so if Grogu does indeed choose to leave and go the way of the Mandalorian, that would mean he will be spared a fiery death at the hands of Kylo Ren and he may have a different, hopefully brighter future ahead of him.

For more analysis of Episode 6 of The Book of Boba Fett, check out our breakdown on deadly new Star Wars bounty hunter villain, Cad Bane.

Sony Interactive Entertainment has announced it will acquire Destiny developer Bungie for $3.6 Billion.

GamesIndustry.Biz reports that following the deal, Bungie will be run as "an independent subsidiary" of SIE, and will remain a multiplatform studio with the option to "self-publish and reach players where they choose to play."

Bungie is best known as the creators of Halo but since becoming an independent studio have focused their efforts on Destiny, a live-service FPS RPG where players can explore the galaxy as Guardians of Light. The company is also working on a new IP.

"We've had a strong partnership with Bungie since the inception of the Destiny franchise, and I couldn't be more thrilled to officially welcome the studio to the PlayStation family," says SIE president CEO Jim Ryan.

In the official PlayStation Blog post, Ryan begins by confirming Bungie's independence. "I want to be very clear to the community that Bungie will remain an independent and multi-platform studio and publisher." Ryan also says that Bungie will "sit alongside the PlayStation Studios organization," where the two groups will collaborate.

PlayStation Studios will also gain access to Bungie's proprietary tools which can be used for PlayStation Studios teams, according to the blog.

In a separate blog post, Bungie detailed what the acquisition means for the company calling SIE, "a partner who unconditionally supports us in all we are and who wants to accelerate our vision to create generation-spanning entertainment, all while preserving the creative independent that beats in Bungie's heart."

Bungie reaffirms that it retains its ability to independently publish and develop games, even after the acquisition. And that it's committed to supporting games and communities "where they choose to play."

This is Sony's sixth acquisition since 2021, though most of its studio acquisitions have been studios with long histories with PlayStation, like BluePoint and Housemarque, or support teams and specialized studios like Nixxes and Valkyrie Entertainment.

While Destiny 2 has been heavily promoted alongside PlayStation, with exclusive bonuses for players on the system, Bungie's history is intertwined across PlayStation, Xbox, and PC, and the company hopes to remain multi-platform after the deal.

This deal will also be scrutinized with Xbox which has recently been making major acquisitions across the industry while building up Xbox Game Studios. Xbox acquired Zenimax Media, including Bethesda Games bringing the Fallout and Elder Scrolls developer into the fold, and later announced it will acquire Activision Blizzard and the teams responsible for games like Call of Duty and World of Warcraft.

With Sony acquiring Bungie, this new age of studio acquisitions only appears to be heating up as studios look to expand their portfolio of teams and franchises.

There is also the matter of Bungie's internal culture which IGN reported extensively on. Whether this acquisition will help guide the changes currently ongoing at the studio remains to be seen.

Matt T.M. Kim is IGN's News Editor. You can reach him @lawoftd.

Moderna has begun early-stage clinical trials of an HIV mRNA vaccine, the company announced this week. On Thursday, it administered the first doses of a shot it co-developed with the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative to volunteers at the George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences.

Like the company’s COVID-19 vaccine, the new treatment uses messenger RNA to “trick” the human body into producing proteins that will trigger an immune response. Moderna hopes the shot will induce a specific class of white blood cells known as B-cells, which can then turn into broadly neutralizing antibodies. Those proteins are “widely considered to be the goal of HIV vaccination, and this is the first step in that process,” according to the company.

As part of the trial, Moderna plans to test both a primary vaccine and a booster shot. The Phase 1 trial will involve 56 healthy, HIV-negative adult participants. The company will give 48 of those individuals the mRNA vaccine. Thirty-two of that group will also receive the booster shot. To the final eight involved in the first trial, the company will only administer the booster shot. Moderna says it will then monitor the entire group for six months to gauge the safety of the vaccine. It also plans to examine the immune response the vaccine triggers at the molecular level to determine if it’s effective.

Messenger RNA technology could lead to treatments for a host of deadly diseases, including malaria, but a breakthrough against HIV would be particularly noteworthy. According to statistics from the US government, approximately 1.2 million Americans have the virus, which can lead to the deadly AIDS disease. While outcomes for HIV patients have improved significantly since the ‘90s thanks to the development of new treatments and medication, no HIV vaccine has successfully passed early clinical trials.

Much anticipated action-RPG Black Myth: Wukong has released a 13-minute new trailer – but don't expect much in the way of new information, as it's a short comedy film featuring some silly gameplay and a lot of cats in a motion capture studio.

Released to celebrate Chinese New Year, and the start of the Year of the Tiger, developer Game Science has released 'An Alternate Reality of Game Science', in which we see developers discussing the difficulties of using cats for motion capture, and then revealing an extremely broken boss battle based on that work. Eventually, we see the Game Science office shut down and then reopened as a restaurant.

The joke seems to be that Game Science actually did try using motion capture for cats at one point. In real-life, they moved onto other ideas but in this alternate reality, this is what would have happened if they'd stuck with the idea to the bitter end.

Given that last year's Chinese New Year video showed off legitimate new footage, some may be disappointed by this more lighthearted approach, but the video ends with a short poem to appease fans:

"You came in hoping to see the game. We are working hard on the same.

Alas, a bit more patience, if you will. Well worth the wait, is the thrill."

The second half of the trailer (from around 7:25) does include footage that could well be from the game's Unreal Engine 5 upgrade, but the section features a tiger boss character that repeatedly teleports around the map, wields an unnaturally floating katana, and whose animations glitch out. The cutscene before that sequence looks a lot more legitimate, so we may well be seeing a tease of something from the final game, but Game Science definitely isn't saying so for sure.

Thankfully, the real Black Myth: Wukong is looking a lot more impressive – we've seen lots of gameplay, broken down new details, and spoken to the debut developer making this incredibly popular breakout project.

Joe Skrebels is IGN's Executive Editor of News. Follow him on Twitter. Have a tip for us? Want to discuss a possible story? Please send an email to newstips@ign.com.

THE OFFSPRING guitarist Kevin "Noodles" Wasserman has blasted parents who believe masks are harmful to their children and claim that they reinforce an environment of stress and fear. Earlier today (Thursday, January 20), Noodles took to his Twitter to write: "It is Covid that is killing people, not masks. If you think masks are more dangerous than Covid, then you are an idiot. If you are for #UNMASKOURCHILDREN then you are an irresponsible parent and a lousy fellow human." Because most countries do not vaccinate children under 12, proponents of mask-wearing argue that masks protect the wearer and those around them from COVID-19. Studies have repeatedly shown that in-school spread of COVID-19 can be contained through masking, sanitation and distancing. Earlier this week, the Virginia chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics issued a statement strongly recommending that school-aged children, regardless of vaccination status, wear a well-fitting face mask while attending school. "Face masks remain safe and reliable, and children have demonstrated their ability to wear them effectively," the statement read. "In addition to protecting a child, face mask use significantly reduces the spread of SARS-CoV2 and other respiratory infections, thus keeping schools operational and ensuring children do not miss in-person school." The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently updated its mask guidance, stating KN95s offer more protection than surgical and cloth masks and that respirators such as N95s offer the highest level of protection. On Monday (January 17), THE OFFSPRING shared a three-minute video in which singer Bryan "Dexter" Holland, who has a Ph.D. in molecular biology and wrote his thesis on microRNA in HIV genomes, explained the science behind the band's decision to scrap its Canadian tour. Specifically, he discussed the R-naught or R0 value, which indicates the number of people an infected person can spread the disease to. A pandemic is considered to end if this value goes below 1. Although there is no reliable estimate right now for the R-naught value for the omicron variant, figures for other variants vary, but it is estimated at roughly six for delta. Holland's 175-page research paper, titled "Identification of Human MicroRNA-Like Sequences Embedded within the Protein-Encoding Genes of the Human Immunodeficiency Virus", had been published in PLoS One. He had received his Ph.D. from University of Southern California in 2017. In October, THE OFFSPRING canceled its concerts in Denver and Salt Lake City after Noodles tested positive for COVID-19. Two months earlier, longtime THE OFFSPRING drummer Pete Parada announced that was being dropped from the band's touring lineup after refusing the COVID-19 vaccine for medical reasons.

Iconic rock singer Meat Loaf has died at the age of 74. The news of his passing was confirmed on the musician's Facebook page by his family. "Our hearts are broken to announce that the incomparable Meat Loaf passed away tonight surrounded by his wife Deborah, daughters Pearl and Amanda and close friends," the post said. Meat Loaf's amazing career spanned six decades and saw him sell over 100 million albums worldwide and star in over 65 movies, including "Fight Club", "Focus", "Rocky Horror Picture Show" and "Wayne's World". His "Bat Out Of Hell" remains one of the 10 top-selling albums of all time. "We know how much he meant to so many of you and we truly appreciate all of the love and support as we move through this time of grief in losing such an inspiring artist and beautiful man," the post added. "We thank you for your understanding of our need for privacy at this time. "From his heart to your souls…don't ever stop rocking!" No cause of death has yet been revealed. The Dallas-born singer's real name was Marvin Lee Aday. His 1993 hit "I'd Do Anything For Love (But I Won't Do That)" earned him a Grammy Award. "Bat Out Of Hell" was also adapted as a stage musical, written by longtime collaborator Jim Steinman. Metal Sludge was the first media outlet to report that Meat Loaf was "on his deathbed" on Thursday (January 20).

Lights, camera, sound the klaxons... because Space Entertainment Enterprise (S.E.E.) has just announced plans to build a TV and film studio in space by the year 2024.

According to Variety, the company behind Tom Cruise's upcoming space movie has set its sights on the Axiom Station, which is currently connected to the International Space Station (ISS), to host this new sports and entertainment arena, formally known as SEE-1. The space-based venue is scheduled to become operational sometime in December 2024.

The outlet notes that the multi-purpose module is "intended to host films, television, music and sports events as well as artists, producers and creatives who want to make content in the low orbit, micro-gravity environment," with facilities that "enable development, production, recording, broadcasting and live streaming of content" for its own company and third-parties.

"SEE-1 is an incredible opportunity for humanity to move into a different realm and start an exciting new chapter in space," said Dmitry and Elena Lesnevsky, S.E.E. co-founders. "It will provide a unique, and accessible home for boundless entertainment possibilities in a venue packed with innovative infrastructure which will unleash a new world of creativity.

"With worldwide leader Axiom Space building this cutting-edge, revolutionary facility, SEE-1 will provide not only the first, but also the supreme quality space structure enabling the expansion of the two trillion-dollar global entertainment industry into low-Earth orbit," they added, giving credit to Axiom Space who are undertaking the construction of SEE-1.

"From Jules Verne to Star Trek, science fiction entertainment has inspired millions of people around the world to dream about what the future might bring," added Richard Johnston, COO of S.E.E. "Creating a next-generation entertainment venue in space opens countless doors to create incredible new content and make these dreams a reality."

Towards the end of last year, a Russian film crew returned back to Earth after wrapping up scenes for their groundbreaking movie, Challenge, which marked the first-ever full-length feature film to be shot in space. Russian actress Yulia Peresild and producer-director Klim Shipenko joined cosmonaut Oleg Novitskiy for 12 days of his six-month space-cation.

NASA's also working on a movie with Tom Cruise to be filmed aboard the International Space Station. Elon Musk's SpaceX is involved with the project, with filmmaker Doug Liman, who previously collaborated with Cruise on Edge of Tomorrow and American Made, attached as director. However, the crew's scheduled departure hasn't been shared as of yet.

Adele Ankers-Range is a freelance writer for IGN. Follow her on Twitter.

Thumbnail image credit: NASA.

The team behind Justified will reunite with star Timothy Olyphant for a miniseries spin-off of the FX crime drama, which ended back in 2015.

According to a release, Justified: City Primeval will cast Olyphant's gunslinger character Marshal Raylan Givens in a story reimagining the Elmore Leonard novel City Primeval: High Noon in Detroit. Justified creator Graham Yost will serve as executive producer, with Justified writers and executive producers Michael Dinner and Dave Andron also serving as both co-writers and co-showrunners. Dinner will direct.

In this Justified revival, Raylan Givens has left Kentucky behind eight years ago in favor of Miami, where he is "a walk anachronism balancing his life as a U.S. Marshal and part-time father of a 14-year-old girl." However, "a chance encounter on a desolate Florida highway sends him to Detroit. There he crosses paths with Clement Mansell, aka The Oklahoma Wildman, a violent, sociopathic desperado who's already slipped through the fingers of Detroit's finest once and aims to do so again."

Continue Reading at GameSpot

A new trailer for Marvel's next TV series, Moon Knight, has been released. Additionally, a release date for the series has been confirmed for Disney+: March 30. The first trailer shows actor Oscar Isaac as the vigilante Marc Spector/Moon Knight, and it provides a good look at the new series. We also get a glimpse at Ethan Hawke's character, who invites Isaac to "embrace the chaos."

Perhaps the most exciting moment in the trailer is when Isaac is revealed as Moon Knight in full costume. Check it out below. The Moon Knight trailer aired during the NFL playoff game between the Arizona Cardinals and the Los Angeles Rams, which ran on ESPN--Disney owns both ESPN and Marvel.

"The series follows Steven Grant, a mild-mannered gift-shop employee, who becomes plagued with blackouts and memories of another life. Steven discovers he has dissociative identity disorder and shares a body with mercenary Marc Spector. As Steven/Marc's enemies converge upon them, they must navigate their complex identities while thrust into a deadly mystery among the powerful gods of Egypt," reads a line from the show's description.

Continue Reading at GameSpot

After appearing as a side character in a number of DC's TV projects, David Ramsey's John Diggle, AKA superhero Spartan, will headline a new Arrowverse show called Justice U, Deadline reports. The show will follow Diggle as he recruits a team of five young meta humans, placing them undercover at a prestigious university so he can oversee their education and training as heroes.

Ramsey has played John Diggle, a former U.S. Army soldier turned superhero and friend to Oliver Queen, since the first season of Arrow released in 2012, and has since reprised the role in a number of DC shows including Legends of Tomorrow, The Flash, Superman and Lois, Supergirl, and Batwoman.

Warner Bros. hasn't yet revealed what other cast or characters will star alongside Ramsey in Justice U, though the series has the co-executive producer of Superman and Lois, Michael Narducci, attached.

Continue Reading at GameSpot

When Greek NBA player Giannis Antetokounmpo tried dipping his Oreos in milk a few months ago for the first time, his mind was understandably blown. “From now on, that’s an every night snack for me,” he said during a press conference. (Watch the clip below. It is delightful.)

Read more...

Spoilers for The Book of Boba Fett follow.

When the female Hutt Twin tells Boba Fett that “Tatooine is a worthless rock,” she clearly hasn’t been paying attention.

Yes, the Outer Rim world is a desolate, crime-ridden place, full of coarse, rough, irritating sand that gets everywhere. But, having appeared in six out of 11 live-action Star Wars movies, and numerous TV episodes, it’s arguably the most important location in that galaxy far, far away.

‘The Streets of Mos Espa’ serves as a reminder of why Star Wars can’t keep away. Because this is the episode where The Book of Boba Fett starts to deliver on its ‘Star Wars with gangsters’ promise; where moving the mythology forward belatedly takes priority over world-building and looking back.

Whether or not you’re wearing Mandalorian armor, the successful running of a criminal empire requires staff. Boba Fett’s ever-expanding entourage proves he means business – even if the extra bodies could spell bad news for Fennec Shand, who’s still looking for something significant to do beyond delivering the occasional threat or nugget of advice.

That's not the only point of aggravation, either. Both in and out of universe, it’s bizarre that makeshift majordomo 8D8 has waited quite so long to tell his boss how Mos Espa is split between various mob bosses. For viewers, this information would have been helpful earlier on – it’s hardly a colossal spoiler – but it’s even weirder that Fett himself is only just learning about the town’s organisational structures. Did he not do his due diligence before marching into Jabba’s Palace in The Mandalorian season 2 finale?

The oversight certainly doesn’t ring true with the former bounty hunter’s sensitive, self-aware approach to management. Where the pre-Sarlacc Fett might have disintegrated the water monger who dares to suggest that no one respects him, he’s now willing to play the long game – first listening to Lortha Peel’s complaints about a street gang stealing his inventory, then turning the tables by telling the broker he’s overcharging, and recruiting the offending gang as youthful hired muscle.

Most importantly, ‘The Streets of Mos Espa’ cuts down massively on the flashbacks, with the new-found emphasis on Fett’s present giving the story some overdue momentum after last week’s past-heavy instalment. 

That said, the seven minutes of Fett’s backstory are particularly relevant and poignant, hinting at his history with the Pykes and revealing the horrific deaths of his Tusken friends. After episode 2’s admirable efforts to turn the Sand People into sympathetic characters, wiping them out in such a brutal manner feels incredibly cruel. Tuskens simply can’t get a break in Star Wars, and their fate will surely have shaped the Boba Fett we've encountered since.

Fett’s regular dunk in the Bacta tank also gives the series its best shock moment so far. Having established his recuperative sessions at the gateway to the show’s many flashbacks, the episode plays with our expectations when Fett’s calm contemplation is interrupted a visit from a murderous Black Krrsantan.

What follows is a brilliant fight, a defenseless Boba doing his best to counter the bone-crunching moves of a towering Wookiee, only surviving thanks to the intervention of his new biker gang friends. It’s arguably the first time we’ve ever seen a Wookiee in full-on rage mode – despite Han Solo’s claim that they have a tendency to pull people’s arms off when they lose – and it’s a moment precision-engineered to keep fans happy.

Which, to be fair, seems to be the main reason for The Book of Boba Fett’s existence. In this episode alone, barely a scene goes by without a sighting or reference to a moment, creature or character from Star Wars past, whether they’re star names (the Rancor) or obscure residents of Tatooine (the B’omarr monks and Bubo).

Although the show constantly runs the risk of becoming bogged down in its in-jokes, mythology and fan service – if the season doesn’t finish with Boba Fett riding his new pet Rancor to vanquish some rival crime lord, we’ll be very surprised – it’s less problematic in ‘The Streets of Mos Espa’. And that's because the story has shifted up a gear, with crucial pieces falling into place, like Kintan Striders on a djarik board.

It seems likely, though, that the most powerful players in The Book of Boba Fett are yet to show their hands. Because while the Pyke Syndicate have proved themselves to be dangerous operators in The Clone Wars, we’ve seen nothing to suggest they’re the sort of A-list villains who could prompt a pair of Hutts to turn their tails and (metaphorically) run away.

War is clearly coming – but will Boba Fett and Fennec Shand be ready for who or what they’ll be facing?

Our verdict

In an episode where you can’t move for nods to existing Star Wars lore, The Book of Boba Fett also finds time to establish its own gangster movie credentials. The criminal backwaters of Tatooine, first established in the original trilogy, remains the show’s big selling point, and ‘The Streets of Mos Espa’ does plenty to improve our understanding of Mos Espa’s underworld – and the scale of the challenge facing Boba Fett if he’s going to become a successful daimyo.

This outing also features some brilliant action sequences – from Fett’s impromptu scrap with a Wookiee assailant to an electrifying speeder chase through the mean streets of Mos Espa – and hints at the existence of a criminal mastermind more powerful than anything we’ve seen in the show so far. Surely no one still believes that elusive Mos Espa mayor Mayor Mok Shaiz is the one pulling the strings…

Force facts

• The episode’s tile, ‘The Streets of Mos Espa’, alludes to several screen crime dramas, including 1939 movie Streets of New York and ’70s TV series The Streets of San Francisco – the show that gave Michael Douglas his big break.
• The robot spider wandering around outside Jabba’s Palace is one of the weirdest creations in the Star Wars galaxy. The B’omarr monks are a devout religious order who believe that true spiritual enlightenment can only come from detaching themselves from physical sensation. To achieve this, they transplant their brains into jars of nutrients carried around by droids.
• 8D8’s briefing explains that Mos Espa is now divided between three families – all of them representing familiar Star Wars species, which we explain in the next few bullet points.
• The city center belongs to the Trandoshans, the reptilian species to which Bossk the bounty hunter belongs.
• The worker’s district is the domain of the Aqualish, who made their first appearance in A New Hope, when Obi-Wan Kenobi cut off Pondo Baba’s arm in the Cantina bar. He was originally listed as “Walrus Man” in the Kenner action figure range.
• The Klatooinians are in control of the starport and upper sprawl, meanwhile, and are a reptilian humanoid species who made their first appearance in Return of the Jedi’s first act.
• Like fellow Star Wars species the Nikto (who’ve already appeared in The Book of Boba Fett as the troublemaking biker gang), the Klatooinians got their name from classic 1951 sci-fi movie The Day the Earth Stood Still. A Return of the Jedi in-joke, the names are lifted from alien visitor Klaatu’s classic line, “Gort, Klaatu barada nikto”. Completing the gag, one of Jabba’s Klatooinian henchmen was named Barada.
• The astromech droid helping 8D8’s presentation is an R5 unit. It’s much like R5-D4, the unit whose bad motivator led to Luke Skywalker and his Uncle Owen purchasing R2-D2 from the Jawas in A New Hope.
• Lortha Peel, the water monger, is played by Stephen Root. One of US TV’s most in-demand guest actors, he’s cropped up in Brooklyn Nine-Nine, Star Trek: The Next Generation, Succession, Pushing Daisies, The Big Bang Theory and many more. He’s perhaps most famous for playing Milton Waddams in cult comedy Office Space.  
• Assuming Lortha Peel isn’t new to the water-brokering game, there’s a possibility that (Uncle) Owen Lars was one of the vapor farmers he worked for – before Owen was executed by Stormtroopers, of course.
• Tatooine’s history as a verdant world covered in oceans and rainforests has been referenced before in print (notably the Ultimate Star Wars reference book), but we’re pretty sure this is the first time it’s been confirmed on screen.
• Humans or aliens with cybernetic enhancements have a long history in Star Wars. The most famous, of course, is Darth Vader, but there’s also General Grievous, Luke Skywalker (after he gets his robot hand), and Fennec Shand.
• The lead cyborg bikers are played by Sophie Thatcher (the one with the robot arm) and Jordan Bolger (the one with the robot eye). Thatcher is one of the stars of Showtime drama Yellowjackets, and also played the young Regan in The Exorcist TV show. Bolger, meanwhile, has taken recurring roles in The 100 and Peaky Blinders.
• The cyborgs have clearly taken some style tips from perennial Star Trek baddies in the Borg.
• The look of the cyborgs’ speeders owes a lot to Vespa scooters – it’s like Quadrophenia on the Outer Rim.
• The frog-like creature sighted outside Jabba’s Palace is Buboicullaar (aka Bubo), a Frog-Dog who worked as Jabba’s bodyguard. He makes a similar cameo in Return of the Jedi. The rodent-like creature next to him is a Scurrier, and we think the winged creature that swoops in – and ends up as Bubo’s dinner – is a Sand Bat.
• In the flashback, Boba Fett visits the Tatooine town of Mos Eisley, famously described as a “wretched hive of scum and villainy” by Obi-Wan Kenobi.
• Those Stormtrooper helmets on spikes are presumably a leftover of the celebrations we see at the end of Return of the Jedi.

• Peli Motto, the Mos Eisley-based mechanic played by Amy Sedaris in The Mandalorian, appears briefly in the background behind the helmets, accompanied by some of her trusty pit droids.
• The Pyke boss is voiced by top voice actor Phil Lamarr. He’s possibly most famous for his work on Futurama, where he played Hermes Conrad and numerous other characters.
• Oba Diah is the homeworld of the Pykes. It made its first screen appearance in season six of The Clone Wars.
• The Nikto speeder bike gang are called the Kintan Striders. They take their name from a gorilla-like species that featured as one of the holographic creatures in dejarik, the game Chewbacca plays on the Millennium Falcon in A New Hope.
• The slaughter of the Tuskens has brutal echoes of both Anakin Skywalker’s Sand People-massacre in Attack of the Clones, and the deaths of Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru in A New Hope.
• Boba Fett and bounty hunter Black Krrsantan worked together in Star Wars comics, which may explain Fett’s decision to let the Wookiee live – he understands their altercation was just business.
• The man inside the furry Black Krrsantan suit is Carey Jones. He previously played a Predator in Predators (produced by ‘The Streets of Mos Espa’ director, Robert Rodriguez), and is also a successful make-up effects supervisor – his credits include The Walking Dead, Lovecraft Country and Watchmen.
• The Twins turning up at Jabba’s Palace with a gift is a neat parallel with Luke Skywalker handing over R2-D2 and C-3PO as a goodwill gesture in Return of the Jedi.
• Rancors are a species of reptilian carnivores native to Dathomir, the homeworld of Darth Maul.
• The most famous Rancor in the Star Wars galaxy was Pateesa, whom Jabba the Hutt kept as a pet/tool for executing those who displeased him. The special pit the beast called home has been empty since Luke Skywalker killed him in Return of the Jedi, leaving his keeper, Malakili, heartbroken.  
• The troopers of Clone Force 99 also captured a juvenile Rancor (named Muchi) in The Bad Batch, though it’s not the same calf we see in ‘The Streets of Mos Espa’. Not only does The Book of Boba Fett take place a couple of decades later, but Muchi was female while Boba’s new pet is male.
• This Rancor’s keeper is played by perennial Robert Rodriguez collaborator Danny Trejo. Trejo’s most notable screen appearances include From Dusk Till Dawn, Machete and Con Air.
• Boba Fett’s claim that he’s ridden creatures 10 times the size of the Rancor is a nod to his debut appearance in ‘The Story of the Faithful Wookiee‘. In the 1978 animated short (available on Disney Plus), he can be seen on the back of a Paar’s ichthyodont, a giant, dinosaur-like creature.
• Fellow Rancor-riders the Witches of Dathomir are also known as the Nightsisters. Members of this Force-sensitive sect include Dark Jedi assassin Asajj Ventress and her mentor, Mother Talzin.
• Boba Fett suggests feeding a Ronto carcass to the young Rancor. A Ronto is a common beast of burden on Tatooine, widely used by Jawas – one can be seen causing chaos on the streets of Mos Eisley in the A New Hope: Special Edition.
• “Dank farrik” is a Star Wars expletive, commonly used in the Mandalorian. (This episode shows that “Dank” can also be used on its own.)
• There are plenty of familiar-looking Star Wars robots in the Mos Eisley chase sequence, including Mouse (MSE) droids, pit droids and a C-3PO-like protocol droid.
• The portrait of Jabba the Hutt features the late crime boss in his prime, surrounded by old friends Bib Fortuna, Salacious B Crumb, Max Rebo (clearly this show’s breakout star) and even Boba Fett himself. Driving or running through precious artworks has been a Hollywood trope since, well, forever.

New episodes of The Book of Boba Fett debut on Disney Plus every Wednesday.

Having previously helmed thrillers such as Contagion, Side Effects, Unsane, and Kafka, director Steven Soderbergh returns to the genre with his next film, KIMI, which debuts exclusively on HBO Max on February 10. Soderbergh teamed with Spider-Man and Jurassic Park screenwriter David Koepp for the New Line film, which stars The Batman’s Zoë Kravitz and was made during the pandemic.

IGN can exclusively debut the trailer for KIMI, which can be viewed via the player above or the embed below. We also spoke at length with Soderbergh about the film, the highlights of which can be found below.

The film’s title refers to a fictitious Alexa/Siri-like voice-activated digital assistant called KIMI. It hears everything you say all the time, recording everything for a Big Brother-like corporation. Kravitz plays Angela Childs, a voice stream interpreter who overhears a murder on a recording she was analyzing. Angela is shaken after reaching out to her colleagues. Why are her employers resistant to her trying to bring this to the authorities’ attention?

Cinephiles may find echoes of Coppola’s The Conversation and Hitchcock’s Rear Window in KIMI, influences Soderbergh was only too happy to confirm in his recent Zoom chat with IGN. “Oh, absolutely. In terms of influence, those are both movies that I adore and watch repeatedly. And then, in this case, throw in a bit of Panic Room, and that's the mixture that we were going for,” the Oscar winner said.

The Panic Room influence is apt considering KIMI screenwriter David Koepp also penned that David Fincher film. Indeed, as Soderbergh recalled, the project originated with Koepp, who pitched him the story a few years back. It wasn’t until the COVID-19 pandemic struck that the true crime-inspired project finally came together:

“I love thrillers, generally speaking. It's the kind of movie that I like to watch. And so when the opportunity comes along to make a thriller that has something underneath it that keeps it from being single-use plastic, then I'm interested. So this kind of happened slowly and then really quickly. Some years ago when David Koepp was living in London, we had drinks when I was over there. And he said, ‘Oh, have you read about this story, this murder case where they think they got it recorded on an Alexa, and they're trying to use it as part of the litigation, the criminal case?’ And the impression that everybody got was that Amazon wasn't being very helpful. And so David said, ‘I'm thinking about an idea of a voice analytics person who works for one of these companies that has a listening device. And they think they hear something, and the company really wants her to drop it.’”

“And so I said, ‘That sounds like a great idea. That's a perfect Hitchcock sort of premise.’ And then I didn't hear from him for a while. And just before New York went into lockdown the first time, David and I saw each other again. And he said, ‘Are you still interested in that? I'm ready to write it.’ And I said, ‘Yes.’ And so he wrote it during lockdown and handed it to me last fall. And there we go.”

Soderbergh and his team shot KIMI under COVID protocols last year. Signs of the pandemic will be evident in the film as some characters will wear masks in scenes, and Kravitz’s character Angela is agoraphobic so, as Soderbergh explained, “[Angela] is very much an indoor cat. And so what we've all been going through, doesn't really bother her much at all because she’s kind of drawn toward staying at home anyway. This is sort of part of her character that ends up being crucial to her having to decide how much she wants to pursue what she thinks is a bad incident. So it was tricky when we were shooting in the spring to judge where we would be when the movie comes out.”

Soderbergh understood the risk of possibly alienating some viewers by acknowledging the pandemic in his film: “You could make an argument that people, for the most part, don't want to watch something in which this is still going on. They want to live in a world in which we're past this. So I totally understand that. In this case, it kind of added something to the story. And we had a lot of discussions about, ‘Wow, where are we going to be in a year?’ And none of us could have seen Omicron coming in March or April of last year, but it turns out, I kind of leaned toward us still being in the space where masks are an issue, just because I thought it's possible. So you see when she interacts with people, not everybody's wearing one, but clearly, it's still a thing in the culture.”

The pandemic, though, isn’t the focus of KIMI. Corporations like Amazon and devices like Alexa are. “I'm just sort of stunned that people allow these devices in their homes at all. The idea that it is only ‘activated’ when you speak to it and activated is just ridiculous to me. I mean, the idea of just having no privacy,” Soderbergh said. “There's no ‘get’ for me that would make it worth it. I was interested in working with a story in which that is a central question. Is it worth it to have one of these things in your home?”

Soderbergh believes “you should be” scared of companies like Amazon: “These companies function like governments and like countries they're that big. As far as I can tell, there's no country's economy that's working the way shit’s working over at Apple right now. These are incredibly powerful influential entities. Run by people who are not elected and yet have arguably as much or more control over our daily lives than our government does. It's this kind of quiet transfer of influence and power that's taken place in the last two decades [that] is interesting to me. It invariably leads to consequences that nobody could have anticipated, and as we know the law is so far behind what's actually going on in the culture, that by the time they start having hearings on this it's too late.”

KIMI debuts only on HBO Max on February 10. In addition to Zoë Kravitz, the cast includes Jaime Camil, Erika Christensen, Derek DelGaudio, Robin Givens, Charles Halford, Devin Retray, Jacob Vargas, and Rita Wilson.

DISTURBED's David Draiman has blasted people who compare COVID-19 vaccination requirements to the Holocaust. The 48-year-old Hawaii-based singer, who is Jewish, took to his social media earlier today (Sunday, January 9) to write: "People who compare having to have proof of vaccination to get in a restaurant to the Holocaust are cordially invited to go fuck themselves." He added in a separate post: "The only thing that the Holocaust should ever be compared to is the ACTUAL FUCKING HOLOCAUST. THATS IT. That's all. Stop appropriating our suffering for your bullshit political agendas. Thanks." A number of right-wing politicians and conservative media pundits worldwide have comparisons to the Holocaust, saying society's widening exclusions of the unvaccinated was headed down a similar path taken by Nazi Germany between 1941 and 1945 when an estimated six million Jewish people were killed during World War II. Draiman is not the only hard rock or heavy metal musician to speak out against comparisons between COVID-19 vaccine mandates and the Holocaust. Last November, KISS frontman Paul Stanley hit out at those who were pictured wearing yellow Star of Davids similar to ones the Nazis forced Jewish people to display during the Holocaust while protesting COVID-19 mandates in Kansas. At the time, Stanley, who is also Jewish, shared a tweet about the protesters and he included the following message: "APPALLING. This is despicable. Stupidity is no excuse for being ignorant. I grieve for 6 MILLION JEWS who suffered and perished only to be trivialized by a bunch of morons who surely MUST have the capacity to read and know better. Stunned." In October, Stanley, who often tweets about political issues to his 615,000 followers, weighed in on the controversy that erupted after a district leader in Texas asked teachers to offer students books with an "opposing perspective" of the Holocaust. Stanley tweeted at the time: "This is so FUCKED. There will ALWAYS be 'opposing views' but there are NEVER opposing FACTS." TWISTED SISTER's Jay Jay French, a fellow Jew, agreed, chiming in in a tweet: "completely insane. and you can thank Trump for unleashing the stupids". Last month, Draiman said that he had lost thousands of social media followers since publicizing his trip to Israel in November. On November 30, Draiman lit a candle at the Western Wall in Jerusalem, Israel at the Old City site of the terror attack that killed South African immigrant Eli Kay. He later claimed that he lost 4,000 followers after sharing photos of his "demonstration" at the Western Wall. Draiman, the son of Israelis and the grandson of Holocaust survivors, spent much of 2014 and early 2015 linking to articles by conservative and pro-Israel blogs and has often used his fame to speak out against anti-Semitism. DISTURBED's song "Never Again", from 2010's "Asylum" album, was written about the Holocaust and calls out people who deny it. Both of Draiman's maternal grandparents were survivors of the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, while many others on his mother's side were wiped out by the Nazis. The United States Holocaust Museum has featured Draiman in its "Voices On Anti-Semitism" podcasts. The World Health Organization (WHO) has said that COVID-19 vaccines are "critical" to ending the pandemic, which has killed more than five million people globally. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), unvaccinated people are 5.8 times more likely to catch the virus and 14 times more likely to die from it.

According to Rolling Stone, METALLICA and TOOL are among the artists who have have recruited dogs specially trained to sniff for traces of COVID-19 in members of their crew, entourage or anyone else who gets backstage. METALLICA hired an Ohio-based firm, Bio Detection K9, for its fall shows in Fort Lauderdale and Atlanta and also at the band's 40th anniversary gigs in San Francisco last month. "So far, knock on wood, the dogs have been knocking it out of the park," says John Peets of Q Prime, the management company that represents METALLICA. "We haven't had a dog miss anybody." Bio Detection K9 has been in the business of using dogs to detect viruses, bacteria, and fungus for over a decade in partnership with the US Department of Agriculture and other government agencies. The company plans to channel efforts toward deploying COVID-detecting canine assets around the world, aiding the general population in resuming social and sporting events safely. Looking ahead, they plan to address upcoming biologic and medical challenges in a sustainable fashion, revolutionizing the way the world views a canine's ability to detect and prevent health concerns on a global scale. Bio Detection K9 dogs are trained specifically for COVID-19 and its various strains, and do not respond to seasonal flus and colds. The dogs are not used to search large crowds, just manageable groups. "We don't search whole stadiums; that is not what we are there for," Shawn Reed, the director of training and operations for Bio Detection K9, told SWVA Today. "I don't take a dog and search a crowd of 60,000 people." Wade Morrell, CEO of Priority One Canine, which recently bought Bio Detection K9, told WBNS that "there are about 100 employees" at a typical stadium or arena concert "and to search those 100 employees, it would take about five minutes. It takes longer to line everybody up and take their masks off than it does having the dogs go down the line and search them." According to Morrell, testing is done by having participants line up four to six feet apart and removing a mask they’ve worn for about 10 minutes. The dogs then go down the line sniffing the masks and will stop and sit to indicate a COVID-19 positive participant. "Because you have such a concentrated area of odor, there[s a higher probability the dogs will find it [in the mask]," Morrell said.

With much more of a focus on TV and computing, CES 2022 hasn’t been a show awash with smartphone releases.

There’s been the Samsung Galaxy S21 FE, a number of cheaper devices from TCL plus, outside of the show, a few teases from OnePlus about its upcoming OnePlus 10 Pro.

Look past the big names and there have been a couple of stranger, very niche phones showcased at the event – including this keyboard-toting Astro Slide 5G from Planet Computers, a device that’s been in the works for a number of years.

It seems fitting that in the week BlackBerry switched off its mobile service another phone with an actual physical keyboard gets its first big outing.

I spent some time with Astro Slide 5G at the Showstoppers event here in Las Vegas and the phone is certainly unique in 2022. It’s absolutely massive, thicker than pretty much anything else I have reviewed in the past few years and very janky in the way it’s constructed.

Yet, it’s has a certain amount of retro charm.

The design is reminiscent of a Psion Series 5 device, with a keyboard that pulls out from underneath the display horizontally. Once the keyboard is pulled out, the screen pops up a little so it sits at a more comfortable angle.

The hinge design and the way the keyboard needs to almost click into place gave me the impression I was going to break the screen off every time I opened it up. Once the keyboard is out the Astro Slide 5G is a bit like a tiny laptop and you could, if you really wanted, pop it down on a table and start typing.

I was more impressed with the typing experience, even if it’s a little large to comfortably hold and type with two hands. The keys have some decent travel if you really must have a keyboard on your phone then this could be the phone for you.

The phone certainly becomes less interesting when you look past the keys. There’s a 6.39-inch FHD display, Android 11, 5G and a MediaTek Dimensity chip. To meet the £719 asking price, you’re really going to want to take advantage of the keyboard and the bevvy of shortcuts and key mapping features built into the software.

Yet, I am still glad phones like this exist – and judging by the amount raised through crowdfunding there is still some genuine interest in devices that aren’t simply glass rectangles.

The post Android phones with physical keyboards aren't dead yet appeared first on Trusted Reviews.

While it might have been one of the year's worst-kept secrets with that Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield were joining Spider-Man: No Way Home, the two former Spider-Men had a shared moment while watching Marvel's latest in complete secret.

Talking to Entertainment Tonight, the Oscar-nominated Garfield, who has also picked up some recent buzz with his performance in Netflix's Tick, Tick, Boom!, talked about joining Tobey Maguire in some black ops style movie watching.

"I snuck into a theater on opening night and just watched with my baseball cap on and my mask," he said. "In fact, I was also with Tobey! Me and Tobey snuck into a theater together and no one knew we were there. It was just a really beautiful thing to share together."

Continue Reading at GameSpot

Spoilers for The Book of Boba Fett follow.

Two weeks into its run, The Book of Boba Fett is already having an identity crisis – and it has little to do with the not-a-bounty hunter’s efforts to reinvent himself as Tatooine’s number one crime boss.

With less than a third of ’The Tribes of Tatooine’ devoted to Boba’s present, an obsession with exploring the character’s backstory in minute detail is starting to unbalance the series. If you were feeling charitable, you could argue the extensive flashback sequence is a deliberate nod to The Godfather Part II – the crime saga is a major influence on The Mandalorian spin-off series, after all – but that would mean ignoring a fundamental difference. 

Because, unlike this episode, Francis Ford Coppola’s gangster classic never lost sight of the fact that the story of the younger Vito Corleone was the support act rather than the main event. And that's a shame, because the episode’s ‘present day’-set opening act is electrifyingly brilliant and everything we’d hoped for from the latest Star Wars Disney Plus show.

It kicks off more or less where episode 1 left off last week, with Fett’s enforcer, aka Fennec Shand, escorting a highly trained ‘Order of the Night Wind’ assassin (still alive, as ordered) back to Jabba’s Palace, which is surely due a ‘Boba’s Palace’ rebrand in the near future.

Her return kickstarts a 14-minute detective story that takes Fett on a tour of key Mos Espa locations as he tries to work out who ordered the attempt on his life. Intimidation techniques, such as interrogation by knife point and that refreshingly familiar slide into a (now vacant) Rancor pit, prove remarkably effective, and suggest that – despite Fett’s claims to the contrary – he intends to rule by fear as much as respect.

With and without the famous Mandalorian helmet, Temuera Morrison proves that Fett doesn’t need fancy gadgets to be top dog. His performance in the episode’s first act is a tour de force, as he effortlessly conveys a character in total control of his situation – whether he’s meeting the mayor of Mos Espa, the returning Madam Garsa, or The Twins – a pair of Hutts who believe that cousin Jabba’s criminal empire is rightfully theirs. Fett may claim he’s left his bounty hunting days behind him, but it seems that others will take more convincing…

The brief cameo from The Twins is possibly the standout moment of the episode, although the inclusion of Black Krrsantan might also foreshadow the Wookiee bounty hunter as a potential adversary in Obi-Wan Kenobi's upcoming TV show, too. Arriving in town carried by an army of servants, The Twins make a hell of an entrance, but it’s the subtle, background touches that stand out most – the female Twin demurely waving a fan, the sight of a man buckling under the Hutts’ combined weight, or the threateningly low-key “sleep lightly, bounty hunter” whispered on their departure.

Unfortunately, just as the episode should be on its way to a top-tier crescendo, Boba’s submerged in his bacta tank once again, and we’re back with the Sand People on the Dune Sea. It’s a flashback that continues until the end credits, and – in an episode 14 minutes longer than its predecessor – it proves to be something of a momentum-sapping slog. 

It’s also a symptom of modern Star Wars’ frustrating need to fill as many gaps in canon as it can. George Lucas’s famous galaxy wasn’t always that way, of course, and the episode’s earlier references to the “Death Pits of Duur” and a “gumpta on Mustafar” hark back to the days when bounty hunters on Ord Mantell, or completing the Kessel run in less than 12 parsecs, didn’t need an explanation. These are the sort of casual, unexplained remarks that fire a fan’s imagination as much as finding out how Fett went from Sarlacc snack to hanging out with Mando and Baby Yoda.

But, by prioritizing backstory over all else, ‘The Tribes of Tatooine’ falls into the trap that’s befallen so many prequels into the past: obsessing over a story whose conclusion is already in the public domain.

That said, this episode does an important job reinventing the Tusken Raiders, a species that hasn’t always been treated kindly by the franchise – in Episode IV: A New Hope, they were simply weird creatures to be avoided. Then, Episode II: Attack of the Clones turned them into “vicious, mindless monsters” waiting to be slaughtered by Anakin Skywalker early on his journey to the Dark Side.

‘The Tribes of Tatooine’ continues a redemption arc started in The Mandalorian episode ‘The Gunslinger’, though, by providing a welcome glimpse of the misunderstood Sand People and their culture. At times, this Tusken Raider storyline feels like a clunky mix between Dances with Wolves, Dune, and a slapstick driving school for Sand People.

But respect for their ways ultimately proves to be paramount, most notably in Fett’s powerful, politically relevant remarks about indigenous people and their claim on ancestral lands. Besides, the beautiful scene where Fett fashions his gaffi stick from the log he finds on a lizard-induced vision quest almost justifies the leisurely pace of what comes before – almost, but not quite.

Our verdict

Effectively a very long-winded origin story for Boba Fett’s Tusken Raider robes and gaffi stick, ‘The Tribes of Tatooine’ gets bogged down in its obsession with the lead character’s past. It’s fantastic as a nostalgia-fest, of course – the numerous Star Wars Easter Eggs never disappoint – but this shouldn’t come at the expense of pushing the title character’s story forward.

Another priority for the series should be finding something meaningful for Fennec Shand to do. Right now, Boba Fett’s right-hand woman is struggling to justify her position at second on the bill and, given she's shone in the brief scenes she's been a part of, providing Shand with more screen time is something that we'll hopefully see in future episodes.

Two episodes in, The Book of Boba Fett has already done enough to show that the criminal underworld of Mos Espa is where the more compelling stories are to be found – even when they’re competing with a fun, Western-tinged train heist. Now it’s time the series turned its attentions to pushing ahead with its gangster action, and maybe establishing a Big Bad – possibly someone even bigger than The Twins.

Force facts

• In a neat update to what we saw in front of episodes of The Mandalorian, Fennec Shand and Boba Fett’s helmets have been added to Disney Plus’s Star Wars introductory animated logo.
• Boba’s would-be assassin obviously hadn’t heard that Jabba’s Rancor was killed by Luke Skywalker around five years earlier, leaving the famous pit unoccupied.
• Having played Dokk Strassi in Chapter 1, executive producer Robert Rodriguez takes his second alien role of the season as Mayor Mok Shaiz.
• Mok Shaiz is an Ithorian. Numerous Ithorians have appeared in previous Star Wars stories, going back to Momaw Nadon, one of the patrons of the Cantina in A New Hope – he was originally known as “Hammerhead” in the Kenner action figure line. Their throats are unable to handle speaking Galactic Basic Standard (aka English), so they use electronic voice synthesizers to translate.
• The droid working in Madam Garsa’s Sanctuary looks a lot like R-3X, famous for appearing in the Star Tours ride at Disney’s theme parks, where he was voiced by Pee-Wee star Paul Reubens. R-3X also appeared in an episode of Star Wars Rebels.
• Boba Fett says that Garsa is “sweating like a gumpta on Mustafar”. Mustafar is the volcanic planet where Obi-Wan Kenobi left Darth Vader for dead, but we think this is the first ever reference to a gumpta. As with Han Solo’s reference to Luke Skywalker looking “strong enough to pull the ears off a gundark”, the creature will presumably be added to canon later.
• Jabba’s cousins, The Twins, aren’t the first of the late crime lord’s relatives to show up in Star Wars – Jabba’s uncle Ziro and son Rotta showed up in The Clone Wars.
• The Hutt race hail from a swampy Outer Rim world called Nal Hutta. Along with its satellite Nar Shaddaa – nicknamed the “smuggler’s moon” – it’s well known for being a wretched hive of scum and villainy.
• The Wookiee who accompanies the Hutt Twins is Black Krrsantan, known to his friends as Santy or 'BK'. The Tribes of Tatooine’ marks his first screen appearance.
• The Banthas used as the Tusken Riders’ steeds go all the way back to A New Hope. Back then, they were played by elephants in costume.
• Original Star Wars sound designer Ben Burtt used the braying of mules to create the characteristic voices of the Sand People.
• The human couple who run into the criminal gang in the Tatooine bar also go back to the original Star Wars movie – though this is technically their first appearance in canon. Fixer (real name Laze Lonozner) and his wife, Camie, were childhood friends of Luke Skywalker (then nicknamed Wormie), who appeared in a famous deleted scene from A New Hope – currently available to watch as an extra on Disney Plus. This ‘Tosche Station’ sequence features Fixer, Camie, Luke and his future Rebel pilot sidekick Biggs Darklighter discussing the Empire’s arrival in orbit over Tatooine. Fixer and Camie are played by Skyler Bible and stunt performer Mandy Kowalski here, but were originally played by Anthony Forest and Koo Stark.
• The gang’s jackets and Speeder Bikes feature the insignia we saw scrawled on the side of a moisture farm in episode 1.
• It’s worth noting that Sand People on Speeder Bikes don’t ride in single file to hide their numbers, as they would on Banthas.
• The criminals operating the train Boba and the Sand People take down are Pykes. The Pyke Syndicate made several appearances in The Clone Wars (from season 5 onwards), and made their live-action debut in Solo: A Star Wars Story, where they used slaves to operate the Spice Mines on Kessel.
• In the Star Wars universe, Spice – the Pykes’ illicit cargo – is used to manufacture recreational drugs.
• Boba Fett’s lizard-induced flashback features his younger self, played by Daniel Logan, watching his father Jango leave Kamino in his Firespray ship. The scene doesn’t feature in Attack of the Clones.
• Boba Fett crafting his own gaffi stick has clear parallels with a Jedi building their own lightsaber.
• The episode’s director of photography is Dean Cundey, whose impressive resumé includes Jurassic Park, The Thing, Who Framed Roger Rabbit and all three Back to the Future movies.
• Director Steph Green’s filmography includes episodes of The Americans, Preacher, Luke Cage, The Man in the High Castle and Watchmen.

New episodes of The Book of Boba Fett debut on Disney Plus every Wednesday.

During CES 2022, ASUS unveiled its Zenbook 14X OLED Space Edition notebook. Built around the Zenbook 14 OLED series of compact yet high-performance laptops, the Zenbook 14X OLED Space Edition takes things to the next level. Some of its features include a 3.5" OLED ZenVision screen on the top panel, support for up to an Intel Alder Lake Core i9-12900H processor, Intel Iris Xe integrated graphics, dual Thunderbolt 4 ports, as well as a 2800 x 1800 OLED HDR display.

Designed and built around the premise that it's usable in orbit, the ASUS Zenbook 14X OLED Space Edition is US Space Systems Command certified (SMC-S-016A), as well as US Department of Defence (MIL-STD 810H) certified. ASUS states that this includes rigorous testing, including low and high-temperature testing, and at Attitude, high humidity, and drop testing; we don't advise users to try doing any of these for obvious reasons.

The chassis comes in a unique Zero-G titanium finish, a slimline 15.9 mm depth, and weighs around 2.87 lbs. In terms of battery life, the Space Edition comes with a 63 Wh lithium polymer battery, while the screen is a 14" OLED touchscreen display with a 2880 x 1800 resolution, with a 90 Hz refresh rate, and includes a 100% DCI-P3 color gamut. The panel is also Pantone validated, with HDR 500 validation, and up to 550 nits of brightness. Integrated into the lid is an ASUS ZenVision 3.5" OLED display which supports 256 x 64 resolution with 150 nits of brightness.

Looking at the finer specifications, the Zenbook 14X OLED Space Edition supports up to an Intel Core i9-12900H (Alder Lake Mobile) processor, with Intel's Iris Xe integrated graphics. The ASUS Zenbook 14X OLED Space Edition can also support up to 1 TB of PCIe 4.0 x4 storage, with up to 32 GB of LPDDR5 memory, and comes with Wi-Fi 6E connectivity included as standard. Along the top bezel of the screen is an integrated webcam, while the precision trackpad also doubles up as a Numpad.

Touching on some of the advertised features, ASUS uses its dual-fan IceCool thermal technology with two fans featuring 87 fan blades, four heat pipes (two 6 mm and two 8 mm), and support for up to 45 W TDP when in performance mode. On the IO, ASUS includes a MicroSD card reader, an HDMI 2.0 video output, two Thunderbolt 4 Type-C ports, a single 3.5 mm audio combo jack, and a single USB 3.2 G2 Type-A port.

ASUS has informed us that the Zenbook 14X OLED Space Edition will be available sometime in Q2 2022.

Source: ASUS

This Mini-ITX case can be adapted to suit a wide range of component choices, up to and including some of the biggest GPUs available, with AIO CPU cooling.

Razer has a new desk concept, Project Sophia, with 13 modular components, as well as a new haptic gaming chair in the Enki Pro Hypersense.

Razer's Zephyr Pro mask adds the voice amplification that was missing in the original, but starts at a pricey $149.99.

Agricultural hardware giant and scourge of right-to-repair advocates everywhere John Deere is ready to show off its finished, fully-autonomous tractor. Here at CES, the company is saying that this unit is going to be put into large-scale production, and will be made available to farmers later this year. When in use, a farmer can set the hardware to work and then leave it running, allowing them to tend to vital work elsewhere. The idea, so the company says, is to help make farming more efficient and more robust in the face of ever-increasing demand and dwindling resources.

A progress video from John Deere's autonomous team from the start of 2020.

John Deere’s ambitions in this space have been running for some time, and the company was showing off an autonomous tractor at this show in 2019. Back then, it said that its technology — which combine land-based sensors and GPS — was accurate to around 2.5 cm, or 0.9 inches. This new model has six pairs of stereo cameras around the vehicle to help with object detection, which is then processed by a local neural network. This, combined with the aforementioned GPS technology, enables it to maintain its position within a geofence around an individual field.

John Deere

The model that Deere is showing off combines a Deere 8R Tractor, a TruSet-enabled chisel plow and the secret sauce contained within its navigation technology. It says that all a farmer needs to do is drive it to the start of a field, configure it for autonomous operation and then “swipe from left to right to start the machine.” Its progress can then be monitored from a mobile device, which can receive live video, data and metrics, allowing a farmer to adjust speed and drill depth from their phone.

We don't yet know how much the hardware is going to cost, but we can imagine that there will be plenty of interest from major farming companies both in the US and abroad as they look to cut costs on labor and search for efficiencies any way that they can. 

Follow all of the latest news from CES 2022 right here!

SPOILERS follow for the beginning of the first episode of The Book of Boba Fett!

Ratatouille's Patton Oswalt appeared on Parks and Recreation nearly nine years ago and incredibly predicted the opening of The Book of Boba Fett.

As reported by Collider, Oswalt's Garth Blunden - on Season 5, Episode 19 of Parks and Recreation - uses his dream scenario for how Boba Fett escaped certain death after falling in the Sarlacc pit as a filibuster. What he surely didn't realize at the time was just how right he was.

In the premiere episode of The Book of Boba Fett, the very first scene goes down exactly how Oswalt's Blunden describes. You can see the side-by-side here thanks to @LightsCameraPod.

Patton Oswalt absolutely nailed this prediction #BookofBobaFett

(Spoiler Warning) pic.twitter.com/oeudMrlLt6

— Lights, Camera, Pod (@LightsCameraPod) December 30, 2021

"We pan down from the twin suns of Tatooine," Oswalt said. "We are now close on the mouth of the Sarlacc pit. After a beat, the gloved Mandalorian armor gauntlet of Boba Fett grabs on to the sand outside the Sarlacc pit, and the feared bounty hunter pulls himself from the maw of the sand beast."

Oswalt himself acknowledged the similarities between the two by retweeting @LightsCameraPod's tweet, saying, "to say I'm touched it putting it lightly. And yeah, #BookofBobaFett ROCKS. YOU'RE WELCOME."

Perhaps even more impressive is the fact that Oswalt mostly came up with this filibuster on the spot. In an interview with Observer, he was asked how much of this speech came from him as opposed to the writers.

"There was nothing in the script," Oswalt said. "All it was was 'Garth starts to begin to filibuster' and they told me 'Just do whatever you want...' They didn’t yell cut so I didn’t want to be unprofessional and stop, so the panic kind of locked in and I guess my response was to dump every bit of Star Wars and pop culture trivia I have in my brain. That’s like my equivalent of a squid emitting ink, I guess."

For more, check out our review of the first episode of The Book of Boba Fett and our look at how exactly he survived that Sarlacc pit.

Have a tip for us? Want to discuss a possible story? Please send an email to newstips@ign.com.

Adam Bankhurst is a news writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter @AdamBankhurst and on Twitch.

CES is all about quirky tech innovation and Samsung has channeled that spirit with its brand new remote control that is recharged wirelessly by your Wi-Fi router.

Confused? Well, allow us to explain. The Samsung Eco Remote enables you to ditch the AAAs because it’s always charged. That’s because it draws power from the radio waves emitted by the Wi-Fi router you use to stream your favourite content.

Samsung says the new Eco Remote stays charged by “collecting routers’ radio waves and converting them to energy,” but will also retain the solar feature from last year, which will give it power from indoor and outdoor light. If neither float your boat, you can always plug it into an old fashioned USB-C adapter. The very thought!

Sticking with the green focus, the remote is also made from recycled materials where possible and is will also come in a new white edition this year. Samsung is shipping the new remote, which will have shortcut buttons for Netflix, Disney Plus, Amazon Prime Video and Samsung’s TV Plus service, with all its 2022 TVs.

The company has already announced its new line-up of flagship QLED TVs ahead of its CES 2022 press conference on Tuesday January 4. Samsung says its upcoming Neo QLED Mini LED telly creates a picture that “looks as though it is taking place before your very eyes”.

There’s a new Neo Quantum Processor, which Samsung says delivers a more three-dimensional image, thanks to a new picture tech called Real Depth Enhancer. Smart Calibration is coming to 4K and 8K models via your smartphone.

On the audio side of things, Samsung says the range will offer true Dolby Atmos performance, while there’s also a Human Tracking Sound feature that will base the sound output on where the character is on screen.

Pretty neat. We’re live at CES 2022 and will be at the Samsung booth at the earliest opportunity.

The post Samsung's new Eco Remote charges by catching waves and rays appeared first on Trusted Reviews.

Microsoft is starting 2022 with a flashback to Y2K bugs. Bleeping Computerreports the company has released a temporary fix for a bug that broke email delivery for on-premises Exchange 2016 and 2019 servers on New Year's Day. As users discovered, Exchange was trying to store version date checks for its antivirus scanning engine in a 32-bit integer variable — a big problem when any date from January 1st, 2022 onward was too large. Any new checks made the malware engine crash and left email stuck in a queue.

The emergency fix uses a PowerShell script to pause two services, replace the older antivirus engine files with newer ones that use a new number sequence, and restart operations. The fix requires manual input and could take a long time to implement for larger companies, but an automatic solution is in development.

This shouldn't affect other Exchange customers. The timing is also 'ideal' as a holiday weekend likely limited the demand for email. Company IT managers probably didn't want to start 2022 patching servers, though, and it's unclear why Microsoft didn't foresee a date issue with software released just a few years ago. Whatever the reasoning, this serves as a clear lesson about anticipating date bugs.

HPE admits a software bug that led to an accidental wipeout of 77TB of data.

Spoilers for the entire season of Hawkeye follow. You've been warned.

If anyone had told us six weeks ago that a TV show about the guy with arrows would arguably be the MCU’s best small screen offering, we’d have assumed you were joking. But, while WandaVision arguably wins out in terms of invention and emotional depth, Hawkeye is out in front when it comes to consistency of vision and the development of its characters.

Breaking the tradition of its more open-ended Disney Plus predecessors, this entertaining season finale feels like the end of a story rather than the beginning of another. Since the start of its run, Hawkeye has been seeding ideas and plotlines that – with very few exceptions – are resolved satisfactorily here. And, in the interconnected worlds of the MCU, that’s about as close to a standalone adventure as you’re going to get.

‘So This Is Christmas?’ picks up where episode 5 left off, with the video of Eleanor Bishop’s meeting with the infamous Wilson Fisk, aka Kingpin. Back in the famous white suit he wore in Netflix’s Daredevil TV series, Vincent D’Onofrio wastes little time reminding us that Marvel villains don’t need the power to snap half the life in the universe out of existence to be intimidating.

It turns out that Eleanor Bishop came into his service to repay her late husband’s debts, and is now in so deep that she had to orchestrate Armand Duquesne’s death, framing her hapless fiancé, Jack, in the process. With Kate now sucked into this criminal underworld, she’s keen to walk away from Wilson Fisk’s business, but that’s never going to happen – as Kingpin later puts it to Kazi, “She thinks she can quit her job as if she works for Goldman Sachs!?” Regardless of whether this Kingpin exists in the same timeline as Daredevil, his terrifying presence instantly makes it clear why Marvel could never have contemplated casting anyone other than D'Onofrio in the role: he's just that good.

And, although Fisk’s screen time is relatively brief, his considerable shadow looms large throughout the episode. As soon as Maya asks for “a break” from the criminal underworld she's been embroiled in for years, he realizes that his adoptive daughter is about to turn on him, and his perfectly pitched emotional manipulation shows that his success in the crime world isn’t based on intimidation alone.

Eleanor’s business dealings with Kingpin have also ensured that this is well and truly Kate’s mess but, with his Ronin problems seemingly solved, Clint isn’t going to let her clear it up by herself – even though the doors on his kids’ advent calendars are nearly all open. She’s his partner, he finally admits, in a genuinely lovely moment reciprocated a few minutes later when she tells him how seeing Hawkeye “fighting aliens with a stick and a string” taught her that anyone can be a hero.

And so, after a MacGyver/The A-Team-inspired montage that sees the duo assembling a new arsenal of trick arrows – the use of Dymo tape labels is a wonderful DIY touch – they head off to the Christmas party where everyone is on the guest list. Indeed, despite Kate’s insistence that it’s a formal do, the door policy is lax enough to allow Tracksuits, LARPers, Russian assassins and even Jack’s sword through the doors. It's a slight mark on Hawkeye's stellar sheet so far but, in the grand scheme of things, we're willing to let it slide.

As is fitting for the lavish Bishop Security party, there’s a sense that no expense has been spared, leaving you to suspect that the relatively quiet fourth and fifth episodes were simply cash-saving exercises ahead of this Rockefeller Plaza showdown. There’s loads going on here, too, whether it’s Kate’s fun scrap with Yelena – Kate’s push-all-the-elevator-buttons trick is hilariously juvenile – or Clint scrapping with Kazi, who’s apparently elevated himself to full-on bad guy status. Go figure.

And, of course, those aforementioned arrows come into play. Much as Marvel did with Black Widow, the studio plays out its Bond and Mission: Impossible fantasies with some seriously inventive gadgets. How 007 would love to the chance to play with arrows that freeze a bad guy’s legs, or shrink a van to the size of a toy, we can only guess.

If the beautifully choreographed action sequences – including Kate holding her own against the formidable Kingpin – show Marvel having fun, the episode continues Hawkeye’s tradition of keeping its character beats in the foreground. Maya gets a tearful goodbye with Kazi, who admits he has no desire to leave the criminal life behind, while Clint’s strategic deployment of Natasha’s signature whistle allows him to get through to a Yelena hell-bent on killing him. Their heart-to-heart allows both to find some peace about the loss of a woman they both loved and, unsurprisingly given how Yelena has tracked him for three episodes now, to go their separate ways.

While it’s refreshing to see a Marvel story tying up some loose ends, however, there’s also a sense that everything’s been wrapped up in an implausibly neat bow as Christmas Day makes its grand entrance.

Although Eleanor ends the episode under arrest for murder, everybody who deserves a happy ending essentially gets one – whether it’s Yelena learning the truth about Natasha’s death, the swashbuckling Jack potentially finding LARPing outlet for his sword skills, or Clint, Kate and Lucky the Pizza Dog making it back to the Barton farm just in time for Christmas.  Maya even gets to fire a shot in the direction of Kingpin as revenge for her father’s death, though the fact we don’t see Fisk die on screen suggests he probably lives to fight another day.

And that’s probably a good thing – after all, you don’t go to the effort of bringing back one of Marvel’s most iconic villains only to kill him off one episode later. This is a man with a long history of getting back up off the floor, and he’d surely make one hell of an antagonist for the upcoming Echo spin-off. The MCU, then, hasn't seen the last of Wilson Fisk...

Our verdict

Hawkeye doesn't alter the course of the MCU as WandaVision and Loki did, but the show's self-contained nature has arguably been its biggest strength from the start. While the extended version of ‘Save the City’ from Rogers: The Musical is a welcome Christmas gift from Marvel, the fact that it doesn’t set up an upcoming movie or TV show is a massive change of pace for the MCU, where end-credits stings are an integral part of the brand. 

Beyond proving that Marvel is as adept at street-level mini-series as it is at blockbuster movies, though, Hawkeye’s biggest legacy may be character-based. 

Newcomer Alaqua Cox’s brilliant portrayal of Maya Lopez has already done more than enough to make us excited for the Echo TV show, while Jeremy Renner has belatedly lifted Clint Barton up to the Avengers’ top-table. In Hailee Steinfeld’s Kate Bishop, meanwhile, the show has discovered one of the most exciting talents in the MCU. Hopefully, it won’t be long before we see her taking aim again. Maybe alongside Florence Pugh's Yelena in a new buddy cop show or movie? We can but dream.

Marvel-ous facts

• The episode’s title, ‘So This Is Christmas?’, references a line from John Lennon’s perennial Christmas hit Happy Xmas (War is Over).
• Vincent D’Onofrio’s most famous pre-Kingpin roles include the ill-fated Private Pyle in Stanley Kubrick’s Full Metal Jacket, and Edgar the Bug in the first Men in Black.
• It’s heavily implied that the entitled kid who teases Jack at the party – the one who peed his pants in the Hamptons – is Kingpin’s son. (Presumably that makes him Princepin or even Kidpin?) This raises more questions about whether Wilson Fisk’s appearances in Daredevil are part of MCU continuity. The final season of Daredevil debuted in 2018, while Hawkeye is set at the end of 2024. While he looks a bit older than six, it’s conceivable that the child was born after we last saw Fisk in Daredevil – assuming, of course, he wasn’t blipped out of existence by Thanos…
• There’s a poster for Dragons of Despair in Grills’ flat, a reference to a 1984 Dungeons & Dragons storyline written by Tracy Hickman.
• Kate and Clint’s new-look costumes are clearly inspired by their outfits in the Matt Fraction/David Aja Hawkeye comic-book run, which has been a huge influence on the show.
• With Kate Bishop leaping out of a skyscraper over Christmas, it would be remiss not to mention the parallels with Die Hard – especially as it was one of the movies Kate brought along for the movie marathon in episode 4.
• During Kate and Kingpin’s fight in the FAO Schwarz toy shops, we get a brief sighting of the store’s giant piano – made famous by Tom Hanks in Big.
• Jack steals a catchphrase from Doctor Who regular River Song when he announces his arrival with a, “Hello, sweetie!”
• When Clint says, “I’ll have to ask Scott about that one” in relation to the shrunken Trust a Bro van, he’s referring to Scott Lang, aka Ant-Man.
• The SHIELD logo on the back of Laura Barton’s watch confirms that she was an ex-operative known as Agent 19, who also goes by the pseudonym Mockingbird in Marvel comics.
• Will any of Kate’s suggestions for her new superhero alias catch on? Ladyhawk does have some Marvel history, having been used as a shared identity by twins Rosetta and Regina Morgan. (Ladyhawke is also the name of a 1985 fantasy movie and the stage name of New Zealand singer Pip Brown.) Hawk Eve and Hawk Shot seem to have originated in Kate’s imagination, but Lady Arrow could be a sly reference to the Distinguished Competition at DC – Emiko Queen, younger sister of Oliver ‘Green Arrow’ Queen has worked as Red Arrow.
• If you were wondering why the camera keeps cutting to a guy who seems to be enjoying Rogers: The Musical a little bit too much, there’s a good reason – it’s Marc Shaiman, the real-life composer of ‘Save the City’.
• This episode contains the first on-screen confirmation that Pizza Dog has been named Lucky, the canine’s name in the comics.
• Yelena’s episode 5 reference to the refurbished Statue of Liberty implies that Hawkeye takes place a few weeks before (or after, depending on what she means yb refurbished) the events of Spider-Man: No Way Home.
• No Way Home also features a poster for Rogers: The Musical – it’s clearly a massive Broadway hit across the MCU.

The entire season of Hawkeye is available to stream on Disney Plus now.

• Marvel Phase 4: every movie and TV show coming by the end of 2023

Spoilers for The Book of Boba Fett follow.

It looks like getting out of the Sarlacc was the easy part. How Boba Fett, the most feared bounty hunter in the galaxy, escaped a thousand years of pain and suffering in the belly of the beast was one of the biggest gaps in Star Wars lore. And it was the sort of mystery that could easily have been exploited to keep us hooked for the duration of this spin-off series from The Mandalorian.

So seeing The Book of Boba Fett answer a decades-old question within its first three minutes was something of a surprise. It didn’t take us long to realize, though, that what happens next is much more pivotal to the legendary mercenary’s story.

Emerging acid-burned and weak from the Great Pit of Carkoon – a place where Star Wars meets the goopy horror of Aliens – Fett is light years away from the feared bounty hunter who took mere seconds to sear himself into fan consciousness in The Empire Strikes Back. Uncharacteristically vulnerable, he’s powerless to prevent his trademark armor being stolen by scavenging Jawas, or to avoid being taken prisoner by Sand People. 

But, now that we’ve seen Fett hitting rock bottom on the sands of Tatooine, the story of how he takes control of the crime empire left behind by the late Jabba the Hutt becomes infinitely more compelling. In a few short minutes, a character who spoke just four lines in the original Star Wars trilogy – whose status in canon was built as much on a cool suit of armor as his actions on the big screen – gets a backstory worth telling. And while the outfit clearly remains a key part of the Fett brand – the scene where he suits up in Jabba’s Palace has a real ‘let’s go to work’ vibe – this is a chance to see the man beneath the helmet. Luckily, this debut episode makes that an intriguing proposition.

Perhaps The Book of Boba Fett’s smartest move, however, is taking the action back to the planet where Star Wars began in 1977. 

With no Force powers and Imperial entanglements limited to an unfortunate Stormtrooper who’s taken a tumble into the Sarlacc, this is an entertaining return to the Tatooine underworld that was integral to the original trilogy, yet has largely been side-lined since. Capitalizing on the world-building George Lucas started nearly 45 years ago, director Robert Rodriguez effortlessly recreates the Space Western aesthetic of A New Hope and Return of the Jedi, ensuring there are plenty of familiar faces and races hanging around in those wonderfully wretched hives of scum and villainy, too.

The biggest surprise in ‘Stranger in a Strange Land’, though, is how much is told in flashback.

Using Fett’s Bacta tank dreams – as a framing device – is an ingenious move that allows his memories to mesh seamlessly with his present as a Tatooine’s number one crime boss. The two timelines interweave without ever feeling contrived or confusing, although the over-reliance on Fett’s backstory does leave the episode feeling unbalanced; its criminal machinations slightly undercooked as a result.

The trips to the Bacta tank also show the physical and mental scars that Fett's extended stay in the Sarlacc have left on him, with his need to regenerate after the Mos Espa street battle an indication of his new limitations – whether intentional or not, the parallels with fellow masked Star Wars villain Darth Vader are clear. It’s the perfect environment for Fett, a place where he’s known and feared, yet still has to reinvent himself to fill Jabba’s (metaphorical, obviously) shoes.

The episode also does enough to suggest that Boba Fett and his right-hand-woman, Fennec Shand, won’t be getting everything their own way. Midway through episode 1, they're forced to deal with at least one display of defiance from a rival crime boss, and a fantastic street battle that belatedly shows – nearly four decades after their first appearance – why Jabba chose to employ Gamorrean guards as bodyguards. Pre-release interviews for The Book of Boba Fett have promised it’ll play up the organised crime elements of the story – and that’s definitely borne out here. 

But ‘Stranger in a Strange Land’ also hints that what we thought we knew about Boba Fett – which, to be fair, is next to nothing – may be wrong. While the street brawl shows he’s still partial to the odd disintegration, all that chatter about respect could have spouted from the mouth of The Godfather’s Don Corleone. And while taking down an angry reptile on Tatooine – a wonderfully Ray Harryhausen-esque creation – should be all in a day’s work for the man who delivered Han Solo to Jabba the Hutt, ruling by consensus feels like a push beyond his comfort zone.

With The Mandalorian having introduced Fett’s previously unalluded-to code of honor, his approach in The Book of Boba Fett implies that one of Star Wars most iconic villains might be on a journey towards more ambiguous antihero status. Continuing Fett’s story without destroying his hard-earned mystique was always going to be a path fraught with danger, but this entertaining season premiere does enough to suggest he’s in safe hands.

Our verdict

While this debut episode can’t quite deliver on the impact of that end credits announcement in The Mandalorian season 2 finale – then again, what could? – this is an extremely enjoyable prologue to Boba Fett’s exploits as top dog in Tatooine’s criminal underworld.

Instantly establishing itself as a very different beast to The Mandalorian, it wastes little time dealing with Fett’s escape from the Sarlacc – and removing the Bantha in the room proves a smart move, as the episode uses the trauma as motivation to shape a more tolerant Fett than the one we thought we knew.

With the scene beautifully set, it’s now time to add a little more humor, to allow Fennec Shand to be more than just hired muscle, and to push the story forward rather than relying on flashbacks and nods to past glories. This episode is an excellent foundation: now let’s see where Boba Fett can go next.

Force facts

• The episode’s title, ‘Stranger in a Strange Land’, is taken from a 1961 science fiction novel by Starship Troopers author Robert A Heinlein. It tells the story of a human born and raised by Martians who has a radical effect on Earth’s culture when he returns.
• Assuming the episode picks up soon after The Mandalorian season 2 finale, it’s five years since Boba Fett tumbled into the Pit of Carkoon in Return of the Jedi. It’s unclear how much of that time he spent being digested by the Sarlacc, though the amount of acid damage he received suggests he didn’t get out immediately.
• The episode opens with Boba Fett immersed in a Bacta tank, a fluid that has incredible healing properties. We first saw it being used to treat Luke Skywalker’s wampa-inflicted injuries in The Empire Strikes Back, and IG-11 applied it to Din Djarin’s wounds in The Mandalorian season 1 finale. Darth Vader also spends time meditating in a Bacta tank, as we saw in Rogue One.
• Fett’s dreams flash back to the cloning facility on Kamino where he was born, and the death of his father on Geonosis. Both were originally seen in Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones.
• When Fett grabs the air pipe out of the Stormtrooper’s helmet in the Sarlacc, he’s taking advantage of a filtration system in their helmets that’s designed to remove toxins from the air.
• Fett also escaped the Sarlacc in the pre-Disney Expanded Universe stories, which are no longer part of official canon. In 1996 anthology Tales From Jabba’s Palace, JD Montgomery’s short story ‘A Barve Like That’ explains how the bounty hunter used telepathic contact with a fellow victim, and an exploding jetpack, to free himself from the creature’s belly.
• In The Mandalorian season 2 episode ‘The Marshal’, Mos Pelgo marshal Cobb Vanth told Din Djarin that he’d bought Fett’s armor from some Jawas – presumably the same ones we see removing it from Fett in The Book of Boba Fett episode 1.
• Like the Jawas, the Sand People/Tusken Raiders date back to the original Star Wars movie, and Anakin Skywalker slaughtered an entire camp’s worth in Attack of the Clones as revenge for their part in his mother’s death. Their reptilian pets are known as massiffs.
• The other prisoner held captive by the Sand People is a Rodian. They’re the same species as Greedo who did/didn’t shoot Han Solo first – depending on your point of view.
• The droid who acts as Fett and Shand’s temporary master of ceremonies is 8D8, a long-term staff member at Jabba’s Palace who was last seen torturing an unfortunate GNK droid in Return of the Jedi. His voice is provided by Toast of London/What We Do in the Shadows star Matt Berry.
• Dokk Strassi, the reptilian Trandoshan who brings Boba Fett a Wookiee pelt as a tribute, is played by the episode’s director Robert Rodriguez. Strassi is the same species as bounty hunter Bossk, who – like Fett – was hired by Darth Vader to track down Han Solo and the Millennium Falcon in The Empire Strikes Back.
• Daimyo, the term used to describe Fett and his predecessors as Tatooine’s crime lord, is taken from feudal Japan. The Daimyo ruled much of the country under the command of the Shogun.
• Mos Espa, the town where Fett and Shand meet Garsa Fwip, is where Anakin Skywalker grew up.
• Garsa Fwip, a Twi’lek, is played by Flashdance and The L Word star Jennifer Beals.
• The band in Garsa’s Sanctuary are playing a version of the famous Cantina theme from A New Hope, suggesting it’s a big crossover hit on Tatooine. Unless it’s another Ortolan on keys, that looks a lot like Max Rebo – suggesting that he, like Bib Fortuna, managed to escape from Jabba’s Sailbarge before it blew up in Return of the Jedi. He’s joined in the group by a Bith (possibly a member of Figrin D’an and the Modal Nodes from A New Hope?) and an R2 unit.
• Anchorhead, the town Fett mentions to the Rodian while they’re digging for water in the sand, was first mentioned by Luke Skywalker way back in A New Hope.
• The fact Fett has managed to gain the respect of the Sand People by the end of the episode explains why he was wearing similar robes and carrying a gaffi stick (their signature weapon) when he turned up in The Mandalorian.
• This isn’t the first attempt to give Boba Fett his own star vehicle. The bounty hunter was slated to be a pivotal character in a pair of aborted pre-Disney Star Wars projects: TV show Star Wars: Underworld and videogame 1313. After Disney bought Lucasfilm in 2012, there was briefly a Boba Fett movie in the works, but Chronicle/Fantastic Four director Josh Trank left the project in 2015.
• Boba Fett made his first ever appearance in ‘The Story of the Faithful Wookiee’, an animated segment of the infamous 1978 Star Wars Holiday Special. Subsequently disowned by George Lucas, it also features Princess Leia singing an ‘uplifting’ song to the melody of John Williams’ Star Wars theme.
• Fett made his live-action debut two years later in The Empire Strikes Back. The character was retrospectively added to A New Hope when the Special Edition was released in 1997.
• British actor Jeremy Bulloch was the man inside the famous helmet in the original trilogy of films. His voice, meanwhile, was provided by Jason Wingreen who – at the time – had a recurring role in US sitcom All in the Family. Sadly, Bulloch passed away the day before The Book of Boba Fett was announced in the end credits of The Mandalorian season 2 finale.
• Boba Fett Fett is an unaltered clone of his ‘father’, Jango Fett, the bounty hunter who supplied the genetic template for all of the Republic’s Clone Troopers.
• Although he wears the signature armor of the Mandalorians, Fett is not a Mandalorian. In canon he inherited the suit from Jango, a foundling who received the armor as a reward for his service in the Mandalorian Civil Wars.
• Temuera Morrison originally played Jango Fett in Attack of the Clones, and went on to play the Clone Troopers in Revenge of the Sith. Daniel Logan played the younger Boba Fett in Attack of the Clones and The Clone Wars TV show, and makes a brief appearance in one of the older Fett’s Bacta tank flashbacks.
• Since the 2004 DVD release of the original Star Wars trilogy, Morrison’s voice has replaced Wingreen’s on Boba Fett’s lines in The Empire Strikes Back.
• The brief sighting of Boba Fett in ‘The Marshal’ was Morrison’s first on-screen appearance in the role. It was also our first in-canon confirmation that Fett had survived his tumble into the Sarlacc in Return of the Jedi.
• The Mandalorian had already alluded to Fett’s return in season 1 episode ‘The Gunslinger’, however – the clinking spurs of the mysterious figure who rescued the left-for-dead Fennec Shand on Tatooine are one of the character’s trademarks.
• ‘The Gunslinger’ marked the first appearance of Ming-Na Wen’s Fennec Shand. As well as returning in The Mandalorian season 2 episode ‘The Tragedy’, a younger version of the bounty hunter has popped up in The Bad Batch.
• Ming-Na Wen attended the same Pittsburgh high school as The Book of Boba Fett executive producer and Lucasfilm executive creative director Dave Filoni.
• The episode was written by Iron Man/Iron Man 2 director, The Mandalorian showrunner and The Book of Boba Fett creator Jon Favreau.
• Director/executive producer Robert Rodriguez previously directed that pivotal The Mandalorian season 2 episode ‘The Tragedy’. He’s also helmed Alita: Battle Angel, From Dusk Till Dawn, and Sin City.
• The episode’s musical themes are written by The Mandalorian composer Ludwig Göransson, with the score composed by Joseph Shirley. Shirley has previously worked in music departments on Tenet, Black Panther, Venom and The Mandalorian.
• During production, Rodriguez and Morrison formed a band called Boba Fret and the Strumtroopers.

New episodes of The Book of Boba Fett debut on Disney Plus every Friday.