Major spoilers ahead for Chapter 6 of The Book of Boba Fett.
For me, the Favreau/Filoni era of Star Wars is the best it's been since the original trilogy. Even when it sucks—and it does sometimes—I love it. I think it's because you know these guys have a real reverence for the source material. When they invoke the movies, they do it in a way that seems sincere. You feel like they want to do it, that it's not just an attempt to tap into people's nostalgia in a shallow, cynical way. That's the vibe I get anyway after watching hours of Mandalorian talking head interviews and behind the scenes footage.
At the end of season 2 of The Mandalorian, the duo invoked the movies in a big way by bringing Return of the Jedi-era Luke Skywalker into the story. While I was a little disappointed that this refreshingly standalone series was adding Jedi and the events of the original trilogy back into the mix—ground already well-trodden by Star Wars media—I was also thrilled by it. But I'm in my 30s and grew up with Star Wars, so of course I was. It was bold, but Jon Favreaౠu, who wrote the 𒊎episode, pulled it off with restraint and style.
Now, in Chapter 6 of The Book of Boba Fett, Luke is back. While watching this and the previous Mando-focused episode, I occasionally forgot I was watching the Boba Fett show. Temuera Morrison's wearily charismatic former bounty hunter has been pushed to the sidelines to continue the story of Din Djarin and The Child. While I am invested in Fett's war with the Pyke Syndicate, I was more eager to know where the hell Skywalker was taking lil Grogu at the end of The Rescue—and this episode delivers that magnificently.
We rejoin Skywalker on a remote planet covered in lush bamboo forests. He's training Grogu to channel his powerful Force sensitivity and become a Jedi, in a nice reversal of the relationship he had with Yoda in The Empire Strikes Back. In the most recent films we learn that Luke started his own Jedi academy, and we're witnessing the beginnings of that endeavour here. It's lovely seeing a peaceful, meditative Luke Skywalker enjoying a quiet moment away from all the chaos, pain, and drama we usually associate him with.
I thought they did a pretty good job in The Mandalorian digitally recreating Luke Skywalker as he looked back in 1983. The mix of Hamill, a younger stand-in actor, and computer effects wasn't perfect, but I believed it was him. But in this episode of The Book of Boba Fett,♎ the boffins at Lucasfilm have really outdone themselves. I fully believed I was watching a young Mark Hamill running around with Grogu on his back. Even his voice, generated using old audio recordings and machine learning, is totally convincing.
It's wild how long this new and improved digi-Hamill is on the screen, and how many lines of dialogue he has. There's no sense that they're trying to limit his presence or shoot around him; he's just there, with full body action shots and lingering close-ups of his eerily realistic face. The uncanny valley occasionally creeps in, but not as often as I expected. Eventually I just forgot about the tech wizardry on display and embraced the fact that I was watching Luke Skywalker from Return of the Jedi. It's a remarkable achievement.
Yeah, it's slightly weird that The Book of Boba Fett has basically turned into season three of The Mandalorian. But when it's this good, I don't care. Ever since Grogu was whisked away by Luke at the end of The Rescue, I've wanted to know what happened next—and I'm delighted Favreau and Filoni didn't make me wait for the next season of The Mandalorian to find out. Luke's appearance is also an exciting (and slightly scary) glimpse at a future where anyone from Star Wars' past can show up and play a significant role in the story.
Disney knows Luke returning is exactly what Star Wars nerds like me who are approaching middle age want to see. Under anyone else it might have felt like a brazen attempt to exploit people's nostalgia—but Favreau and Filoni's passion for the material shines through, and gives it a credibility it would otherwise lack. I think so anyway, but maybe Disney has just made a sucker out of me. If that's the case, well, so be it. The Book of Boba Fett has had its ups and downs, but this episode is everything I love about Star Wars.
