Star Wars News | Rangers of the New Republic | Cara Dune Replaced | Fired Directors Speak Out

Star Wars News - Rangers of the New Republic - Cara Dune Replaced - Fired Directors Speak Out

The planet of Tatooine now belongs to Boba Fett.

How long that lasts may depend on who stays dead and who comes back to life after the battle that took place in the season finale of “The Book of Boba Fett” that began streaming Wednesday on Disney Plus.

The episode, titled “In the Name of Honor,” was directed by Robert Rodriguez — who helped reintroduce the character to the Star Wars streaming universe in the second season of “The Mandalorian” in 2020 — and ended with a post-credits scene that confirms help could be on the way for the most famous bounty hunter in the galaxy.

The scene shows Freetown marshal Cobb Vanth (Timothy Olyphant) healing in the rejuvenate waters of a bacta tank. Vanth was thought to be dead throughout the finale after falling in a shootout with Cad Bane, another bounty hunter, who made a spectacular and intense live-action debut in the penultimate episode. Bane hit Vanth with a shoulder shot, so his potential comeback shouldn’t be too shocking. While inside the bacta tank, Vanth is being attended by the same surgeon who helped Boba Fett (Temuera Morrison) save the life of his partner, Fennec Shand (Ming-Na Wen), which means the marshal should have some new cybernetics if his comeback pans out.

The man who put Vanth in the bacta tank may not have been as lucky. To be clear, no one looked or sounded cooler than Cad Bane in this series (he was once again voiced by Corey Burton). After verbal mind games gave him the emotional upper hand over Boba Fett in a western-style standoff in the finale, Fett was able to take Bane down and seemingly kill him in what could be the most wasteful death of a fantastic villain since Darth Maul back in 1999′s “Star Wars: The Phantom Menace.”

But deaths don’t always stick in Star Wars. Darth Maul came back to life in “Star Wars: The Clone Wars,” the animated series where Bane made his debut. There’s no better candidate to resurrect to be a top-notch rival for Boba Fett than the blue-skinned, red-eyed cowboy. Perhaps the Jawas found Bane and plugged him into something to keep him in the land of the living. Time, and perhaps another season of “The Book of Boba Fett,” will tell. And don’t forget, before his return on “The Mandalorian,” Fett was thought dead for decades to the Star Wars fandom. Anything is possible.

But is this the way a Boba Fett series should be handled? Sharing so much of the limelight with other prominent Star Wars characters? Since Star Wars arrived on Disney Plus, there’s been nothing but high praise for story architects Jon Favreau and Dave Filoni, but “The Book of Boba Fett” was met with some discontent fans who thought the titular character, arguably one of the most popular characters in the history of Star Wars, was being overshadowed by frequent guest stars.

The Lucasfilm firing of actress Gina Carano is an event that many Star Wars fans will not forget for a long time. For better or worse, the ousting of the Cara Dune star from all upcoming franchise media is still a source of contention to this day. While Carano will not star in her alleged headlining series, Rangers of the New Republic, there is still room in the galaxy far, far away for a new character to fill her potential shoes.

And Star Wars fans have the perfect choice. Iden Versio.

Robust quarterly financials and greater-than-anticipated streaming subscribers weren't the only major highlights of Disney's earnings report and follow-up call on Wednesday (Feb. 9), as new details about the eagerly awaited live-action "Obi-Wan Kenobi" spinoff series on Disney Plus were revealed.

Disney CEO Bob Chapek unveiled official news that the premiere date of May 25 is penciled in for the original show chronicling the Jedi master's years in exile on Tatooine watching over Luke Skywalker and hiding out from Jedi hunters, 10 years after the events depicted in 2005's "Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith."

With the seventh episode and season finale of "The Book of Boba Fett" airing this week, "Obi-Wan Kenobi" will step up into the limelight as the next flagship Star Wars series until "The Mandalorian" Season 3 lands, hopefully sometime in December.

As hard as it is to imagine, there was a time when many people were very excited about Star Wars. This was after George Lucas’ divisive prequel trilogy, before Disney’s divisive sequel trilogy, and an on-again-off-again relationship with the Disney+ bounty hunter shows. Fine. Maybe all anyone ever does is argue about Star Wars, but it was a relief when Phil Lord and Chris Miller signed on to direct Solo: A Star Wars Story. After all, no one in Hollywood was better at turning a bad idea (like a movie based on Lego or recasting Han Solo) into an entertaining and funny film than those two.