Today I mean Fanservice as in Nerd/Fandom Fanservice, not Anime Pantyshots.
I'd watched the first three episodes of The Book of Boba Fett when they aired, but then watched the rest yesterday, and I enjoyed them a great deal.
It's basically season 2.5 of The Mandalorian, both stylistically and ultimately narratively as well. I liked both seasons of The Mandalorian, they are going back to some of what influenced Lucas in the first place, classic Westerns and Samurai films, with even the basic premise owing a debt to Lone Wolf and Cub which is probably the most influential classic Manga to still not have an Anime adaptation, but it had some Live Action films in the 70s.
So the fanservice these shows provide isn't even just Star Wars fanservice, in Book of Boba Fett we got to see a classic Sergio Leone style showdown between Raylan Givens and Cad Bane, a character no one ever expected would appear in Live Action at all.
Book of Boba Fett goes beyond either season of Mandalorian in the fan service department. There is a type of Star Wars fan who's always loved to express annoyance at Boba Fett's popularity in the fandom when he never even did much, and I'd mostly been one of them, giving him his own show naturally seems to be the embodiment of what those fans don't like. But you see Boba's whole Arc in this show is acknowledging that he was a useless loser during the time period we see in episodes 4-6 and seeking to be something better now.
When episodes 5 and 6 aired there was a bunch of whining on Twitter about "Boba Fett's barely in his own show", that's two out of 7 episodes one of which he still has a lot of screen time in by the final act. Any TV series needs to be ultimately an ensemble no matter how you named it. But that title, The Book of Boba Fett. is clearly modeled after things like books of The Bible, there are books in The Bible where the title character is absent for significant chunks, Daniel isn't in Chapter 3 of The Book of Daniel, Samuel dies less then half way though the two volume text named after him, meanwhile Mark and Luke don't appear in their books at all besides a couple debatable cameos for Mark.
I liked Dawson's Ashoka more here then I did her Mandalorian episode, her little moment with R2 and telling Luke "so much like your father" sell me that this is that character I love from those cartoons brought to Live Action more then any exposition dumb describing the plot of a Clone Wars or Rebels episode could. I am more excited for her own show now and I kind of hope she gets a cameo in the Obi-Won show too.
"But there are scenes that are basically just exposition dumps describing Clone Wars and Rebels episodes for the fans who only watch Live Action stuff" and yes I enjoy that stuff too, it's just not the key to making me buy a new actor portraying the same character. Cad Bane and Boba Fett seem to be describing some history they had together on The Clone Wars, but I haven't seen those episodes, and as someone who hasn't I can assure you it doesn't makes the exchange impossible to follow, they are old Bounty Hunters with some history, just like a lot of scenes in classic Westerns.
A good chunk of this show's Fan Service was specifically to Episode I, finally returning to Mos Espa and the Naboo Star Fighter, like they're trying to apologize for the lack of Prequel references in the Disney Trilogy, like it's trying to be the Episode VII Prequel fans wanted.
But those superficial ties to Episode I compliment that the show is also revisiting the core theme of Episode I, the different disparate people groups on a planet being forced to come together agaisnt an evil Capitalist threat, realizing that they form a Symbiant Circle and what happens to one will effect the others.
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