Ever since The Mandalorian first premiered, one of the most common descriptors for the live-action Star Wars shows has been that they feel like they were made by two grown men being handed millions of dollars to grab the most expensive toys around and smash them together like they once did in the playground. That can lead to some really fun moments, like seeing an obscure or underappreciated character get the spotlight for once, but it can also become a distraction when it becomes little more than just nodding at the audience while showing them a bigger scale version of a 40-year-old toy. Like Vinnie Mancuso once wrote, "Star Wars is a toy box with no bottom, a creative mind's dream." This is why the biker gang from earlier in The Book of Boba Fett's season felt like such a rush of creativity and coolness, or why the return of the best looking ship from the prequels worked so well, because those were familiar ideas turned into something new. All this to say that the best part about the finale was seeing a freaking rancor battle a giant droideka like a stealth sequel to Godzilla vs. Kong.
To recap; earlier in the season, the self-proclaimed Daimyo of Mos Espa, Boba Fett, was presented with a royal gift — a baby rancor. As Danny Trejo's Space Machete explained, once upon a time the Witches of Dathomir used to tame and ride Rancors into battle — a reference to the 1994 Legends-canon novel The Courtship of Princess Leia that was brought back last year in the High Republic comics with a Jedi riding one too. Of course, you can only keep Chekhov's Rancor hidden for so long. So, in the final episode, we see Boba and his allies cornered by two massive artillery droids that look like bigger, badder versions of the iconic Droidekas. The droids, called Scorpenek, are based on discarded designs for Attack of the Clones, and they are another example of the streaming Star Wars shows taking things from the past and repurposing them in the present, with their overwhelming size and impenetrable shield making them formidable adversaries. And just as the heroes are about to lose it all, in comes Boba Fett riding his pet baby rancor and proceeds to smash the hell out of the droids in an epic kaiju battle.
The scene plays out like a stealth rematch between Kong and Mechagodzilla, with the Rancor even paying homage to the 1933 King Kong film by taking Mando as his Fay Wray and climbing up a big tower in the middle of town while the villagers shoot at him. Seeing Boba shoot down members of the Pyke Syndicate while on top of a Rancor is cool enough already, but the absolute thrill of the Rancor breaking off one of the droid's arms and using it to stab it to death is one of the most gleefully bonkers things Star Wars has ever done. It is a scene that plays with the familiar — droidekas and Rancors — while broadening the scope of what a Star Wars fight scene can look and feel like.
Where The Book of Boba Fett has been doing a good job of bringing the Star Wars franchise even more fully into a genre it hasn't explored before — the Western — it has still followed all the formulas and tropes we've come to expect from the franchise to a fault. This fight, however, feels like a gutpunch to the idea that there's such a thing as a single definition to what Star Wars is. An arm-ripping, droid-stabbing fight that feels straight out of a '90s Expanded Universe comic book, while still making enough sense to fit in an episode where Baby Yoda saves his adoptive Mandalorian father from being eaten by a Rancor.
Now, some people may enjoy watching every single random toy Kenner sold to gullible kids in '80s show up on screen for 40 seconds, but what has always made Star Wars cool is how it endlessly challenges what we think Star Wars is by using familiar imagery in new ways. Does it make complete sense that R2-D2 suddenly could fly in the prequels when it couldn't in the originals? Absolutely not. Does it look cool when R2 sets a squad of droids on fire and flies away? Hell yes. Similarly, did we need to see a Rancor fight a giant droid like it was Kong fighting Mechagodzilla? Probably not, especially when the episode is as busy as it already is, but it gives us something new in the Star Wars galaxy — kaiju fights. And honestly, name a franchise that couldn't improve by adding a kaiju fight? I'll wait.
