After The Book of Boba Fett proved to be a significant disappointment among fans, it is a wonder why Disney did not make The Mandalorian spinoff centered around Timothy Olyphant's intergalactic character, Cobb Vanth. Vanth was first introduced in The Mandalorian season 2 as the Marshall who used Boba Fett's Mandalorian armor to bring order to a small town on Tatooine but relinquished the armor to the Mandalorian, Din Djarin after the bounty hunter helped him defeat a Krayt dragon. It was later revealed through a conversation between Vanth and the Djarin that utilizing Fett's armor even helped him drive out a gang of slavers that took over his town after the Galactic Empire fell.
Cobb Vanth returned in The Book of Boba Fett, facing a new threat in the Pyke Syndicate, a gang attempting to take over Tatooine. After once more defending his town by killing multiple members of the gang, the Pyke Syndicate retaliated by sending Cad Bane to Vanth's town, who ended up killing his deputy and appearing to have killed Vanth as well. He was later seen to still be alive in the final episode, where Vanth was teased recovering in a bacta tank.
Cobb Vanth's story was a true western with a Star Wars twist, which is what has worked so well in The Mandalorian, and was what The Book of Boba Fett should have been. While Boba Fett was constantly sidelined on his own show, Timothy Olyphant has shown the charisma necessary to progress the plot as the series goes on and actually provided depth and understanding to the character as well. A Cobb Vanth western would have proven more successful than a show that sought to develop Boba Fett, a character whose greatest strength was the mystery surrounding him.
On the surface, a mysterious gun-slinging bounty hunter sounds like a fantastic subject for a Western TV show. Even with his small amount of screen time in the original Star Wars trilogy, Boba Fett became extremely popular amongst fans because so little was developed with Fett in the movies that there were so many ways to interpret and love the character. This put The Book of Boba Fett in an odd position where the writers could either avoid developing the main character of the show in order to keep the mystery or dig into Boba's character more and risk ruining what drew hoards of Star Wars fans to love the character in the first place. Unfortunately, the problem with The Book of Boba Fett was that it didn't really accomplish either.
This is where Cobb Vanth would serve as a better protagonist in a Mandalorian spinoff like The Book of Boba Fett. Vanth's character did not hinge on the mystery surrounding him and, on the contrary, thrived as a character due to his strong backstory and motivations. Olyphant's portrayal of Cobb Vanth was a charming presence and a character that audiences would look forward to seeing interact with the seedy cast of characters that inhabit Tatooine every week. Hopefully, Disney has learned from The Book of Boba Fett's mistakes and gives more opportunities to characters like Cobb Vanth in the future.
