Where did Boba Fett get his fly armor? He was originally supposed to be Anakin's brother?
Eaten by a Sarlaac TWICE? See how the baddest bounty hunter in the
galaxy became the Boba Fett that we know and love.
It may be hard for Fett fanatics to fathom, but George Lucas had no idea that Boba Fett would
become a fan-favorite. On the "Return of the Jedi" commentary track, he said
"In the case of Boba Fett's death, had I known he was gonna turn into such a popular character,
I probably would've made it a little bit more exciting. He became such a favorite of
everybody's that, for having such a small part, he had a very large presence.
And now that his history has been told in the first trilogy, it makes it even
more of a misstep that we wouldn't make more out of the event of his defeat."
It's an interesting admission from Lucas, because it answers the age-old question of why such a cool
character experienced such an ignominious end. The short answer: to Lucas, Fett’s death deserved as
little attention as any of the other thugs and aliens that Luke and his friends dispatched.
"Return of the Jedi" editor Duwayne Dunham,
who was the first person to wear the Boba Fett armor in a 1978 screen test,
said in 2014 that he and others tried to talk Lucas out of killing Fett in such a dumb way.
"We kinda mounted a protest saying 'You can't do that to Boba Fett!
He's deserving of more!' But they threw him in."
Lucas also admitted on the "Return of the Jedi" commentary track that
he almost added a new scene during the Special Edition revamps in the
1990's which would have seen Fett emerging alive from the Sarlacc Pit.
"I'd contemplated putting in that extra shot where he climbs out of the hole,
but y'know I figure that's [...] it doesn't quite fit, in the end."
Ultimately, fans are probably thankful. After all,
Fett's re-emergence in "Mandalorian" wouldn't have been nearly as effective
if fans had already seen him climb out of the Sarlacc's mouth in the late '90s.
"You were dead."
"She was left for dead on the sands on Tatooine,
as was I. But fate sometimes steps in to rescue the wretched."
Of course, by the time the "Return of the Jedi" Special Edition came out in 1997,
fans had already seen Boba Fett emerge from the Sarlacc Pit alive.
The only problem is that he immediately fell back in it.
The story happened in the officially licensed "Star Wars" comic book series from Marvel Comics.
In "Star Wars" #81, which is the first story to take place after the end of "Return of the Jedi,"
Fett escapes by being violently burped up. Injured and dazed, some nearby Jawas pick him up and put
him inside their massive Sandcrawler. Inside is also R2-D2, whom Han Solo, Leia, and Luke
eventually rescue from the speeding crawler. At one point, Han finds Fett and tries to help him,
but Fett attacks and is left behind as the Sandcrawler speeds right into the Sarlacc Pit.
So why did this happen? According to some sources,
writer Jo Duffy desperately wanted to use Boba Fett, but the only way LucasFilm would
allow it was if she put him right back into the Pit when she was done with him. Bummer.
It's somewhat ironic that George Lucas decided not to add in new scenes of Boba Fett escaping
the Sarlacc PIt because he thought it would be out of place, as many fans feel the scenes he did add
with Boba Fett are among the most contrived additions to the entire revamped trilogy.
And that's saying a lot, because while some of the changes in the Special Edition were simple
effects tweaks done to enhance the film with new technology, or restoring lost footage,
others changed important character moments, most famously by having Greedo
shoot first instead of Han during their confrontation at the Mos Eisley cantina.
The first new Fett footage was added to "A New Hope" during the cantina sequence,
where Han runs into Jabba the Hutt shortly after shooting Greedo. The scene was filmed
way back in the 70s for the original film, but had been cut because the effects for
Jabba weren't good enough. When it was restored in the 90's with CGI, though,
in addition to Jabba they also added in Boba Fett just as a sort of Easter Egg for fans.
It's his appearance in "Return of the Jedi," though, that some Fett fanatics despise.
Lucas added a short bit with Fett leering at
Jabba's dancers and playfully touching a dancer on the chin as he walks out.
What's wrong with this, you ask? A large part of what made Boba Fett scary was that
he seemed to have no human weaknesses or vices, just a relentless dedication
to his goal. These Special Edition tweaks, however, present him just like any other guy,
distracted by the beautiful women around him. While this does open the door for fan theories
about his getting knocked into the Sarlacc because he was distracted by Leia's gold bikini,
it also reveals that years after Lucas was first surprised by the fan love for the character,
he still didn't understand what made the aloof bounty hunter so cool in the first place.
You can tell by looking at Fett that he's pretty well-armored and carries a lot of gear.
His go-to weapon is an EE-3 carbine rifle. Also close at hand are a
disruptor pistol and a concussion grenade launcher. Then there's the flamethrower,
dart launcher, fiber-cord wrist launcher gauntlet, vibro-blades, concussive rocket, and a jetpack.
Fett's helmet also allows for full 360-degree vision. It interfaces with his ship's computer,
provides water, can seal against changes in atmospheric pressure, record video,
and amplify sound. The armor itself is designed to
resist the elements and minimize impact from anything including blaster fire,
while the gauntlets are decked out with a host of different types of rockets — most of which are
meant to stun rather than kill, since a bounty hunter can't get paid if he blows up his prey.
Of course, most of this never made it onto film and, realistically,
Fett did almost nothing in the original trilogy beyond looking pretty cool and
then selling Han Solo down the river to Jabba. But it was a love of the character's
potential that inspired later "Star Wars" writers to flesh him out in other projects.
Besides his iconic armor, Boba Fett also flies a very specific ship,
which boasts a different design from other ships in the "Star Wars" universe.
And it also used to boast a very specific name as well: Slave-1.
Though the ship is never called Slave-1 by name in any of the live action films, the designation was
used in Extended Universe projects like toys, video games, comics, and cartoons for decades.
However, in 2021 the new LEGO Star Wars Mandalorian sets came out, and the ship was just
called "Boba Fett's Starship." In an interview with Jedi news, the LEGO Star Wars designers said
that the name Slave-1, quote, "is just something that Disney doesn't want to use anymore."
Of course, some fans were internet-outraged, but by any name, it's still a cool ship. "Boba Fett's
Starship" is a Republic-era Firespray-31-class spacecraft previously owned by Fett's father,
Jango Fett, during the Clone Wars. Like Fett's portable armory of tools and weapons on his
person, the "Starship" is highly-customized and armed to the teeth with both subtle and striking
weaponry. One of the most unique features of the "Starship" is its ability to rotate on a gimbal,
flying vertically in the air and space while landing horizontally — all while
keeping the pilot's seat and cargo area facing upright.
There are many different languages in Star Wars,
and a special code shared between Boba Fett and his father, Jango Fett, is one of them.
First identified as a specific language in a 2019 video on the Star Wars Kids YouTube channel
titled "Every Language in Star Wars," Fett Code is briefly heard in "Episode II:
Attack of the Clones," when Obi-Wan Kenobi meets the two at their home on Kamino.
Jango speaks to his son in Fett Code as Obi-Wan questions the bounty hunter about
any recent trips to Coruscant and his feelings about the clone army created in his image.
It's not clear exactly what Jango tells his son in Fett Code, but it's clear it
was instruction to close a nearby closet containing Jango's Mandalorian armor.
[speaking in Fett Code]
The code is never heard or spoken of again,
implying that Fett Code was probably created by Jango to privately converse with his son.
Boba Fett isn't a born and raised Mandalorian, but that hasn't stopped
him from being the armored fighter everyone thinks of when they think of Mandalorians.
Fett is an exact clone of his father, Jango, who was a foundling of the Mandalorians. Foundlings
were a key part of Mandalorian culture, in which the planet's warriors adopted orphaned children
and raised them as Mandalorians. Din Djarin in "The Mandalorian" is, similarly, a foundling.
Jango's traditional Mandalorian armor is passed down to Fett, following the former bounty hunter's
death at the hands of Jedi Mace Windu. The original armor was all-over silver Beskar
metal with the helmet featuring blue stripes along the viewpoints. Fett later customized his
father's armor with new green and red paint and added even more tools and weapons to his belt.
In "The Mandalorian," Fett is open about not being Mandalorian
but still wearing the armor because it was given to him by his father.
"Your father was a foundling?"
"Yes. He even fought in the Mandalorian civil wars."
"Then that armor belongs to you."
This strange anecdote actually came from Luke Skywalker himself, Mark Hamill.
In Twitter exchanges in 2018, Hamill shared that he once pitched to Star Wars creator
George Lucas to have the Fett character be Luke's real mother underneath the helmet.
"I have always been more than willing to generously share my many, many terrible
ideas in the off-chance we might stumble across one that could actually be useful."
Hamill also said the suggestion was, quote, "the only way we could top Vader being my father" and
that he pictured the character "as a double-agent working clandestinely for the Rebels."
Boba Fett may not have been revealed as Luke Skywalker's mother, but the
bounty hunter was almost written as Anakin Skywalker's stepbrother.
In the book "Skywalking: The Life and Films of George Lucas," it is revealed that Lucas
considered making Fett and Anakin related. Though the biography came out in 1983,
Lucas was reportedly already considering ideas for prequel films to his original trilogy. According
to Lucas's ex-wife Marcia, quote, "George had Boba Fett and Vader being brothers in the prequels."
But the idea was ultimately deemed silly and scrapped. Anakin Skywalker did have
a stepbrother however, in Owen Lars. Owen was the stepson of Shmi Skywalker,
Anakin's mother. Owen and his wife Beru took a baby Luke Skywalker in
after the death of Padme Amidala and Anakin's transition to the dark side.
Before Disney bought Lucasfilm and subsequently scrapped several Star Wars projects,
Boba Fett was planned as the main character of the dark action game "Star Wars 1313,"
and was also the intended subject of a "Solo"-esque standalone film.
The video game was set among the darker sides of the galaxy, on Coruscant's Level 1313,
with players first assuming the role of an unnamed bounty hunter and then playing as Fett. When the
game was introduced at E3 in 2012, creators said players would use "exotic" weapons to help Fett
investigate a criminal conspiracy in the darkest, lowest levels of the planet-wide metropolis.
A more recent Fett-focused offering was the reported standalone film,
similar to "Solo." Though the project was never formally announced, rumors swirled in 2013 and
again in 2018 that Disney and Lucasfilm had been working on a Boba Fett movie with director James
Mangold. But later that year, entertainment outlets confirmed the Fett movie was no more.
Around the same time, Disney and Lucasfilm began heavily promoting the space western
series "The Mandalorian" on Disney+, so it can likely be assumed that plot
points/characters in that Fett film either overlapped with the "Mandalorian" mythology
or were perceived to potentially contradict it. At the end of the day, Fett's resurrection
would come solely via "The Mandalorian," and will continue with "The Book of Boba Fett."
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