Why does everyone love Boba Fett?
The original trilogy is full of iconic
characters that people recognize just as much today as they did when the movies
first came out. Characters like Luke Skywalker, Darth Vader, Yoda, Chewbacca
and R2-D2 have become so massive that even people who’ve never seen a Star Wars movie know who they are.
But there’s one character that is
regarded by many as being on the same level as these characters and others by
being a massively overrated plot point. This is, of course, Boba Fett.
Boba Fett first appeared in what
everyone unanimously considers to be the absolute pinnacle of Star Wars entertainment: The Star Wars Holiday Special. Fett debuts
in a cartoon midway through the Special where he first claims to want to help
Luke and friends before ultimately revealing his allegiance to Vader and the
Empire and…just kind of leaving. The Holiday
Special never really makes much sense, to be honest.
Fett’s first proper Star Wars appearance outside of comics
and disastrous Christmas specials was, of course, his role in Empire Strikes Back. He was included as
a sort of foil for Han the same way Vader is a foil for Luke. The thing about
him in Empire is that he earns a
grand total of six minutes and thirty-two seconds of screentime, alongside only
five lines. Similarly, in Return of the
Jedi he is only in the opening Jabba’s Palace scenes, gets zero lines aside
from a scream, and dies in the most ridiculously over-the-top way possible.
Honestly, Boba Fett is a little more
than a glorified background character in the Original Trilogy. So how’d he
become one of the most popular characters outside of the movies?
I’ve always figured a lot of it is
thanks to his character design. Just as Vader’s suit and the Stormtrooper armor
have iconic designs recognizable anywhere, the Boba Fett helmet is so famous
that everyone knows it. He’s also the only character in the Original Trilogy
that uses an awesome jetpack, and the design of his ship, the Slave I, is one of the most original in
the entire saga.
So is that it? Do people love this guy
because he has a cool armor design and ship? This doesn’t excuse non-existent
character development.
Well, actually it kind of did. Another
reason why people seem to love Boba is because he didn’t really have a defining
character in the originals. He’s a blank slate, a mysteriously quiet character free
to build and expand on. All we know for sure about him is that he’s the best
bounty hunter in the business, one that, according to Vader, is pretty adept at
disintegrating his victims. Boba Fett is cool the same way Darth Maul is cool:
they’re badass, but they don’t go around tooting their own horn. While
characters like Vader or Kylo Ren are great villains because of their intense
power and connections to the main characters, Boba Fett is cool because he
manages to be intimidating when you know absolutely nothing about the guy.
This mystery led Expanded Universe
authors to come by the droves to write the next chapter in Fett’s storyline.
There have been countless stories about what happened to Boba in between the
Prequel and Original Trilogies, plus what happened after he inevitably escaped
the Pit of Carkoon after Return of the
Jedi. There are so many stories about him that his Legends Canon page on
Wookieepedia makes C-3PO’s look paltry by comparison. He’s also made frequent
appearances in the new canon as well, especially featuring in a major arc of
the comics. While he’s not out of the sarlacc pit just yet, even Lucasfilm has
admitted that it’s only a matter of time before some author writes him out of
there.
Boba Fett is such an enigma in so many
ways. For a character with barely any screentime compared to other major figures
in the Star Wars saga to grow to such
enormous popularity is something I doubt anyone working on the films ever
expected. I personally like him and his design, although I don’t prefer him to
some of the more interesting villains from the series. I’m really looking
forward to seeing how the Star Wars braintrust
incorporates him into the new canon and whether he’ll survive to see the rise
of the First Order. I personally would like to see an Anthology film about his
reaction to how the galaxy changed without him while he was trapped in the
sarlacc pit, as I’ve mentioned before. Whether they go with my idea or not, I’m
sure we’ll see more of everyone’s favourite Mandalorian before long.
BREAKING NEWS
As Star
Wars Celebration draws ever closer, we’ve been getting tidbits of
information from Disney as to what they’re planning next for their movies. This
week we got a little bit of news about what we’ll be seeing in the
still-unnamed Han Solo movie. According to Disney CEO Bob Iger, we’ll be seeing
how Han got the Falcon, how he met
Chewie, and even…how he got his name!?
Yes, apparently we’ve all been duped
for forty years, and Han Solo’s name isn’t actually Han Solo. What his real
name is or why he changed it is something we’ll probably have to wait until 2018
to find out, but it’s fun to speculate on. I’m personally hoping that it turns
out he was secretly Jar Jar Binks all this time.
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