It’s no secret that I love Boba Fett, and in the spirit of talking about actually enjoying Star Wars instead of nitpicking it to death, I want to talk about the possibilities for Fett’s potential spin-off film!
The Basics:
In the ten-year gap between The Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones, bounty hunter Jango Fett was selected to be the template for an army of clone soldiers who would fight on behalf of the Republic if the need should arise. Jango requested from the Kaminoan scientists a clone for himself, one to raise as a son without the growth acceleration used to raise the army quickly. Boba Fett learned from experience with his father, even accompanying him aboard Slave I while on the run from Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi.
After the death of his father during the First Battle of Geonosis, young Boba would continue learning the bounty hunting trade from Aurra Sing, as well as work with future friends and rivals Bossk and Dengar. Boba encountered fellow clones, who he did not regard as siblings, during pursuit of Mace Windu, the Jedi who killed his father. He also started his own syndicate, escaped a Republic prison, and may have even defeated rival hunter Cad Bane in a heated duel. Fett’s career continued well into the Galactic Civil War, and he would one day be recognized as the greatest bounty hunter in the galaxy by none other than Darth Vader.
At the height of his career, Fett wore a distinct set of Mandalorian armor that had been modified over the years from his father’s original design. Whether or not the Fetts were true Mandalorians themselves or if they followed their traditions remains murky in canon, however in Legends they were both regarded as fierce Mandalorian warriors. If the Fett’s weren’t Mandalorians, their weapons and armor certainly followed Mandalorian style. Boba Fett’s armor was customized to include gauntlet-mounted blasters, a flamethrower, and miniature rocket launcher that could fire a variety of projectiles. His kneepads could fire toxic darts at unsuspecting foes. And when things were particularly tough, Fett could take the fight to the air with his jetpack, which also housed a guided missile launcher. This fearsome hunter could control these weapons as well as summon his further modified Slave I through his helmet displays and wrist computer housed in one of his gauntlets.
Canon and Legends differ on the state of the infamous son of Fett. In Legends, Boba Fett recovers from his apparent death at the Great Pit of Carkoon and continues to help shape galactic events for decades to follow. He kills an imposter to his name, aids and betrays the Yuuzhan Vong, and even becomes Mandalore, leader of all Mandalorians. In Canon, it’s murky as to whether or not Fett escapes the Sarlacc Pit. His armor is found in the sand, having been belched up by the pit. The heavy Mandalorian metal wasn’t able to be digested by the beast. The armor is purchased by a man named Cobb Vanth who becomes a sheriff on Tatooine, protecting the downtrodden from gangsters eager to fill the power void left behind by the slain Jabba the Hutt. Whether Vanth is a new character or Fett acting undercover has not been revealed, but with the potential for a Boba Fett film being considered by Lucasfilm, more may be explained sooner than later.
So, we have all that backstory and more that can be explored in a Fett anthology film. Alden Ehrenreich has a multi-film contract with Disney to play Han Solo, which means that he could cameo in a Fett film. However, this is to be taken with the biggest grain of salt as most of the cast of Rogue One also signed a multi-film contract and all those characters perished onscreen. However, this is done in the case of spin-offs and cameos/other appearances in other projects, so a Solo cameo makes perfect sense if we’re looking at Fett during or just before the classic films. It’s also worth noting that James Mangold is being eyed to direct the spinoff, which should be great news for anyone who loved his take on Wolverine in the film Logan. He can clearly direct an antihero, which is exactly the type of character we’d expect a character like Boba to be portrayed – pragmatic, profit-minded, but with a personal code of honor that dictates what jobs he’ll take on.
The Speculation Awakens:
So, let’s get on with the good stuff – what is this movie going to be about? Who is going to play Boba? Personally I’d love to see Temuera Morrison and/or Daniel Logan come back to play the Fetts again. There’s all kinds of what-ifs in that scenario. Does Temuera only play Jango in flashbacks? Does Boba still sound like Daniel the way he did on Clone Wars? Does he have Daniel’s voice but sound like his dad with the helmet on for some reason? If we can’t get the actors from previous appearances involved, my vote to play Boba would be Manu Bennet. His portrayal of Deathstroke throughout the Arrow television series was spot-on for the character and is proof to me that with a few tweaks here and there, Manu could nail playing another mercenary in a weird helmet.
Whatever they do – be it hunting Jedi after order 66 or showing Boba escape Carkoon – let’s just hope they don’t do that stupid thing involving Mace Windu not really being dead after Palpatine throws him out of a building. . .
Legends Pulls
If Solo proved anything, it proved that Disney creators aren’t afraid to adapt ideas from Star Wars Legends and blend them into canon tales. Boba Fett has no shortage of appearances in Legends that could make great action films. Consider Enemy of the Empire, a comic involving Fett being hired by Darth Vader to track down an Imperial colonel who possesses a strange item that’s worth a fortune to the Empire (by ‘strange item’ I of course mean a dead queen’s head in a box, and she can apparently see the future.) Darth Vader of course trusts no one, not even loyal Fett, and he has assassins on Fett’s tail the entire time. This treachery culminates in Boba Fett fighting Darth Vader atop a volcano, which is the most hardcore thing. . .ever.
Personally I’d love to see any Boba comic adapted to the big screen, Enemy of the Empire included but also Twin Engines of Destruction. After being nursed back to health by Dengar, a post-Sarlacc Boba Fett pursues an imposter. A fellow bounty hunter, Jodo Kast, uses Fett’s name and similar green armor to gain credits and leech off of Boba’s famous career. The real Boba Fett uses a fake name, arranges a fake bounty to lure Kast in, and ambushes the imposter. A battle ensues, ending in Fett leaving Kast to die with his malfunctioning jetpack still strapped to his back, ready to explode. Twin Engines is actually nodded to in canon material. Two characters, Rook Kast (a Mandalorian soldier loyal to Maul’s Shadow Collective) and Veraslayn Kast (a Mandalorian soldier and artist loyal to Death Watch) share the last name Kast, obviously, and could be potential family members of Jodo. However, they don’t appear to even be related to one another, let alone Jodo, so that’s just speculation on my part. Maybe ‘Kast’ is the ‘Smith’ of Mandalore?
Yet another comic, the Blood Ties series, features Boba Fett as well as his father, Jango. In the first arc, Jango’s backstory is explored. Jango questions an escaped clone of himself who left Kamino, who himself has a son named Connor Freeman. Boba later meets Freeman after both their fathers perish, and share the same mission in life – trying to make dead men proud of them. In the second arc, Boba Fett is Dead, we’re treated to a conspiracy involving the death of Boba Fett. An elite hit squad guns Boba down and Connor Freeman is dragged into the ensuing chaos surrounding Fett’s death. The comic was cancelled after only two arcs, however I’d love to see Boba Fett dealing with a clone of himself onscreen. He did so as a child in an arc of the Clone Wars, and it’d be interesting to see if he still views the clones the same way as an adult.
Last but not least, it’s possible that Boba Fett’s story onscreen could come from his cancelled video game, Star Wars: 1313. The game was cancelled partway through its development to much fan outcry and disappointment. The story would center around Boba Fett and the underworld of the Republic capital, Coruscant. Down a giant hole in the cityscape lie hundreds of layers, cities on top of cities stretching from the planet’s buried surface to the tops of its skyscrapers. These deeper layers hide criminal activities in the less economically-sound parts of Coruscant, as well as grimy streets and shady cantinas. Little was known of the game outside concept art of Coruscant, Boba Fett, and his accompanying droid, C-21 Highsinger from Clone Wars. Lucasfilm has been teasing more underworld-themed content like this for quite some time, and perhaps they decided the 1313 story fit better onscreen than in game form? If not, it’s possible that elements of it still might make their way into the Boba Film.
No Good to Me Dead:
Part of the criticism of new Star Wars films is that they aren’t always as new as some feel they should be. So how about some ideas that aren’t based so strongly on content that already exists? Here’s a few thoughts I had about what a Fett film could be about.
My first thought was sort of a fusion of the first Deadpool film and James Mangold’s Logan. Hear me out. I don’t want the movie to break the fourth wall and be funny – instead I want to borrow some structure from Deadpool, telling parts of the story out of order and through flashbacks. This would be an easy way to make the film a Fett film, not just a Boba Fett film, and have flashback cameos by Jango Fett and potentially get Aurra Sing onscreen. Aurra Sing is a fellow bounty hunter and mentor to Boba, but she’s also the closest thing Boba ever had to a mother (that we know of.) There’s also tie-in potential, perhaps having Boba witness his ‘mother’s’ death at the hands of Tobias Beckett, as referenced in Solo. Now, this may sound cynical, but with all those flashbacks the main story might not be as interesting. That’s where I think we might just get space Logan – Boba Fett has to protect someone from point A to point B, and along the way he’s reminded of things his father and Aurra taught him about life, bounty hunting, and so on.
Something else I’m eager to get from a Boba Fett film is finally confirming or denying Fett’s Mandalorian heritage. Clone Wars states that the Mandalorians have no idea how Jango got his armor, and we know that Boba uses his dad’s gear an tweaks it as he goes. So what if the film was about becoming Mandalorian? Perhaps Boba Fett feels some kind of void still years after the loss of his father (and hey, why not Aurra Sing too?) and wants to belong to something bigger than himself? Perhaps he turns to a Mandalorian tribe before throwing in with the Empire. In this instance I would use a Mandalorian supercommando, as seen in Rebels, as a foil to Fett. Fett learns about his heritage and overcomes an inferior copy of a true, tribal Mandalorian. And from there, perhaps destroying a rival supercommando gives him favor in the eyes of Darth Vader, who we know uses Fett’s services quite often.
While we’re confirming lineage, I’d also like to see a film that confirms Fett’s escape from the Sarlacc Pit. This is the most likely outcome of any film I can imagine, as it’s the biggest point of contention regarding Fett’s tough-guy status in the films. We don’t see him do very much onscreen before he falls into the jaws of the pit, so seeing what happens directly after could not only answer questions but also create a new story of Fett redeeming himself after the worst day of his career. In this case, Fett could even work for the Imperial Remnant, taking on a contract to kill or capture Han Solo and other high-ranking New Republic officers.
So I’m excited, when do we get to see this thing? Let’s hope for the best!
Keep on trooping,
-Supreme Leader David
TheEmpiresElite.com 