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Boba Fett |
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 Boba Fett
Overview
Boba Fett's first appearance on-screen was in a cartoon as part of The Star Wars Holiday Special, an element of Star Wars that apparently George Lucas would prefer to have forgotten. His popularity and mystique are also contributed to by the fact that Kenner released a Boba Fett action figure before The Empire Strikes Back was released.
His first live appearance in a Star Wars movie was in The Empire Strikes Back, in which his name is not actually heard in the dialogue. He is first seen as one of a group of bounty hunters hired by Darth Vader to track down Han Solo and the crew of the Millennium Falcon ("I want them alive. No disintegrations!"). He was the only hunter to figure out how the Falcon eluded Imperial pursuit by hiding among garbage and tracked the ship to Cloud City on Bespin, thus allowing Darth Vader to arrive first and arrange a "deal" with Lando Calrissian and secure the capture of Solo and the crew. (Attack of the Clones revealed a possible reason for this, as Obi-Wan Kenobi in that film pulls a similar trick on his father, Jango Fett, in the asteroid belt rings surrounding Geonosis.) Fett stayed at Vader's side as the Dark Lord tortured Han Solo in an attempt to draw Luke Skywalker into a trap. In addition to the reward for Solo's capture from the Empire, Vader allowed Boba Fett to take Han Solo, frozen in carbonite, back to Jabba to receive an additional reward, claiming two bounties on the same man. Fett's dialogue in The Empire Strikes Back, indeed in the entire original trilogy, consisted of the lines "As you wish", "He's no good to me dead", "What if he doesn't survive? He's worth a lot to me" and "Put Captain Solo in the cargo hold", in that order.
In Return of the Jedi, Boba Fett was at Jabba the Hutt's palace when Luke, Princess Leia, and Chewbacca rescued Han from his carbonite prison. Fett remained on-guard, but found his stay entertaining, flirting with dancers and even laughing along with Jabba as Luke battled the vicious rancor. When Luke killed the monster, an outraged Jabba sentenced Luke, Han and Chewbacca to be cast into the Pit of Carkoon where the ghastly Sarlacc lived. Luke staged his own rescue and Fett attempted to stop them along with several of Jabba's hapless guards. While he fired at Luke, in his obsession with killing Jedi he failed to notice that Solo, still blind from hibernation sickness, accidentally activated Fett's jet pack, rocketing him against the sail barge and down to the sand, rolling right into the waiting maw of the Sarlacc.
When the special edition of Star Wars was released in 1997, a scene with Han Solo, and Jabba the Hutt was added to the film, before the Millennium Falcon took off from Mos Eisley, in which Boba Fett is shown in Jabba's retinue to improve the trilogy's continuity.
Boba Fett's origin is revealed in Attack of the Clones. Boba is the son of legendary bounty hunter Jango Fett, one of the last of the Mandalorians, or more specifically, Boba is a clone of his "father." Jango Fett was hired by Count Dooku to be the template of an entire army of clones, all of which would be altered to be docile, obedient, and grow at twice the rate of normal men. Boba was the only unmodified clone and was raised by Jango to learn the Mandalorian ways on the stormy planet Kamino, home of the master cloners. When Boba was only ten, Obi-Wan Kenobi arrived on Kamino to investigate an assassination linked with Jango, and the Fetts fled to Geonosis to join Count Dooku and the Separatists forming the Confederacy of Independent Systems. Kenobi, along with Anakin Skywalker and Padmé Amidala, were to be executed in the Geonosian arena. Boba watched with interest, but the ceremonies were interrupted by the arrival of several Jedi led by Mace Windu. In the ensuing battle, Jango Fett was slain by Windu. Boba buried his father on Geonosis and took his armor and ship to start his own life as a Mandalorian bounty hunter.
Actors
Boba Fett was played by Jeremy Bulloch in both The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi and voiced by Jason Wingreen in Empire Strikes Back (his only line in Return of the Jedi was a scream). A young Boba was played by Daniel Logan in Attack of the Clones. In a controversial move met with mixed reviews, the 2004 DVD re-release of the Star Wars Trilogy had Wingreen's voice replaced by Temuera Morrison, who played Jango Fett in Attack of the Clones, the reasoning being that as a clone of Jango, Boba should sound like him as well.
Expanded Universe
In the Expanded Universe sources, Boba Fett escaped the Sarlacc largely unharmed and resumed his career.
Some of Boba Fett's character in the Expanded Universe is sometimes thought to have been compromised by revelations in Attack of the Clones, but the literature still manages to entertain and reveal aspects of Fett's life not discussed in the films. When Boba's clone origins were first revealed in 2002, they appeared to contradict a few Expanded Universe stories that had preceded them. Following the stunning revelation of Attack of the Clones, however, new Expanded Universe stories retconned the apparent discrepancies in Fett's past, attempting to smooth out the major contradictions that had arisen as a result of the film.
In a young adult novel series set shortly after Attack of the Clones, Boba sought out Darth Tyranus to claim the rest of his father's payment. He spent a short amount of time in the custody of the Sith Lord before venturing on his own to begin his career at an early age, already making modifications to both the Slave I and the Mandalorian armor inherited from his father. He met his future employer Jabba the Hutt, fought the Separatist commander-in-chief General Grievous (and lost), and had several minor bounties under his belt before the age of thirteen.
Boba Fett also made a cameo appearance in The Unifying Force, the conclusion of the New Jedi Order series.
In addition to The Unifying Force, Boba Fett is a prominent figure in the Star Wars novels, comics, and games. Initially, the novels revealed tidbits of Boba's past—that he was once a Journeyman Protector called Jaster Mereel, an alias he took to honor his father's mentor.
Boba Fett is garbed in traditional Mandalorian armor with a string of Wookiee scalps at his shoulder and owns a variety of specially-modified starcraft bearing the names Slave I through IV. Despite his weapon-laden suit of armor, Fett is a subtle hunter and relies more on his cunning and intelligence than on pure muscle and combat skill. Speaking with a raspy, gravelly voice, Fett allows few to see his face and even fewer to know his origins, giving the hunter a mysterious aura and a psychological edge over his prey. Though Boba is a perfect genetic clone of Jango Fett, a different lifestyle has produced some changes from his father's appearance: while Jango was focused on combat skill, Boba's emphasis on wit over muscle has given him a thinner build. Even with the thinner build, Boba is usually operating at peak human strength (Boba has enough strength to hold his own against massively strong foes such as Bossk) as seen in the Bounty Hunter Wars trilogy. Boba's face remains hidden, but it is a given that he looks more or less like his father did, but beyond his actual features, Boba's face may have more or fewer scars, tattoos, or less facial hair. Even if Jango's face is well-known among fans, it only gives a very basic idea of what Boba may look like.
There is a long-standing belief that Darth Vader and Boba Fett have an unspoken mutual respect for each other (ironically, Boba was eager to see Anakin die in the arena in Attack of the Clones). The bounty hunter is sometimes considered to be the closest thing Vader has to a right-hand man, even though Fett and Vader were at odds (with Fett actually in the position to kill Vader) in the Enemy of the Empire story arc taking place a few years before A New Hope. In The Empire Strikes Back, Fett is seen questioning Vader in an informal manner, a deed which would probably get an Imperial officer strangled.
Likewise, Fett has a grudge of sorts against Han Solo. Few details are known, but Solo, along with Kyle Katarn, is among the only people to elude capture by Fett on multiple occasions. And, that is a good reason, for Fett is notorious for completely disintegrating those whom he has been hired to track down and kill.
As revealed in the Star Wars Marvel comics series, Boba Fett was believed to have served with a group of Supercommandos from the planet Mandalore towards the end of the Clone Wars. According to reports, only three Mandalorians survived: Boba Fett, Tobbi Dala, and Fenn Shysa. However, it was later revealed that this "Boba Fett" was not Boba Fett at all, but a rogue ARC trooper named Spar who had become obsessed with returning the Mandalorians to their former glory. Not long after the Clone Wars had ended, Boba visited his father's homeworld of Concord Dawn, and joined the ranks of the Journeyman Protectors under the name of Jaster Mereel. He was exiled from that planet after he killed a fellow Protector. Following this incident, he enrolled at-or infiltrated-the Imperial Academy on Carida. He became a stormtrooper, but deserted after he killed his commanding officer.
Boba Fett played a prominent role in the miniseries Dark Empire where it was revealed that he had survived the Sarlacc and continued his hunt for Han Solo. The story of Boba's first escape and recovery (there were three of them) is documented mainly in the Bounty Hunter Wars trilogy and the anthology book Tales From Jabba's Palace. Interestingly enough, Fett was found lying outside the Sarlacc pit by a fellow bounty hunter named Dengar, whom Boba had previously left to die earlier on in the novel Tales of the Bounty Hunters. Boba Fett also played a prominent role in the comic book version of Shadows of the Empire and has had several comic book miniseries.
During the Yuuzhan Vong invasion, Boba Fett returned to the galactic scene as Mandalore, leading a new group of Mandalorian Crusaders and restoring their legacy to the galaxy.
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