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George Lucas on Boba Fett

EviLore

Expansive Ellipses
Staff Member
qsPTCkQ.jpeg


Source: Star Wars Costumes: The Original Trilogy book
 
I always loved his intro in Empire. Vader has all these badass bounty hunters on his bridge to hunt the Falcon. He specifically stops in front of Fett to point and say “No disintergration.”

Then when all the jobbers go on their merry way, his ship was literally ejected with the trash and instantly starts tailing Han. Motherfucker KNEW where he was, he just s just that damn good.
 

Toots

Gold Member
Boba Fett is subversion of expectations done right.
At first you think this badass bounty hunter will play a huge part in Star Wars, then he gets sarlaaced.
 

ManaByte

Gold Member
qsPTCkQ.jpeg


Source: Star Wars Costumes: The Original Trilogy book

There's more context to this in Rinzler's Making of Return of the Jedi. READ THOSE BOOKS! They're amazing.

In 1982 when they were developing ROTJ George was dealing with his divorce and he was super stressed out. He didn't want to deal with figuring out what to do with Boba Fett in the third movie so he told them to toss him into the Sarlacc.

He regretted it later and said he almost put a shot in the Return of the Jedi Special Edition of him crawling out of the Sarlacc:

"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. Boba Fett was just another one of the minions, another one of the bounty hunters and bad guys. 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 [Lucas' Star Wars prequels], it makes it even more of a misstep that we wouldn't make more out of the event of his defeat because most people don't believe he died anyway."

"I'd contemplated putting in that extra shot in [Return of the Jedi] where he climbs out of the hole, but I figured that it doesn't quite fit, in the end."
 
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Boba fett used to be really cool because I didn't know anything about him. He walked around like a bad ass, the only person to really stand up to Vader, had a unique armor and ship, he barely spoke and was a cool design.

I liked him because he was a mystery. Soon as they explained him, showed his face, having him speak more and so on he stopped being as cool. Lucas took the mystery away in attack of the clones, and the mandolorian show ruined him.
 
I judge you harshly on whether you think Boba Fett is actually a character or not.

He appears, looks brooding, fires at someone, gets fired back at and goes "OH SHIT" and flies off on his jetpack. That's his character.
 
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The Cockatrice

I'm retarded?
I actually liked some of the Boba Fett episodes, the one with the tusken raiders for example. No idea why everyone hated that. The kids stuff with the bikes was garbage, no doubt.
 

Doom85

Member
Fett was cool in the OT, it was Disney that ruined him.
I always loved his intro in Empire. Vader has all these badass bounty hunters on his bridge to hunt the Falcon. He specifically stops in front of Fett to point and say “No disintergration.”

Then when all the jobbers go on their merry way, his ship was literally ejected with the trash and instantly starts tailing Han. Motherfucker KNEW where he was, he just s just that damn good.

I never thought Fett was cool. He came off as a try hard compared to the actual cool antagonist: Vader.

Vader having to explain to a bounty hunter whose purpose is to collect a body that can be identified to not DISINTEGRATE the bounty doesn’t make Fett look cool, it makes him look like the biggest dumbass ever.

”I’ve brought the target.”
”……and where is he?”
”Well, a few of his ashes are on me, so I did bring him, rest assured. It’s not like people with bounties would ever go into hiding and I could be bullshitting you. So, where’s my money?”
”GET OUT.”

And I was a dumb kid when I saw Empire and when the Imperials were all, “the ship vanished! But it doesn’t have a cloaking device! What happened?!” I almost instantly thought, “couldn’t the Falcon just land on the Star Destroyer?” I’m not impressed by Fett figuring out what even a kid could piece together and thus the script made the Imperials morons (who actually live in this universe of spaceships, so they really should have figured out what Han did) just so Fett could look “smart”.

And him walking up next to Vader in the Cloud City dining room. Always seemed so non-intimidating compared to Vader. Like you have the bully from Christmas Story, that’s Vader, then there’s that other kid who hangs with the bully to look scarier than he actually is by himself, that’s Fett to me.

So yeah, him going out like a loser because a clueless half-blind guy turned around out felt quite appropriate to me. Only made more hilarious when we see him as a silly kid in AOTC. I detested seeing Anakin as a kid, should have started with him as a teen, but seeing Boba Fett go, “yeah, get him, dad!” I was laughing my ass off since I didn’t care about Boba anyway.

We all know who the real badass who should have stayed alive longer and been properly fleshed out more (in the films themselves) is.

the phantom menace GIF by Star Wars
 

Kraz

Member
I actually liked some of the Boba Fett episodes, the one with the tusken raiders for example. No idea why everyone hated that. The kids stuff with the bikes was garbage, no doubt.
I started rewatching the show yesterday and that was one of the better parts with so much potential. They had a chance for a Dune inspired bringing tribes together uprising with Boba as their leader to the interstellar worlds. Even had vision lizards. Not that Boba had to be Paul, he could still be Boba, motivations from his own experiences, easily more clear lines of personality change than what they did, and it could be distinctly told in Star Wars.

The writers room for these established shows require detailed evolving wide horizon world architecture for intense mirco character builders to expand into, thrive and discover the stories with the audience. They need to work together to develop a charater like that as a falling pebble that leads into an avalanche of star wars. Which shows like Andor and Ahsoka appear to have with theirs. Ahsoka I would say is more successful since I imagine it wouldn't require a Terry Tate Imperial Linebacker action figure to make the toys interesting with kids: "You know you need a cover page with your Rebel report, Syril! That ain't new, baby! Hi, Dedra."
 
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Mossybrew

Banned
Boba fett used to be really cool because I didn't know anything about him. He walked around like a bad ass, the only person to really stand up to Vader, had a unique armor and ship, he barely spoke and was a cool design.

I liked him because he was a mystery. Soon as they explained him, showed his face, having him speak more and so on he stopped being as cool. Lucas took the mystery away in attack of the clones, and the mandolorian show ruined him.
Yeah, all true, exactly the problem. They should have just left him as this kinda background mystery character. That's the kind of character that made the SW world cool, that there was this whole universe of weirdos out there doing their own thing and you might only get a small glimpse of them, your imagination could fill out the rest.
 

Mattdaddy

Gold Member
PLUS, he actually kinda backsasses Vader and doesn’t even get called out on it, he gets assured he’ll be taken care of.

“He’s no good to me dead.”

“The Empire will compensate you if he dies.”

Even Vader wanted to keep him happy!

Dude Ive always loved that and felt like it flew under the radar. He doesn't back down from Vader and Vader respects it and actually negotiates with him.

99.9% of the rest of the universe would of caught a force choke for that line.
 
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Fett in the 80's and 90's was great. I still remember getting his trading card for my 10th birthday, which I have to this day:

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1980-2002 RIP.
 

Trilobit

Member
I don’t mind the idea of Boba Fett somehow surviving, I do mind them turning him into an elderly bald bulky kiwi who becomes a sand people then recruits the power rangers

The sand people part was actually the best part of the show, but I get what you mean. I wanted Fett traveling around doing real bountyhunting as a contrast to the babysitting Mando. Where Mando has a heart of gold, Fett should have been an antihero with a heart of ice, but with a few redeeming qualities. They literally only needed to have a show with the Man With No Name in space and I would have been content. Instead they thought it was a good idea to have him run some kind of crime empire on Tatooine where he stays put in the most overdone part of the galaxy and doesn't even know the first thing about being a criminal leader.

Imagine a scene. He steps into a bar all silent, some thugs around him start giving him a hard time. He keeps ignoring them, finishes his bhiskey on the frocks and steps outside. They follow him and keep pestering him. He swirls around faster than lightning launching six shots on them and starts walking away before they've even hit the ground. Next scene is on his Slave I where he takes up a bounty and off we go without having heard him say even one word yet.
 
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I sometimes wonder if the amount of good decisions with the original trilogy and the amount of bad decisions with the prequel trilogy perfectly balance each other out.

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Gp1

Member
Tarkin also kept Vader on a leash. Consequently, Tarkin is pretty cool.

In the first movie Vader is more of a emperor's envoy/super soldier, just so that he force choke the other officer at the table to exert authority. Tarkin simply say, stop with this bullshit you two.

Imo Tarkin is the main villain and the representative of Empire's bureaucracy and war machine.
 
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NecrosaroIII

Ultimate DQ Fan
In the first movie Vader is more of a emperor's envoy/super soldier, just so that he force choke the other officer at the table to exert authority. Tarkin simply say, stop with this bullshit you two.

Imo Tarkin is the main villain and the representative of Empire's bureaucracy and war machine.
Thats my favorite scene in the whole series. The bureaucratic horror combined with the space magic. There is a shot of an officer watching Vader choke out the dude with fascination.

A brilliantly conceived and executed scene.
 
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