As teased in an end-credit sequence following the season 2 finale of The Mandalorian, Boba Fett’s journey will continue in The Book of Boba Fett, a new Disney+ Original Series produced by Jon Favreau, Dave Filoni, and Robert Rodriguez. Set within the timeline of The Mandalorian and starring Temuera Morrison as the titular bounty hunter, along with Ming-Na Wen as Fennec Shand, The Book of Boba Fett is currently in production and will arrive December 2021 on Disney+.
As a massive Boba Fett fan, this is a total dream come true. While the official announcement states the series is set during the events of The Mandalorian, the title suggests the show may have some anthology elements, like Dark Horse Comics’ Star Wars Tales or those classic books of the Expanded Universe era like Tales From Jabba’s Palace and Tales of the Bounty Hunters.
If the show utilizes a framing technique that has Boba reminiscing on his life and career as the galaxy’s most notorious bounty hunter, we may get to see some fabled moments from the character’s past that will disintegrate (in a good way) the hearts and minds of diehard Fett fans everywhere. Here are some people, places, and things that really, really should appear in the upcoming series.
Cad Bane, Cold and Cruel
A ruthless bounty hunter from the planet Duro, Cad Bane was the top blaster-for-hire during the Clone Wars. Based on Lee Van Cleef’s “Angel Eyes” from The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly, the cold and calculating hunter specialized in fighting Jedi and was hired by many of the galaxy’s most unsavory, including the Confederacy of Independent Systems, Jabba the Hutt, and Darth Sidious.
Before the cancelation of The Clone Wars in 2013, Cad Bane was set to appear in a four-episode arc with Boba Fett. The two were going to team up for a “rescue mission” on Tatooine, where Tusken Raiders had kidnapped a child. The team-up would have emphasized Boba’s and Cad’s relation to one another, as Bane was a rival of Boba’s father, Jango Fett.
In a clip revealed during the Animated Origins and Unexpected Fates panel at Celebration Orlando in 2017, Cad Bane and a young Boba Fett (voiced by Attack of the Clones actor Daniel Logan) engage in a duel where Fett’s helmet gets its signature dent and Bane is presumably killed, making way for Boba Fett to take over his mantle as the baddest bounty hunter in the galaxy. Maybe Logan could even play a young Boba!
It would be so awesome to see Cad Bane brought to life in live-action, complete with Corey Burton’s unmistakable voice work, and witness the duel Filoni previously conceived in which the old gunslinger falls to the young up-and-coming hunter. Certainly, killing his former mentor (not too dissimilar from Han Solo shooting first and killing Tobias Beckett in Solo: A Star Wars Story) would be a major chapter in The Book of Boba Fett.
A Wretched Hive of Scum and Villainy
In The Clone Wars, a young Boba joined up with a team of bounty hunters, including Aurra Sing and Bossk, to have his revenge against Mace Windu for Jango’s death. Together, Boba and the bounty hunters crafted a plan to assassinate the Jedi Master aboard the Republic vessel Endurance. The plan failed, however, thanks to Jedi Master Plo Koon and Padawan Ahsoka Tano. Slave 1 went down in a fiery explosion while Fett and Bossk were taken into custody and imprisoned on Coruscant.
Meanwhile, Hondo Ohnaka – the Weequay pirate who appears at Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge – took ownership of Slave 1 for a period of time. After prison, Boba Fett reacquired his father’s ship and formed the bounty hunter syndicate Krayt’s Claw using Tatooine as his base of operations. As part of the syndicate, Boba worked with Bossk, Dengar, and even Asajj Ventress, the former Sith assassin turned bounty hunter.
I would love to see Hondo make an appearance in The Book of Boba Fett, alongside classic characters like Bossk, Dengar, IG-88, 4-LOM, and Zuckuss, as well as Clone Wars faves like Aurra Sing (played by Jaime King) and Embo. Also, considering that Fennec Shand will appear in the upcoming The Bad Batch animated series and The Book of Boba Fett, it would be exciting to see her mix it up with these legendary hunters and further flesh out her backstory with Boba Fett.
It doesn’t all have to happen in flashbacks, either. With Boba Fett killing Bib Fortuna and taking over Jabba’s Palace, the notorious hunter may come face-to-face with old friends and enemies in his bid to form a new crime syndicate and take over the underworld.
The Vile Gangster, Jabba the Hutt
Speaking of Jabba’s Palace, it would be an absolute gift to see the vile gangster himself make an appearance in The Book of Boba Fett. As far as canon goes, we don’t yet know the specifics of how and when Fett came to work for Jabba, only that he became one of the crime lord’s go-to mercenaries during the events of the Original Trilogy.
A flashback showing Boba Fett’s first job for Jabba the Hutt could be a showcase for his skills as a hunter and also create opportunities for run-ins with other up-and-coming hunters like Greedo or a young Han Solo (ideally played once again by Alden Ehrenreich). Depending on the time frame, he could also encounter Crimson Dawn’s Dryden Vos (Paul Bettany), Qi’ra (Emilia Clarke), or even Darth Maul himself.
There’s been a #MakeSolo2Happen movement within the Star Wars fandom for a couple of years now and while I don’t think we’ll get another theatrical film or a Disney+ series focused on the smuggler himself, it seems totally reasonable that characters and cast members from Ron Howard‘s 2018 film could continue to show up in other series.
After all, Lando Calrissian, the galaxy’s favorite scoundrel, is set to return in Lando, a brand-new event series for Disney+, and while there hasn’t been an official announcement, it’s highly likely that Donald Glover will reprise his role. Who knows, maybe Fett and Jabba will show up there too?
The Almighty Sarlacc
The story of how Boba Fett escapes the Sarlacc is a complicated one. In canon, we’ve yet to hear the tale, but in the Expanded Universe – now branded Star Wars Legends – there are a few differing accounts. In the original Marvel Comics run, Fett was able to fight his way out of the beast’s belly, though not unscathed. In 1983’s Issue #81: Jawas of Doom, he was found by Jawas who mistook him for a droid and claimed him as their own. Ironically, the Sandcrawler, with Fett still in it, later crashed into the mouth of the Sarlacc, trapping Fett inside the beast once more.
In Dark Horse Comics’ 1991 Dark Empire series, Boba Fett surprised Han Solo (and all of us) by appearing with Dengar. As he tells Han, “The Sarlacc found me somewhat indigestible.” In the short story A Barve Like That: The Tale of Boba Fett by J.D. Montgomery from 1996’s Tales From Jabba’s Palace, we get the story behind his return. Inside the Sarlacc, Fett is in the process of being slowly digested over a thousand years. After a conversation with a fellow captive, he discovered that the captive had merged its consciousness with the Sarlacc. Fett used this to his advantage by goading the creature to contract around his jet pack, igniting the device, and allowing him to escape.
The explosion, combined with the beast’s highly acidic stomach juices, left Fett on the verge of death. Luckily, his old pal Dengar was searching the wreckage of Jabba’s sail barge for valuables but found Boba Fett instead and nursed him back to health. In Legends, Boba continued to acquire and upgrade pieces of Mandalorian armor. At one point, he had at least three complete sets of armor to choose from, including the green-and-red armor of his father’s old mentor and leader, Jaster Mereel.
In season 2 of The Mandalorian, we learned that Fett survived his fall into the Great Pit of Carkoon, though he was quickly separated from his armor, which was found by Jawas and later acquired by Timothy Olyphant‘s Cobb Vanth. If there’s a flashback to anything in The Book of Boba Fett, it should be Boba’s escape from the Sarlacc pit. This is a story nearly 40 years in the making, and with Filoni involved – who resurrected Darth Maul and gave the character a second life – I’ve got all the faith in the world that it could come to fruition in a satisfying and exciting way.
The Smuggler’s Moon, a Gangster’s Paradise
While Tatooine will no doubt factor heavily in The Book of Boba Fett, there are many planets in the Star Wars universe that have yet to be explored by live-action media that would be a perfect fit for the upcoming series. I would love to see Nal Hutta – homeworld of the Hutts – as well its moon, Nar Shaddaa. Like Coruscant, the entire surface of Nar Shaddaa is covered in urban sprawl. A haven for pirates, outlaws, and all matter of scum and villainy, Nar Shaddaa would be an absolute dream to see Slave 1 touch down on The Smuggler’s Moon in live-action.
Another excellent planet to showcase would be Ord Mantell, which served as the base of operations for the Black Sun, the crime syndicate led by Prince Xizor – a character prominent in the now-Legends Shadows of the Empire. The planet is also mentioned in The Empire Strikes Back when Han Solo tells Princess Leia “the bounty hunter we ran into on Ord Mantell changed my mind” in regard to paying off his debt to Jabba the Hutt. Like Nar Shaddaa, it’s something of a refuge for the galaxy’s most unsavory inhabitants, which makes it a perfect location for The Book of Boba Fett.
And finally, it would be interesting to revisit a couple of planets that were very important to Boba Fett’s character development: Kamino and Geonosis – the water-covered world he called home as a child and the rocky planet where his father was killed by Mace Windu. Would Boba ever revisit these worlds for a bit of introspection? Anything is possible with Lucasfilm’s groundbreaking StageCraft technology.
No matter what happens, I’m incredibly excited to see what Favreau, Filoni, and Rodriguez do with The Book of Boba Fett. My hope is that the series adds depth and development to a character that many have decried as “overrated” through the years and helps them appreciate all the storytelling possibilities that are inherent in the character. The future of Star Wars is bright – the Force has never been stronger – and I simply can’t wait for December 2021.
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