Written by Old Bluffer 31st Jan 2006
Boba Fett is an enigmatic bounty hunter who wears signature Mandalorian battle armour, trimmed with wookie scalps and fitted with a personal rocketpack (bounty hunters are notoriously vain and enjoy accessorising).
Now years of watching Hollywood films has taught us that strapping anything that requires a flammable fuel source to your body will end in tears, and sadly for Fett this axiom remains true.
His ignominious downfall isn't even a deliberate attack; his rocket pack is prematurely ignited by a blind Han Solo, and he becomes a human missile aimed into the Pit of Carkoon, and ultimately into the maw of the Sarlacc.
Now this death is a controversial addition, as technically Boba Fett isn't dead by the end of the Star Wars series. This is because the Sarlacc has the intriguing special ability of being able to prolong its prey's suffering for a thousand years.
Quite why scientists haven't dug up a few Sarlaccs and tried to isolate the process that bestows this longevity isn't clear, but I suppose we could argue that they have done, but can't remove the side-effects of excruciating agony:
Buy Sarlacc Juice!
(Imperial Health Warning: this immortality potion may cause millennia of unbearable torment during which time you would beg for death if you could only stop screaming).
More seriously, the Sarlacc may well strip off flesh and bone and interface directly with any bodies that fall into its pit, keeping its victims alive by pumping nutrition directly into the organs it has decided to keep for its own disgusting and alien ends.
Either way, it is reasonable to say that being digested by a Sarlacc is one of the nastier forms of death, and we can see why throwing creatures into the Sarlacc Pit would be an enjoyable and amusing day out for Jabba the Hutt.
Now Boba Fett has emerged as one of the most popular characters from the Star Wars saga, and it is therefore no surprise that a lot of fan-fiction and even the odd official spin-off story has resurrected Fett from his intestinal prison.
Despite this though, I am still declaring him to be a worth addition to our database. I'll even admit I quite like the idea of Fett blasting his way out the Sarlacc's stomach in a later film and living to exact revenge on Solo - but consider the ramifications:
- There would be loads of new Boba Fett toys that were far less cool than the ones we knew and loved from our childhood. In fact, there'd probably even be a "beanie baby" version.
- We'd have to endure Inappropriate Merchandising such as Manadalorian McFries and Boba Fett penis rings that would further damage Fett's persona.
- George Lucas would probably also give the new Fett an annoying CGI comedy sidekick, voiced by Eddie Murphy or Robin Williams.
So for all these reasons, we consider the enigmatic bounty hunter would probably rather remain where he is, slowly dissolving in a lake of gastric juices. And after unwisely rewatching some of the Phantom Menace over Christmas, this reviewer can see his point.
This death was crap.
Greatest bounty hunter in the galaxy gets killed by a blind guy... on accident! I mean, sure, he's Han Solo, but again, it was an accident. Give me a friggin' break. At the very least, Daddy Jango was killed by a much more competent opponent, in a much more equal playing field, in a much more gruesome and cool way.
I myself wouldn't count this as a death, considering basically everyone BUT Lucas has had Fett blast his way out of the Sarlacc. The books, the comics, etc.
However, there is a point raised about the penis rings.
"Greatest bounty hunter in the galaxy gets killed by a blind guy... on accident!"
Keep in mind that at the time the film was made, Boba Fett was, in the eyes of most people, just another one of Jabba the Hutt's anonymous goons. Boba never even really does anything interesting in either Return of the Jedi or The Empire Strikes Back. All his fame and prestige comes from the comics and novels and so forth.
In appreciation of the comments here, I have now assigned this death to the "unsatisfying" category.
"Keep in mind that at the time the film was made, Boba Fett was, in the eyes of most people, just another one of Jabba the Hutt's anonymous goons. Boba never even really does anything interesting in either Return of the Jedi or The Empire Strikes Back. All his fame and prestige comes from the comics and novels and so forth."
I disagree. I was a kid when Empire and Return came out and I instinctively knew that Boba Fett was special, and so did my friends. I didn't get to see Return of the Jedi until it was on television years later. None of my friends saw the film at the cinema either, and we hadn't read the books or comics, but we instinctively knew from playing with the toys that Boba Fett was as cool as a prawn. There was something magnetic about his costume, his visor. Like Wolverine from X-Men, there was something magic about his design.
The other bounty hunters were ridiculous (one of them was a walrus, another one was a man with a lizard mask on his face) and nobody wanted to play with them, but Boba Fett was intrinsically, objectively, and instantly cool. He stood out immediately. Anybody at school who had a Boba Fett action figure was guaranteed to have company.
From what I have learned since, Boba Fett first appeared in the Star Wars Holiday Special of 1978, in a cartoon section. I surmise that the reaction from fans was so positive that he was written in to Empire and Return. It was a silly idea to kill him off, and to do so in such a ridiculous way.
HELLO! Same thing with Greivous!
You never see him die and if you read the books...
Fett isn't dead!
He's as dead as anyone else who fell into the pit, moreso because in the Special Edition it's changed from just them falling in to the beaklike extending mouth actually eating them. And the SE's are now more or less the official versions according to Lucas.
The books are take-em-or-leave-em anyway, and most of the stuff in the first stories saying Fett survived (particularly Tales of the Bounty Hunters) has been flatly contradicted by the prequels. So, as far as the movie is concerned, Fett is dead.
[quote Kooshmeister]Keep in mind that at the time the film was made, Boba Fett was, in the eyes of most people, just another one of Jabba the Hutt's anonymous goons. Boba never even really does anything interesting in either Return of the Jedi or The Empire Strikes Back. All his fame and prestige comes from the comics and novels and so forth.[/quote]I disagree. Much of Fett's cool comes from a single moment in Empire: When briefing Fett and 5 other hunters, Vader announces "I want them alive," then turns to address Fett specifically and adds "No disintegrations." This conveys a sense of Fett's character and history with a subtlety sadly lacking in the prequels.
Compare: Darth Maul is designed to look cool and evil. They really pulled out the stops to make every aspect of his appearance scream menace. But when all's said and done, he doesn't actually do much evil. He even fights with a measure of honour, clearly displaying the second blade on his lightsabre before the fight starts, rather than waiting until mid-battle and taking his foes by surprise.
Fett, on the other hand, doesn't actually look that tough. Unremarkable build, battered old armour, neutral colours. His aura of menace comes from the way he carries himself and the way others (especially Vader) react to him.
That's the main one, but there's a bit more later on.
Afterward, while the other hunters drop out of sight, and the Imperials give up their search and depart, Fett is the only one who figures out where the Millenium Falcon is hiding. It is due to his savvy that the Empire tracks Han & co to Bespin. As such, he sets up the entire second half of the film!
Later, Fett expresses his concern that Solo could be damaged by the carbon freeze. Instead of throttling him like an insubordinate minion, Vader promises compensation. Again, there is the suggestion that this man has earned Vader's respect.
In attributing Fett's 'fame and prestige' to the books & comics, you're putting the cart before the horse. Do you think they just picked a character at random and said 'let's make that guy with the jetpack cool'? No. They saw that he was already cool, so they wrote about him.
@ratimir - some nice points there.
Well at any rate, as I said, growing up I never thought Fett was anything terribly special. It took the books and comics I read and, of course, the comments of other fans to let me know that he was supposed to be cool.
"Cool" is very subjective, y'know, and where most people see a coolly menacing, mysterious guy, others, such as myself, just see some dude in clunky armor and a jetpack. All of the stuff you point out is perfectly valid, but only apparent to a very attentive viewer due to being so subtle, and after Fett's long history of starring in comic books and novels, all of which portray him as God's gift to bounty hunters, I'm just wondering if the average viewer, looking for action and not a character study, would've noticed them otherwise.
Therefore, it's my stance that what makes Fett so popular isn't that he says or does anything particularly interesting, but rather the fact we know absolutely nothing about him (at least, in Empire and Jedi), which leaves an open template for fans and writers alike to attribute just about anything to him that they want, and make up their own backstories for him. He's a fan fiction writer's dream, basically. Nevermind that Attack of the Clones came along and spoiled all that.
As for Darth Maul, I think it's a little unfair to criticize him for not being as popular as Fett thus far. Fett's been around since the 1980s (sooner, in fact, if you count the Holiday Special), meanwhile even though it's over six years later, Maul is still relatively new. Give him time, and he'll become more popular as time goes on (more popular than he is now, I mean, not more popular than Fett).