People tend to forget these days the weight of expectation surrounding Boba Fett as the release of Return Of The Jedi approached. The character had been used in heavy promotion of The Empire Strikes Back and was featured in the aforementioned Holiday Special, in one of the only actually worthwhile parts of the programme. And there was the way he looked clad in that enigmatic armour, looking like a dishevelled cross between a medieval knight and an astronaut, cradling his EE-3 carbine across his body like Clint goddamn Eastwood in For A Few Dollars More. Actually, the Man With No Name was a part of the key to Fetts mystique. He had virtually no lines and constantly wore the helmet, forcing Jeremy Bulloch (the actor who played him in The Empire Strikes Back and Return Of The Jedi) to try various things to get the characters personality over: Eastwoods body language in the Sergio Leone westerns was the touchstone he used to make it work. Children playing with the Boba Fett toy could have him do and say anything, because of the lack of detail provided in the original characterisation all that was required was to make him an unspeakably cool badass. And hed taken Han Solo, frozen in carbonite, to who knows where! What would it take to beat Boba Fett? Sure the stage was set for some kind of epic showdown Welllll, not so much. You all know what happened in the first act of Return Of The Jedi; how a blind Han Solo whacked Fett in the jetpack as he aimed for Luke, causing him to flail comically off into the distance and slide uncontrollably into the Sarlaccs maw. You may have mentally edited out the slapstick what the arrrrrrgh!, however. Lucas admits (unusually for him) that he missed a trick and should have given him more to do. He considered having a scene inserted which saw Fett escape from the Pit Of Carkoon alive, but elected to leave it to tie-in material to deal with the matter. The bounty hunter would be given an origin story in the prequels, but that actually made things worse - were you the kind of Star Wars fan that would watch episodes one to six in order, youd see Fett built up as a Big Bad from childhood, see him reappear as an adult in The Empire Strikes Back, and then still see him die hilariously ineptly in Return Of The Jedi. Unless you have the patience to read comics and novels of the franchise, Boba Fett will always be the goof of goofs, farcially killed two acts too early.
Professional writer, punk werewolf and nesting place for starfish. Obsessed with squid, spirals and story. I publish short weird fiction online at desincarne.com, and tweet nonsense under the name Jack The Bodiless. You can follow me all you like, just don't touch my stuff.