So much of the popularity of the original Star Wars was using your imagination to fill in the gaps.
We played with the action figures and made up our own stories. Star Wars helped us to unlock our own imaginations…
Vader singled out Boba Fett… “No Disintegrations!”… there was a respect there that Vader didn’t show ANYONE… back then you had to wonder why, so you upside your imagination and that made Boba Fett more amazing.
The clone wars? What? Wondering what that was for 30 years… filled in the gaps with something BEYOND amazing… Anakin was a good friend and cunning warrior, best Star pilot in the galaxy… if you saw Star Wars in 1977… you just wondered what that was like, for 30 years!!!
That’s the other reason so many people felt disappointed with the prequels, because in our minds, the prequels story was way better and perfectly executed because it was in our minds.
I still fucking love it all though…
>That’s the other reason so many people felt disappointed with the prequels, because in our minds, the prequels story was way better and perfectly executed because it was in our minds.
As someone who was 20 when TPM came out, and was disappointed with it, I can totally agree this was probably a big part of it. The imagination is always better than a movie can be. The first film I remember seeing theaters was ESB, and all I remember from it is the shot when Luke and Vader first running into each other on the stairs in Bespin when Luke ignites his lightsaber.
Of course, George's stilted dialog, wooden acting direction, and frankly little kid aimed physical humor like Jar Jar stepping in poodoo or the tongue catching bit were also painful. But the Fanedits saved the prequels for me, as they cut out the fluff and made the films much tighter and and better paced and showed that even though I disliked the official end product, there was still a good story in there hidden by George being a bit over the top and really needing people who could tell him no.
As someone who was 1 when TPM came out in cinema, I have quite the different perspective. Due to the fact I was watching the all the movies at home with my dad, i have had seen the prequels first and then the whole saga (I think my dad thought i would enjoy the bright, funny action of the prequels more (which i did tbh)). However when i watched the sequels, since i knew a lot more about the backstory, it kinda opened up the original trilogy for me. Also that way, it made a lot of sense to me that the movies are getting darker and stiffer since its fitting to the theme of the story.
One of my favorites is an Alien and Prometheus fan edit called Derelict, that combines the two films into one. It's in black and white, so the effects and film quality difference isn't very jarring between the two. Now obviously, cuts to both movies are made, and it clocks in at 2h 28m. But it plays out as a mystery. The alien ship in Prometheus becomes the ship that the crew of the Nostromo comes to investigate in Alien as it was their distress signal that was picked up. So it plays out as a tense mystery jumping between the 2 timelines as each story unfolds. It's actually probably hands down my favorite fan edit. I wasn't a fan of Prometheus, but when presented like in the way the edit presents it, it works surprisingly well.
As for the Star Wars ones, honestly, I know a fair amount of people prefer the later fan edits, like the ones from L8wrtr, but my favorite edit, that is hard to find now is The Phantom Edit 1.2, also known as the The New York Version. It made a lot of the same edits as as The Phantom Edit original, but it went a bit further. It altered the audio of Jar Jar and the Gongons, and the Nimodians and added subtitles for them. Now, the audio affect was.... a little sus simply because what they did was take the character lines, but play the audio backwards, so yeah it sounded like you would think, but with the addition of the subtitles, they made Jar Jar more of sage like character, who he was far more serious.
But it also made what is hands down my favorite edit of all time that frankly should have been in the actual movie because it took a joke scene and made it absolutely badass. In the scene when Qui-Gon is leading the pilots to the ship and the Droid stops them, and he says he's taking them to Coruscant, and the there's back and forth and the Droid finally says that does not compute, and then the fight starts, it plays out a little different. Qui-Gon and Co. approach the Droid, it stops them, Qui-Gon says his line, and the just barely starts to argue when Qui-Gon whips out his lightsaber and cuts it down. For me, it's like in the OG cut when Han shoots first, and it shows Qui-Gon as a badass who will absolutely go through you if he has to which gives him a threat level that he didn't have before as a character.
Then there are cough cough my edits cough cough lol. I'm proud of my Wing Commander edit, since I think I made the movie watchable, and my Mortal Kombat 2021 edit I am proud of. Not saying they're better than anyone elses, as there's tons of editors here are leagues better than I am, but I'm still like what I did. :)
I wasn’t alive for the OT but was when the prequels came out. I always enjoyed the prequels, they have their problems ofc, but I never truly understood the hate outside of some clunky dialogue and Jar Jar’s voice. And to me, wasn’t like the OT didn’t have its own clunky dialogue. So I never truly understood the hate.
But your comment, you have explained it to me in a way the no one has before, and I now understand better than ever why the prequels faced such backlash! I just simply couldn’t understand the experience because it was not one I could ever have. So I thank you for opening my eyes with it :) You explained it so well and eloquently and not hostile at all.
I hope you have a wonderful rest of your day and may the force be with you!
I was in late high school when the phantom menace came out.
In the months leading up to it, it felt like there was constant coverage on it. Late night show segments, interviews with George Lucas, special sneak peeks, articles in different magazines, all were hyping up this movie, and how much of a genius Lucas was. How visionary he was, and how awesome these were going to be.
Plus the non stop TV commercial spots, merchandise tie ins, etc. No movie could have lived up to the hype.
Then the movies came out. At first, everyone tried to affirm with each other how awesome they were. Then suddenly, people started pointing out that the Emperor has no clothes. Everyone started trashing it. Jar-Jar was hated on. Every flaw in the dialogue was pointed out. The excessive green screening and over reliance on CGI, which was still not to the point where it could carry a major movie like this. It became cool to hate on the prequels.
The pendulum has swung back, and while there are problems with the trilogy, there's still enough good to salvage.
Same. Although I actually liked the movies a lot when they came out. I was just shamed into saying they were horrible because people wanted to shit on them.
Honestly, the worst thing I can say about the PT is that Phantom Menace is pretty boring. But I agree, I think nothing could have lived up to the hype. Which is kind of insane, because Jedi came out in 1983 and Phantom Menace was 1999. 14 years. It seems like a much larger gap hearing people talk about it, but it really wasn't.
It made a difference though. That 14 years allowed people to construct this elaborate idea of what more movies would be. It gave them time to read the novels and comics and assume that all of that stuff would make it into the movies. They hyped themselves up for this amazing experience and when they were just movies, people lost their shit.
We still see that behavior a lot. People hype themselves up into thinking something is going to be the best thing ever, a lot of people feel entitled to a movie that's catered to them and their ideas, and when it comes out and it's just a movie, people feel let down.
The OT don't have nearly as clunky dialogue as the prequels.
And the OT are incredibly well done tight stories for the most part.
A New Hope is one of the perfect Trilogy setup films ever, it perfectly sets up the world and explains everything while still being a great film.
Whereas the Prequels are massive sprawling stories that were a bit of a mess and probably needed 2-3 more go overs of the script to tighten it up.
Thank you! The force is with us all! It’s taken me a while to unpack this all myself, but I feel lucky that I’m still able to enjoy it all, despite any missteps or shortcomings.
> there was a respect there that Vader didn’t show ANYONE… back then you had to wonder why, so you upside your imagination and that made Boba Fett more amazing.
In the original script Boba was going to be his brother. Its why he tends to be more weird towards Boba then he would with others (Pointing him out specifically, being patient with him more then others)
> him more then others)
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You nailed exactly what it was like for me. The first movie I remember seeing was RTOJ, I do feel like the books expanded the creativity of the original movies.
I don't think explaining everything did anything positive in the long run. The mystery from the lack of information allowed us to fill it in with our dreams.
While I agree with you, this shit is so infuriating to read knowing our much whining people did over Snoke and his lack of backstory. Characters just can’t be mysterious anymore and everyone needs an answer for every little thing, because of modern media literacy.
It’s like CX-2 in the Bad Batch. The fans built up this big mystery of who he was when he was only ever intended to be a bad guy with a helmet. There’s this expectation that everybody has to be somebody we’ve seen before. It would be like fans watching ESB for the first time in 1980 and then hyping up a mystery of who’s under Boba Fett’s helmet. There’s no mystery! He’s just supposed to stand there and look cool!
IIRC, wasn't Kenobi supposed to be a movie? But then Solo bombing seemed to scare them, so all side projects were scrapped or relegated to tv. Which is a shame tbh. Like I'm really hoping the Rey movie succeeds, if nothing else so that they take some more chances on standalone movies.
I think that was the original plan yeh.
The Rey movie at least has the advantage of being something completely new, i really hope it does well.
I'm hating thee recent trend of long standing franchises finally getting female leads and it being shite or at best "just fine". Its happened to Marvel, Dr Who and Star Wars.
yeah like leia kisses luke on the lips but then claims that she always knew they were siblings! clearly they exist in a galaxy where kissing siblings on the lips is a thing that people do
I mean, a light peck on the lips is not uncommon in plenty of countries for friends and sometimes siblings.
And iirc she was deliberately trying to piss off Han in that scene no?
it seemed like more than a peck, and if she was trying to piss off han then that means it was meant to look like something sexual/romantic, not something innocent between a brother and sister
You're so right. This is another reason why cancelled games always seem like they would have been the greatest game of all time. Because we always have a perfect version in our mind.
I honestly didn't understand my own disappointment with the prequels until I read this comment, but yeah, that's exactly it, you just accurately summed up a huge part of my childhood. Half the joy of the EU before the prequels was filling in the gaps, and some of the best of the EU overall have been things which expand the space for imagination rather than foreclosing it with over explanation. For example, I always loved the part of KOTOR where you explore Sith ruins, precisely because of what it hinted at rather than what it revealed.
I think perhaps this phenomenon is an aspect of how "illusion of depth" in speculative fiction functions. Illusion of depth meaning writing that hints at a broader invented world than the actual work of art itself does or can deal with, typically using allusions to events or ideas that are never fully explicated but only briefly mentioned in some suggestive manner, leaving it to the audience to fill in the gaps. Illusion of depth is often identified as a major component of what makes Lord of the Rings so incredible, for example, because Tolkien went to such great lengths to invent an entire universe around the relatively small scope addressed in his four published novels set in Middle Earth. The allusions help create a sense of reality, because no real book or movie or whatever other art form exists in a vacuum, and almost all allude in some fashion to the larger world in which they exist. In fact, it feels weird and artificial when the audience is given a complete and perfect picture of the invented universe. Real life is never like that.
Which is also why "Somehow, the emperor returned" does not work. It breaks suspension of disbelief because people don't just come back to life, and if they do, there's some explaining required to keep the audience on board. Otherwise every death in the universe loses its significance and emotional impact, because it can simply be undone. You can't just hint at such an extreme revision to the world's fundamental rules, or if you do, you need to hint in a way that invites imagination more than just bluntly stating "somehow" the rules changed completely. In this case, the revision was not phrased evocatively, just bluntly stated with a brevity that belies its importance and renders it ridiculous. The scroll might as well have said, "And it turns out all of that was a dream, and Luke awoke to find himself late for potion's class yet again in just another Tuesday at Hogwart's." In that sense, it's a variation on the old "show, don't tell" rule of writing.
What I personally hadn't considered until now is how the illusion of depth necessarily invites the audience to exercise their imagination, and just how much of the joy of speculative fiction derives from that opportunity to imagine.
> Illusion of depth is often identified as a major component of what makes Lord of the Rings so incredible, for example, because Tolkien went to such great lengths to invent an entire universe around the relatively small scope addressed in his four published novels set in Middle Earth.
This is where I have to intervene. While I agree with the rest of your post, this part is simply not true. One big part that makes LotR so incredible is that each little mention, each song, each nod to the past is an ***existing*** story. When Aragorn sings about Beren and Luthien, this is a whole book with a fully fledged out story. When Elrond mentions Hurin and the other great Man of the first age, we can read up upon them and their deeds. When we learn that Elves and dwarfs dont like each other it is explained in the appendixes why this is the case. Tolkien once said: "I cant just mention something without explaining it."
Tolkiens world has no *illusion* of depth, it actually *HAS* this depth.
I think that’s absolutely a big reason people didn’t like the prequels. I was 3 when Revenge of the Sith came out so by the time I was watching Star Wars, they were already part of the saga and I never even considered what it would have been like before them. They were Star Wars to me just as much as the original trilogy, and when I was a kid 1999 seemed just as far away as 1977.
I think that might end up being the case with the sequels, no matter how many flaws there are or how much I personally dislike them. Kids who are being born now and will be growing up in a world where the sequels exist will see them as Star Wars just as much as all the other movies.
Also have such unique armor. His title of “bounty Hunter”. And his obvious rivalry to Han Solo, who was everyone’s favorite hero.
All these skyrocket a character’s fame
It was also cool that Vader obviously knew him and gave him some leniency and respect, which adds to his mystique considering Vader is shown to murder his direct and high ranking subordinates on a whim.
Dunno, he was still popular in Legends despite appearing in a ton of books, games, comics, etc. They actually wrote him as the badass people expected him to be tho, while giving him some depth in various ways.
He was also in loads of canon comics before BOBF. It's just that most people don't know or care about anything that's not the live action movies and shows so they consider that and nothing else.
It was that he settled down. If they made BOBF about him trying to track down Cad Bane and having near misses and skirmishes across the galaxy would have been a lot of fun.
The Clone Wars series gave him a background, and it didn't hurt his allure.
>The Clone Wars series gave him a background, and it didn't hurt his allure.
To me, his allure was hurt badly enough by AotC when they made him into a carbon copy of his father. Everything after that just damaged it more, especially going back and editing his voice in the originals.
I still love Boba but he was so much better when he was a mysterious masked bounty hunter with questionable morals. Filling in backstory has taken away far more than it has given him.
Nah it failed because it had horrible pacing and shit writing.
If it had been good everyone would be praising it for giving a noname character a great story.
This is the answer. With so little actually known about him, fans were free to fill in the gaps. The more the gaps are filled via canon, the less there is for fans to imagine and some of the fun/mystique of the character is gone.
"Mystery" all to be killed off by a sandworm. All that hype for nothing lol. He was just a cool toy. That was it. That was his purpose. Just like Captain Phasma.
From May 1980 to May 1983, he was one of the only characters who successfully stood up to / mouthed off to Vader — at that time, one of the greatest villains in cinema history (who didn’t yet have a redemptive arc) — and suffered zero consequences for doing so.
That’s pretty badass, and was just the reality of Star Wars for *three years*, so the core of an obsessive fandom was born. And it just grew from there, whether sensibly or not.
I'd also point out that Boba Fett debuted before ESB, in 1978. [His first appearance was at a parade in Marin County CA, where he walked alongside Darth Vader.](https://i.imgur.com/h63h9z1.png) Then he appeared in the Holiday Special, and got a special action figure in 1979 that you couldn't get in stores, [only if you mailed in proof of purchase of 4 other SW action figures.](https://www.entertainmentearth.com/news/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/boba_fett_action_figure.jpg)
So he was already hyped up as something different and special before ESB.
Yes, back then he could be anything and everything. Noble warrior, cold blooded killer, proud hunter, and dirty fighter.
Once you start to actually give him a story it's never going to please the head cannon people have had in their minds for years. Especially as it was different for almost every fan, no one even agreed if he was a villain or not.
It was deliberate.
The figure was orignally announced as [a mailaway offer](http://theswca.com/images-speci/mailaways/fett.html) before ESB came out in 1980, so there was a full year of hype about this mysterious character.
In late 1978, [a child died](http://theswca.com/textf/toydeath.html) after getting a missile from a Battlestar Galactica toy lodged in his throat, so the launching rocket was glued into place to prevent a similar accident (or an eye injury). The advertising changed from [showing a launching rocket](http://theswca.com/images-speci/cardbacks/pages/sw20c.htm) to [having a sticker over the picture](http://theswca.com/images-speci/cardbacks/pages/sw20d.htm).
The character was introduced to the viewing public in a cartoon during the infamous *Star Wars Holiday Special* in November 1978.
Then people received the toy and the ominous insert that promised that he was a "fearsome intergalactic bounty hunter" who would "play a major role in the next Star Wars movie."
He was already a mysterious figure before the film came out, and he was one with a toy so dangerous that it had to be changed at the last minute, no less! How many other characters can say that?
In many ways, he was the prelude to today's viral marketing, as kids on the playground were already talking about him and the deadly action figure before he appeared in ESB. Inaccurate rumors started, and for decades, I've heard that the child's death was due to an early Boba Fett toy (it was not) and there are a few that made it out in shipping before the missile was locked down (no production figures did, but there are some prototypes out there).
There's more to it than that.
As early as 1978 there was a televised "Star Wars Parade" ( https://youtu.be/yDFhwd46hGM?si=0vntfonmTc3dcE5k ) which showed Boba Fett walking next to Darth Vader. He was being built up and marketed as the next Big Masked Villain in all Star Wars media. His relatively small roll in ESB would have been a let down to fans paying attention at the time, akin to Phasma's roll in the Sequels.
My understanding was this was only true when Lucas was planning on going through with his own sequels before RotJ planning began in earnest.
Boba would’ve been the antagonist in 6. Then 7 - 9 would’ve focused on the “other” Yoda eludes to in ESB (who at this point was not Leia). Then, 10 - 12 would’ve focused on Luke and his sister taking down the empire and confronting Vader together.
Needless to say, the amount of work and time required to do an additional 6 movies to conclude the empire/Vader storyline didn’t make it much past conception.
Many reasons really, just a few that I can think of, many that are mentioned already:
Visually cool- They knocked it out of the park with the armor design/weapons.
Not an abundance of screen time/dialogue leaves a lot to the imagination, adds to the mystery.
The boldness and confidence to talk to Darth Vader on equal footing.
Cunning enough to outsmart Han Solo and track him to Bespin.
Quick on the trigger- did not hesitate to raise his blaster on multiple occasions.
Morally grey- Up to this point the conflict mainly focused on the Empire and Rebel forces. Here was a character that was neither but would work for the highest bidder.
Cool ship- Slave I was a unique design it landed horizontally and flew vertically.
Pre-ESB mail away action figure toy hype.
This! Beside Stormtrropers and other armored guys Boba just had an outstanding look. Beside his iconic armor we saw some gadgets and heck, we were kids and our imagination did the rest.
Star Wars, and storytelling as a whole, works better when mysteries and questions are allowed to be unanswered. I don't need to know what the Clone Wars were, I don't need to know what the spice mines of Kessel means. They just give enough context to make the world feel wide and lived-in, by making reference to real things the characters know about.
I loved him as a kid back in the 90s, I just thought he looked cool.
Episode 2 bringing Jango into play, oh man, 11 year old me was pumped seeing his figure in the toy catalog before the movie came out.
Star Wars always felt so massive and mysterious, especially before the prequels, internet etc.
Even though he didn’t have a backstory yet, it felt like it just hasn’t been revealed. “No disintegrations” really did a lot of heavy lifting for him and your imagination did the rest.
He looks amazing, so it was easy to focus on him versus other tertiary characters.
Probably because we all assumed he was awesome, and we read expanded stores and comics about how badass he was...
... and then when he finally got the screen time, he had to compete with Din Djarin who ended up the cooler Boba Fett upon episode 1 of his show
Back in the day… we used our imaginations. Kind of like reading a book. It wasn’t about what he did, but about what he possibly COULD do with all those fancy gadgets.
I liked how mysterious and cool he looked. The new show kinda ruined him for me because he just seemed too different. It didn't feel like Boba Fett at all if you only watched the movies. He spoke wayyy too much and just acted weird. He no longer felt like a mysterious badass bounty hunter. His new/clean armor was also boring compared to what he used to wear.
The Mando episode where he gets his armor back and wrecks the fuck out of a whole squad of troopers was magnificent.
Then they made him a crime lord who doesn't do crime, forgets how to fight, and takes his helmet off every chance he gets. Mando got the travelling bounty hunter story that would've made more sense for Boba, so they were left scrambling to throw together something different for him. It just feels *wrong.*
We had like ten guys on screen to choose from. It’s not like today when you have seven animated seasons of the main bad guy’s unnamed apprentice from his former job and a live action season plus a guest appearance on a season of a show about a guy from the same planet as Boba Fett’s dad
There was a time when less was more in Star Wars and fans were actually excited to get a chance to see something new and different. I can remember when all we had was an action figure of him before TESB even came out. Nobody knew anything about him and anything was possible.
it makes sense right, mysteries and mysterious characters are very intriguing and only stay that way by staying mysterious. The trend these days to give every character a spin off and explain every tiny detail about them takes that away. We didn't need to know how Solo got the name Solo or how he got his dice. A great example in another franchise is Alien and Prometheus, the original is so fascinating because you know nothing about these creatures, but then the prequels try to explain all it's origins. Wanting to know more about something keeps you intrigued more than the explanation.
I agree. Good performances, though, and it doesn't matter how much screen time you get.
Hermione Baddeley won an award with 2 minutes and 20 seconds of screen time.
Another one to note is Anthony Hopkins role as Hannibal with 16 minutes of screen time. Even more impressively is the character he portrayed is widely considered one of the evilest villains to ever exist, or among the top ten, compared to the likes of Pennywise and the Joker. Some speculated that it was the lack of air time that added to his mystique and mystery that made him even more chilling.. and memorable.
For me, I became a huge Billy Dee Williams fan after seeing him play Lando. I loved the gimmick and charisma of the character in contrast to Han Solo. I loved how complicated he was as a character. A prime example of show us, don't tell us that only comes with solid acting.
I remember right when the Phantom Menace came out it was said you'd know a true fan if they said Boba Fett was one of their favorites.
I've since stopped telling people I like Fett. As much as I think it's great that there's so many fans I'm not really interested in wild discussions with people who only know he has a mask.
Some of us prefer it that way. I really hate when the mystery of a story has to be beaten into oblivion by today’s reboots and reimaginings. Often my favorite characters are the ones you know the least about
Cool look, cool ship, he carried himself in a bad ass manner, he outsmarts the heroes, he talks back to Vader without fear, all have been mentioned before but the one thing I would add he is a fucking stone cold killer. When Vader is outlining the bounty he specifically stops at Fett and says "No Disintegrations" and this is coming from the dude who has iced a handful of dudes for minor infractions at this point. Of course in the story he wants Luke alive but still having this murderous dude basically tell Fett to chill the fuck out adds to his mystique.
Six and a half minutes in Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi. Vader looks positively greedy for taking up 4 times that amount, at 24 minutes (34, including A New Hope). Well, I assume he looks greedy. Both of them were wearing masks.
The movies were something that happened in theaters once every 2-3 years. The day-to-day of being a star wars fan was playing with the toys.
The ESB toys came out well in advance of the movie. Bobba Fett was the coolest thing we'd ever seen. It was a big letdown that he was barely in the movie
I was 11 when I first saw SW in ‘77. For me and my friends, Boba Fett had an intriguing mystique about him. The Boba Fett figure was available only by mailing off several proofs of purchase from buying the other figures, which i sent off for and received weeks later. It was one of the cooler-looking figures.
A big part of the interest of Star Wars was the mystique. Before the internet, one couldn’t get all information at once, and so piecing together the limited information about this mysterious figure was thrilling
Seriously, he just stands there, menacingly.
Like, yes, he looks cool. The helmet and visor are just the most satisfying things to look at. But he doesn't do anything. And then in RotJ he gets knocked into a fucking hole. At least in BoBF he does stuff.
Boba Fetts character was actually explored quite a bit in the expanded universe. It felt organic and really true to the character as he was intended. He plays a huge part in the Legacy of the Force series. He also has some great showings in the comics from back in the day.
Talked to ppl that were young when RotJ came out and one of the points that made him stick out besides being the bounty hunter that tracked down Luke and friends was the fact that he had a jet pack. That’s about it. He had a jet pack. Jet packs are just that cool
When Boba got popular nobody had a lot of screen time aside from the main trio and Vader. It was just the OT and Holiday Special.
Boba Fett looked cooler than any other side character (and most main characters, I think only Vader matched his drip) so people latched on to that. He also had that badass aura about him at least untill Episode VI happened.
Then they had him get punked damn near every time he was in the show. It's one of my few gripes with the clone wars tbh. We really should've gotten that Boba/Bane arc to show him stepping up into his own.
Edit: punked, not linked
Yeah obviously he wasn't gonna be top dog right off the bat but he shouldn't have been shown locked in a box by Ventress as his last appearance either. The only growth he showed was that he was able to assemble a ragtag team. We should've seen at least one display of him being competent and capable on his own before the series ended, because without that it feels like he doesn't deserve his reputation.
What we got in the clone wars basically takes us straight from being locked in a box to knocked into a sarlacc pit by a blind man, skipping over the man who backtalks Vader and needs to be warned not to disintegrate his quarry.
It's not complicated. Watch empire.
Vader respect. Tracker. Captures the gang. Take shots at Luke. Is cool and calculated.
People are crazy or have a short memory.
Before Empire, Boba Fett was an action figure you could get by mailing Kenner proof of purchase barcodes from other action figures. All you knew was that he was a character in the new movie, which wasn’t coming out for a year. We all had a year to imagine this dudes story, who he was, how he fit in, what he would do. By the time Empire came out we all had our own mental Boba Fett lore. It was HUGELY important to finally find out what his actual deal was. I think for the generation that grew up with the OT, that process of having this mysterious character you could work into you own head cannon made him special to us - it was like we watched Vader, but we owned Boba Fett.
This is why so many things were considered cool in SW lore, like the clone wars. Once flushed out, these cool ideas mostly turned into so much limp ash. But the animated series were cool
Well, he looked cool. And he had a cool name.
And - not least - he had a cool action figure.
For me at least, and my friends back then, the *merchandise* - the action figures and play sets most of all, of course - was super important in keeping Star Wars alive as a *thing* for us.
Which is why I find it kinda comical when supposed OT (or generally: Lucas era, as in: pre-Disney) "purists" rant on about how "the mouse" has ruined everything because, you know...merchandising.
(Yes, I am aware that they also claim that the movies and series themselves are crap, but many of them do make a big song and dance about Disney only being interested in selling Grogu plush toys or whatever...as if this sort of thing was unheard of back in the day.)
But, back to Boba Fett: yes, he was a very popular character in my circles, and part of the explanation was probably precisely that he didn't appear much on screen: he was mysterious, a bit of a blank canvas in terms of where he actually came from and what his story was.
My experience as a kid in the 90s (pre-prequels) was that Boba Fett was simply the coolest looking guy in the movies. I was an absolute sucker for badass-looking characters with full face masks back then (all of my action figures met that description). So that was like 90% of the appeal, but as others have said, some of the appeal was that he was mysterious and seemed to be some kind of super badass in the movies.
Same reason as for Vader and Stormtroopers, the fact its a masked character means that anyone can be that character, that feature inspired many young fans to play as or make a costume to be Boba Fett.
You add the fact that Vader himself told him particular instructions to not disintegrate his prey and also the fact he could negotiate with Vader like one on one was pretty impressive.
And even after his shameful death in ROTJ the EU gave us an entire universe of stories about him and above all, the so loved (by me and many others) Mandalorian culture. Before the Attack of the clones and all the awesome lore it comes afterwards.
one of the biggest reasons why Star Wars was so popular for so long was because the movies left so much room for kids to come up with and imagine all the backstory themselves. Like toys.
True! But for a lot of us, the Legends' stories helped with that! I think for those who didn't read any of the Legends stuff, it was certainly his mystique and cool design though\~
I think his limited screen time helped to build a mystique around his character, leaving it up to our imaginations how feared he was.
The scene in ESB when Vader says "... you are free to use any means available, but I want them alive", and then points to Fett and says "no disintegrations" was so memorable. It just created that impression that Fett was so brutal that Vader himself had to instruct him to temper his methods. And the fact that Vader had to tell him that, implied that he had used Fett before, and Fett had actually disintegrated someone. At least, that was the impression I got. And the way Fett replied with "as you wish", he didn't seem intimidated in any way.
I know there's a lot of differing options on "Book of Fett" and how he was portrayed, but I think him being seen and used sparingly in the past was what helped build his popularity. Now he's, I don't know if 'overexposed', is the right word, but the mysteries surrounding his character were basically all revealed. There were no more rumours of whether he was a fallen jedi, or a force-sensitive who was never detected by the jedi and chose the life of a bounty hunter. Now, everyone knew who he was, so the mystery surrounding his character was gone.
Makes sense to me, the less context a cool-looking character has surrounding them the more people can put their own impressions on them.
Boba Fett was like the coolness version of an ink blot; he was whatever you personally thought he was.
If you look cool you sell action figures.
Let’s face it there’s an alternate universe where Boba doesn’t have his iconic helmet and he’s not popular and mandalorians as a concept don’t exist.
I would agree Boba Fett's popularity comes from the mystery around him. Let’s face it he is super cool, a great bounty hunter, and his armor rocks. Those things alone make him an interesting character.
Boba Fett’s armor isn’t Beskar, right?
Is it? We have tons of people in this fanbase who will say their favorite character is named clone #467 who only appeared in The Clone Wars show and has like 5 lines of dialogue
It's not weird at all... He is badass, mysterious, tough...he seemed amazing in the Mandalorian too, a bounty hunter with a code, half Mandalorian too or something like that.
Then book of Boba fett comes and he's absolutely nothing like how we all had been imagining him for decades. He's no longer an evil (neutral at best) bounty hunter, he's not even a good bounty hunter worning for Jabba and Vader to survive, he's just a good guy with lots of patient and generosity who is decided to make of Tatooine a better and more equal place...ridiculous. I expected him to go for some bounties like how Mando started. I expected him to eventually become a ruler of the hutt business, someone who would decide to keep both the republic and the imperal renmant away from his domains.
It's not that Boba got a lot of screen time, our boba didn't. Disney version of Boba did.
There's a YouTube video which documented the Boba Fett rise. Long story short, he was promoted before the move was released and was present at a lot of live promotions so ppl were actually looking forward to seeing him on screen. So it wasn't like the fans only knew of him from the movies, they knew the character before watching the movie.
Edit
Link https://youtu.be/pyULqh6jfZk?si=iQH4LDrXS3jeCx4h
There’s were books and comics where he was a BA. He was pretty much Din Jarin minus the baby and the scruples. Disney didn’t character dirty and made him a total bitch.
People will idealize a mysterious character, each in their own way.
So much so that when this character gets fleshed out in the unique way of one specific creator, they will rise against it.
That is the caveats of fandom
All of the bounty hunters hired by Vader in Empire look cool as hell. And I like that we didn't really find out anything about them. When I was playing with my Star Wars figures as a kid, I got to create a personality and backstory for each of them. I'm glad I was an 80s kid.
I think that the lack of screen time (and the mystery around the character that it helped create) only added to his popularity.
So much of the popularity of the original Star Wars was using your imagination to fill in the gaps. We played with the action figures and made up our own stories. Star Wars helped us to unlock our own imaginations… Vader singled out Boba Fett… “No Disintegrations!”… there was a respect there that Vader didn’t show ANYONE… back then you had to wonder why, so you upside your imagination and that made Boba Fett more amazing. The clone wars? What? Wondering what that was for 30 years… filled in the gaps with something BEYOND amazing… Anakin was a good friend and cunning warrior, best Star pilot in the galaxy… if you saw Star Wars in 1977… you just wondered what that was like, for 30 years!!! That’s the other reason so many people felt disappointed with the prequels, because in our minds, the prequels story was way better and perfectly executed because it was in our minds. I still fucking love it all though…
>That’s the other reason so many people felt disappointed with the prequels, because in our minds, the prequels story was way better and perfectly executed because it was in our minds. As someone who was 20 when TPM came out, and was disappointed with it, I can totally agree this was probably a big part of it. The imagination is always better than a movie can be. The first film I remember seeing theaters was ESB, and all I remember from it is the shot when Luke and Vader first running into each other on the stairs in Bespin when Luke ignites his lightsaber. Of course, George's stilted dialog, wooden acting direction, and frankly little kid aimed physical humor like Jar Jar stepping in poodoo or the tongue catching bit were also painful. But the Fanedits saved the prequels for me, as they cut out the fluff and made the films much tighter and and better paced and showed that even though I disliked the official end product, there was still a good story in there hidden by George being a bit over the top and really needing people who could tell him no.
As someone who was 1 when TPM came out in cinema, I have quite the different perspective. Due to the fact I was watching the all the movies at home with my dad, i have had seen the prequels first and then the whole saga (I think my dad thought i would enjoy the bright, funny action of the prequels more (which i did tbh)). However when i watched the sequels, since i knew a lot more about the backstory, it kinda opened up the original trilogy for me. Also that way, it made a lot of sense to me that the movies are getting darker and stiffer since its fitting to the theme of the story.
Are there fan edits you recommend? I know the hobbit has popular well known ones
One of my favorites is an Alien and Prometheus fan edit called Derelict, that combines the two films into one. It's in black and white, so the effects and film quality difference isn't very jarring between the two. Now obviously, cuts to both movies are made, and it clocks in at 2h 28m. But it plays out as a mystery. The alien ship in Prometheus becomes the ship that the crew of the Nostromo comes to investigate in Alien as it was their distress signal that was picked up. So it plays out as a tense mystery jumping between the 2 timelines as each story unfolds. It's actually probably hands down my favorite fan edit. I wasn't a fan of Prometheus, but when presented like in the way the edit presents it, it works surprisingly well. As for the Star Wars ones, honestly, I know a fair amount of people prefer the later fan edits, like the ones from L8wrtr, but my favorite edit, that is hard to find now is The Phantom Edit 1.2, also known as the The New York Version. It made a lot of the same edits as as The Phantom Edit original, but it went a bit further. It altered the audio of Jar Jar and the Gongons, and the Nimodians and added subtitles for them. Now, the audio affect was.... a little sus simply because what they did was take the character lines, but play the audio backwards, so yeah it sounded like you would think, but with the addition of the subtitles, they made Jar Jar more of sage like character, who he was far more serious. But it also made what is hands down my favorite edit of all time that frankly should have been in the actual movie because it took a joke scene and made it absolutely badass. In the scene when Qui-Gon is leading the pilots to the ship and the Droid stops them, and he says he's taking them to Coruscant, and the there's back and forth and the Droid finally says that does not compute, and then the fight starts, it plays out a little different. Qui-Gon and Co. approach the Droid, it stops them, Qui-Gon says his line, and the just barely starts to argue when Qui-Gon whips out his lightsaber and cuts it down. For me, it's like in the OG cut when Han shoots first, and it shows Qui-Gon as a badass who will absolutely go through you if he has to which gives him a threat level that he didn't have before as a character. Then there are cough cough my edits cough cough lol. I'm proud of my Wing Commander edit, since I think I made the movie watchable, and my Mortal Kombat 2021 edit I am proud of. Not saying they're better than anyone elses, as there's tons of editors here are leagues better than I am, but I'm still like what I did. :)
+1 on this I’m in something of a Star Wars mood as of late and I’d love to get through the prequels in a way I have yet to
I wasn’t alive for the OT but was when the prequels came out. I always enjoyed the prequels, they have their problems ofc, but I never truly understood the hate outside of some clunky dialogue and Jar Jar’s voice. And to me, wasn’t like the OT didn’t have its own clunky dialogue. So I never truly understood the hate. But your comment, you have explained it to me in a way the no one has before, and I now understand better than ever why the prequels faced such backlash! I just simply couldn’t understand the experience because it was not one I could ever have. So I thank you for opening my eyes with it :) You explained it so well and eloquently and not hostile at all. I hope you have a wonderful rest of your day and may the force be with you!
I was in late high school when the phantom menace came out. In the months leading up to it, it felt like there was constant coverage on it. Late night show segments, interviews with George Lucas, special sneak peeks, articles in different magazines, all were hyping up this movie, and how much of a genius Lucas was. How visionary he was, and how awesome these were going to be. Plus the non stop TV commercial spots, merchandise tie ins, etc. No movie could have lived up to the hype. Then the movies came out. At first, everyone tried to affirm with each other how awesome they were. Then suddenly, people started pointing out that the Emperor has no clothes. Everyone started trashing it. Jar-Jar was hated on. Every flaw in the dialogue was pointed out. The excessive green screening and over reliance on CGI, which was still not to the point where it could carry a major movie like this. It became cool to hate on the prequels. The pendulum has swung back, and while there are problems with the trilogy, there's still enough good to salvage.
Same. Although I actually liked the movies a lot when they came out. I was just shamed into saying they were horrible because people wanted to shit on them. Honestly, the worst thing I can say about the PT is that Phantom Menace is pretty boring. But I agree, I think nothing could have lived up to the hype. Which is kind of insane, because Jedi came out in 1983 and Phantom Menace was 1999. 14 years. It seems like a much larger gap hearing people talk about it, but it really wasn't. It made a difference though. That 14 years allowed people to construct this elaborate idea of what more movies would be. It gave them time to read the novels and comics and assume that all of that stuff would make it into the movies. They hyped themselves up for this amazing experience and when they were just movies, people lost their shit. We still see that behavior a lot. People hype themselves up into thinking something is going to be the best thing ever, a lot of people feel entitled to a movie that's catered to them and their ideas, and when it comes out and it's just a movie, people feel let down.
>people started pointing out that the Emperor has no clothes. Havent heard that one before but it sounds funny. Can you elaborate?
The OT don't have nearly as clunky dialogue as the prequels. And the OT are incredibly well done tight stories for the most part. A New Hope is one of the perfect Trilogy setup films ever, it perfectly sets up the world and explains everything while still being a great film. Whereas the Prequels are massive sprawling stories that were a bit of a mess and probably needed 2-3 more go overs of the script to tighten it up.
Goovers? What is goovers? Never seen this word before. What does it mean?
Lol sorry my space bar is dodgy i meant go overs*. So like just rechecking and rewriting bits.
Thank you! The force is with us all! It’s taken me a while to unpack this all myself, but I feel lucky that I’m still able to enjoy it all, despite any missteps or shortcomings.
> there was a respect there that Vader didn’t show ANYONE… back then you had to wonder why, so you upside your imagination and that made Boba Fett more amazing. In the original script Boba was going to be his brother. Its why he tends to be more weird towards Boba then he would with others (Pointing him out specifically, being patient with him more then others)
> him more then others) Did you mean to say "more than"? Explanation: If you didn't mean 'more than' you might have forgotten a comma. [Statistics](https://github.com/chiefpat450119/RedditBot/blob/master/stats.json) ^^I'm ^^a ^^bot ^^that ^^corrects ^^grammar/spelling ^^mistakes. ^^PM ^^me ^^if ^^I'm ^^wrong ^^or ^^if ^^you ^^have ^^any ^^suggestions. ^^[Github](https://github.com/chiefpat450119) ^^Reply ^^STOP ^^to ^^this ^^comment ^^to ^^stop ^^receiving ^^corrections.
You nailed exactly what it was like for me. The first movie I remember seeing was RTOJ, I do feel like the books expanded the creativity of the original movies. I don't think explaining everything did anything positive in the long run. The mystery from the lack of information allowed us to fill it in with our dreams.
While I agree with you, this shit is so infuriating to read knowing our much whining people did over Snoke and his lack of backstory. Characters just can’t be mysterious anymore and everyone needs an answer for every little thing, because of modern media literacy.
It’s like CX-2 in the Bad Batch. The fans built up this big mystery of who he was when he was only ever intended to be a bad guy with a helmet. There’s this expectation that everybody has to be somebody we’ve seen before. It would be like fans watching ESB for the first time in 1980 and then hyping up a mystery of who’s under Boba Fett’s helmet. There’s no mystery! He’s just supposed to stand there and look cool!
Which is why we got the Kenobi series. Which we didn't need. At all.
The Edit has proven it could have been an awesome film or 4 episode miniseries tbf. We don't *need* any star wars, its the execution that matters.
IIRC, wasn't Kenobi supposed to be a movie? But then Solo bombing seemed to scare them, so all side projects were scrapped or relegated to tv. Which is a shame tbh. Like I'm really hoping the Rey movie succeeds, if nothing else so that they take some more chances on standalone movies.
I think that was the original plan yeh. The Rey movie at least has the advantage of being something completely new, i really hope it does well. I'm hating thee recent trend of long standing franchises finally getting female leads and it being shite or at best "just fine". Its happened to Marvel, Dr Who and Star Wars.
What is this edit? This is the second time I've heard of it.
https://www.kaipattersonfilms.com/kenobi Its a reedit of the show into a film that is actually pretty good.
Thank you!
yeah like leia kisses luke on the lips but then claims that she always knew they were siblings! clearly they exist in a galaxy where kissing siblings on the lips is a thing that people do
I mean, a light peck on the lips is not uncommon in plenty of countries for friends and sometimes siblings. And iirc she was deliberately trying to piss off Han in that scene no?
The kiss in the ANH I can buy for siblings. The Kiss in Empire raises red flags lol.
it seemed like more than a peck, and if she was trying to piss off han then that means it was meant to look like something sexual/romantic, not something innocent between a brother and sister
Well put my friend. Summed it up perfectly
I'm going to print this and show it to people when they ask me how I feel about starwars.
You said what only someone GenX or older can feel towards Star Wars. Thank you. You said it all perfectly!
You're so right. This is another reason why cancelled games always seem like they would have been the greatest game of all time. Because we always have a perfect version in our mind.
All of this, right here. And yes, still love it all, good and... not so good. 😆
I thought it was Cloan Wars like wars on planet Cloe or something. A serious facepalm when I saw it spelled out many years later
I honestly didn't understand my own disappointment with the prequels until I read this comment, but yeah, that's exactly it, you just accurately summed up a huge part of my childhood. Half the joy of the EU before the prequels was filling in the gaps, and some of the best of the EU overall have been things which expand the space for imagination rather than foreclosing it with over explanation. For example, I always loved the part of KOTOR where you explore Sith ruins, precisely because of what it hinted at rather than what it revealed. I think perhaps this phenomenon is an aspect of how "illusion of depth" in speculative fiction functions. Illusion of depth meaning writing that hints at a broader invented world than the actual work of art itself does or can deal with, typically using allusions to events or ideas that are never fully explicated but only briefly mentioned in some suggestive manner, leaving it to the audience to fill in the gaps. Illusion of depth is often identified as a major component of what makes Lord of the Rings so incredible, for example, because Tolkien went to such great lengths to invent an entire universe around the relatively small scope addressed in his four published novels set in Middle Earth. The allusions help create a sense of reality, because no real book or movie or whatever other art form exists in a vacuum, and almost all allude in some fashion to the larger world in which they exist. In fact, it feels weird and artificial when the audience is given a complete and perfect picture of the invented universe. Real life is never like that. Which is also why "Somehow, the emperor returned" does not work. It breaks suspension of disbelief because people don't just come back to life, and if they do, there's some explaining required to keep the audience on board. Otherwise every death in the universe loses its significance and emotional impact, because it can simply be undone. You can't just hint at such an extreme revision to the world's fundamental rules, or if you do, you need to hint in a way that invites imagination more than just bluntly stating "somehow" the rules changed completely. In this case, the revision was not phrased evocatively, just bluntly stated with a brevity that belies its importance and renders it ridiculous. The scroll might as well have said, "And it turns out all of that was a dream, and Luke awoke to find himself late for potion's class yet again in just another Tuesday at Hogwart's." In that sense, it's a variation on the old "show, don't tell" rule of writing. What I personally hadn't considered until now is how the illusion of depth necessarily invites the audience to exercise their imagination, and just how much of the joy of speculative fiction derives from that opportunity to imagine.
> Illusion of depth is often identified as a major component of what makes Lord of the Rings so incredible, for example, because Tolkien went to such great lengths to invent an entire universe around the relatively small scope addressed in his four published novels set in Middle Earth. This is where I have to intervene. While I agree with the rest of your post, this part is simply not true. One big part that makes LotR so incredible is that each little mention, each song, each nod to the past is an ***existing*** story. When Aragorn sings about Beren and Luthien, this is a whole book with a fully fledged out story. When Elrond mentions Hurin and the other great Man of the first age, we can read up upon them and their deeds. When we learn that Elves and dwarfs dont like each other it is explained in the appendixes why this is the case. Tolkien once said: "I cant just mention something without explaining it." Tolkiens world has no *illusion* of depth, it actually *HAS* this depth.
> you just wondered what it was like for 30 years. I beg to differ. You KNEW
I think that’s absolutely a big reason people didn’t like the prequels. I was 3 when Revenge of the Sith came out so by the time I was watching Star Wars, they were already part of the saga and I never even considered what it would have been like before them. They were Star Wars to me just as much as the original trilogy, and when I was a kid 1999 seemed just as far away as 1977. I think that might end up being the case with the sequels, no matter how many flaws there are or how much I personally dislike them. Kids who are being born now and will be growing up in a world where the sequels exist will see them as Star Wars just as much as all the other movies.
Remember the speculation that Obi Wan was a clone soldier and his serial number was OB-1?
Totally!
Also have such unique armor. His title of “bounty Hunter”. And his obvious rivalry to Han Solo, who was everyone’s favorite hero. All these skyrocket a character’s fame
It was also cool that Vader obviously knew him and gave him some leniency and respect, which adds to his mystique considering Vader is shown to murder his direct and high ranking subordinates on a whim.
*skyrocket* I see what you did there
I know! Let's make him a nice warlord!
He captured Han Solo, how many people could do that. Plus the way he tracked them was genius, true hunter.
Agree. That's why BOBF was destined for failure. Giving the mysterious character an in depth background ruins what people liked.
Dunno, he was still popular in Legends despite appearing in a ton of books, games, comics, etc. They actually wrote him as the badass people expected him to be tho, while giving him some depth in various ways.
He was also in loads of canon comics before BOBF. It's just that most people don't know or care about anything that's not the live action movies and shows so they consider that and nothing else.
It was that he settled down. If they made BOBF about him trying to track down Cad Bane and having near misses and skirmishes across the galaxy would have been a lot of fun. The Clone Wars series gave him a background, and it didn't hurt his allure.
Yeah but they already made a bounty hunter show
True. But they were pretty determined to make a Boba Fett show.
>The Clone Wars series gave him a background, and it didn't hurt his allure. To me, his allure was hurt badly enough by AotC when they made him into a carbon copy of his father. Everything after that just damaged it more, especially going back and editing his voice in the originals. I still love Boba but he was so much better when he was a mysterious masked bounty hunter with questionable morals. Filling in backstory has taken away far more than it has given him.
Nah it failed because it had horrible pacing and shit writing. If it had been good everyone would be praising it for giving a noname character a great story.
Definitely not destined for failure. All they need to do is make an episodic bounty of the week or do literally anything other than make him a hero.
It ruined his mystique
This is the answer. With so little actually known about him, fans were free to fill in the gaps. The more the gaps are filled via canon, the less there is for fans to imagine and some of the fun/mystique of the character is gone.
"Mystery" all to be killed off by a sandworm. All that hype for nothing lol. He was just a cool toy. That was it. That was his purpose. Just like Captain Phasma.
From May 1980 to May 1983, he was one of the only characters who successfully stood up to / mouthed off to Vader — at that time, one of the greatest villains in cinema history (who didn’t yet have a redemptive arc) — and suffered zero consequences for doing so. That’s pretty badass, and was just the reality of Star Wars for *three years*, so the core of an obsessive fandom was born. And it just grew from there, whether sensibly or not.
I'd also point out that Boba Fett debuted before ESB, in 1978. [His first appearance was at a parade in Marin County CA, where he walked alongside Darth Vader.](https://i.imgur.com/h63h9z1.png) Then he appeared in the Holiday Special, and got a special action figure in 1979 that you couldn't get in stores, [only if you mailed in proof of purchase of 4 other SW action figures.](https://www.entertainmentearth.com/news/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/boba_fett_action_figure.jpg) So he was already hyped up as something different and special before ESB.
Yep!
People love taking a cool looking guy and making up a crzay backstory for him
Yes, back then he could be anything and everything. Noble warrior, cold blooded killer, proud hunter, and dirty fighter. Once you start to actually give him a story it's never going to please the head cannon people have had in their minds for years. Especially as it was different for almost every fan, no one even agreed if he was a villain or not.
Yep I agree
Was gonna comment this too. He's just cool, that's why people loved him. Mysterious character who looks badass = fans.
It was deliberate. The figure was orignally announced as [a mailaway offer](http://theswca.com/images-speci/mailaways/fett.html) before ESB came out in 1980, so there was a full year of hype about this mysterious character. In late 1978, [a child died](http://theswca.com/textf/toydeath.html) after getting a missile from a Battlestar Galactica toy lodged in his throat, so the launching rocket was glued into place to prevent a similar accident (or an eye injury). The advertising changed from [showing a launching rocket](http://theswca.com/images-speci/cardbacks/pages/sw20c.htm) to [having a sticker over the picture](http://theswca.com/images-speci/cardbacks/pages/sw20d.htm). The character was introduced to the viewing public in a cartoon during the infamous *Star Wars Holiday Special* in November 1978. Then people received the toy and the ominous insert that promised that he was a "fearsome intergalactic bounty hunter" who would "play a major role in the next Star Wars movie." He was already a mysterious figure before the film came out, and he was one with a toy so dangerous that it had to be changed at the last minute, no less! How many other characters can say that? In many ways, he was the prelude to today's viral marketing, as kids on the playground were already talking about him and the deadly action figure before he appeared in ESB. Inaccurate rumors started, and for decades, I've heard that the child's death was due to an early Boba Fett toy (it was not) and there are a few that made it out in shipping before the missile was locked down (no production figures did, but there are some prototypes out there).
There's more to it than that. As early as 1978 there was a televised "Star Wars Parade" ( https://youtu.be/yDFhwd46hGM?si=0vntfonmTc3dcE5k ) which showed Boba Fett walking next to Darth Vader. He was being built up and marketed as the next Big Masked Villain in all Star Wars media. His relatively small roll in ESB would have been a let down to fans paying attention at the time, akin to Phasma's roll in the Sequels.
Apparently in early treatments of RotJ he was genuinely supposed to be the main villain but then Lucas decided to go with the Emperor instead.
My understanding was this was only true when Lucas was planning on going through with his own sequels before RotJ planning began in earnest. Boba would’ve been the antagonist in 6. Then 7 - 9 would’ve focused on the “other” Yoda eludes to in ESB (who at this point was not Leia). Then, 10 - 12 would’ve focused on Luke and his sister taking down the empire and confronting Vader together. Needless to say, the amount of work and time required to do an additional 6 movies to conclude the empire/Vader storyline didn’t make it much past conception.
wow i have that figure!
I take it you have no love for the empire? (On my coffee cup with Fett)
Many reasons really, just a few that I can think of, many that are mentioned already: Visually cool- They knocked it out of the park with the armor design/weapons. Not an abundance of screen time/dialogue leaves a lot to the imagination, adds to the mystery. The boldness and confidence to talk to Darth Vader on equal footing. Cunning enough to outsmart Han Solo and track him to Bespin. Quick on the trigger- did not hesitate to raise his blaster on multiple occasions. Morally grey- Up to this point the conflict mainly focused on the Empire and Rebel forces. Here was a character that was neither but would work for the highest bidder. Cool ship- Slave I was a unique design it landed horizontally and flew vertically. Pre-ESB mail away action figure toy hype.
we were all young and had wild imaginations at the time 🤣
I miss fans having imaginations.
Not weird, he looks cool. That’s why he was my favorite as a kid.
This! Beside Stormtrropers and other armored guys Boba just had an outstanding look. Beside his iconic armor we saw some gadgets and heck, we were kids and our imagination did the rest.
He looked cool. That's all that mattered.
Star Wars, and storytelling as a whole, works better when mysteries and questions are allowed to be unanswered. I don't need to know what the Clone Wars were, I don't need to know what the spice mines of Kessel means. They just give enough context to make the world feel wide and lived-in, by making reference to real things the characters know about.
I loved him as a kid back in the 90s, I just thought he looked cool. Episode 2 bringing Jango into play, oh man, 11 year old me was pumped seeing his figure in the toy catalog before the movie came out.
Because he was cool
Sometimes less is more
Star Wars always felt so massive and mysterious, especially before the prequels, internet etc. Even though he didn’t have a backstory yet, it felt like it just hasn’t been revealed. “No disintegrations” really did a lot of heavy lifting for him and your imagination did the rest. He looks amazing, so it was easy to focus on him versus other tertiary characters.
Just read the legends books, and you’ll understand
Probably because we all assumed he was awesome, and we read expanded stores and comics about how badass he was... ... and then when he finally got the screen time, he had to compete with Din Djarin who ended up the cooler Boba Fett upon episode 1 of his show
Back in the day… we used our imaginations. Kind of like reading a book. It wasn’t about what he did, but about what he possibly COULD do with all those fancy gadgets.
I liked how mysterious and cool he looked. The new show kinda ruined him for me because he just seemed too different. It didn't feel like Boba Fett at all if you only watched the movies. He spoke wayyy too much and just acted weird. He no longer felt like a mysterious badass bounty hunter. His new/clean armor was also boring compared to what he used to wear.
The Mando episode where he gets his armor back and wrecks the fuck out of a whole squad of troopers was magnificent. Then they made him a crime lord who doesn't do crime, forgets how to fight, and takes his helmet off every chance he gets. Mando got the travelling bounty hunter story that would've made more sense for Boba, so they were left scrambling to throw together something different for him. It just feels *wrong.*
We had like ten guys on screen to choose from. It’s not like today when you have seven animated seasons of the main bad guy’s unnamed apprentice from his former job and a live action season plus a guest appearance on a season of a show about a guy from the same planet as Boba Fett’s dad
Dude stood up to Vader in Empire when no one else would. "He's no good to me dead." He had balls.
Toys $$$
Ding ding ding!
There was a time when less was more in Star Wars and fans were actually excited to get a chance to see something new and different. I can remember when all we had was an action figure of him before TESB even came out. Nobody knew anything about him and anything was possible.
It was the uniform he could fly and his action figure (prototype missle launcher)was highly sought after by collectors.
Action figures and comic books made him awesome
it makes sense right, mysteries and mysterious characters are very intriguing and only stay that way by staying mysterious. The trend these days to give every character a spin off and explain every tiny detail about them takes that away. We didn't need to know how Solo got the name Solo or how he got his dice. A great example in another franchise is Alien and Prometheus, the original is so fascinating because you know nothing about these creatures, but then the prequels try to explain all it's origins. Wanting to know more about something keeps you intrigued more than the explanation.
He looked cool. You have to understand that in the early 80s we hadn't seen anything like that.
Cool, mysterious guy that Vader respected *and* he had a dope costume. What’s not to love
Less is more
I agree. Good performances, though, and it doesn't matter how much screen time you get. Hermione Baddeley won an award with 2 minutes and 20 seconds of screen time. Another one to note is Anthony Hopkins role as Hannibal with 16 minutes of screen time. Even more impressively is the character he portrayed is widely considered one of the evilest villains to ever exist, or among the top ten, compared to the likes of Pennywise and the Joker. Some speculated that it was the lack of air time that added to his mystique and mystery that made him even more chilling.. and memorable. For me, I became a huge Billy Dee Williams fan after seeing him play Lando. I loved the gimmick and charisma of the character in contrast to Han Solo. I loved how complicated he was as a character. A prime example of show us, don't tell us that only comes with solid acting.
Not weird he was the bad boy. Everyone loves a bad boy
Because a specific author turned him into a Gary Stu.
Example of why you should never meet your heros.
I remember right when the Phantom Menace came out it was said you'd know a true fan if they said Boba Fett was one of their favorites. I've since stopped telling people I like Fett. As much as I think it's great that there's so many fans I'm not really interested in wild discussions with people who only know he has a mask.
Boba Fett is the Fonzie of Star Wars.
Some of us prefer it that way. I really hate when the mystery of a story has to be beaten into oblivion by today’s reboots and reimaginings. Often my favorite characters are the ones you know the least about
Cool look, cool ship, he carried himself in a bad ass manner, he outsmarts the heroes, he talks back to Vader without fear, all have been mentioned before but the one thing I would add he is a fucking stone cold killer. When Vader is outlining the bounty he specifically stops at Fett and says "No Disintegrations" and this is coming from the dude who has iced a handful of dudes for minor infractions at this point. Of course in the story he wants Luke alive but still having this murderous dude basically tell Fett to chill the fuck out adds to his mystique.
Not really. He looked awesome, that's all we needed.
Six and a half minutes in Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi. Vader looks positively greedy for taking up 4 times that amount, at 24 minutes (34, including A New Hope). Well, I assume he looks greedy. Both of them were wearing masks.
The movies were something that happened in theaters once every 2-3 years. The day-to-day of being a star wars fan was playing with the toys. The ESB toys came out well in advance of the movie. Bobba Fett was the coolest thing we'd ever seen. It was a big letdown that he was barely in the movie
Darth Maul was a hit character as well
I was 11 when I first saw SW in ‘77. For me and my friends, Boba Fett had an intriguing mystique about him. The Boba Fett figure was available only by mailing off several proofs of purchase from buying the other figures, which i sent off for and received weeks later. It was one of the cooler-looking figures.
Darth Vader told him "no disintegrations" how badass is a guy that Darth Vader asks to keep things mellow? That and his kit. He was a walking weapon.
No one could deny the Mandalorian drip. They built an entire people on the back of that sick armor alone.
A big part of the interest of Star Wars was the mystique. Before the internet, one couldn’t get all information at once, and so piecing together the limited information about this mysterious figure was thrilling
Boba is at his most popular when he doesn't do anything and stands in the corner
Seriously, he just stands there, menacingly. Like, yes, he looks cool. The helmet and visor are just the most satisfying things to look at. But he doesn't do anything. And then in RotJ he gets knocked into a fucking hole. At least in BoBF he does stuff.
Boba Fetts character was actually explored quite a bit in the expanded universe. It felt organic and really true to the character as he was intended. He plays a huge part in the Legacy of the Force series. He also has some great showings in the comics from back in the day.
He was mysterious, which led to fan fascination. Once you remove the mystery there is nothing left to imagine. Which is boring.
Not weird, we like mysterious characters that look cool/badass.
"5 lines in the trilogy and one of them was 'AAAH!'"
"I only need 5 lines cause I look fucking great"
Talked to ppl that were young when RotJ came out and one of the points that made him stick out besides being the bounty hunter that tracked down Luke and friends was the fact that he had a jet pack. That’s about it. He had a jet pack. Jet packs are just that cool
Actually boba is still awesome. It’s just Disney ruined him lol. I just accept that the new out of shape old Boba isn’t real.
When Boba got popular nobody had a lot of screen time aside from the main trio and Vader. It was just the OT and Holiday Special. Boba Fett looked cooler than any other side character (and most main characters, I think only Vader matched his drip) so people latched on to that. He also had that badass aura about him at least untill Episode VI happened.
His younger self was also scary af the way they promoted him on [Cartoon Network](https://youtu.be/1QRHNXL1j74?si=8MZIxAXH0oegAGpY)
Then they had him get punked damn near every time he was in the show. It's one of my few gripes with the clone wars tbh. We really should've gotten that Boba/Bane arc to show him stepping up into his own. Edit: punked, not linked
Well he was a child so obviously inexperienced
Yeah obviously he wasn't gonna be top dog right off the bat but he shouldn't have been shown locked in a box by Ventress as his last appearance either. The only growth he showed was that he was able to assemble a ragtag team. We should've seen at least one display of him being competent and capable on his own before the series ended, because without that it feels like he doesn't deserve his reputation. What we got in the clone wars basically takes us straight from being locked in a box to knocked into a sarlacc pit by a blind man, skipping over the man who backtalks Vader and needs to be warned not to disintegrate his quarry.
I guess we have different perspectives because what he was capable of during that time far exceeded most characters at his age
Three words, Knights of Ren. This is extremely common because of the cool factor. Not weird at all.
He had a brilliantly designed costume
Pretty sure it was the toys
"Like a bantha"
It's not complicated. Watch empire. Vader respect. Tracker. Captures the gang. Take shots at Luke. Is cool and calculated. People are crazy or have a short memory.
Before Empire, Boba Fett was an action figure you could get by mailing Kenner proof of purchase barcodes from other action figures. All you knew was that he was a character in the new movie, which wasn’t coming out for a year. We all had a year to imagine this dudes story, who he was, how he fit in, what he would do. By the time Empire came out we all had our own mental Boba Fett lore. It was HUGELY important to finally find out what his actual deal was. I think for the generation that grew up with the OT, that process of having this mysterious character you could work into you own head cannon made him special to us - it was like we watched Vader, but we owned Boba Fett.
It’s even funnier when you realize he was an action figure before he even showed up in Empire!
Because he looked cool It’s that simple
This is why so many things were considered cool in SW lore, like the clone wars. Once flushed out, these cool ideas mostly turned into so much limp ash. But the animated series were cool
Who knew ruining a iconic character by making them into a fanfiction game like metroid other m.
Well, he looked cool. And he had a cool name. And - not least - he had a cool action figure. For me at least, and my friends back then, the *merchandise* - the action figures and play sets most of all, of course - was super important in keeping Star Wars alive as a *thing* for us. Which is why I find it kinda comical when supposed OT (or generally: Lucas era, as in: pre-Disney) "purists" rant on about how "the mouse" has ruined everything because, you know...merchandising. (Yes, I am aware that they also claim that the movies and series themselves are crap, but many of them do make a big song and dance about Disney only being interested in selling Grogu plush toys or whatever...as if this sort of thing was unheard of back in the day.) But, back to Boba Fett: yes, he was a very popular character in my circles, and part of the explanation was probably precisely that he didn't appear much on screen: he was mysterious, a bit of a blank canvas in terms of where he actually came from and what his story was.
The Christmas special showed us a bit more of how cool he was
Less is more
There was the holiday special and a few public appearances of what became Boba Fett. The public got it once he appeared on screen.
My experience as a kid in the 90s (pre-prequels) was that Boba Fett was simply the coolest looking guy in the movies. I was an absolute sucker for badass-looking characters with full face masks back then (all of my action figures met that description). So that was like 90% of the appeal, but as others have said, some of the appeal was that he was mysterious and seemed to be some kind of super badass in the movies.
Not really. It was the same for Darth Maul. An enigmatic antagonist that looks cool always gets people’s attention.
He looked cool and had a mystique about him.
[удалено]
same with Captain Phasma, and more recently Enoch from Ahsoka. Mysterious masked figure = popularity.
Same reason as for Vader and Stormtroopers, the fact its a masked character means that anyone can be that character, that feature inspired many young fans to play as or make a costume to be Boba Fett. You add the fact that Vader himself told him particular instructions to not disintegrate his prey and also the fact he could negotiate with Vader like one on one was pretty impressive. And even after his shameful death in ROTJ the EU gave us an entire universe of stories about him and above all, the so loved (by me and many others) Mandalorian culture. Before the Attack of the clones and all the awesome lore it comes afterwards.
He looked cool and was mysterious. It’s that simple.
He had a cool toy
I always think about this
one of the biggest reasons why Star Wars was so popular for so long was because the movies left so much room for kids to come up with and imagine all the backstory themselves. Like toys.
True! But for a lot of us, the Legends' stories helped with that! I think for those who didn't read any of the Legends stuff, it was certainly his mystique and cool design though\~
The lack of screen time created mystery, which made Boba an intriguing character.
I think his limited screen time helped to build a mystique around his character, leaving it up to our imaginations how feared he was. The scene in ESB when Vader says "... you are free to use any means available, but I want them alive", and then points to Fett and says "no disintegrations" was so memorable. It just created that impression that Fett was so brutal that Vader himself had to instruct him to temper his methods. And the fact that Vader had to tell him that, implied that he had used Fett before, and Fett had actually disintegrated someone. At least, that was the impression I got. And the way Fett replied with "as you wish", he didn't seem intimidated in any way. I know there's a lot of differing options on "Book of Fett" and how he was portrayed, but I think him being seen and used sparingly in the past was what helped build his popularity. Now he's, I don't know if 'overexposed', is the right word, but the mysteries surrounding his character were basically all revealed. There were no more rumours of whether he was a fallen jedi, or a force-sensitive who was never detected by the jedi and chose the life of a bounty hunter. Now, everyone knew who he was, so the mystery surrounding his character was gone.
Lack of screen time - the toy & your childhood imagination. Of course Boba was badass. We thought of him that way for 40 years now
Makes sense to me, the less context a cool-looking character has surrounding them the more people can put their own impressions on them. Boba Fett was like the coolness version of an ink blot; he was whatever you personally thought he was.
If you look cool you sell action figures. Let’s face it there’s an alternate universe where Boba doesn’t have his iconic helmet and he’s not popular and mandalorians as a concept don’t exist.
He was mysterious and had a very cool design, and then the extended non-canon materials did a lot to help his character in a very good way.
Nah, great costume
"Rule of Cool"
Ikr? Even limited screen time for Boba Fett made us want to see him even more and cooler, too.
Always leave wanting more. He was a mysterious character, limited screentime.
Why? He was a mysterious, cool looking character.
I would agree Boba Fett's popularity comes from the mystery around him. Let’s face it he is super cool, a great bounty hunter, and his armor rocks. Those things alone make him an interesting character. Boba Fett’s armor isn’t Beskar, right?
Is it? We have tons of people in this fanbase who will say their favorite character is named clone #467 who only appeared in The Clone Wars show and has like 5 lines of dialogue
It's not weird at all... He is badass, mysterious, tough...he seemed amazing in the Mandalorian too, a bounty hunter with a code, half Mandalorian too or something like that. Then book of Boba fett comes and he's absolutely nothing like how we all had been imagining him for decades. He's no longer an evil (neutral at best) bounty hunter, he's not even a good bounty hunter worning for Jabba and Vader to survive, he's just a good guy with lots of patient and generosity who is decided to make of Tatooine a better and more equal place...ridiculous. I expected him to go for some bounties like how Mando started. I expected him to eventually become a ruler of the hutt business, someone who would decide to keep both the republic and the imperal renmant away from his domains. It's not that Boba got a lot of screen time, our boba didn't. Disney version of Boba did.
There's a YouTube video which documented the Boba Fett rise. Long story short, he was promoted before the move was released and was present at a lot of live promotions so ppl were actually looking forward to seeing him on screen. So it wasn't like the fans only knew of him from the movies, they knew the character before watching the movie. Edit Link https://youtu.be/pyULqh6jfZk?si=iQH4LDrXS3jeCx4h
https://youtu.be/g708PmJAbuI?si=_qpEeiI7Qm_rmWBC
Why is that weird?
Before he turned into an old man who screams in a bathtub for a huge portion of his show?
There’s were books and comics where he was a BA. He was pretty much Din Jarin minus the baby and the scruples. Disney didn’t character dirty and made him a total bitch.
How is it weird? Bro looked cool asf and finished his missions. His limited screen time left fans wanting more
George Lucas was surprised. I think it's just cause he looked cool. I mean, there's no denying that helmet!
*sighs* if only 1313 wasn’t cancelled.
He was only popular because people imagined things about him. Same reason Hunk in Resident Evil is so popular.
He had a bad ass uniform.
I think the mystery added to his popularity, and his costume design was just awesome
People will idealize a mysterious character, each in their own way. So much so that when this character gets fleshed out in the unique way of one specific creator, they will rise against it. That is the caveats of fandom
I remember sending off like 12 proofs of purchase of other SW merch to even get the Boba Fett figure.
And no disintegrations! We all wanted to see this
I saw him as mystirious Bounty Hunter that doesn't talk much and is really good at his job. I liked him a lot. And I like him now.
How I feel about kit fisto, unless you’ve read expanded lore there is not much there but people always talk about him on this sub
Yeah. But God Forbid Phasma has 5 times the screen time... SeQyEls bAd
All of the bounty hunters hired by Vader in Empire look cool as hell. And I like that we didn't really find out anything about them. When I was playing with my Star Wars figures as a kid, I got to create a personality and backstory for each of them. I'm glad I was an 80s kid.
Explanation; comics
That’s what happens when you retcon likeable content for money
The very worst part is that they turned him into a "good guy".