Trivia and Facts About Boba Fett

He's even turned up in The Mandalorian as a “good guy” and has got his own spin-off The Book of Boba Fett.

From a small part in The Empire Strikes Back as a masked bounty hunter, Boba Fett's infamy and stature have grown throughout the Star Wars fandom, so much so his legend outshines characters who had more screen time!

We're pretty confident that Fett's popularity is due to one thing; his cool armor design. There's something brutal and foreboding about it. You only have to take one look at him to know he means business and is not a being to be tangled with.

The armor is commonly known as Mandalorian armor, named for the humans that wore it on the planet Mandalore. There's a sense of Clint Eastward's eponymous character from The Man With No Name about him. Perhaps there's also a touch of Judge Dredd?

Either way, Fett has developed a lot of history in the 30 years since Darth Vader warned him about no more disintegrations.

Here is a collection of facts, trivia, and tales about him:

• While the character's helmet gives him a 360-degree view, in reality, the actor who played Fett, Jeremy Bulloch could hardly see from under the helmet while filming.
• Boba's adult face has never been shown in the movies. This did of course change with the release of The Mandalorian.
• Legend has it that George Lucas was considering making Fett have a bigger role as an antagonist in Return of the Jedi. However, things obviously played out differently in the end.
• The iconic design of Boba Fett's armor is widely credited to Joe Johnston, who worked as a concept artist on The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi. You might be familiar with Johnston as the director of Captain America: The First Avenger.
• Fett's famous braid is apparently made of the scalps of Wookie.
• No one knows the real reason his helmet has a round bump on the top.
• Captain Phasma wears a black cape with red trim, the colors of the First Order. Given that Phasma was inspired by the Boba Fett character it's no surprise she has a cape as the original idea for Fett was to have him wear a cape/poncho in the style of Clint Eastwood's character from The Man with no Name.
• Jeremy Bulloch cameos as Jeremoch Colton, the captain of the Sundered Heart in Revenge of the Sith (see below). He drove the Correlian Corvette at the end of the movie:

  

   

• After an extra fell sick during the filming of The Empire Strikes Back, Jeremy Bulloch was called in as a replacement to the Imperial Guard who escorts Princess Leia and pulls her into the elevator after she screams “Luke! It's a trap!” As a side note, this is, of course, the same line Admiral Ackbar says in Return of the Jedi. That means Bulloch has had three parts in Star Wars across three movies.
• Bulloch died in late 2020. May he rest in peace.
• Fett's name is only mentioned for the first time in Return of the Jedi when Han Solo asks where he is.
• Daniel Logan played the young version of Boba in the Attack of the Clones prequel and the voice of the animated Boba in the three-part season two finale and in season four of the Star Wars: The Clone Wars television series. Logan milks his role on the convention circuit as much as he can.
• Boba Fett's original action figure was to have had a rocket-firing mechanism, but after a child choked to death on a similar toy – the Colonial Viper from Battlestar Galactica (1978) – Kenner dropped the mechanism and made the rocket stationary.
• Dickey Beer was a stunt performer in Return of the Jedi. This involved the work in the Sarlacc pit scene and Fett flying into the side of Jabba's Sail Barge.
• Jason Wingreen was the uncredited voice of Boba Fett and claims he was never paid for his work by George Lucas.
• John Morton did a quick turn in a Cloud City scene in The Empire Strikes Back.
• Temuera Morrison played the father of Boba, Jango Fett, in Attack of the Clones. He's the dude who took a gun to a lightsaber fight with Mace Windu. To be fair, Jango's jet pack misfired, meaning he had no chance of defending himself by escaping Mace's purple power-pulping device!
• Dryden Vos has a set of Mandalorian battle armor in his collection on his yacht in Solo: A Star Wars Story. This is the same style of armor made famous by bounty hunter Boba Fett.
• Boba Fett was added to the special edition of A New Hope by George Lucas. He appeared in the scene in which Jabba the Hutt was added.
• When the DVD of The Empire Strikes Back was released in 2004, Temuera Morrison re-did the voice for the character to add a new consistency given he was Jango Fett and Boba was his clone. It stands to reason they would have the same voice.
• Boba Fett's return to Star Wars came in the first episode of the second season of The Mandalorian. Temuera Morrison played the character (Tem played Jango Fett in The Clone Wars and his son was cloned from himself so makes sense for him to play the aged version).
• Five different people have played Fett in the movies. Well, it's six if you count Morrison doing the voiceover in The Empire Strikes Back.
• Boba was first shown in the television movie, known as the Holiday Special. He was featured in a cartoon segment but his first public appearance was in a parade:

  

Did Boba Fett survive the Sarlacc Pit in Jedi?

By the time Return of the Jedi rolled around, Boba Fett had gained some intense popularity with the fans. Bear in mind that the era of moviemaking magic was in the early 1980s when there was no internet, so the only “chatter” about the character was in fanzines. So when Lucas offed what appeared to be a badass character in such an ignominious fashion, he was surprised at the mild backlash it created.

The question then became, given he was fully armored, did Fett survive his fall into the Sarlac pit, or was he slowly digested over a thousand years?

Star Wars author J.M. Rinzler did an AMA on Reddit and this is the answer he gave about Boba Fett's survival:

“Yes, he does. I have been in meetings with George where he confirms that Fett survived. If it comes from George then it’s true!”

As it happens, there's some documented proof that Boba lives from before The Mandalorian:

So in this comic book version of the story, Fett survives by boosting it out of the Sarlac put using his jet pack armor.

There's also the short story called The Last One Standing: The Tale of Boba Fett by Daniel Keys Moran which is found in the collection Tales of the Bounty Hunters. It even used to be canon before the changes came into effect when The Force Awakens was released.

While it was possibly a wasted chance to tell a really good Boba Fett story, it does give us an insight into an aged Fett who, having survived the Sarlacc pit, undertakes one last bounty to see him into retirement. An itchy, trigger-finger-happy Han Solo serves to prove a worthy foe once more.

Did you spot the Mandalorian armor in Solo?

Solo's bad guy Dryden Vos displays a set of Mandalorian battle armor in his office on his space yacht. This is the same style of armor made famous by bounty hunter Boba Fett though it looks a lot less battle-tested:

So tell us about Jango Fett and Boba in Attack of the Clones?

Remember that Stormtrooper that bumped his head on the Death Star in A New Hope? That unplanned goof by the unknown actor became the stuff of legend among Star Wars fans – so much so that when Lucas decided Jango Fett was to be the “father” of the clone army, this “bump” was called back as an actual character trait of Jango.

During Attack of the Clones, when the Mandalorian Jango Fett gets into his ship after his tete-a-tete with Obi-Wan, he bangs his head on the open door. Bump!

Speaking of the fact Boba Fett is a clone, Attack of the Clones has some interesting parallels to George Lucas' first movie, THX 1138.

The production system used in THX 1138 appears to have been used as inspiration for what Kenobi is exposed to in Attack of the Clones.

Sure it's on a grander scale but the concept is the same. In THX 1138, the embryo is simply referred to by a designated name, the same manner as the clone Stormtroopers are.

This article was produced and syndicated by Wealth of Geeks.