My previous article on the Fett family, entitled "Ruining Boba Fett," was very well received. A quick sample of some the comments praising my work:
It’s the quality feedback that makes writing for Capital of Nasty so worthwhile.
Please note that an anime fan called the Boba Fett defenders "bozos." Ouch. And regarding comment #5, Boba Fett is in fact a fictional character, so if I ever only partially kick a single ass in my lifetime, I will have kicked a lot more ass than Boba Fett. Occasionally you need to explain things like this to his fans.
Of course, even if the Star Wars movies were real I still would have kicked a lot more ass than Boba Fett, which was one of the points of my article. My opinion on him has not changed: he’s a useless arsehole who could be replaced with a coat rack and the movies would be no different.
My principle complaint about Boba Fett is that he is an absolutely empty character in the movies. It is only subsequent authors (the so called non-canonical "Expanded Universe") that have given him any depth. I believe this was only done because of the bounty hunters assembled on the bridge of the Executor in The Empire Strikes Back (Bossk, Dengar, 4-LOM, IG-88, Zuckus, and BooBoo Fett; don’t tell me I don’t know my lore), he was the coolest looking, in someone’s opinion.
I do not believe for a second that Fett was intended to be an essential part of this universe. I don’t believe that when Boba Fett was added to The Empire Strikes Back, ol’ George was thinking "And this is the guy they cloned the Storm Troopers from." It’s only because of fan response to the novels and comics that his background was expanded for the prequel trilogy.
This is not the first time George Lucas has been so influenced. In the Expanded Universe, it was explained that Chewbacca is so loyal to Han Solo because of the "Life Debt" practise. George thought that this was so cool that he added it to Episode I, when he decided that Jar Jar Binks owed Qui-Gon a life debt.
Let the record show that though the Expanded Universe is non-canonical, they often use ideas much better than George.
And Georgie, despite his claims to the contrary, is very susceptible to public pressure. I believe it’s why Boba Fett got more screen time in the first place. Look at how Jar Jar Bink’s role was reduced to nothing after the massive uproar his character caused. Well, he kept him around long enough so he could personally create the Evil Galactic Empire, which I personally find to be the single most painful thing about the prequel trilogy.
Speaking of which, since writing that article, the complete set of prequel movies was released, giving us some more background on Boba Fett. Not a lot, but some. We learn, for example, where he inherited his terrible aim from: his "father" Jango Fett. Neither does Boba get much more in the way of dialogue. Most of his lines consist of variations of "Git him, fathah!" and the occasional giggle with a Kiwi accent. It’s not as bad as learning Darth Vader once used the word "Yippee!" but it probably caused a few Fett fanboys’ stomachs to lurch (Whoa dude, check out the alliteration in that one).
However, I am pleased to report that Jango Fett isn’t quite as useless as his son. For one thing, he wins a fight, which is something his son never accomplished in any of the movies. This momentous occasion occurs when a Jedi attempts to attack Count Dooku (Two Time Winner of the "Who’s Got the Stupidest Name in these Movies" Award), and Jango guns him (her? it?) down. True, the Jedi’s attention was focused on Dooku and not Fett, and we later learn Dooku can look after himself, but we’ll take what we can get.
Jango’s other battles aren’t so successful. For some reason, he entrusts an assassination to an underling. I guess he didn’t want to do it himself for fear of screwing up. I also believe that Jango personally trained this underling, because the assassination attempt fails. Jango also kills this underling in order to prevent interrogation. The underling already had an arm cut off and was subdued by Anakin and Obi-Wan, which is how the Fett family apparently makes most of its kills: letting everyone else do the work.
Jango does have one talent though: he’s very good at running away. He does quite a lot of it, particularly from Obi-Wan. When he does stand and fight, he displays an impressive array of weaponry, most of which he keeps damaging or dropping. I particularly like the part where he’s tumbling around underneath that creature. You can almost see the genes the will one day send Boba soaring into a hull like a flying doofus working their magic.
The filmmakers made a point of showing Jango firing a lot of shots. He does it in his ship; he does it with two pistols. It’s important to saturate your field of fire when you have an accuracy of 9%. But let us not forget Jango Fett’s other key contribution to Star Wars universe. His DNA was used to create legions and legions of what will eventually become Storm Troopers. This might explain why Storm Troopers often manage to miss water when they fall out of boats.
Impressively, the Clone Troopers do go on to play an important role in the slaughter of the Jedi. Less impressively, they later go on to get bitch-slapped by the Ewoks. You know, the guys who were scared of a levitating C3PO.
What’s that I hear? Ah, that would be the collective whining of thousands of Fett fans claming that the Storm Trooper ranks have been weakened with recruits over the years. I don’t see why they couldn’t grab Fett’s body and preserve a sample, or use a clone to keep replicating more troops, but I’m open minded. Kindly direct me to the part of the movies that indicates that Storm Trooper ranks have been weakened with recruits over the years, or that they ever ceased producing clones of Jango Fett. Notice I said the movies. If it didn’t happen in a movie, it didn’t happen.
Oh, and before I move on, let me just point out that several Jango Fett clones were required to kill each Jedi. When their backs were turned.
Now that the movies are complete, we apparently have a live action TV series to look forward to, and I am guessing Boba Fett is bound to make appearances, perhaps even becoming a major character. Maybe they will even make him look competent. But I take great joy in knowing that our last image of Boba Fett will always be him sailing into the side of a ship, screaming all the way, getting eaten alive by the great big sand vagina, and having his remains burped out.
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