Despite only appearing in a handful of scenes in the original "Star Wars" trilogy, the bounty hunter Boba Fett has become an iconic figure in pop culture. His popularity even survived and thrived after his death early in 1983's "Return of the Jedi," when his malfunctioning jetpack takes him on a slapstick dive right into the sarlacc. But that wasn't always intended to be Boba Fett's fate.

Inverse has an interview with Craig Miller, who served as the official fan relations officer for Lucasfilm in the '70s. Miller was around way back in 1976 when Lucasfilm went on a tour of comic conventions in an effort to convince audiences to give this "Star Wars" thing a try. He also came back three years later and was tasked with keeping the hype up for "Empire Strikes Back," which Miller did by writing up "rumors" about the film and "leaking" them to "Starlog Magazine." According to Miller, Boba Fett was supposed to play a much larger role in the third "Star Wars" film.

“Originally Boba Fett was set up in 'Empire' as a character, and the third movie’s plot was going to be more about Boba Fett rescuing Han Solo and all of that,” Miller revealed. “Boba was gonna be the main villain... That was set up, why he was taking Han Solo away, why there was a thing with him in the Christmas special."

Despite at one point announcing that there would be as many as 12 films in the "Star Wars" saga, George Lucas changed his mind while working on "Empire" and decided that one trilogy would be enough.

“When George decided not to make a third trilogy, he completely jettisoned that story line, which is why in the first ten minutes, Boba Fett gets bumped into and falls into the mouth of a giant monster,” said Miller. “So he took what was planned for the third trilogy, which was the confrontation between Luke and Darth Vader, and the battle with the Emperor, and that got squished down from three movies to one movie. And that became the plot of 'Jedi.'”

While Boba Fett didn't play a large part in "Return of the Jedi," fans got to see him as a child in 2002's "Episode II: Attack of the Clones" and it's rumored that the bounty hunter will get a standalone anthology film.