One of the most enigmatic characters in Star Wars canon is Boba Fett. Fans will soon get the chance to learn the origins behind Boba Fett's creation and costume in Titan Comics' Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back 40th Anniversary Special.
CBR has six exclusive photos of Boba Fett from Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back 40th Anniversary Special, along with an extract from the deluxe special edition releasing in June.
A look at the six Boba Fett photos, along with the extract's history lesson behind his origin and costume can be found below.
THE ORIGIN
Despite having very few lines of dialogue, and without ever having his name mentioned during the movie, aside from a deleted scene where Leia is tending Luke’s wounds and she says Han has been captured by “a bounty hunter named Boba Fett,” the character has remained one of the most popular characters among fans of Star Wars since first appearing in The Empire Strikes Back. And since that debut, few characters have generated the kind of fan dedication and inspired the amount of stories that Boba Fett has. For decades fans speculated as to his origins, at least until Attack of the Clones (2002). And to think that initially he had been no more than a work-in progress version of Darth Vader.
“There were quite a few films made about bounty hunters in the Old West,” said George Lucas, “that’s where that came from. When I was writing the early scripts for Star Wars, I wanted to develop an essentially evil character that was frightening. Darth Vader started as a kind of intergalactic bounty hunter in a space suit and evolved into a more grotesque knight as I got more into knights and the codes of everything. He became more of a Dark Lord than a mercenary bounty hunter. The Boba Fett character is really an early version of Darth Vader. He is also very much like the man-with-no name from the Sergio Leone Westerns.” Indeed, Boba Fett would retain the quiet attitude and the cloak reminiscent of the legendary character played by Clint Eastwood. Other elements of the character’s iconic look date back to concepts that had been previously scrapped. Several touches were added to his helmet, taken from Ralph McQuarrie’s 1975 sketches. To a certain degree, that helmet recalled a samurai mask, and some parts, like the chin and the mouth, were later used for Darth Vader’s mask. Together, his costume and helmet also take inspiration from an elite caste of stormtroopers. These super-stormtroopers were better equipped and more thoroughly prepared for combat than regular soldiers. Their armor was all-white, their helmets were slightly different. Another version of Boba Fett may be seen in Prince Valorum, Black Knight of the Sith, who appeared in Lucas’ first draft for Star Wars as one of Darth Vader’s henchmen, who was sent out to capture rebels. In March 1978, all these ideas were blended together by George Lucas, Ralph McQuarrie, and Joe Johnston, to create the bounty hunter we know. Boba Fett was a “real villain”, who would sell his services to the highest bidder, like Bossk, IG-88 and the other bad guys who appeared alongside Darth Vader.
BEHIND THE MASK
Boba Fett’s famed armor was painted by Johnston, based on a precise idea: “It was a symmetrical design, but I painted it in such a way that it looked like he had scavenged parts and done some personalizing of his costume; he had little trophies hanging from his belt, little braids of hair, almost like a collection of scalps.” Once the armor was ready, it was tried out by Duwayne Dunham, assistant film editor for The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi. It also included a flamethrower built by Industrial Light & Magic, which, on its first test run, leaked and wound up scorching Dunham. The CO2 cannister inside the backpack did work though. At any rate, the idea of the flamethrower would resurface later on. Thirtyfive-year-old Jeremy Bulloch, associate producer Robert Watts’ half-brother, was called in to play Boba Fett.
“I rang him up and said, ‘If the suit fits, the part’s yours,’” explained Watts. Bulloch got the part. For each round of shooting it took him 20 minutes to put on his costume. In the beginning he was bewildered by all the suit’s gadgets and working parts: “There was an odd sort of Wookiee scalp hanging from my shoulder, which I originally put under my helmet because I thought it was some kind of hairpiece!” But Bulloch would not be the only one to wear Boba Fett’s costume, as two more actors would also be playing the role. John Morton donned the armor in several scenes on Bespin, and in a few scenes of Return of the Jedi stuntman Dickey Beer filled in. Ten years later, Mark Austin and Don Bies shared the role of Boba Fett in additional footage for the Special Edition re-releases.
Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back 40th Anniversary Special is priced at $24.99 and goes on sale in June from Titan Comics.
Source: Titan Comics