There’s been a lot of chatter of late about a Boba Fett movie being in the Star Wars anthology film series. It’s widely regarded that Josh Trank’s film would have been that very thing, but fell apart once he and Lucasfilm *ahem* parted ways following the disaster that was the production of Fox’s Fant4stic. There’s even a bevy of evidence to suggest that they were already teeing up this film in the Aftermath novel, which alludes to Boba having crawled out of the Sarlaac pit. Okay, fine; I don’t really care about this, because everything Lucasfilm needs to make a movie was handled in the video game Star Wars: Bounty Hunter.
I don’t want to see the revenge taken by Boba Fett once he—somehow, miraculously—crawls out of the jaws of desert tooth-and-tentacle monster; this was covered in some Expanded Universe Star Wars Legends books back in the day, and good for them. It was the spinoff material that made people really like Boba Fett to begin with: But why would I want to see an old, half-digested loser do anything, when we have 20+ years of prime bounty hunting time with which to play? We know his childhood—his father/genetic-material-duplicator died at a Jedi’s hand, he was taken in by other bounty hunters and became one himself (as depicted in Attack of the Clones and The Clone Wars TV show)—but what we don’t know is what happened between the time the Empire took over and him catching Han Solo, save a bit that’s been covered in some Marvel comics recently.
And this brings me to the aforementioned video game. The game was one of a few that came out in preparation for Attack of the Clones in 2002. Across the board, these games were better than that movie. Jedi Starfighter, for example, was a terrific dogfight simulator with an excellent central storyline. But the best of these, in my humble opinion, was Bounty Hunter, which detailed how Jango Fett became involved with Darth Tyranus (aka Count Dooku) and ultimately ended up the basis for the entire clone army. This was done through a series of bounty-hunting missions which led Jango closer to his ultimate goal: finding and destroying a dark Jedi who controlled drug-addled zombies to win favor with Tyranus.
By the nature of video games, Bounty Hunter was very episodic, but to streamline it for a movie—and to make it about Boba—would be a piece of cake. Boba, after years of feeling abandoned and alone in the bounty hunter game, gets caught up in the war between Jabba the Hutt and one of his relative rivals (it’s Gardulla in the game, but it could be anyone). He curries favor with Jabba and that could lead him to being hired by Darth Vader to find and destroy the Dark Jedi, Komari Vosa. See, any pretenders to the Emperor’s throne would be seen as a threat, and Vosa is extremely hard to get near, since she has created an army of mindless followers through a terrible narcotic hidden inside death sticks. Boba would have to follow clues and collect bounties on Vosa’s known associates to finally find her, all the while, he’s being pursued by a rival bounty hunter who wants the Vosa deal for himself.
The game has a lot of subplots, of course, which is compulsory for a video game, but the above would make a kickass movie. One thing that is, I think, necessary for the success of the Anthology movies is that they don’t always fall completely in-line with events we’ve already seen. Like Star Wars Rebels knows all too well, there’s a lot of galaxy out there to explore, and a lot of stories to tell. The inclusion of Jabba the Hutt and Darth Vader would satisfy a lot of the “need-to-see-stuff-we-already-know” fans, and hell, they could even have Boba casually run into Han Solo along the way, since the cast for that movie is already set.
The important thing for me, though, is—whatever the ultimate plot of a Boba Fett movie—that we see the bounty hunter actually hunting bounties. It should be like a western, since he was initially based on Clint Eastwood’s Man with No Name anyway, but with some horror elements, which would be brand new for the Star Wars movies. Full of action, yes, but also a complex, twisty story that proves Boba Fett was indeed the greatest bounty hunter in the galaxy. Because what we see in the movies is pretty paltry.
Bounty Hunter made me actually like the character of Jango Fett—who was woefully underwritten in Attack of the Clones—and the same could be done with a Boba Fett movie, since most people actually like him already anyway.
Your move, Kathleen Kennedy. All the pieces are right there. Breaking molds is exactly what should be done with the non-saga movies. What do you think? Let us know in the comments below!
Images: Lucasfilm/Lucasarts
Kyle Anderson is the Associate Editor for Nerdist. You can find his film and TV reviews here. Follow him on Twitter!
