Why Do People Love Boba Fett So Much?

Well, the title basically says it all, this one has been on my mind for some time. It all started one day in science class, I was sitting there, zoning out as my professor rambled on about something or other when suddenly it popped into my head, seemingly out of nowhere... Why do people love Boba Fett so much?

I would go on to spend the next hour and a half of class sitting there debating in my head as to why this glorified extra had gone on to become one of the most popular characters in the Star Wars saga, hell when I was a kid he was one of my favorite "characters". This question popped into my mind yet again when a few friends and I decided to sit down and watch the entire original (good) trilogy for the first time in years, back to back in one day. While I immensely enjoyed this trip down memory lane, I wish I would have had a stop watch on me in order to time Boba Fett's total screen time, which I'm pretty sure sums up to less than fifteen minutes. So once again the question started churning in my mind: Why do people love Boba Fett so much?

First we have to look at what he does in the original trilogy, seeing how this is where he first rose to prominence; though Boba Fett's first appearance was not in "Empire Strikes Back" but in the "Star Wars Holiday Special". To satisfy demand for more Star Wars between "A New Hope" and "Empire" George Lucas crapped out a television special in 1978 that featured the cast journeying to Chewbacca's homeworld for "Life Day" the Wookie Christmas, oh did I mention it was a musical? Anywho, the special was a disaster aside from a animated short in the middle of it that involved Luke and the droids being betrayed by Boba Fett, who apparently rode a dinosaur. Now I've never seen the special since George Lucas buried it and refuses to release it (probably burned every copy) but I hear the Boba Fett segment was sweet, but anywho I'm pretty sure no one else from our generation has other than those willing to track down bootlegs so once again I'll just look at the original trilogy.

We first meet Boba Fett as one of the bounty hunters Darth Vader hires to track down the Millenium Falcon, seeing how every officer at his command is incompetent in his eyes (he's not too far from the truth). While Vader is giving the bounty hunters their marching orders he specifies he wants the crew of the Falcon alive and " No disintegrations" with an emphasis and even wagged finger at Mr. Fett. So this may be our first hint at Fett's potential badassness, perhaps he has an itchy trigger finger? Or maybe he just likes blasting away at his enemies until nothing is left. After this Boba Fett utters one of his grand total of two lines in the entire series... " As you wish." Other than showing that he's a huge "Princess Bride" fan this shows that Fett agrees with Vader, which shows the man has some common sense because one thing we learn from "Empire" is that bad things happen to those who disagree with Vader. But anywho, later on the Millenium Falcon escapes The Empire by posing as space junk and floats away, though we soon find out that Boba Fett in his ship was also posing as junk and Fett takes off after them. We see here that once again that Fett has a pretty good head on his shoulders, knowing his enemy's tactics. Or Fett was just chilling is space and happened to come across the Falcon and saw dollar signs (Nah!). So Fett follows our heroes to Cloud City, where he gives Vader a call, who then shows up and uses Han Solo as a human stressball for a bit. Vader then decides to test the carbon freezing chamber on Han, at which Fett bitches that Vader may be killing his pay dirt. Of course Vader just tells Fett he'll pay him off if Han dies which seems to please him. Many fans say this is an example of Vader giving into someone else's orders, which he only does with the Emperor later on in the series. Except when Grand Moff Tarkin orders Vader around like his coffee boy in the first film, and when Luke tells Vader there is still good in him, and when Luke begs Vader to save him in "Jedi"... But I digress, but many people say Vader was being submissive to Fett, when in fact he was being diplomatic. Yes it took balls on Fett's part to speak up, but he was really just looking out for his job, hell both The Empire and Jabba the Hutt were paying him to find Han Solo, Boba just wanted a paycheck. And Vader, the man clearly had other things on his mind, like kicking the shit out of his whiny bitch of a son and then having to take him to his boss, as well as maybe paying up on all that back child support? But Fett escapes with Han and takes him to Jabba the Hutt, who uses Han to tie together the Fung Shui of his palace. The third film begins with Luke's clearly not too well thought out rescue plan, where for the most part Boba is seen hanging around Jabba's palace looking kinda bored, except when a disguised Princess Leia pulls out a grenade, prompting Fett to draw his gun (which is kinda natural to do). Later on our heroes are taken to the Sarlacc Pitt to be executed, at which point Luke starts turning Jabba's henchmen to mincemeat. About halfway through the battle Fett decides he should show everyone how its done uses his jet pack to blast onto the skiff, at which point he gets his gun promptly cut in half by Luke. But Fett has more left in his bag of tricks as has a "arm band lasso" that ties Luke up for all of a second before Luke deflects a laser blast onto Boba, stunning him. Luke then proceeds to whup ass on a few other guards as Fett takes his good ol' time taking arm with his wrist cannon.... And misses. Han then accidently bumps into Boba Fett with a stick, setting off Boba's jet pack sending him crashing into the side of Jabba's barge and into the waiting Sarlacc Pit below. And thats it, accidently bumped by a blind man and sent to a thousand years of agonizing digestion. Bit of an anti-climatic ending?

Yet the Boba Fett legend has endured, when the question first popped into my head about his popularity I asked many of my friends why and many of them referred to his actions in the "Expanded Universe", the Star Wars books, video games, and comics. In the books and comics, it is revealed that Fett used his handy jet pack to blast out of the Sarlacc Pit and continue his bounty hunter ways. Many other books and comics have been written turning him into a sort of anti-hero, even giving some backstory until Episode II came along and at least explained some of that. But while the Expanded Universe did indeed add to the legend of Fett, this all came after the movies, so once again it all goes back to why? Why him? There are other, far more interesting characters to look at (and I'm still waiting for that Admiral Ackbar spinoff!) so why did the fan boys choose Fett as their messiah? After talking to a few fans of the series and looking at why I loved him so much as a kid, I've narrowed it down to three factors:

A.He's Mysterious Theres a scene in the underrated comedy "Mystery Men" where our three misfit heroes, played by Ben Stiller, William H. Macy, and Hank Azaria are sitting around debating who to recruit for their super-team when one of the suggests they recruit the hero known as The Sphinx, when asked what The Sphinx's powers are Hank Azaria's character, The Blue Radhja responds- "Well, he's terribly mysterious!" And therein lies on of Fett's greatest assets: his mystery. Fett doesn't say much, he doesn't do much, we don't know what lies under the helmet, or where he came from. This is the source of my childhood love him, I wanted more, I wanted to know what he looked like under the helmet, wanted more shows of ass kicking from one of the coolest designed characters in the series. My overactive pre-adolescent imagination ran wild, creating tales of Fett kicking rebel, Empire, and bounty hunter ass, visions of a horribly mutilated visage under the helment danced through my head. But I realized something, whenever Fett's background was explained, whenever the helmet did come off, I would never be satisfied with what I saw. My mind had built up the legend of Fett so much that nothing that the Star Wars films could ever do would please me. And thats part of the love of Fett, I had fallen in love with the mystery of the man, as had most fans like me.

B.He Looks Cool Its almost like George Lucas gathered a group of scientists into one room and said " I want you to create badass manifested into flesh" and the result was Boba Fett. Fett may one of the best designed characters in cinema, never before has character been so directly communicated through costume design. The man is wearing armor from head to to covered in heavy wear and tear, clearly he's seen alot of action, and dished some out as well. He has a jet pack, a sweet looking helmet, a wrist lasso, a wrist cannon, hell he even managed to squeeze a cape in there as well! He also has several braided wookie hairs hanging on his shoulder, which shows that not only did more than one wookie allow him close enough to braid it's hair, but he also killed it after! All in all, his getup shows that-

A. He really knows how to accessorize

B. He is not someone to be messed with This further adds to his mystery because once again, we want to know where that armor got it's dings at, we want to know why he killed a wookie after braiding it's hair?

C. He has a Jet Pack People love jet packs, I don't know why but whenever I would ask someone why they loved Boba Fett usually the first thing they would say is "He has a Jet pack!" So fellas, if you ever wanna make it with a fan girl, buy yourself a jet pack.

And thats it, thats really what I could analyze from this whole Boba Fett love thing, though I really think when you look at the Boba Fett, you need to look at the love for Star Wars in general. Though I'm not a fan of George Lucas personally, the man used to be a good filmmaker. The first "Star Wars" film is arguably one of the most important films made, though I haven't seen his other film "THX 1138" I loved "American Graffitti", sadly something happened to George and I'm pretty sure he crapped out the scripts to the prequels one saturday night while bored and is now diving head first into the pools of money he made off the films. But one thing the man did do was create a living breathing universe and mythology, every character, no matter how small in screen time, has a unique appearance to it. You wanna know where each of these characters came from and what they do, hell in the cantina scene in the first one you just wanna hang out and check out all the cool aliens. The reason why these movies are so popular with kids is that all the sweet creatures capture your imagination, hell I created backstories for each little insignificant character with my action figures when I was a kid, I wanted to spend more time with them than I did the main characters. And Boba Fett sums this all up, he steals our imaginations, we each have an idea of where he came from and what he looked like (at least before Episode II) and what crazy ass kicking adventures he has been on a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away...