Well, it’s official – Boba Fett is back! We all knew about it going in, thanks to some much-discussed leaks, but The Mandalorian season 2 premiere confirmed that the original Mandalorian bounty hunter is returning to Star Wars. Prequels actor Temuera Morrison appeared in a cameo as Fett, seen for the first time without his mask and armor, and while we’ve yet to find out how he’s still alive, the episode may have subtly revealed how he escaped the Sarlaac pit.
As we all know, Boba Fett died (or so we thought) in Return of the Jedi when he was gobbled up by the Sarlaac beast. Fans have always been disappointed by this ending for the character, though, so in the old EU, he was revealed to have survived the encounter by jet-packing out of the creature’s jaws. It’s very likely that this explanation has now been brought into canon as Pedro Pascal’s Din Djarin pulls the very same manoeuvre while battling the Krayt dragon.
The beast is finally bested when Mando allows himself to be swallowed along with his Bantha. He then flies out to safety while the dragon is blown up by the bomb now inside it. Another piece of evidence that Fett was able to use his jetpack in the same way with the Sarlaac, though, comes from the presence of Cobb Vanth.
The lawman wears Fett’s armor throughout the episode, having got it from some Jawas who scavenged it from the desert. While the armor is worse for the wear thanks to being lodged in the Sarlaac’s digestive tract, Vanth is depicted using the jetpack while working alongside Djarin. If it’s still in useable order all these years later, it must have been working at the time for Fett to free himself from inside the Sarlaac. It’s possible that another explanation for the character’s survival will be given in the future, but using the simplest one – and the one already established in the EU – would certainly be the smartest way to go.
The Mandalorian season 2 continues Fridays on Disney Plus.
Published: Nov 2, 2020 11:23 am