The last official appearance of Boba Fett was in the opening sequence of Return of the Jedi, where Han Solo’s accidentally judicious strike on the bounty hunter’s jetpack resulted in him crashing into the Sarlacc pit, where it was to be assumed he met his end. However, the closing moments of the season 2 premiere of The Mandalorian seemingly verified the survival that many Star Wars fans have longed for confirmation of. Another moment in the episode, however, may have hinted at how he escaped his demise.
The premiere features Din Djarin battling a Krayt dragon in exchange for the marshal of Mos Pelgo giving up his Mandalorian armor, which according to the creeds of the faith, is an affront for him to wear. The beast is ultimately defeated by Din baiting it into swallowing him with a pack of explosives, whereupon he shocks his way out and the subsequent detonation blasts it open and kills it.
Din’s Beskar armor is seen to be robust enough to withstand the creature’s fatal corrosive venom, so it follows that Boba’s armor, although older and considerably more battle-scarred, is of similar durability, meaning that the acid causing the torturous digestion that Jabba the Hutt promised his prisoners would not be something that affected Fett, giving him the opportunity to cut, burn or blast his way out of the pet monster’s stomach.
Of course, it’s also entirely possible that the character seen wasn’t actually Boba, since Temuera Morrison’s role in the series has not been officially confirmed. Although it could have instead been a lone clone trooper – naturally having the same features as the aforementioned fan favorite and his father Jango – who escaped conscription into the Imperial Army, that has little narrative potential and it’s far more likely that everyone’s assumption will be proved correct.
Since the MacGuffin armor in question was the same set that Boba previously owned, it’s possible he’ll seek to reclaim it as he wore it to honor his deceased father, but as neither of them are actually Mandalorian – an episode of The Clone Wars mentions this in passing – the differing perspectives over who has the right to it could be a future subplot of the show that also establishes exactly how the younger Fett survived his presumed fatal encounter five years previously.
