Boba Fett is Awesome
Running a bit late this morning, however this strip will last us through today and tomorrow as we take a day off to prepare the last two strips of our parody of the Holiday Special animated segment. As you may have noticed our output is starting to drop as life catches up with us. We may end up skipping most of next week in order to catch up with other commitments and prepare for the parody of the live-action Holiday Special. So be prepared to go without for a few days starting next week.
Are you new to BMS? If so, then you can start reading this webcomic from the beginning by clicking here.
Watch the Star Wars Holiday Special animated short below, courtesy of YouTube.
…crap, that’s pretty much what happened, isn’t it? Fett seems LESS awesome now.
I still maintain he only ever got the “awesome” reputation because he was in a full-face helmet (mysterious) and had a jetpack (cool).
Wholly agreed with your impeccable opinion.
Sadly, Boba Fett was rendered forever UN-awesome for me once I learned that the actor who portrayed him also portrayed Edward of Wickham in the 1980s Robin of Sherwood TV series. It’s my all-time favorite show… but it’s just impossible to be impressed with Boba Fett once you know that inside that badass costume is the peasant who’s always being captured or knocked around by the Sherrif or his henchmen to lure the outlaws out of hiding.
You sound like “Windows” from Fanboys.
Nuh-uh, read the bounty hunter war series, he’s a badass. He didn’t die like a punk in the sarlac pit; he killed that thing. Killed it dead.
your mileage may vary, to me the fact that they made up this an outrageously nonesense just to keep him alive, after they knew his popularity, is what makes him lame in the first place.
He’s like a comic book supervillain.
I would have respected him fa(aaaaaaaa)r more if they had let him rest in peace
Nah, Fett is even MORE awesome now – he is one of the rare “bad guy” characters that realizes that you need more than just a gun to beat Main Characters, especially once you lose the element of surprise …
😉
Oops! This should be in reply to Ashvati …
😕
Classic! 🙂
AWESOME at running away.
Still can’t get over the totally unimpressive and ignoble way he was killed off in ‘Jedi’. Had Lucas already lost interest in him during ‘Empire’? I mean – he did shag-all and he’s become this hugely popular character! My son LOVES him.
Less we forget that according to LUCAS the holiday special NEVER HAPPENED (in full denial fashion). So when he appeared for the first time in ESB (In Lucas’ eyes) he was how he was supposed to be. I agree in the holiday special (which I did see when it original aired that one time only (conspiracy-conspiracy-its all a lie-trekkie plot) he was a thrown in as a break in the live action. A test on SW in animation form. The old Marvel Comic Book Series coming to life. I can see why Lucas totally denies the special. It also fed into and started the curiosity with Fett and his eventual cult status (which no longer exists with all the modern day exploitation of him he’s no longer CULT!) I think the holiday skit was behid in schedule and the fudged the ending due to time and allotted time in the special. Someone F’ed Up! lol
I’ve actually heard rumors that Lucas was involved in the Holiday Special, but only with the animated segment. Apparently he helped craft the story. Also, whatever Lucas sees as canon is certainly not my canon. SW Canon has been continually re-invented overtime, but one addition I personally don’t follow is the Prequels and the Clone Wars. In fact, much of the Dark Horse EU I also don’t treat as official. For me all the post OT material is “spin off”. The Holiday Special and Splinter of the Mind’s Eye were the earliest spin offs and hard to take seriously.
In the case of SOTME it ends up not fitting because ROTJ reveals Luke and Leia to be siblings. It’s hard to read SOTME now without viewing it as a spin-off universe where Luke and Leia can be romantic without it being incest. The Holiday Special was made almost patronizingly for a younger audience and filled with musical interludes. Besides, what about that guy hitting on Bea Arthur with the volcano crater in his head? But back to Boba Fett, all the Holiday Special does is reinforce that the reality does not live up to the EU version. In TESB his only real achievement is predicting Han had hidden in the Star Destroyer’s blindspot and then following him to Bespin. He doesn’t personally capture Han, he just makes a phone call to Vader. We don’t have onscreen proof he would have succeeded if left to his own devices. Actually we do have proof that he probably would have failed, because of his atrocious bad luck in ROTJ.
He never does anything onscreen that lives up to his own legend. What’s funny about this (apart from BMS taking interpreting him as a glory hunter) is that even in his very first ever appearance, canonical or not, he sucks!
But yeah, he still looks cool to this day. That’s about it. 😉
I never understood his cult following early on (says the guy into jawas lol) and yet it grew. As you so greatly said , “In TESB his only real achievement is predicting Han had hidden in the Star Destroyer’s blindspot and then following him to Bespin. He doesn’t personally capture Han, he just makes a phone call to Vader. We don’t have onscreen proof he would have succeeded if left to his own devices. Actually we do have proof that he probably would have failed, because of his atrocious bad luck in ROTJ.”
It also seems history repeating itself with the cult following of Darth Maul. (I got to hear your take on this!) Very similar to the rise of Mr. Fett. (Who later also makes another bad animated cameo in the Ewok cartoons and EWOKS SUCK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)
Interesting. Yes, why does Vader even hand Solo over to Fett? I mean he’s done virtually nothing to deserve it and Vader’s evil.
respect for a fellow villain?
Lucas was involved with the Holiday Special, including the Wookiee family and that storyline. He had entrusted the special to someone competent, but he ended up leaving the production and being replaced, at which point the “variety show” aspects were added/emphasized. Lucas often talked about spinoff movies that might not be part of the mian storyline, such as one all about droids, one all about Wookiees, etc. The Holiday Special was an outgrowth of that idea, and was, at it’s core, Lucas’ baby. It was just turned into something he didn’t approve of, so he disowns it.
As for Fett… he was promoted and hyped well before the movie came out, appearing in parades with Darth Vader, getting an action figure, and having his backstory hinted at and his lethal gadgets and weapons explained in the Bantha Tracks official fan club newsletter from Lucasfilm. The public was primed to think he was awesome before they ever saw Empire Strikes Back.
Lucas himself has stated he never understood why people loved Fett so much. I believe him, given all he’s done in more recent years to undo everything we thought was cool about him (the mystery of his identity and true nature, the emotionless voice, etc.)
Considering he was a minor villain in the films (not named onscreen in Empire, even), I think his death was appropriate and fitting… killed by Solo, by accident. If Lucas had not been burned out on the series by the time Jedi came along, perhaps Fett would have been developed further. Gary Kurtz has hinted at that, saying there were at least some ideas briefly tossed around regarding it.
Ya know, jetpacks may be cool, but they seem to be a bit of a liability for for the Fett family. Both Boba and Jango got knocked off because of a malfunctioning jetpack. Jango because his wouldn’t start anymore, preventing him from jumping away from the lightsaber haircut, and Boba… Well, all I can assume is that he cannot have been performing proper maintenance on that thing if someone if it can go off like that just because someone someone gives it a little knock with a stick.
So, there’s a lesson in here for prospective bounty hunters: Jetpacks are cool, but they’ll kill you in the end. 🙂
“I also have a rope that can restrain Chewie, possibly a Thermal Detonator in my pocket, and a rocket on my back and wrist, there is no way I can win !”
Those of you that do not like him are just secretly jealous that you do not have a cool helmit, and a jet pack.
Not to mention that he also has Darth vader’s personal cell phone number and a space ship called Slave 1, (which is almost as cool as the falcon).
OK, so a blind guy accidently knocked him into the mother of all Venus Fly traps, and he got a little bit digested who among us has not had a bad day now ang again?
BTW how many of you non supporters have your own action figures?
Alright, I digress (whatever that means) can we all possibly agree that he is at least 5 steps above the Ewoks in terms of cool, and so much cooler that Jar Jar that the comparrison can not easily be made in terms that the human mind can comprehend without Carl Sagan saying “Billions and Billions”?
I’m not saying he doesn’t look cool, or even sound cool (OT version voice only). Just that, his onscreen actions do not match the legend that was created in later spin off material… which I think we all know is based upon the fact he looks great and has a jet pack. I’m just reacting to the almost orgasmic enthusiasm towards Boba Fett. And no disrespect De Jawa Vu, but you say Boba is no longer “cult”. Well, Celebration V says the opposite to me. And so do all the comic cons! 🙂 LOL
Fetts now huge and way beyond cult status…Also Jeremy B. is one of the coolest guys you’ll ever meet. I absolutely agree he’s huge at cons. Like I said he outgrew cult status long ago in a ….yeah you know the line. Now the Ugnaughts fan club is small and definitely cult. lol
Ultimately Fett for as little airtime and accomplishments as you greatly and awesomely stated is as big as some of the main characters like Leia or Luke or Han. I think that merits beyond cult status. I think he’s pretty mainstream.
Biggs Darklighter and the Smoking Jawa in comparison are growing a cult following,,,,Like Boba did 20+ years ago……………………. Present day Boba Fett is a different story…….I can see C3PO squawking about Boba Fett getting more attention them him and he was in all 6 movies….C3PO’D if you will! lol
Bloody right T.Gatto!
How come when I post here, my comments are always “awaiting moderation”? Don’t you trust me (evil laugh)?
It’s what I do behind your back, and hopefully out of the public lime light, that you should really worry about ;=.
After all, doing evil is only half the fun, blaming others for what you have done in the act of covering it all up is the true cats meow.
Oh well keep up the (gag) “good” work!
It’s the same for everyone, T. Gatto. We introduced comment moderation around September last year when we got attacked by a group of pricks making accusational comments about us ripping off Family Guy. It pissed me off because when I made a blog addressing the accusation and explaining that any similarity was just coincidence, I opened up to the readers about how the speak before thinking thing sucks at any time, but as a mere fan made creative endeavor it is discouraging. We don’t make money from this. It’s our personal time. So to invest all that and then be treated as though we were guilty without any sort of discussion is very frustrating. That blog then got attacked as a couple of this guy’s friends who suddenly showed up and accused me of overreacting and felt that their guy was being attacked. In a way, he was, as a huge number of our readers spoke up in support of BMS. So this put the guy and his buddies backs up against the wall and they got angry. So, I decided that since I need positive vibes in order to continue making a not-for-profit fan comic and be able to enjoy the process, I didn’t need dickheads starting shit. 😉 Anyway, I suppose its a good thing to be compared to Robot Chicken and Family Guy. Both of those shows have million dollars budgets (well, Family Guy I’m sure).
Yeah I know all that, but it is simply more fun to complain about it in this semi-anonymous forum, than it is to simply accept reality and go along with it 😉
BTW I finally got around to reading “After School Agent” (see voting links above) not bad for a simple story, easy to pick up, and likeable characters. Please read it, as it is way more intertaining that reading anything I have to say.
Sad folks had to waste time raining on someones parade. To bring it up is one thing but to just keep doing it is another. Some folks need to get off the anonymous internet and go walk around the real world now and then where pricks get dealt with. Folks have been doing parodies and fan fiction about SW way before Family Guy and Robot Chicken. I’m sure both Seth’s read a ton before Family Guy or Robot Chicken was even a thought. How do folks think the whole EU thing came about. After the triology people wanted more. So stuff got started. Eventual lighting a fire under Lucas and the boys to finish the damn prequels and still more EU is out there afterwards. More SW fan fiction too. BMS was an awesome accidental find for me. It is fun like the old parodies done in Mad and Cracked Magazines growing up. I guess they ripped Family Guy off too! lol
“like the old parodies done in Mad and Cracked Magazines”
Funny you should mention that! Do you know where I could download them without registering with some dodgy torrent site? I had a Cracked or Mad one as a kid that I loved. Strangely, I no longer have it.
It was the one with Luke activating his sabre whilst FACING ben. Oops!
you don’t NEED to register to use VUZE.
Its stupid to complain about Star Wars parodies having similar ideas/jokes, they are doing the same job are are likely to have some similarities between them, like the old saying goes “Great minds think alike” . I also don’t understand why someone would stick up for a major TV show, company, or whatever when they probably don’t have any relation to them , its not like they are your friend , you don’t owe them anything
Well put Sam!
I just love how boba is just posing right there next to them.
and the third panel is so true 😀
MAN I LOVE Boba Fett!!
If the question was, “How much more awesome could he possibly get?”
I’d have to answer, “Not much!”
\m/_ (>_<) _\m/
The only thing i like is that Boba Fett is a Mandalorian
When you think of it, it’s true that fett always fail when it comes to the OT heroes and awesome in all the other media. If youu’ll watch the last few episodes of the cgi clone wars season 2 with all this in the back of your mind, you just can’t help but to feel it as hilarious that a guy can take out an entire republic star cruiser from the inside out, with clones, jedis, crew and all knowing there is a sabetour somehwere on the ship, can’t avoid being hit by a blind smuggler waving a stick franticly around in the air at random, which ALSO just HAVE to somehow activate his jetpack and fly down the pit of a sarlaac as a fully grown man (what. late 20’ies to early 30’ies?)
Also, I do think boba did survive the sarlaac. have you eve rplayed the force unleashed? most of the second felucia mission unfolds from the inside of one of these strange creatures. if you have all the equipment such as a graapling hook and a jetpack, it’s a real piece of cake working your way throughout there alive. it’s like a sticky tunnel-complex that might move and burp occasionally 🙂
He was also a wimp in those episodes.
I do love Boba Fett, and I also like how he is portrayed in Expanded Universe media- I think he DOES deserve that much. In my book, and million’s of others books, Fett escaped the Sarlaac.
Honestly, I’m an EU nut- alot of it sucks but there’s a few gems here and there.
I think I already know the answer, but what exactly is your opinion on the prequels? I enjoy them- joke about them like crazy, and PREFER the old stuff more… But nonetheless- I even watch the Clone Wars series.
You?
Hi Anon,
The prequels were an opportunity missed in my opinion. I enjoy them inspite of myself, and despite not understanding the plots even after watching them a dozen times.
I mainly enjoy them because I watch them with my 4 year old who LOVES them. Perhaps someday they’ll be edited, re-scripted and redubbed. I’ve no idea what can be done about the total air of boredom that emanates from the actors though! That’ll take serious CGI skills!
The EU provides a lot of fun spin-off material for the Star Wars universe that fleshes out the minutiae. That’s great. However, because Star Wars has become a brand there is no end to the output of material. That’s a good and bad thing, because some of what you get is fantastic, while much of it is actually pretty abysmal. It’s not coming from the mind of one or two creators, such as George Lucas and his co-writers and directors, but from a horde of people involved in the novels, the comics, the video games, etc. It becomes a patchwork of variable quality material and the uniting look and feel that initially made Star Wars what it was with the Original Trilogy gets lost in the shuffle somewhere down the line. As a fan, first and foremost of the original films, I gauge the authenticity of new canon by comparison with the old.
Let me put it like this, from my point of view, the SW OT is a woman I fell in love with, but nearly three decades later she’s become a cyborg with multiple appendages, silicone boobs and a new personality. Now some people like fake boobs, but for me it’s artificial. The girl I fell for has become almost unrecognizable. And the problem is, even if the Prequel Trilogy and Clone Wars were a separate Sci-Fi property with no connection to Star Wars, it’s like a bleached blonde… and I love brunettes.
I could be deconstructive with criticism of the plot of much of the Dark Horse and Del Ray SW Expanded Universe, likewise with the Prequel Trilogy and Clone Wars, but essentially, it just isn’t the same “woman”. The character is very different. In SW you have a mystique about the Jedi that gives the story a real essence. The Jedi aren’t really what’s important, it’s their beliefs and the spirituality that counts. It’s what Yoda teaches the mind, not about a medley of a thousand lightsabers zipping across the screen. It’s about people other than Jedi, like Han, Leia, Lando, and of course Admiral Ackbar *cough*. Essentially, the OT was straight forward and the structure and storytelling felt like it had been worked over a lot more and influenced (for the better) by multiple creative people coming together to form something greater than any individual mind could have conceived on their own.
In a nutshell, as a writer myself, I don’t feel the Prequel Trilogy or the Clone Wars have a solid structure, making the plot not only convoluted, but pretty dull. Glorious action sequences perhaps (though the backflipping somersault into combat between Anakin and Obi-Wan made me roll my eyes) but it feels mish-mashed with a plot that takes the political intrigue so seriously it ends up leaving too many important questions unanswered. In the OT you didn’t have to have a lightsaber to kick ass. It’s kind of like the PT and CW were unrestrained, letting Lucas run wild, and that meant an attempt to create a convincing world / universe through eyecandy overruled the need to ensure the plot was both cohesive and emotionally powerful.
I guess I just prefer real over silicone. Again, just my point of view. I realize that for many the PT and CW has plenty of depth and makes plenty of sense. And I realize that some people tear up as Jedi get killed. That’s fine. It just doesn’t work for me. I end up laughing because I was never given reason to care about them or even be convinced that the galaxy needed their lazy hypocritical asses.
I can’t take much away from Lucas in terms of his work and his imagination. Creating something so vast is admirable. But it just so happens that the work I fell in love with was more than just his own. It was people like Gary Kurtz, Irvin Kershner, Leigh Brackett and Lawrence Kasdan and Ralph McQuarrie that helped shape Lucas’ world into something greater than that of just one man. He was challenged and even overruled at times. Hell, is anyone aware that Ponda Baba was to be decapitated as well as dismembered in the cantina by Obi-Wan? In the PT decapitations abound, not to mention the de-limbing of Anakin and just about every other Jedi. That’s one of the differences between the OT and PT, George did not have complete control, and for that reason I think the OT fits better together than the bizarre mix of kiddie movie meets horror film in the PT.
Superb critique. This deserves not only to be a blog post in its own right – but to be posted prominently elsewhere.
I didn’t realise Lucas was overruled so much with the ‘first’ film. I thought it was more a case of budget restrictions and deadlines from the studio.
Well, I think it WAS budget restrictions and deadlines for the most part, but as you can see here, he originally intended to be far more graphic with Ponda Baba’s death. This makes Obi-Wan a very scary character. In fact, it makes Obi-Wan the freakiest guy in the cantina (apart from the hooker smoking assassin guy from the EU).
Great photos – never saw them before. That’s Gary Kurtz with the Quaker beard methinks?
“…an elegant weapon for a more civilized age.” Oh yes, lovely. Wish I’d lived THEN.
OMG that poor creature! I may have to call PETA, is that People for the Ethical Treatment of Aliens, or People Eating Tasty Aliens? Rights for Walrus Men (and women) everywhere ;( !
Now that I’ve got the bleeding heart out of my system (hopefully forever) I say more blood and guts would just add to the dead Greedo decorum in the corner of the cantina. Then in the remake poor Ponda Baba could get a second chance as he premptively swung some crude edged weapon (at point blank) at Obi Wan’s neck (done in poor CGI) before Ben responds to the attack by “making the cut” so to speak (Pondy swung first…..).
It’s the politically correct, big business, aspects of the prequil trilogy (and remakes) that ruin them the most. Star Wars was great because it was raw and at times a great B Flick. Add budget and Lawyers and get reduced quality of product. Style over substances does not always work.
LOL.
My point though, is that decapitated Ponda Baba never made the final cut for the release. They realized that it would alter the tone of the movie to have a dude’s head lying on the ground. Hell, for a long time I thought Ponda Baba actually survived (the EU thought so). I didn’t even realize that the intention was that both Ponda and Dr. Evazan (back then Walrus Man and Ugly Bastard) were killed. They are both lying in a mess in some production stills. Sure, the OT had a couple of dismemberments (Ponda Baba’s arm in ANH, Luke’s hand in TESB and Vader’s already robotic hand in ROTJ), but they upped the graphic violence count particularly in ROTS with (off the top of my head, LOL) Darth Maul being cut in half, Jango Fett decapitated, Anakin losing his hand, Count Dooku getting his head scissor removed at the neck by dual lightsabers, Mace Windu losing HIS hand and then life, Anakin losing his arms and legs and almost burning to death while he screams at Obi-Wan. This was just a little more violent that the OT by a few thousand miles. I’m not saying I have a problem with violence, I’m just saying that all this violence was mixed in with a 5 year old Anakin playing with his toys and being obnoxious, Jar Jar Binks, and those cartoon droid soldiers. It’s like Redletter Media and Confused Matthew said, Lucas tried to appeal to too many age groups all at once.
“Lucas tried to appeal to too many age groups all at once”
Precisely. Mixed message, mixed tone, mixed language: garbled result.
Exactly. Lucas tried to please everyone, and that’s just too hard.
(or he could have put Boba Fett in…that’s a crowd pleaser…)
Blue Milk Special has easily jumped over fantastic and is into the realm of “Worthy of Legendary Status” in my book. It was there by the second or third strip!
Even though Boba got killed in “Return” in later books he is saved by Durge and some ex-slave and we learn about some of his epic past.. So he manages to be an epic dead man who lives and kick Kuat of Kuat’s buttocks!
!BOBA FETT RULES!
George Lucas helped out with the animated special’s story?
…..um…*what* story? There was an idea for a story there, but no story. Lots of sound FX gakked from the first SW flick, though. X )
Well DONE, sir! Well DONE. Garbled response PERFECTLY describes the Prequels!
I’m a writer, too. I completely understand where you’re coming from on all of this, and agree with most parts- but I just can’t bring myself to hate it.
I do like your metaphor for what happened, too. I think we all prefer real to silicone!
Oops. I put my first comment in the wrong area. How’d I do that?
Jango Fett costume arrived for 4yr old johnny today. Usual Star wars Corporation quality. Hmmm.
Oh well, the clear plastic packaging that the helmet came in can actually be made into another helmet! – it’ll be Boba. And, believe it or not, I think the packaging plastic will actually be better that the flimsy plastic they made the helmet from!