Friend or Foe?
No, this isn’t named after the song by the fake Russian lesbian techno-pop band, Tatu, although it is a good song (if you can overlook that one singer of the duo that has the funny sounding accent). Yesterday we asked whether you thought Boba Fett was a good guy or a bad guy? He shot Threepio’s head clean off, so we weren’t being subtle… yet Luke seems to trust anyone who isn’t a friend of the Empire. Perhaps, Boba is one of the best examples in the Star Wars universe that life isn’t black and white. Just like Han, preemptively shooting Greedo (in the original theatrical release), Boba is prepared to do whatever is necessary to survive so long as it doesn’t cross his personal code of honor. Does this code of honor make him more good than bad? Moral dilemmas love guys like this.
Looks like Boba Fett has joined Team Skywalker… at least, for now.
Are you new to BMS? If so, then you can start reading this webcomic from the beginning by clicking here.
Watch the opening of the animated short below, courtesy of YouTube.
I always took Boba as a bounty hunter who will do anything for the rite price. I never considered him having any morals after he tried to kill luke, and in the expanded universe i believe he kill a few Jedi.
I think that why a lot of people dig the Fett. He may be a “bad guy” in the movies but you really can’t hate him for it. I mean come on the guy is just trying to make a buck. You’ve got to pay the bills.
When you think about it, Boba Fett has sort of an Inigo Montoya vibe going….”you killed my father….prepare to die.” His primary motivation in the beginning was revenge, if you subscribe to what the prequels depicted – Boba’s father Jango beheaded right before his young eyes.
I do love how he’s made into more of a glory whore (at least, so far) in BMS, so he isn’t quite as mysterious and shadowy. Shady, yes, but not *quite* so shadowy. X )
Ugh. Nope, I don’t prescribe to the Prequels. I like the mystery man, bumbling bounty hunter we got in the OT. But I do love the Inigo Montoya Princess Bride character. I’m sure I can make use of that personality somewhere in BMS. 😉
You didn’t like any of them not even 3 ?
If you don’t like how they had him in the prequels don’t watch Clone Wars. When I saw that they had him trying to get his revenge on Mace I thought ” Hell ya we finally get to see a bad ass Boba Fett” . But they had him setting his gun to “stun” and he wouldn’t even kill execute someone to get to Mace. In short , they made him a wimp.
I don’t watch the Clone Wars. 😀 So, already done. I tried watching the Clone Wars movie and I couldn’t understand how something so needlessly convoluted and boring could constitute entertainment for an adult audience, let alone children. I don’t know what the hell happened to storytelling, but at some point the fans took over writing for Star Wars and professional storytelling went out the window. I should probably add as a disclaimer that not all fans turned writers working in the Star Wars “official” canon are bad writers. There are some good ones out there, but things just feel so messy and oversaturated.
I have no problem with Boba Fett as he was presented in the Original Trilogy. He was clearly presented as a bounty hunter who was not meant to be anything more than an extra with his only gimmick being his very cool costume. He did nothing remarkable in the OT ever. And that’s fine. We can project what we want as fans onto him, but we should keep it real too. He’s been so far removed from the OT presentation of him, now even his voice has been changed to a thick New Zealand Maori accent, that they’re two separate characters now. Since I liked Boba as he was to begin with, that’s the one I’m standing by. No infidelity here. 😉
Lucky you, I only watch when I think “they might get a good one for once” and Im always disappointed. It feels like they gave it to the interns and they gave the writing to their little brothers.
It’s a real shame… but in general I feel the direction Star Wars was taken in once GL returned to the franchise in the late 90s was missing the point. It seems that now you can only be a major character in the SW universe if you wield a lightsaber, and every action scene has lightsabers out the ass. Some of the strongest qualities of the original SW movies were the non-Jedi characters, like Boba, Lando, Leia, and most specifically, Han Solo. Not that too many lightsabers is the only problem with the PT and the CW. Jedi, as far as we knew in the OT, were very mystical and largely forgotten legends. This gave them so much more resonance as we learned about them alongside Luke. This also made us really connect to Luke through his journey of discovery and the sense that he truly was special and destined for something exciting and unknown. The mystery made Jedi seem much more powerful, particularly with Yoda’s “a Jedi never attacks” speech which the PT undo by comically giving Yoda a… guess what? …lightsaber.
I could go on and on, but what’s the point. There’s nothing that can be done about it from my POV other than to celebrate the younger Star Wars universe pre 90s. Oh, and they gave Boba Fett a lightsaber in the Star Wars Tales issue by Dark Horse comics. God damn it, he was cool WITHOUT a lightsaber. He doesn’t need a lightsaber too. It seems like SW is just about gratuitous coolness these days at the cost of story and deeper meaning and characters with whom we can find emotional resonance. There’s no way I’m going to feel sympathy for Anakin or should I say teenage Hitler?
At least they didn’t try to give some half assed explanation of the force by making it some sort of micro bacteria, o wait. I still refuse to accept that because of what Yoda and Ben said in the OT.
In the OT Ben also emphatically states that Yoda is the Jedi master who instructed him AND that HE (Obi-Wan himself) made Anakin his pupil. Somehow, Obi-Wan’s vague alluding to the past with Anakin is so much more satisfying and interesting than the very unexpected version we got. Also, I never thought of Leia as a real princess… just an adopted secret. Now, as a result of the PT, Leia really is a princess and technically, Luke is a prince. I kind of liked that they were more down to earth and easier to relate to and like because of that. *sigh*
I think the biggest problem is that the prequels make it only twenty years from the fall of the old republic and the Jedi to ANH when originally it felt like 80 or 100 years or more. Compressing the story and the time-lines is what turned everything to **@@@. Its a bit to much like Star Trek syndrome, – the Borg start as this remote and hugely superiour ‘unbeatable’ enemy then a few years later they are beaten by little more than a toothpick and a computer virus.
I could go on about the circular story loops aka Anakin building C3P0, or taking things too far like R2 FLYING! No I agree with you totally on the prequels, but now I’ve sullied myself with them and having forced myself to watch them too many times I actually think the phantom Menace is the best of them, though you can almost hear the computer effects groaning…
Yoda DID teach Obi-Wan, for a short period AFTER ep III
First, I’ve been a huge fan for some time – love the strip!
“I tried watching the Clone Wars movie and I couldn’t understand how something so needlessly convoluted and boring could constitute entertainment for an adult audience”
I couldnt agree more!
If you haven’t seen the prequel reviews from Red Letter Media on YouTube, your really missing out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FxKtZmQgxrI
Oh I’ve seen ’em, as well as the Confused Matthew reviews and agree with them almost 95%. And to take what I said further about the CW movie, I can’t understand how they can lay on the convoluted plot so thick for something that is aiming largely for an audience of children! Fuck me! The OT really got it right because they found a balance between story and action that made sense and worked emotionally. It worked emotionally, because it was straight forward. It was a classic because of the class and style in which it was told. “It” being the OT. I didn’t want to dislike the PT, CW or Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. But what those movies showed me was that it was far more than George Lucas alone that created the magic. Leanne agrees and she didn’t see the OT until the late 90s! It’s not just nostalgia, or rosetinted glasses… it’s simple, well constructed storytelling.
Thanks for reading BMS! 🙂
Mmm, moral dilemmas…
I think part of Fett’s appeal has a lot to do with his helmet-mask (which is part of Vader’s appeal as well). If you as the viewer never see his face, then you can project whatever motivations you want onto what is essentially a blank canvas.
I agree. I wish people would at least attempt to work his bumbling godawfulness into the equation when painting that canvas. 🙂
That whole “if they don’t like the Empire, they’ll help us” thing gets this group into trouble rather often; huh? *cough*Lando*cough*
Yeah, what if both Leia and Tarkin hated pretzels. It wouldn’t mean they should team up against the Empire. :-/
I can somewhat forgive that contradiction because I like Qui-gon . I always thought Leia was the princess of Aldaran and not of the Empire, I figured that she found out that she was adopted in Return when she finds out she is Luke’s twin. I never looked at It that way , technically seeing as Vader and the Emperor are not related they are simply the off spring and really have no royal stance. Anyway, all of that was covered in the OT but the PT just showed us it.
I was thinking bout what you said about the lightsaber ting and your right, they even gave the royal guards a lightsaber.
LOL He did say “friend” alot, didn’t he? hahahaha
oh…i thought Luke was being sarcastic in the last panel…