With the news last week that Disney was buying Lucasfilm and putting together a new Star Wars trilogy to follow the original trilogy of the 70s & 80s, the entire movie industry went nuts. Rumors hit immediately, rampant speculation and endless fervent discussion began on forums and blogs around the world, and it likely won’t stop until we actually see Episode VII in 2015. Industry trades like Hollywood Reporter turned their focus to filmmakers, many of whom (in this generation) grew up with Star Wars and were influenced by George Lucas’ classic trilogy (not so much the prequels). So, THR asked Kevin Smith to write a column for them, and he did. But it turns out to be more of a plea/request for a Boba Fett movie than anything else.
Kevin Smith, who directed his first film Clerks in 1994 a good 10 years after Return of the Jedi was released in 1983, recalls many days spent playing with his Kenner Star Wars figures. But the one they loved making movies about the most was the character of Boba Fett, the bounty hunter who first appears in The Empire Strikes Back and has shown up in pretty much every Star Wars movie or story since. I suggest reading his entire column (it’s not too long) but here are the important parts in regarding Fett in the upcoming movie:
“If Disney wants to make another cool billion dollars like it did with The Avengers last summer, all it needs to do is make a Boba Fett time-travel flick. It would center on a character everyone digs and allow for a greatest hits of Star Wars while playing with an already-established timeline, a la Back to the Future. You could use every living (and dead) actor from the previous Star Wars films, no matter what their age — which means Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher and Harrison Ford can come and play as well. It’d be a dream come true for any Star Wars fan — particularly those of us who opted out of the boring-ass real world every summer for galaxies far, far away.”
“So in a world where Disney needs to make back its investment, we may indeed see an all-Boba Fett film. And if the Force wills it, maybe it’ll even be about Boba Fett lost in the Star Wars universe time stream. But even if it became the highest-grossing film of all time, it’d still never be as good as Pete King’s version.”
Yes please! I know I’m not alone (obviously enough) in voicing my support for a Boba Fett movie. But as I’ve heard rumors about already, it would be a better spin-off solo project than part of the continued trilogy to follow Return of the Jedi. Who wouldn’t want to see Boba Fett return to kick some serious ass, both as a villain and maybe briefly as a hero? We already saw his complete origin story in the prequels, following Boba’s father Jango Fett and the clone army that eventually makes up the ranks of the Stormtroopers. We watched as he was modeled into bounty hunter with vengeance when the Jedi take down Jango during the Battle of Geonosis. We already know about his origin, so why not continue his story beyond then and get into his adventures as a Bounty Hunter, since he plays an important part in the bigger Star Wars universe.
“We might finally get to see that Fett flick we always dreamed about, Pete,” Kevin Smith stated aloud after hearing about the Disney Star Wars news. He’s referring to his friend Pete, who had all the Star Wars toys they played with as kids, and was unfortunately killed in a car accident years ago. Maybe it will happen one day. Maybe even Kevin Smith can come out of retirement to direct the all-Boba Fett spin-off in the middle of the new trilogy that Disney/Lucasfilm is putting together. Who knows what exactly the future of Star Wars will look like, but it’s a very exciting time ahead, for both filmmakers and fans alike. What do you think?
full post here
