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  1. In Memory of LAJ_FETT: Please share your remembrances and condolences HERE

Lit Should Jango have been a Fett?

Discussion in 'Literature' started by Loopy777, Apr 24, 2013.

  1. Loopy777

    Loopy777 Jedi Master star 1

    Registered:
    Apr 8, 2013
    Yeah, this is dealing with something from the movies, but I think the main impact was on the Expanded Universe.

    We started with Boba Fett, who got an origin in Last One Standing (and to establish my Cool Cred, I'll just say it's one of the greatest stories in the entire EU. Now, moving on...). We all had to ignore that when Episode 2 gave us Jango Fett and Young Boba, but thankfully the EU was able to reconcile that kind of sort of. On the upside, we got an "official" history for Boba Fett and some screentime for a Mandalorian Warrior who got to have a cool fight with Obi-Wan, but there was a big downside. Not only was a really good pre-existing origin for Boba compromised, but pretty much every single Boba Fett story after that had to tie in to Episode 2. Suddenly, Boba wasn't just the guy in the cool armor anymore, he was a Clone of Clones who had a mad-on for Jedi 'cause one popped his dad, never mind that ESB and all of the EU never even hinted at this. Even James Luceno, the King of Kontinuity, ignored Boba's previous characterization and made him a chatty guy who had to inform Han that they never really had a rivalry.

    All in all, I feel like Episode 2 actively damaged Boba's character in the EU.

    But what if Jango wasn't a Fett? What if he was simply "Jango," a Mandalorian Warrior who was selected to be the clone template. Young Boba could have been removed from Episode 2 without a problem, and Jango's real reason for being there- to look cool and sell action figures- would still be preserved. Heck, even if Young Boba was there, what if he wasn't named? What if Jango NoLastName just had his unnamed son? Just like how Boba wasn't named in ESB.

    Sure, people could speculate that Boba was that kid, and that Jango was Jango Fett, but if it wasn't confirmed in the movie, might that have saved Boba's EU character? It would be another possibility for his life, like the idea that he was a former Stormtrooper who killed his commanding officer. People who wanted to believe it could, but it wouldn't have been the LUCAS MANDATE that every EU writer since then has taken it to be. If Jango wasn't explicitly a Fett, we still could have the Boba Fett of Last One Standing.

    (Disclaimer: I'm not saying all the stories about Boba since Episode 2 are bad; I quite liked the first Bloodlines, and I plan to eventually read the second. But there's no denying all these stories came at a cost, and we really lost the Boba Fett character we already had.)

    Thoughts? Anything I've overlooked?
     
  2. Obie-2-Kenobi

    Obie-2-Kenobi Jedi Knight star 2

    Registered:
    Feb 18, 2008
    Jango shoulda been a Fett only if....he had a silent 'D' in his name...
     
  3. FatSmel

    FatSmel Jedi Knight star 3

    Registered:
    Sep 23, 2012
    I don't really get the point of this topic?

    I would say that he definitely should have been a Fett given the amount of interest that it added to the film, what with Boba Fett being such a famous character.
     
    DurararaFTW and Ghost like this.
  4. Prodigy_Knight

    Prodigy_Knight Jedi Youngling star 1

    Registered:
    Mar 10, 2013
    Greater canon supersedes lesser canon c'est la vie.

    In my humble opinion leaving it ambiguous would have been a bad call from Lucas.
     
  5. LelalMekha

    LelalMekha Jedi Grand Master star 5

    Registered:
    Oct 29, 2012
    I'm not sure if t would have been a bad call, but it certainly would have been unusually subtle for the prequels.
     
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  6. DarthJenari

    DarthJenari Jedi Master star 4

    Registered:
    Dec 17, 2011
    There was too obvious a connection between the two for Jango to have not been a Fett in my opinion. Really the armor alone said everything, and the prequel was showing an origin for so many characters as it was, why not Boba Fett as well? A character who had such a small role really, but who's popularity has always been unquestionable.
     
  7. _Catherine_

    _Catherine_ Jedi Grand Master star 4

    Registered:
    Jun 16, 2007
    No. It did ruin Boba Fett, but more importantly it felt forced and unnecessary. Just like Anakin building C-3PO and Chewie being friends with Yoda for some reason. Also Anakin and Greedo knew each other when they were kids because the Star Wars galaxy is the size of a residential city block.
     
  8. Gorefiend

    Gorefiend Chosen One star 5

    Registered:
    Oct 23, 2004
    Whats much worse is that they led to Lotf and A Practical Man Boba, as they are such outright character assassination you have to wonder how they ever got written…
     
  9. LelalMekha

    LelalMekha Jedi Grand Master star 5

    Registered:
    Oct 29, 2012
    Why, of course. When a character becomes popular, he or she just has to be there. To heck with logic! Rule of cool supercedes all... o_O Shows have been made up entirely around the mere rule of cool. If y'known what I mean.
     
  10. Zorrixor

    Zorrixor Chosen One star 6

    Registered:
    Sep 8, 2004
    That big?
     
  11. Ulicus

    Ulicus Lapsed Moderator star 7 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Jul 24, 2005
    Everybody wants to be a Fett.

    Because a Fett's the only ... uh, cat... who knows where it's ....

    Okay, I didn't think this through.
     
    Trip, RC-1991 and LelalMekha like this.
  12. FatSmel

    FatSmel Jedi Knight star 3

    Registered:
    Sep 23, 2012
    The only one of those I have a problem with is Chewie and Yoda being buddies . . . that's just weird.

    But this should serve to demonstrate how little the EU means to the film makers. A major EU story can easily be wiped clean for the sake of a tiny little cameo in a film.
     
  13. Loopy777

    Loopy777 Jedi Master star 1

    Registered:
    Apr 8, 2013
    On a macro level, my purpose is to waste away some of the time I have until my corporeal existence ends by expending too much effort examining a fictional universe that can't bear up under the level of scrutiny I wish to apply to it. On a micro level, I was curious if anyone had a good EU reason why Jango had to be a Fett, like some worthwhile plot point in a Republic Commando novel that would have fallen apart if Jango wasn't explicitly related to Boba. Also, it's always fun when someone posts an amusing aside involving wordplay.

    Ah, that's the ticket.

    Except for anyone with an interest in Star Wars lore, the armor isn't much of a connection at all. Even going back to before RotJ, we knew that Boba's armor was the uniform of some kind of wider order of warriors, whatever his connection to them. Having Jango wear similar armor, but in a different color, doesn't create an explicit family connection.

    And for audiences who didn't know the word "Mandalorian," do they really care about Boba's origins so long as they have a flying spaceman on the screen?

    Word, yo. I wouldn't say that Last One Standing is important in terms of wider significance, but for Boba Fett, it used to be the story.
     
  14. FatSmel

    FatSmel Jedi Knight star 3

    Registered:
    Sep 23, 2012
    It had nothing to do with the EU. George Lucas wrote the film with the aim of making it a cool film.
     
  15. Loopy777

    Loopy777 Jedi Master star 1

    Registered:
    Apr 8, 2013
    Yeah, but as I've said, flying spacemen are cool. Making him Boba's dad is fairly redundant on that front. If Boba's story had actually been followed-up on in any meaningful way in the movies, you could make the argument, but as it is, it's nothing more than trivia to the story Episode 2 was trying to tell.

    And since this is the EU forum, I figured that was what we wanted to talk about. I figured there was another place to talk about George's vague reasons for all the things he did.
     
  16. DarthJenari

    DarthJenari Jedi Master star 4

    Registered:
    Dec 17, 2011
    Nor did I say it automatically did, but it creates some kind of connection, a very obvious one that would be pounced on by writers. As I said, the prequel was all about expanding on characters shown in the OT and setting up their stories. I see no reason why Boba Fett should've been excluded.

    It seems you're implying that the audience didn't care one way or the other, or that it doesn't matter one way or the other, and if that's true then there's really no point to complain is there? However i'll say that many who watched the OT did indeed care, and would've been quite annoyed had Jango simply shown up for a few scenes without his connection to Boba ever having been revealed.
     
  17. The_Phantom_Calamari

    The_Phantom_Calamari Force Ghost star 5

    Registered:
    Nov 10, 2011
    I won't speak to the other issues, but if you look at the chain of events and circumstances that led to C-3PO ending up in the company of the heroes of Yavin, his creation by Anakin should hardly seem all that coincidental at all.

    The only event with long-shot odds is that Anakin should have been discovered by the Jedi in the first place, and we all know it would be quite pointless to question how that happened. After that, it's only natural that Anakin would return to find his mother, who naturally would have taken Threepio with her wherever she went. Once Anakin returned, it's hardly beyond the bounds of reason that he should retake possession of Threepio. So he gives Threepio to his wife, then when his wife has kids and dies, Threepio falls into the possession the adoptive family of one of the kids, a family which is unsurprisingly in very close association with the Jedi who is watching over the other kid. I guess you could call it a huge coincidence that Threepio ended up saddled with Artoo on the secret mission which would introduce him to Luke, but the gold dude's already logically established to be on the Rebel blockade runner at that point so I think you'd just be nitpicking.
     
  18. Grand Admiral Crumb

    Grand Admiral Crumb Jedi Padawan star 1

    Registered:
    Apr 25, 2013
    The_Phantom_Calamari It's not that strange of an idea that Senator Leia Organa would have a protocol droid simply as part of her normal legitimate job. I think a lot of it comes from this stupid idea Lucas got in his head that everything has to be connected in some convoluted fashion. The idea that Anakin is able to cobble together a simple protocol droid in an era where protocol droids are the norm. It comes back to the old argument that Lucas should have been involved with the prequels as much as he was with Empire. Nothing personal against the man, but because of Star Wars he sort of becomes a mythical figure. I mean, how would you feel telling George Lucas he can't do something in his movie because it's a stupid idea? The prequels would have been so much better if Lucas didn't change his mind so much, and if he was only the "idea guy" behind them.
     
  19. _Catherine_

    _Catherine_ Jedi Grand Master star 4

    Registered:
    Jun 16, 2007
    I can think of a few. :p

    1) The prequels were supposed to be about Anakin, not every random character who happened to walk by in the OT.

    2) Boba Fett was a very minor character with no story to set up.

    3) Nothing in AOTC even informed his character in the OT, it was a completely gratuitous cameo.

    Basically none of the forced OT cameos did anything to set up the OT. Boba, Jabba, Bib, Chewie, Tarkin, R2-D2, C-3PO, Greedo, and Aunt Beru didn't do anything, they were just there for us to recognize them from much better movies. Really the only OT characters who should have been in the PT were Anakin, Obi-Wan, the Emperor, Yoda, and MAYBE Owen Lars, if anyone was actually going to bother following OT continuity.
     
  20. Grand Admiral Crumb

    Grand Admiral Crumb Jedi Padawan star 1

    Registered:
    Apr 25, 2013
    _Catherine_ Sorry, but by 2002 Boba Fett has at least become somewhat of a minor cult hero. You've got Dark Empire in 1992, Boba Fett: Death, Lies, and Treachery in 1998, and his two short stories in the Tales anthologies in 1996. Mind you, his inclusion as the clone of Jango Fett is still unwarranted, but I've got my own issues with the Clone Wars that it would take more than a renaming of a couple people to change.
     
  21. DarthJenari

    DarthJenari Jedi Master star 4

    Registered:
    Dec 17, 2011
    What Grand Admiral Crumb said, along with the fact that his name was announced in AOTC lol along with his father clearly wearing the same style of armor what more do you need to confirm the boy from AOTC is the man from ROTJ? Honestly, with any prequel work I expect to see numerous shoutouts/origins to characters that will appear in later works. Whether it's a ship being built or someones father, it all kinda comes with the territory when you're playing around in the years before. I also don't think it simply had to stick to only focusing on Anakin, because the original movies didn't only focus on Luke or Vader. They were the main characters in the OT, with the side characters getting their time to shine, and it was the same in the PT.

    Really the part about the PT Boba that annoyed me was him being a clone.
     
  22. _Catherine_

    _Catherine_ Jedi Grand Master star 4

    Registered:
    Jun 16, 2007
    Yeah they said his name because that was the only thing connecting him to the character in the OT. Nothing in AOTC told us how he became who he was in ESB in any substantial way, because he was never a substantial character who needed a back story in the first place. Shoving in characters who don't need to be there just for audience recognition is fan service and that's a terrible way to write a movie.
     
  23. GunganSlayer

    GunganSlayer Jedi Master star 4

    Registered:
    Jan 24, 2013
    First, we all know that Jango Fett was included in the film to appease fans and to sell action figures. That much is clear. What I find interesting is that, as we know, Lucas comes up with his own stories and tends to ignore the EU, so why didn't he just flat out make Jango's character actually Boba Fett? Think about it, wouldn't that have made so much more sense? Yes, some may point out that Boba would be super old by the time of ROTJ, but so what? Lucas could have made him have some sort of different lifespan, or some sort of age enhanced system. Or maybe that's why Boba Fett's death is so ridiculous, because he was old. This option would still have destroyed EU, but I prefer it to what Lucas eventually gave us in AOTC, which also affected the EU.

    Boba Fett's inclusion was so unnecessary and forced in Episode II. Then on top of his inclusion in the film, he ends up being a clone of Jango? Really? Why can't he just be his normal kid? As some of you have mentioned, it's as forced and convoluted as the inclusion of Greedo, Chewbaca, and others. (and thank goodness Lucas changed his mind on including a kid Han Solo in ROTS).


    I remember in the early 2000s when the official site was posting mystery set photos of AOTC, and there was that famous one of Jango Fett holding an umbrella in a green screen studio. I went nuts when I saw that image, because I thought it was Boba Fett....
     
  24. Loopy777

    Loopy777 Jedi Master star 1

    Registered:
    Apr 8, 2013
    Actually, Last One Standing already implied that Boba was quite a bit older than Han. So that idea works really well.

    And before anyone can justify picking Boba Fett of all characters to feature in the prequels, they need to explain why Lando was never considered to have an origin there. He was actually a character who couldn't have been cut without changing any other filmed scenes. ;)
     
  25. Garrett Atkins

    Garrett Atkins Jedi Knight star 4

    Registered:
    Feb 11, 2013
    I agree with the OP that Jango should not been a Fett. Instead, he could have been a prestigious Mandalorian-armored bounty hunter that is the Clone template of the Clone Army. Boba would follow in his idol's footsteps.