Hoping For A Boba Fett Cameo Might Be Ruining The Mandalorian For You

Star Wars fans hoping for a Boba Fett series may have thought that The Mandalorian was fulfilling that wish, but it is quickly becoming apparent that the Disney+ series has nothing to do with the original bounty hunter. If you catch yourself spending too much time looking for Boba Fett references, or concocting a theory about how "Boba Fett" and "Baby Yoda" have the same number of letters, cut it out! Trying to connect these disparate dots is taking away from the fascinating and actual story that The Mandalorian is telling on Disney+.

Before appearing as a minor villain in The Empire Strikes Back and Return Of The Jedi, Boba Fett first appeared in an animated sequence during the much maligned Star Wars Holiday Special — seriously! He was a fan favourite from the very start, largely due to his cool green armor and jetpack. Boba Fett is an action figure lover's dream, and the fact that he wore Mandalorian armor is how Star Wars fans knew anything about the new series at all.

But The Mandalorian isn't about Boba Fett! And no, that supposed Mandalorian Boba Fett cameo was not actually the famed bounty hunter. You think they'd just bring a beloved character back from the dead without a little fanfare? Even if he (or his father, Jango Fett) get mentioned later on in the series or show up in a flashback, they're kind of not the point. Not everything is about Easter Eggs, y'all.

I know that Boba Fett survived the Sarlacc pic in a '90s comic book series, but those comics are no longer part of the official Star Wars canon after Disney's takeover. (Sorry to be blunt, but it's true.) As far as we know, Boba Fett died in Return Of The Jedi and he's not officially back. It's pretty unlikely he'll show up on The Mandalorian, which takes place after the original Star Wars trilogy, simply because he has ceased to be. (But okay, director and executive producer Dave Filoni did say it wasn't entirely impossible, considering Filoni's history with resurrecting Darth Maul.)

Okay, so Boba Fett wears Mandalorian armor in the style of his father. We learned in Attack of the Clones that Boba is actually his dad's clone, like all of the original stormtroopers, who Jango chose to raise as a son. But we never really saw either Jango or Boba Fett practice the Mandalore religion, and subsequent Star Wars materials suggest that they may not have had ties to the Mandalorians at all. The planet's government lowkey pulled a "sorry to this man" and implied that Jango stole his Mandalorian armor. So if the titular Mandalorian (Pedro Pascal) were ever to meet Boba Fett, he probably wouldn't like him anyway!

It's clear that The Mandalorian is not about Boba Fett. The man behind the Mandalorian's mask has a totally different backstory — and it's a really interesting one! Can't he be enough? They might wear similar masks and have similar jobs, but that's about it. Plus, now that the Mandalorian has kidnapped The Child (see: Baby Yoda who isn't really Yoda, but just let us call him that for now, okay?), he's not even a bounty hunter anymore.

If you want to connect The Mandalorian and the existing Star Wars canon, one more interesting avenue to take might be comparing the Mandalorian religious beliefs to those of the Jedi. While the Star Wars prequels sought to answer questions about the Force and the Jedi order, more recent Star Wars stories like Rogue One and The Mandalorian have really dug into how religion manifests in other corners of the galaxy. And it's fascinating.

While Boba Fett and his father may have been the entryway for fans into this cool society and culture in the Star Wars universe, they're really not part of it. Besides, the coolest thing about Boba Fett was always his armor and jetpack anyway, and lucky for fans The Mandalorian has both armor and jetpacks in spades.