I know that I'm probably going to take a lot of flak for this one, but I've needed to get this off of my chest for years and I finally have the forum to do so...
Ask anyone who their least favorite Star Wars character is. I guarantee you that the vast majority of them would select that inane bafoon Jar Jar Binks. While I agree that Jar Jar is quite annoying, I don't consider him to be at the bottom of my list (or the top of my bottom list, or... whatever). In fact, he is the Don Corleone of the Star Wars movies when you compare him to a certain bounty hunter by the name of Boba Fett.
Okay, I know that some of you just threw your die-cast Millenium Falcons at the wall in a fit of rage and are frantically Googling me so that you can perform your very own Ted Kaczynski impression with a certain "surprise" package that you will be sending to my house, but at least hear me out...
Boba Fett is undeniable in his popularity amongst Star Wars fanboys, geeks, nerds, afficianados, and even casual viewers. There's the t-shirts, the exact-scale models of him with his little jetpack ready to shoot off into the sky to capture all of the FTA's in the Empirial Court System, and of course the various costumes that people dress up in for all of the sci-fi conventions that they frequent. When I went to see the Special Editions of the "Original Trilogy," (I used quotes because to me, there are only 3 Star Wars films that matter and they don't involve pod racing or Count Dooku) there were at least 10 people dressed up as Boba Fett, with their costumes ranging from simple imitations to exact replicas. And then there was the shirt that I saw the other day on an 8-year old: WWBFD. What Would Boba Fett Do?
And it all makes me sick...
What the hell did Boba Fett ever do in the Star War movies? Now I am very aware that he has been featured more prominently in the books and stories involving the so-called "Expanded Star Wars Universe." But let's take him at face value in the movies. He didn't even appear in the original version of A New Hope. He did however make an appearance in the Special Edition, but he was just standing around looking like a jabroni that was in the scene just to be in the scene. No lines, no action, no personality...
Fast-forward to The Empire Strikes Back. Boba Fett does get a few lines in this time, although we're not talking about a full-on soliloquy like Hamlet lamenting to a skull or even Arnold Schwarzenegger yelling at a kindergarten class. But at least he talks, and he is the only one smart enough to figure out how to track Han and Chewy on their way to Cloud City with the whole garbage chute shennanigans. But, aside from him flying around in a spaceship, we don't really get any action out of him in this film either.
And then there's Return of the Jedi. If ever dirt was thrown on somebody's head while they're writhing in a shallow grave, then this would be it. I mean come on. He's supposedly the best bounty hunter in the universe. He's the idol to many a teenager whose only experience of the female form is when they sneak into their little sister's rooms and pose the Barbies in "compromising positions." He's the supposedly legendary character that people have chosed to write about in books, digitize in video games, and laud about to all of their friends. Surely if he's going to be beaten, it's going to be in grand or at least climatic fashion, right?
Does he fall while having a lightsaber/blaster duel with Luke where they fly back and forth from the cruiser to the sand barge, white-knuckle suspense enrapturing us all? Uh, no...
Does he engage in brutal hand-to-paw combat with Chewbacca, with Chewy looking bad for a few moments until he seizes the opportunity to rip off Boba's arms like he just lost to him in that crazy-ass hologram chess game? Sorry...
No, Boba Fett's end comes in the most embarrassing way possible. He gets whacked by a half-blind Han Solo who wasn't even looking at him when he swung an axe in his general direction causing his jetpack to turn on and his silly ass to get eaten by the Sarlac. Now there's a fitting end to such an awesome character. No climax. No glory. Not even a cool dismemberment. Just getting blindsided by somebody who didn't even know he was there. Some bounty hunter he must have been.
So, as you can see, Boba Fett gets a lot of street-cred without even deserving it. To put it in perspective, the attention that he gets is just as ludicrous as it would be for me to wear a t-shirt with the worker that gets eaten by the raptor at the beginning of Jurassic Park on it. It would be like dressing up as Dwayne Gill (a dark match jobber from 80's wrestling) for Halloween. It would be like idolizing one of Christina Aguilera's backup dancers. I mean, come on! Boba Fett is a minor character who never amounted to anything and who people like just because he has a jetpack!
It just annoys me that somebody who has done so little gets so much respect and admiration from people. I'm not saying that he had to blow up the Death Star or anything, but I would expect a little more from somebody so hallowed than simply appearing in a total of 8 minutes across 3 films, a few lines of gibberish, and getting BFed by a, for all intents and purposes, incapacitated Han Solo. He doesn't deserve the praise, so I don't give it to him. And neither should you!