[Hannibal]

This is not a rhetorical question. I want to know why Boba Fett is so cool to so many people. Tell me.

[Despondent]

That depends on what the meaning of the word "is" is.

he "was" cool, before he jumped the shark.

And he never had any personal role in his direction. Nice ESB exit, though.

[J m HofMarN]

Thats a great question Hannibal, unfortunatley its hard to answer. If you're speaking of OOT Boba I think its safe to say that he was cool because you were only teased with him. You saw him once or twice. He rarely spoke. He didnt even fight much. However he looks battleworn and gritty, like he's been through a lot.

There's a lot you can imagine with a character like that, and he was so subtly done that he was actually a bit of an enigma (I'm not saying this just in terms of Boba Fett, this could go for many OT characters or locations) So its actually kind of easy to imagine why people liked him a bit.

However now Boba Fett is just lame. The PT makes clear his stupid motivation for becoming a bounty hunter while at the same time stripping us of our belief that he might have been a three dimensional character. Then as another slap in the face, the SEs and Specialer Editions go on to put him in ever scene he could conceivably be in. No Boba Fett is certainly not cool any longer. He was (arguably) a diamond in the original trilogy, but now he's just a cubit zirconia.

[Lord Aquaman]

This is not a rhetorical question. I want to know why Boba Fett is so cool to so many people. Tell me.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

You got me.

[barend]

cool outfit. cool job. cool weapons. lotsa pockets. he talked back to vader. he was mysterious. he was hard to kill. he answered to no one.

they ruined half of that with ROTJ. they ruined the other half of it with AOTC. and the SEs delivered the roses to the tombstone.

[jariten]

Im actually pretty ambivalent about him, i'm just happy to see a new thread that doesnt look like it has spoilers.

Boba Fett? I actually thought (obviously, yawn) that AotC actually fleshed him out in a good way. Seeing this strange father/son attachment that was as far away from Cosby-dom as you're going to get. He was a nasty bastard, but you felt for him. That shot of him holding Jangos helmet was excellent.

[Paladin]

I thought he was interesting in ESB. But in all honesty, I didn't give one whit about him at all. I simply thought that he would deliver Han to Jabba and that would be the end of it.

When I saw him there in ROTJ, I kinda wondered what he was doing in Jabba's palace. Was he now a guest of honor and enjoying Jabba's hospitality while he rested up for another job? Or was he doing something else?

Then I heard that he working as a bodyguard for Jabba for a short while and then thought his role there was appropriate. But after doing some thinking about it, I changed my mind. If Boba Fett was really such a mysterious character and a big tough guy, then I would say he would have accepted the reward that Jabba gave to him, then courtously took leave and went some place else. A guy like Boba Fett would probably have a lot of enemies and staying in one place for too long might endanger him.

So that's when I started thinking that it might not have been so appropriate after all. Also, I don't buy into the bullshit that Boba was after the Skywalker family for any reason. He was just a bounty hunter. A damn good bounty hunter, I'll agree, but still a normal bounty hunter. I seriously doubt he gave a damn who Luke was, or why the Empire wanted Solo, or why Jabba wanted him. All he cared for was the money that they would give him if he did the job. The scene when he fired on Luke and then ran off was pretty obvious to me -- this was his way of saying 'Lay off, Jedi, he's mine, don't get in my way!' I don't think any other explanation fits in other than that.

When I learned that Boba Fett was one of the most popular Star Wars characters, I was pretty darn confused. I never even knew his NAME, let alone how popular he was, so I more or less fall into the same group as you do... why IS he so popular!

[Helena]

Don't ask me... I don't understand either. I think it all comes down to his outfit, to be honest.

[Lord Aquaman]

Coolness is an illusion, a state of the mind. It's only cool if we give it the value of being cool, so really Boba Fett's coolness is an illusion.

[barend]

i like him, as a kid, the moment i set eyes on him, it was love...

when i saw return of the jedi i was about 8 years old... and i always wondered what the hell he was still doing on tatooine... i kept thinking dude, don't you have bounties to collect?

and what a cheap death, hit with a blind mans cane... pffft.

"I simply thought that he would deliver Han to Jabba and that would be the end of it." - Paladin.

exactly!!!!

----------------------------------------

the back story of IG88 on the other hand is fucking cool.
"kill all humans" and all that... that reprogramming mutha fucker was slick. why don't they explore him?

and involving chewie in the story what the fuck is that about? in ANH he's the co-pilot of a smuggler. why do we need to see him fighting of anything. he's a wookie... he's tough. his best friend joined a battle so he tagged along... end of fucking story.

another character now reduced to making no personality journey.

FUCK!!!

[Hannibal]

I wanted to see boba scalp some jedi or wookies.

[Xombie]

I think I can answer this pretty easily. Boba Fett is cool simply because he fits into the Hollywood definition of cool. Almost all "cool" movie characters since the early 1960s share some or all of the followoing characteristics:

1) They have an iconic look or style which the character simply has (as opposed to being a concious choice on the part of the character to project an image) Think Sean Connery's James Bond who always looked impeccable. Unlike real life where dressing in such a manner is a social mask, for a "cool" character, the surface reality IS the whole reality. Everything you need to know about the character of a Sergio Leone ubermensch is established in the first ultra-close-up shot. There is no depth to the characters. Depth is anathema to coolness.

2) They are rebels or they work for the system (or a system) but are outside its regular rules: James Bond's license to kill, Hannibal Lechter's cannibalistic murders, Darth Vader (in the first two movies when he seemed to have carte blanche to pursue the Emperor's agenda. Vader was not cool at all in RotJ) Boba Fett is outside the system that the other characters are playing in, working only for his own gain.

3) They are extraordinarily good at something, usually but not always involving violence. Their skill is so extraordinary that they do not experience fear or worry about doing their job the way normal people would. Cool characters (unlike say, the Russian master sniper in Enemy At the Gates) do not ever experience a moment of self-doubt. James Bond and the Man with No Name being excellent examples. Also think of Neo from the Matrix films who is a "cool" character when he is in the matrix and a regular identifyable guy when he is not.

4) These incredible skills are never explained. This is critical to the "cool" character. We never see Sergio Leone's characters learning their gun skills or harken back to James Bond when he was just a regular guy in prep school. Cool characters have no past. They simply are. Because that would mean there was a time when they were not cool. And if there was a time they weren't cool then it would mean their coolness now would be a lie since "coolness" is treated as the essence of their character. Mystery always accompanies coolness even if that mystery is nothing more than superficiality.

Each of these points applies to Boba Fett, a loner with impressive skills, an iconic look who plays by his own rules, and whose background is totally unexplained and whose very face is kept hidden throughtout the original trilogy. It would have been surprising if he didn't acquire some fan following for his "coolness"

Of course the fact seems obvious that Lucas didn't intend this because, like so much else he touches, he didn't understand the most basic of storytelling principles: Mystery adds interest. Explanation kills it.

[Paladin]

And maybe that's why the PT should never have happened. George shouldn't have cared for that and instead made Star Wars Episode IV into Episode I and then continued with his original movie plotline that was intended for 9 movies (actually six since the Prequels should not have happened).

Writing sequels that match the glory of the original movie are rare. Backstory writing is hard., and George Lucas completely failed at that task.

[Hannibal]

the biggest thing missing from the Prequel trilogy, perhaps THE reason why they really suck, is they are not subtle, and they are not intense. Intensity is seen in all the scenes of ep4 and 5, subtlety as well, rotj then introduces us to the real style of george lucas which contains: cuddly,cutey,pandering,token characters, unrealism(stormtroopers getting shot with arrows through their armor?)and poor resolution of events.

There is no intensity at the beginning of ep 1 and nothing subtle, Jedis run like the Flash, and jump like the Bionic Man, the aliens are big bulbous headed comical asian stereotypes, the queen dresses like a 40s showgirl, and all intensity is thrown away for "prophesy chatter" by the Jedi...oooh wooo....the chosen one...

His so called brilliant story begins to look like overpolished crack-sealant. You know when you are filling in cracks in a wall or use that gunk for rust holes on your car, and then you paint it, and its clear its fresh new paint thats cleaner and more color than the rest of the old parts.

it looks like shit, you know its filler.

Here's how I would have made Boba Fett: not a clone. Not a kid. Not necessarily complete explained, and maybe a partial relation with one of the older characters in some way. (Like he is a character on the Kasshyk occupation who goes around like an Indian-fighter in pre-civil war days killing wookies. Or is hired by palpatine to help kill off the Jedi.(Not a sith or a sperm donor).

I would have had Lawrence FIshburne play him(as I have always imagined Larry Fishburne behind the mask since long before the Matrix ever came out), but now since the Matrix became popular, I would perhaps have someone else play him. He would be unmasked, but not in any dramatic way. I always expected to see Boba Fett in the prequels, but a fucking little genetically engineered rugrat?

Along side this, if I was George Lucas, and thats going pretty far, this so called genius of marketing and master of greed, I would have recognized the unbelievable marketing potential of Boba Fett and made a film outside the series with Fett. (Not a holiday special for fucks sakes), and I would have hired a good action movie director, and opened a hundred new lines of toys, books, comics and videogames, etc, and this Boba Fett film could have been a spinoff like no other. Instead he makes...Ewok movies...

Lucas may be a greedy sick retarded fool who can't direct or write worth a shit, but he's also a moron when it comes to marketing and utilizing his own good ideas. He must be so far removed from audiences and what people want, that he has to "study" Joseph Campbell to figure out in some sick way what is in the subconscoius of people in the most general way and rely on that...what a weirdo.

on to my next thread....something has just occured to me that has blown my mind after watching a Star Wars documentary...but this belongs in a new thread...

[Hannibal]

Riding on fame: