Boba Fett


Boba Fett is a fictional character in the Star Wars franchise. He is a bounty hunter wearing Mandalorian armor, who started his career during the Clone Wars, but was most notably active during the Galactic Empire era, during which he became one of the most notorious bounty hunters in the galaxy. Boba has his own personal starship dubbed the Slave I, and is later revealed to be an unmodified clone of the bounty hunter Jango Fett, who raised him as his son and from whom Boba inherited the Slave I. The character is noted for speaking very few words and never removing his helmet in the original trilogy, where he was mainly portrayed by Jeremy Bulloch.
The character first appeared in the non-canonical Star Wars Holiday Special, voiced by Don Francks, as the main antagonist of the program's animated segment. In his first canonical appearance, Episode V – The Empire Strikes Back, Boba is among the bounty hunters hired by Darth Vader to capture Han Solo, and he manages to track him down to Cloud City on Bespin. After Han is frozen in carbonite, Boba leaves to deliver him to Jabba the Hutt, as Solo was in debt to the notorious crime lord. In Episode VI – Return of the Jedi, Boba is seen in Jabba's palace. He later attends the failed execution of Solo and his friends, during which he briefly fights Luke Skywalker before his jetpack is accidentally hit by Han, causing it to malfunction and sending Boba falling into the Sarlacc to his apparent death, with the character's only line being a scream as he meets his fate. In 1997, he was retroactively added in a non-speaking role to the Special Edition of Episode IV – A New Hope, where he is seen as part of Jabba's entourage when he comes to confront Han Solo over his debts.
A younger version of Boba appears in the prequel film Episode II – Attack of the Clones, portrayed by Daniel Logan, which establishes his origin as the cloned "son" of Jango Fett, as well as his hatred for the Jedi after Jango is killed by Mace Windu. Logan reprised his role in the animated TV series , which depicts Boba's roots as a bounty hunter and his failed attempts to exact revenge on Windu. Boba is rumored to appear in The Mandalorian web series, portrayed by Temuera Morrison, who voiced the character in various Star Wars media.
Boba Fett has also been featured in a number of works in the Legends continuity, which depict his escape from the Sarlacc following the events of Return of the Jedi, among other adventures. The character's popularity within the Star Wars fanbase has earned him a cult status.

Appearances

The character of Boba Fett made his first public appearance at the San Anselmo Country Fair parade on 24 September 1978. In the parade, the Boba Fett costume was worn by Duwayne Dunham, then working as an assistant film editor and who later became a film and television director. The character debuted on television two months later in an animated segment produced by Toronto-based animation firm Nelvana Productions for the Star Wars Holiday Special. Fett appears as a mysterious figure who saves Luke Skywalker, Chewbacca, and from a giant monster, only to be revealed as a bounty hunter working for Darth Vader. After his image and identity were revealed in the Holiday Special, costumed Fett characters appeared in shopping malls and special events, putting up wanted posters of the character to distinguish him from the franchise's Imperial characters. He also appears in Marvel Comics' Star Wars newspaper strip.

Original trilogy era

Boba's theatrical film debut was in The Empire Strikes Back as the "next major villain" besides Darth Vader. He is one of six bounty hunters assembled by Vader, who promises a reward to whoever captures the crew of the Millennium Falcon. Fett tracks the starship to Cloud City, where Vader captures its passengers and tortures its captain, Han Solo. Aiming to collect a bounty on Solo, Fett questions Vader regarding the carbon freeze, which Vader intends to use on his true target, Luke Skywalker. Vader promises that the Empire will compensate Fett if Solo dies, but he survives and Vader turns him over to Fett.
Return of the Jedi features Boba Fett at Jabba the Hutt's palace where Han Solo's rescuers are captured. He aims his weapon at Princess Leia when she threatens Jabba with a thermal detonator, and he later travels on Jabba's sail barge to the Great Pit of Carkoon, home of the Sarlacc, where the prisoners are to be executed. When the prisoners revolt and fight back, Fett flies over and intervenes by tying up Luke, who manages to escape. Chewbacca warns Han Solo, who is still blind after being frozen in carbonite, that Boba Fett is near. Solo looks around and in the process accidentally sets off Fett's rocket pack, sending the bounty hunter falling into the Sarlacc's mouth. In the 1997 Special Edition release of the film, Fett is featured flirting with some of the crime lord's female dancers while in the palace—this was an entirely new scene, not included in any prior theatrical, broadcast, or home video version. In this film, he does not have any verbal lines.
Fett appears in an episode of the 1985 animated series set before the original trilogy and produced by the same studio as the animated segment of the Holiday Special. In "A Race to the Finish", Fett is hired by the Fromms to help them get revenge on the masters of the droids and. He later turns on them after failing their request, and decides to accept Jabba's bounty on the Fromms as compensation.
In the 1997 Special Edition of the original Star Wars, Fett briefly appears in a reintroduced cut scene outside the Millennium Falcon while Jabba confronts Han Solo, although he is posthumously superimposed, and not part of the original shooting, as the character did not make part of the original script.

Prequel trilogy era

The 2002 prequel film revealed that Boba Fett is the only unaltered clone of the bounty hunter Jango Fett, who had him created on Kamino to be raised as his son as part of his price to serve as a matrix for the Grand Army of the Republic's clone troopers. Boba helps Jango escape from Obi-Wan Kenobi. Later, on Geonosis he witnesses Jango's death by lightsaber at the hands of Jedi Master Mace Windu.

Anthology films

A Mandalorian armor resembling Fett's can be seen in the background of a few scenes in , as part of Dryden Vos's collection of rare artefacts.

Television

''The Clone Wars''

Logan reprised his role as the voice of Boba in the CGI-animated series . The final two episodes of the of the series, entitled "R2 Come Home" and "Lethal Trackdown", were first aired on April 30, 2010, and attracted an average of 2.756 million viewers during the original broadcast. The finale is significant for ending "with twin fandom bangs, courtesy of Boba Fett and a mammoth beast inspired by Godzilla". Fett's entrance in the series commemorates the anniversary of the character's appearance in The Empire Strikes Back.
Anakin Skywalker and Mace Windu are trapped in the crumbling ruins of a crashed ship while searching for survivors, and only R2-D2 can get out a message to save them—if he can elude vicious gundarks and, worse yet, a crew of determined bounty hunters led by Boba Fett and Aurra Sing. While Anakin and Mace Windu recover from their injuries, Plo Koon and Ahsoka Tano track down Boba Fett from the underworld of Coruscant to the planet Florrum. Boba's revenge scheme finally leads to a climactic battle, and the life of a Republic admiral hangs in the balance. Boba is shown working with bounty hunters Aurra Sing, Bossk, and Castas. With their help, Boba attempts to avenge his father's death at the hands of Mace Windu. However, he is unsuccessful, and as a result of his actions, is sentenced to prison along with Bossk. They escape prison in the fourth season, and Boba forms his own syndicate of bounty hunters, including Bossk and Dengar, who first appeared in The Empire Strikes Back along with Fett.

''The Mandalorian''

The Mandalorian follows the adventures of Din Djarin, a Mandalorian bounty hunter carrying a weapon similar to the one Fett carried in the Holiday Special, five years after Fett's death.
The first season episode "" ends with a mysterious armored figure walking by the corpse of Fennec Shand, which has been rumored by fans to be Boba Fett himself.
In May 2020, it was reported that Morrison would appear as Boba Fett in the second season of The Mandalorian, which is set five years after Return of the Jedi, apparently canonizing the character's survival of the events of the film. Timothy Olyphant will play Cobb Vanth, someone who acquired Boba Fett's Mandalorian armor.

Comics and video games

In the first issue of Darth Vader, the titular antihero hires Boba Fett's band of bounty hunters, who are in the court of Jabba the Hutt, to capture the pilot who destroyed the Death Star. In the 2015 Star Wars comic, Fett discovers the identity of the pilot and tells Vader, who realizes Luke Skywalker is his son.
Fett also appears in videogames Star Wars Battlefront and Star Wars Battlefront II.

''Legends''

In April 2014, the licensed Star Wars novels, comics and video games released up to that point were rebranded by Lucasfilm as Legends and declared non-canon to the official film franchise in order to create a blank slate for the sequel trilogy. Fett appears extensively in Legends novels, comic books, and video games. Before the release of the prequel trilogy, Daniel Keys Moran developed a backstory for Fett in which he was once named Jaster Mereel, a "Journeyman Protector" who was convicted of treason. His backstory was depicted differently in Attack of the Clones, leading to the Dark Horse comic ' retconning Mereel to Jango's mentor. A young-adult book series called Boba Fett depicts Fett during the Clone Wars, when he takes his son's ship and armor to begin his bounty-hunting career with Jabba the Hutt. Fett appears in the years leading up to A New Hope in the comic Boba Fett: Enemy of the Empire, in which Vader hires Fett before trying to kill him, as well as Blood Ties and Underworld: The Yavin Vassilika. He also appears in many works set during the original trilogy, including Dark Horse's short comic Boba Fett: Salvage, issues of ' and Star Wars, the one-shot comic Boba Fett: Overkill, The Bounty Hunter Wars book trilogy, volumes of the young-reader series Galaxy of Fear, and the choose-your-own-adventure book The Bounty Hunter. He is also notably featured in the 1996 Shadows of the Empire multimedia project.
Works such as Dark Horse's Dark Empire series describe Fett surviving the Sarlacc. In, Fett nearly kills the Sarlacc with explosives, and narrates how Dengar finds him and restores him back to health. In the comic Boba Fett: Twin Engines of Destruction, while Fett recovers, he is impersonated by a bounty hunter named Jodo Kast. After realizing that it is an imposter, Dengar warns Fett, who kills Kast. Four Boba Fett comics set several years after Return of the Jedi were released between 1995 and 2000. Fett encounters Han Solo in set 15 years after the events of the same film, and fights side-by-side with him in The New Jedi Order: The Unifying Force, set a decade later. In the Legacy of the Force series, set some 35 years after Return of the Jedi, Han and Leia's daughter, Jaina, asks Fett to train her to help her defeat her corrupted brother, Jacen. The series reveals that Fett became a family man at one point, though he was forcibly separated from his wife after killing his commanding officer for assaulting her. His wife subsequently disappeared and was presumed dead. Their granddaughter later sought Boba out and married a Mandalorian warrior. Boba's wife was discovered to still be alive, having been frozen in carbonite decades earlier.

''The Bounty Hunter Wars''

The Bounty Hunter Wars is a trilogy of science-fiction novels by K.W. Jeter set during the events of the original trilogy. The books were published by Bantam Spectra in July 1998, November 1998, and July 1999. The trilogy depicts Fett as being more communicative than in the films because its plot requires Fett to show "an ability to convince people as well as kill them".
The first book, , starts during the events of Return of the Jedi, shortly after Jabba the Hutt's sail barge is destroyed. Dengar stays with Fett after the latter's near-death experience, and encounters Neelah, a dancer in Jabba's palace who has lost her memory, and thinks Fett can help her. Kuat of Kuat, an Imperial executive, reviews footage from the Great Pit of Carkoon, leading him to suspect that Fett is still alive. It is related in flashbacks set between A New Hope and The Empire Strikes Back that Fett stole a bounty Bossk and Zuckuss were hunting on behalf of the Bounty Hunters Guild. After delivering the bounty, Fett accepted a contract to join the Bounty Hunters Guild in order to break it up. The Emperor met with Darth Vader and Prince Xizor, where the latter revealed that it was he who planned for Fett to join the guild in order to eliminate its weakest members, leaving only the best for the Empire to exploit.
In the second book, , Fett abandons the Slave I to avoid dispelling rumors of his death, and instead steals Bossk's ship. Riding along, Dengar tells Neelah about the split of the Bounty Hunters Guild. After Bossk killed his father, the guild split into two factions: one composed of the older members, and another composed of Bossk and other younger members. Prince Xizor placed an enormous bounty on a renegade stormtrooper who slaughtered his entire ship's crew. Fett, Bossk and Zuckuss captured the trooper, but Fett jettisoned his partners in an escape pod.
In the third and final book, , it is related that Fett tried to claim his bounty, but found Xizor waiting to kill him in order to tie up loose ends related to his plot. In an attack on the megalomaniacal prince, Kuat of Kuat had falsified some evidence implicating him in the murder of Luke Skywalker's aunt and uncle. This information was on the renegade stormtrooper's ship but is retrieved by Fett in the present, as Neelah realizes she is from an elite Kuat family and stops her sinister sister from taking over the now-suicidal Imperial executive's shipyard.

''Boba Fett: A Practical Man''

Boba Fett: A Practical Man is an e-novella by Karen Traviss, which was published online in August 2006 by Del Rey Books. Set twenty years after the events of Return of the Jedi, it focuses on what led Boba Fett and the Mandalorians to fend off the extragalactic Yuuzhan Vong invaders in The New Jedi Order: The Unifying Force.
A Yuuzhan Vong named Nom Anor meets Fett on Mandalore and begins giving him and the Mandalorians directions to help their invasion.
Fett plans to do as much damage to the invaders as possible, even as he pretends to help them. He instructs a pilot to deliver his plea for help to the New Republic, but with the Vong's next target still unwarned, the world falls without a fight.
A Vong warrior asks Fett to assist in killing a Jedi; instead, Fett convinces the Jedi to deliver his message.
The Jedi returns and confirms that Fett has a deal: the Mandalorians will continue to masquerade as Vong mercenaries while passing intel to the Republic. Fett agrees to have a few of his best commandos train planetary militias to fight the Vong.

Unproduced works

A planned live-action TV series developed by Star Wars creator George Lucas before the sale of Lucasfilm to Disney, titled , would have featured Fett.

''Star Wars 1313''

The cancelled LucasArts video game Star Wars 1313, originally announced at E3 2012, would have told the story of Boba Fett's career as a young adult bounty hunter between the prequel and original trilogies. In it, Fett would have navigated past the scum of civilization in an underground area of Coruscant known as Level 1313. In 2013, as a result of Disney's acquisition of the franchise, all LucasArts projects then in production were shelved. In a December 2015 interview with /Film, Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy stated that the concept art for the game was "unbelievable" and that, along with Star Wars: Underworld, it was "something we're spending a lot of time looking at, poring through, discussing, and we may very well develop those things further".
Level 1313 makes appearances in Star Wars media such as Star Wars Adventures: Return to Vader's Castle. In The Clone Wars, Ahsoka visits a platform numbered 1313 in the Coruscant underworld.

''The Clone Wars'' episodes

Fett was to have appeared in more episodes of The Clone Wars before its cancellation. A series of Western-inspired episodes would have featured Fett teaming up with Cad Bane to rescue a child kidnapped by Tusken Raiders on Tatooine; Aurra Sing would have appeared as well. The episodes would have depicted Fett donning his armor for the first time. Footage shown at Star Wars Celebration depicted Bane blasting Fett in the head, creating the iconic dent in his helmet; this idea came from George Lucas.

Standalone movie

In early 2013, Disney CEO Bob Iger announced the development of a Star Wars spin-off film written by Simon Kinberg, which Entertainment Weekly reported would focus on Boba Fett during the original trilogy. In mid-2014, Josh Trank was officially announced as the director of an undisclosed spin-off film, but had left the project a year later due to creative differences with Kinberg, causing a teaser for the Fett film to be scrapped from Star Wars Celebration. In May 2018, it was reported that James Mangold had signed on to write and direct a Fett film, with Kinberg attached as producer and. The author of a Fett-focused stated that Lucasfilm had considered adapting it into a film. However, by October, the Fett film was reportedly "100% dead", with the studio instead focusing on The Mandalorian series, which utilizes a similar character design. The Fett film was afterwards reported to have also featured the other bounty hunters from The Empire Strikes Back.

Concept and development

George Lucas created Boba Fett in his April 1978 draft of The Empire Strikes Back, basing the character on Sergio Leone's Man with No Name. The character needed to be designed quickly, as Lucas had agreed for him to be featured in the Star Wars Holiday Special later that year. The character's design stemmed from initial concepts for Darth Vader, who was originally conceived as a rogue bounty hunter. While Vader became less a mercenary and more of a dark knight, the bounty hunter concept remained, and Fett became "an equally villainous" but "less conspicuous" character. Concept artist Ralph McQuarrie influenced Fett's design, which was finalized by and is credited to Joe Johnston.
Norman Reynolds and the film's art department built the costume. Fett's armor was originally designed for "super troopers", and was adapted for Fett as the script developed. Screen-tested in all-white, Fett's armor eventually garnered a subdued color scheme intended to visually place him between white-armored "rank-and-file" Imperial stormtroopers and Vader, who wears black. This color scheme had the added bonus of conveying the "gray morality" of his character. The character's armor was designed to appear to have been scavenged from multiple sources, and it is adorned with trophies. A description of Fett's armor in the mid-1979 Bantha Tracks newsletter catalyzed "rampant speculation" about his origins. By 1979, Fett's backstory included having served in an army of Imperial shock troops which had battled the clone troopers of the Republic during the Clone Wars.
Despite two years of widespread publicity about Fett's appearance in The Empire Strikes Back, script rewrites significantly reduced the character's presence in the film. Fett's musical theme, composed by John Williams, is "not music, exactly" but "more of a gurgly, viola-and-bassoon thing aurally cross-pollinated with some obscure static sounds." Sound editor Ben Burtt added the sound of jangling spurs, created and performed by the foley artist team of Robert Rutledge and Edward Steidele, to Fett's appearance in Cloud City, intending to make the character menacing and the scene reminiscent of similar gunfighter appearances in Western films. Boba Fett's spaceship is called the Slave I. At one point in Return of the Jedis development, Fett was conceived as being a main villain, but he was finally replaced with Emperor Palpatine when Lucas decided to not make a third trilogy of Star Wars. Lucas also considered Fett fighting Lando during the Sarlacc sequence.
An official reference book states that Fett charges "famously expensive" fees and that he undertakes only when the mission meets "his harsh sense of justice".
Daniel Keys Moran, who wrote a few stories featuring Boba Fett, cited Westerns as an influence on his development of the character. Moran said:
Lucas at one point considered depicting Vader and Fett as brothers in the prequel films, but discounted it as too "hokey". In continuing to develop the character in the prequel films, Lucas closed some avenues for expanding the character's story while opening others. Lucas considered adding a shot of Fett escaping the Sarlacc in later editions of Return of the Jedi, but decided against it because it would have detracted from the story's focus. Lucas also said that, had he known Fett would be so popular, he would have made the character's death "more exciting". In 2014, Star Wars historian Jonathan W. Winzler revealed that Lucas had told him that Fett escaped from the Sarlacc, but this has yet to be demonstrated in the film canon.

Film casting and production

Boba Fett is primarily played by Jeremy Bulloch in The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi. Bulloch's half-brother alerted him to the role. He was cast as Fett because the costume happened to fit "as if a Savile Row tailor had come out and made it"; he did not have to do a reading or screen test, and Bulloch never worked from a script for either film.
Filming the role for Empire lasted three weeks. The actor was pleased with the costume and used it to convey the character's menace. Bulloch based his performance on Clint Eastwood's portrayal of the Man with No Name in A Fistful of Dollars; similar to the Western character, Bulloch cradled the gun prop, made the character seem ready to shoot, slightly tilted his head, and stood a particular way. Bulloch did not try to construct a backstory for the character, and said later that "the less you do with Boba Fett, the stronger he becomes". Playing Fett in Empire was both the smallest and most physically uncomfortable role Bulloch has played; Bulloch said donning the heavy jetpack was the worst aspect of the role.
Bulloch spent four weeks on Return of the Jedi. He was unaware of Fett's demise before filming began and was "very upset" by the development; he would like to have done more with Fett. Still, Bulloch believed killing Fett made the character stronger, and that his "weak" death makes fans want the character to return. Bulloch thought a scene created for the Special Edition in which Fett flirts with one of Jabba's dancers was not in keeping with the character's nature.
A younger version of the character was played by Daniel Logan in Attack of the Clones. Logan had not seen any of the Star Wars films prior to being cast as Fett, but he watched the original trilogy at Lucas' request. The actor had to rely on his imagination for the bluescreen filming. Both Bulloch and Logan had also expressed interest in reprising their role of Fett in the planned Underworld TV series, but the series remains undeveloped.

Other portrayals

According to the official Star Wars website, Fett was voiced by Don Francks in the Holiday Special. Bulloch wore Fett's costume in Empire and Jedi, but John Morton filled in during one scene for Empire, and Jason Wingreen voiced the character in Empire. His brief appearance in A New Hope was performed by Industrial Light & Magic creature animator Mark Austin. The character's appearance in the Special Edition footage of Jedi was performed by Don Bies and Nelson Hall. For the 2004 rereleases, Temuera Morrison replaced the character's original voice for continuity purposes.
The character's voice in National Public Radio's Star Wars radio dramas was provided by Alan Rosenberg in The Empire Strikes Back and Ed Begley, Jr. in Return of the Jedi, Tim Glovatsky in the audio adaptation of Dark Forces: Rebel Agent, Joe Hacker in an audio adaptation of the Dark Empire comics, Temuera Morrison for ', ' and ', Dee Bradley Baker in The Force Unleashed, The Force Unleashed II and ', Chris Cox in ', Tom Kane in ', ' and ', and Daniel Logan for and .
Fett made a cameo appearance in a live-action mockumentary filmed on the set of Return of the Jedi titled Return of the Ewok. Post-production was never completed, and it has never been officially released.

Reception

Boba Fett is a "cult figure" and one of the most popular Star Wars characters. In 2008, Boba Fett was selected by Empire magazine as the 79th greatest movie character of all time, and he is included on Fandomanias list of The 100 Greatest Fictional Characters. IGN ranked Boba Fett as the eighth top Star Wars character, due to his status as a fan-favourite and cult following. He personifies "danger and mystery", and Susan Mayse calls Fett "the unknowable Star Wars character" who "delivers mythic presence." Although Tom Bissell asserts that no one knows why Boba Fett has become so popular, nor cares why, both Lucas and Bulloch cite Fett's mysterious nature as reasons for his popularity. Bulloch, who has never fully understood the character's popularity, attributes it to the costume and the respect Fett garners from Darth Vader and Jabba the Hutt.
The initial Boba Fett toy, more than Fett's actual film appearance, might be responsible for the character's popularity; Henry Jenkins suggests children's play helped the character "take on a life of its own". Moran said Vader's admonition specifically to Fett in The Empire Strikes Back—"No disintegrations"—gives Fett credibility; he was interested in Fett because the character is "strong, silent, brutal". Jeter says that even when Fett appears passive, he conveys "capability and ruthlessness". Bissell credits Bulloch for giving Fett "effortless authority" in his first scene in The Empire Strikes Back, using such nuances as cradling his blaster and slightly cocking his head. Fett's small role in the film may actually have made the character seem more intriguing. Logan, who was a Young Artist Award nominee for his portrayal of Fett, compares Fett to "that boy in school who never talks" and who attracts others' curiosity.
Bissell adds that Boba Fett, along with other minor characters like Darth Maul and Kyle Katarn, appeals to adolescent boys' "images of themselves: essentially bad-ass but... honorable about it." This tension and the absence of a clear "evil nature" offer Fett dramatic appeal. Furthermore, Fett "is cool because he was designed to be cool", presenting a "wicked ambiguity" akin to John Milton's portrayal of Satan in Paradise Lost and Iago in William Shakespeare's Othello. Bissell compares Fett to Beowulf, Ahab, and Huckleberry Finn: characters "too big" for their original presentation, and apt for continued development in other stories. Moran finds Fett reminiscent of the Man with No Name.
Fett has been featured extensively in pop culture and parodies. Breckin Meyer provides his voice in various sketches. Nerdcore rapper MC Chris included a Star Wars-themed song titled "Fett's Vette" on his 2001 debut album. The creator of the Spartan helmets for the 2006 film 300 painted one of them to look like Fett's helmet.
The San Francisco Chronicle describes Boba Fett fans as "among the most passionate", and the character is important to Star Wars fan culture. Boba Fett's popular following before the character even appeared in The Empire Strikes Back influenced Damon Lindelof's interest in developing Lost across multiple media. Between filming The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, Mark Hamill pitched the idea that Fett was Luke Skywalker's mother to George Lucas, which "he didn't like". In about 2000, a feminist campaigned online to have the character unmasked as a woman. Fan parodies include Boba Phat, a cosplay "intergalactic booty hunter" created by David James.

In ''The Clone Wars''

reviewer Eric Goldman rated the first episode 8.2/10 and the second 8.8/10, stating "this was a very layered, exciting episode to end Season 2 on", though he did not appreciate Boba Fett's limited dialogue. Bryan Young, a writer for The Huffington Post and Examiner.com, also disliked Fett's responses at the end of the episode when confronting Mace Windu: "He says something incredibly whiny." Young does state, however, that "verall, this pair of episodes was a satisfying conclusion to season two, which really upped the game in this series in terms of animation, storytelling and suspense." GalacticBinder.com's reviewer Chris Smith wrote, "Lucasfilm delivers another exciting episode to finish off a tremendous second season." Adam Rosenberg writing in MTV Movies Blog discusses Boba Fett's return: "He's going to have to be put through a lot more hell before he embraces his inner badass. I'll say though... he's off to a mighty good start with the dual blasters he wears on his belt. Sure, they're almost the size of his thighs, but hey... he's still just a kid."

Merchandising

Fett is one of the top five best-selling Star Wars action figures, and Boba Fett-related products are "among the most expensive" Star Wars merchandise. Fett was the first new mail-away action figure created for The Empire Strikes Back; although advertised as having a rocket-firing backpack, safety concerns led Kenner to sell his rocket attached. Gray called the early toy "a rare and precious commodity", and one of the rocket-firing prototypes sold at auction for $16,000 in 2003. In 2018 and 2019, two of the prototypes were sold at auction, for £69,000 and £90,000, respectively—each setting the world record for the highest auction price of a Star Wars toy at that time. A fully painted figure with a rare variant on the firing mechanism is planned to be auctioned and estimated to be worth $200,000.
In August 2009, Hasbro released a Fett action figure based on McQuarrie's white-armored concept, and Boba Fett as both a child and bounty hunter have been made into Lego minifigures. Wizards of the Coast's Star Wars Trading Card Game includes several Boba Fett cards. Hallmark Cards created a Boba Fett Christmas tree ornament.
In January 2015, an unopened Boba Fett figure sold for £18,000 at auction in the UK, the figure was in factory fresh condition and did not have the packaging punched for hanging in a shop.