Star Wars Saved The Original Trilogy By Ruining The Coolest Bad Guy

By Chris Snellgrove
| Published 46 seconds ago

One of the great ironies in Star Wars is that Boba Fett won over millions of fans while appearing for less than seven minutes in the Original Trilogy. One reason for this is that he was extremely hyped up before most fans had even seen him. Kids could send in proof of purchase for four other figures and receive a mail-in Boba Fett figure ahead of his first live-action appearance in The Empire Strikes Back. This built up major buzz, and the villain seemed to live up to the hype when he successfully tracked down Han Solo and escaped with his carbonite-frozen body as a prize for Jabba the Hutt.

After all that build-up, it was bizarre that Fett’s death was turned into a dumb punchline in the very next film. Why the heck would George Lucas troll the fans like this? As it turns out, it’s all because he ended up changing his mind. At one point, the Star Wars creator planned three trilogies, and he originally wanted Fett to be the Big Bad in Return of the Jedi. Once he decided to do “only” two trilogies, Fett got demoted so that Emperor Palpatine could take his place. It was the right call, but it’s fair to say that Lucas effectively saved the Original Trilogy by ruining his coolest bad guy.

A Highly Animated Villain

While George Lucas hasn’t personally spoken about the matter, multiple Star Wars insiders have chimed in about how the director’s vision for his blockbuster franchise changed over time. For example, Gary Kurtz was the producer for A New Hope and The Empire Strikes Back, and after The Phantom Menace came out, he told TheForce.net that Lucas originally intended to create three Star Wars trilogies (after he scrapped the idea of four). There were several differences between his original ideas and what we eventually got onscreen, but the most surprising one is that Lucas didn’t want to introduce Emperor Palpatine until the last film of the final trilogy.

Considering Palpatine’s outsize influence on the Original Trilogy, the Prequel Trilogy, and even the Sequel Trilogy, it’s shocking to imagine a world where fans had to wait decades to even see him onscreen. But Kurtz’s revelation leads to an obvious question: if Palpatine wasn’t going to pop up until the end of the third trilogy, who was going to be the Big Bad of Return of the Jedi? According to Lucasfilm fan relations officer Craig Millar, Boba Fett was going to be the final boss of the Original Trilogy, which is why George Lucas spent years hyping Fett up.

From Sidekick To Head Honcho

“Boba was gonna be the main villain,” he said, in an interview with Inverse. “That was set up, why he was taking Han Solo away, why there was a thing with him in the Christmas special.” After years of setup, what changed? “When George decided not to make a third trilogy, he completely jettisoned that storyline, which is why in the first ten minutes, Boba Fett gets bumped into and falls into the mouth of a giant monster.” While this is disappointing for fans of the bounty hunter, it’s interesting to note how quickly Lucas was willing to kill off Fett once his plans changed.

According to Millar, we shouldn’t be too disappointed that we never got to see a third Lucas trilogy, since everything was condensed into a single film. “So [Lucas] took what was planned for the third trilogy, which was the confrontation between Luke and Darth Vader, and the battle with the Emperor, and that got squished down from three movies to one movie. And that became the plot of Jedi.” This mostly aligns with what Kurtz said back in 1999, though the producer maintained that Luke would still have faced off against Vader in Return of the Jedi.

Sadly, we don’t have any details as to how Boba Fett would have worked as the final villain in ROTJ. Would he hold some rank in the Galactic Empire, or simply use his vast resources as a bounty hunter to torment our heroes? We’ll likely never know the answer to these questions, which can be frustrating for fans. One thing’s for sure, though: if Boba Fett was the Big Bad, he would have died in a cooler way than getting devoured by an angry, giant pit. Fans shouldn’t hold things against the Sarlacc, though: if you were a sandy vagina who had to eat nothing but armored idiots and squealing pig people, you’d be pretty hostile, too!