Last week, in celebration of May the 4th, Disney+ released Disney Gallery: The Book of Boba Fett, an hour-long special detailing the behind-the-scenes of the making of The Book of Boba Fett.
The special included interviews with Jon Favreau, Dave Filoni, Kathy Kennedy, Robert Rodriguez, Temuera Morrison, Ming-Na Wen, Mark Hamill, and more as it gave viewers a look at what into making the series, just like the Disney Gallery: The Mandalorian episodes have done for that series. I’m always a fan of these behind-the-scenes looks, so this was also quite enjoyable.
The episode dives in to the inspiration behind the series, as well as the no-brainer opportunity to have Morrison play the character again. “When George first spoke to me about Boba Fett,” Kennedy said, “he immediately said, ‘I cast this amazing actor from New Zealand, called Temuera Morrison, to play Jango Fett.’ He said, ‘If you ever do Boba Fett, you should cast Temuera to play Boba, because he’s such a remarkable actor.'” I think Star Wars fans would agree.
Most of the episode is about specifics from the season and how they were brought to life, such as Fett’s escape from the sarlacc pit, the design of the Tatooine sand creature (including Rodriguez acting out how it walked from home), the Tuskens, the Ithorian mayor, Garsa Fwip’s casino, the Rancor, the N1 starfighter, and so much more. And, of course, there was quite a bit of time devoted to seeing Mark Hamill as Luke Skywalker once more. That part is worth mentioning because it not only provided some really heartwarming moments of Hamill on set (particularly with Rosario Dawson’s Ahsoka Tano) but it gave an insight into how they pulled it off. It turns out that Hamill was on set and acted all of Luke’s scenes, and then they had another actor, Graham Hamilton, do the scenes too, learning and taking pointers from Hamill. It’s really cool to see how involved Mark Hamill still is with the character and his portrayal, and how the heart and performance of Luke is still his. It’s things like that which make these specials really stand out and worth it.
But what also stands out is the chance to get to hear from the showrunners about the thought that went into each step of the process, something that most fans don’t really consider. The thoughtfulness and passion of Favreau and Filoni is obvious in each of these glimpses, and it’s really cool to see. That theme runs throughout the whole thing, but the particular moment that I wanted to highlight here was the two of them talking about their approach to the character of Boba Fett here. Some fans were upset that the Boba Fett in this series seemed different – something I interacted with at the time here – but Favreau and Filoni understand that to tell a story like this you need more than a series of cool clips uploaded to Youtube or something.
Filoni spoke more to the fact that of course Boba would be changed after what he’s gone through:
I think the thing with Boba is, once he goes down into the sarlacc pit, once he’s in the subterranean world, the underworld, that transitional moment changes someone. I mean, how could it not? And you have an opportunity for him to come out on the other side and make a choice about what kind of person he wants to be.”
Favreau then spoke more at length about the necessity for a compelling story and development for the main character:
“As much fun as it is to think about a character who has questionable morality blasting his way through the galaxy, that only goes so far. You can’t really explore storylines. It sounds good, but when you actually zoom in and explore what’s going on with that character, if that character is just a lawless character who is doing really cool action sequences, that’s not Star Wars. Star Wars has to be about each character facing certain obstacles. Usually emotional ones as well as physical, you know? There may be a villain you’re facing off, but if there’s no internal conflict going on with the character, you’re losing half of what makes it impactful. And so we found a way to hopefully preserve the edginess of the character. How good they are at what they do. That they were a top bounty hunter in the galaxy that was being hired by Darth Vader. How do you live up to that, but still show that the character has learned the lessons of time and of experience?”
I really appreciated these comments, and hope that they stand out to others who watch the series too. I’m thankful for how thoughtful these two are about the stories they’re telling, and even if not everything connects or resonates, this is absolutely the right mindset to have.
This episode, then, was a great look at what went into making this series, and that’s always fun. If you’re a fan of stuff like this, like I am, you’ll enjoy it!
Star Wars Thoughts 