The Mandalorian is the legacy of one of Star Wars’ most popular characters: bounty hunter Boba Fett. While the bounty hunter only ever had a few lines in the saga, and met a rather idiotic death, he has had more influence on Star Wars than most realize.
Shades of Fett’s bounty hunter exist in characters–good and bad–in the Star War’s universe from Darth Vader to lone smuggler Han Solo.
Let’s start with the bad.
Darth Vader
In early drafts of A New Hope Fett wasn’t called Fett at all. He was a prototype for Darth Vader.
Writer, director, and creator of Star Wars, George Lucas, said he “wanted to develop an essentially evil character that was frightening.”
“Darth Vader started as a kind of intergalactic bounty hunter in a spacesuit and evolved into a more grotesque knight as I got more into knights and the codes of everything. He became more of a Dark Lord than a mercenary bounty hunter. The Boba Fett character is really an early version of Darth Vader.”
Prince Valorum: The Original Sith Knight
Prince Valorum predated both Vader and Fett as the bounty hunter in Lucas’ rough draft of A New Hope. Valorum, the original Black Knight of the Sith, was used by Vader to track down the heroes. Later, it is Vader who becomes the Dark Lord of the Sith.
As Lucas refined A New Hope from draft to draft, characters like Valorum and the bounty hunter were dropped. But not forgotten. Valorum later appeared in the animated series, Star Wars: Clone Wars. The bounty hunter, on the other hand, was reintroduced by Lucas in the second draft (April 1978) of The Empire Strikes Back.
The Man With No Name
It’s no secret that the Western influenced George Lucas’ Star Wars. “There were quite a few films made about bounty hunters in the Old West,” said Lucas. “That’s where that came from…He is also very much like the man-with-no-name from the Sergio Leone Westerns.”
“The Man With No Name” is Clint Eastwood’s unnamed character in Sergio Leone’s trilogy: A Fistful of Dollars, For A Few Dollars More, and The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly. He’s the guy that rides into town from some unknown origin. Little is known about him; he just tracks down his victim, collects his bounty, and rides back out of town. (The concept is similar to the lone samurai in Akira Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai, later remade into the western, The Magnificent Seven.)
This describes Fett in The Empire Strikes Back. We never know his origin–he just tracks down Han Solo, and with Vader’s help, traps Solo in carbon freeze. The last we see of Fett in Empire is when he flies away in his ship with Solo in his cargo hold.
When Han Solo Was A Bounty Hunter, And His Name Was Valorum
In early drafts, Solo is a green alien. But an often over-looked early incarnation of the character is found in Prince Valorum. Valorum, as already discussed, is the earliest version of the bounty hunter in Star Wars, before he became Boba Fett in Empire. And he was also the first member of the Sith, before Lucas made Vader got the Dark Lord. But Valorum’s story line in the Star Wars rough draft shares the same story beats as Han Solo in the final film. In fact, Valorum is a composite character of both Boba Fett and Han Solo in this early draft.
In the rough draft, Valorum is sent by Darth Vader to track down the heroes, just as Boba Fett does in Empire. But half way through this draft, Valorum grows a conscience, switches sides and helps Annikin Starkiller (later Luke Skywalker) free the princess, just as Han Solo does in A New Hope.
The Mirror Image Of Han Solo
Both “The Man With No Name” and the lone samurai are also archetypes for Han Solo.
While Lucas connects Boba Fett with Eastwood’s bounty hunter, there is another character in Star Wars that follows the lone mercenary for hire. That, of course, is Han Solo. Solo, in many respects, is the mirror image of Boba Fett. Both follow no cause. They’re just interested in the next paid job. Both work alone with no personal entanglements that might compromise their drive for the next payday.
Also, both Fett and Solo bear attributes of the man with no name in their costume. Fett wears a poncho which Eastwood’s character wears in films like, A Fist Full of Dollars. Solo’s costume, on the other hand, is influenced even more by the garb work by cowboys in westerns:
Fett was a natural character to introduce in the second film. Lucas picked a plot thread from the first film dealing with Han Solo’s unpaid debt to gangster Jabba the Hutt. Fett helps Vader spring a trap for Luke Skywalker and, in exchange, gets his prize: Solo trapped in carbon freeze. The last we see of Solo is him being loaded into the cargo hold of Fett’s ship, Slave One, for his transportation to Jabba the Hutt on Tatooine.
Fett’s final design was needed urgently for the upcoming Star Wars Holiday Special of 1978. The final look for the galactic mercenary by Ralph McQuarrie, Joe Johnston, and Lucas came in March 1978. Though it is closely based on McQuarrie’s jettisoned super-stormtrooper design from October 1977, sole credit usually goes to Johnston.
Fett’s popularity started two years before Empire’s release when he hit the shelves of toy stores as part of Kenner’s Star Wars merchandise. Although Fett has limited lines in both Empire and Return of the Jedi, and meets an unceremonious end when swallowed by the Sarlacc, he has remained one of the more popular characters in the series, spawning further adventures in novels, comic books, and video games. And there are rumors he may appear in a future episode of The Mandalorian.