Not the first time an actor portrays their own Star Wars character everywhere, but Temuera Morrison’s Boba Fett stands out from the crowd!
I have done my best to keep this material clear of story-related spoilers for the upcoming The Book of Boba Fett series.
The Book of Boba Fett is coming to Disney Plus very soon – on December 29th 2021. Each week a new episode will be released for seven weeks in a row. The series will end on February 9th 2022.
The main plot of the series is kind of a spin-off from The Mandalorian as Boba Fett has officially returned to the Star Wars franchise and canon in the second season of that show.
“The legendary bounty hunter Boba Fett navigates the underworld of the galaxy with mercenary Fennec Shand when they return to the sands of Tattooine to stake their claim on the territory formerly ruled by the deceased crime lord Jabba the Hutt.” – IMDB’s plot brief reads
Were you surprised that Temuera Morrison returned to reprise his role of the legendary clone bounty hunter Boba Fett?
Temuera Morrison is one of these Star Wars actors, who gained their fame thanks to the franchise, but did not leave it as soon as possible after that. They stuck with it and embraced their role.
Temuera has been a part of Star Wars since the first time he played Jango Fett in Episode 2 of the Prequel Trilogy.
Since then he has voiced Jango and Boba multiple times in video games and animated TV shows among other characters related to them. Here’s a brief recap of his earlier appearances:
- 2002 Star Wars: Bounty Hunter (video game) – Jango
- 2004 Star Wars: Battlefront (video game, the original) – Republic Infantry, Officer
- 2005 Star Wars: Republic Commando (video game) – Delta 38
- 2005 Star Wars Episode 3 – Commander Cody (Jango’s clone)
- 2005 Star Wars: Battlefront II (video game, original) – Boba, Jango, others
- 2006 Star Wars: Empire at War (video game) – Boba
After the prequel trilogy ended, Temuera returned to his iconic role for a few more video games and shows:
- 2015 Star Wars: Battlefront (video game, EA version) – Boba
- 2017 Star Wars: Battlefront II (video game, EA version) – Boba
- 2020 The Mandalorian (TV Series) – Boba
- 2021 Star Wars: Visions (Animated shorts) – Boba
- 2021 The Book of Boba Fett (TV Series) – Boba
He reminds me a lot of Anthony Daniels, although they look nothing alike. Much like Anthony has done over the years, Temuera Morrison has been behind almost every meaningful and important appearance of Jango or Boba.
Temuera may not be the original Boba Fett from the old Trilogy, true. Jeremy Bulloch was the first to play the legendary bounty hunter in Episode 5 – The Empire Strikes Back.
The truth is that Temuera is perfect for this role. Especially now in his more elderly age. His appearance in The Mandalorian was very appropriate. Strong, sturdy and willing to survive anything life throws at him.
I have not seen him in many roles outside of the Star Wars franchise, but I did like his performance a lot in the TV Show Spartacus: Gods from the Arena. He played Doctore there and to be honest with you, I did not recognize him right away. It took me a few scenes to realize who that man was.
I was not the biggest Boba Fett fan. I first saw “Hope” and “Empire” when I was very little. My earliest memory goes back to when I was around 5 years old and all I keep from back then is how impressed I was with the Lightsabers and their visuals. Not much else from these first viewings… on VHS tapes. That must have been around 1990 or so.
I started learning more of who Boba Fett is and why the community loves this character much later in my Star Wars years as a fan. Around the start of the 21st century.
Jango was not a favorite character of mine. I don’t mean to say that I disliked or hated him. He was simply on the sidelines for me.
I was in my late teen years when the prequels were released and I was more affected by the good vs evil in general rather than traying to look into the movies more philosophically, dive deep into the characters and their individuality.
I have been reading Star Wars comics very regularly and actively for about eight or nine years (every issue that is released). In the years before that it was very hard for me to get comic books delivered and they were rarely sold in Bulgaria. I had to resort to torrents and complicated and expensive imports. I could not afford to read everything and had to make sacrifices with one book/series over another. Same with books.
Perhaps this was one of the reasons I didn’t fall in love with Boba Fett earlier. I just didn’t know much about him from the Expanded Universe. This character was much better represented in the Expanded Universe than he was in the movies or any official Lucas-canon before Disney took over.
Temuera Morrison’s persistence in the various games I played over the years made me fall in love with Boba Fett.
I know, better late than never.
And his more recent appearances in The Mandalorian’s second season and Star Wars: Visions only continued to strengthen this connection I built with the character thanks to the actor.
The Book of Boba Fett will be extra special for me thanks to another little-known reason. Ming-Na Wen will return as Fennec Shand.
Ming-Na has achieved something extremely hard with her career as a actress. She was a Disney Princess, she played in the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and she now has a recurring role in the Star Wars franchise.
Fennec Shand, her character, first appeared in the first season of The Mandalorian. She then voiced her in Star Wars: The Bad Batch and now will play her in a recurring role for The Book of Boba Fett.
I just love when things are connected. Probably this is why I enjoy The High Republic series so much and despite the many warning signs that I hear and read, I am very excited for Star Wars: Eclipse to come out.
And another thing. I remember the first time I watched Ming-Na playing. It was in the tv series “ER”. She played very well her character there.
How about you? Are you sitting on the edge of your chair waiting for The Book of Boba Fett to start? Disney are doing something incredible with their streaming service. For those with modern high-quality TVs and audio systems their recently added and released movies and shows offer stunning images and sound.
The Book of Boba Fett will no doubt be available in HDR/Dolby Vision and with Dolby Atmos sound.
And in case you have missed, there are a ton of trailers, TV spots and other clips you may want to check out about this show. I did my best to keep this article relatively clear of spoilers, but if you want to… watch! For me these clips actually enhanced my curiosity and interest for the show rather than spoil anything at all.
The images I have used in this article are from starwars.com and the show’s trailers.
