A long time ago, in a reality far, far away, when Star Wars was less than two episodes old, and the Dark Side of the LucasFilm Marketing Empire had not yet made the jump to hyperspace, the Star Wars Fan Club offered its members an opportunity to buy a Boba Fett figurine
before it became available to the general public. The figurine was available to Fan Club members who sent in special paperwork, several proofs-of-purchases from other Star Wars toys and money, of course. This wasn’t any sort of Franklin Mint special. This was the standard Kenner three-inch toy version that every kid wanted to have. Well, I was never one to go for the figurines. GI Joe, the original one-foot-tall guy, with the peach fuzz hair and the scar on his cheek, was my action figure of choice. My neighbor Mark, however, was the King of the Block when it came to the Star Wars figurines.
If there was a figurine or toy to be had, Mark had it. Obscure droids seen only in the Jawa Sandcrawler were as plentiful in Mark's room as they were in...well, in the Jawa Sandcrawler. Every toy creature or hunk of metal from every scene in Star Wars was one that Mark owned. Some he owned in duplicate or even triplicate (you
had to have more than one Stormtrooper for your Death Star playset. I mean...come
on! Everyone knows that). Mark also had all of the various Star Wars scenes, space ships and other accoutrements, from the Millennium Falcon to the Death Star trash compactor to a whole fleet of X-Wing Fighters. Well, since Mark was the King of Star Wars toys, it was natural that he would take advantage of the Fan Club’s special offer. He had the special paperwork, his parents went out and bought a couple more Stormtroopers or Jawas or Sandmen, for the proofs-of-purchase, and, of course they had the money as well. Man, did they have the money. Anyhow, Mark sent everything off to the proper authorities, and began to wait for Boba.
Four to six weeks of waiting could not have seemed longer for Mark and anyone who knew him. The day Boba came in the mail was quite an occasion. The postman brought Boba, Mark signed for him, and then, within seconds, the small square box that Boba had come in was open and on the ground. Mark quickly slipped the figure from its clear plastic wrapper and posed Boba on his parents' kitchen table, blaster in hand. "Wow!" we exclaimed. Boba was new, different…
mysterious. In the two or so years following Star Wars, the effects-heavy sci-fi space shoot ’em up genre had been beaten into the ground. Battlestar Galactica hit television in 1978, and the cheesy Buck Rogers series followed a year later. The patina on George Lucas’ masterpiece was beginning to tarnish just a bit. Everyone who saw the figurine standing there on Mark’s kitchen table hoped that Boba Fett, new and mysterious, was a sign of things to come. It was our hope that The Empire Strikes Back would somehow re-ignite, re-kindle and add a sense of newness and excitement to a then-tired three-year-old movie and television genre.
We stared in awe at Boba before we posed him in different manners: Boba, blaster at the ready; Boba, blaster aimed up; Boba, head turned right, blaster aimed down; Boba, blaster up, head to the left. We staged him next to other figurines. His head turned--all the way around if you wanted--just like Luke Skywalker's head turned. His stiff legs, lacking any sort of articulation save for motion at the hips, creaked stiffly, just like Han Solo's stiff legs creaked. Boba's arms moved in 360-degree circles about the axis of his shoulder just like Darth Vader's arms moved. There was nothing new or unusual about the construction of the Boba Fett figurine, apart from the fact that it was
Boba Fucking Fett, the bounty hunter who was going to chase down Han Solo in The Empire Strikes Back. Even though Boba moved like the rest of the Star Wars figurines, we knew that he was a bad motherfucker.
Playing with the Star Wars figurines took on a whole new dimension when Boba was around. As soon as Boba came into Mark's house, he was da' man! When Boba set foot in the Creature Cantina, shit got tame.
Greedo the Rodian, was a two-bit punk compared to Boba Fett. In no time at all, Boba was flying X-Wings and Tie-Fighters through Mark's house. In one scenario, Boba jacked Luke Skywalker’s sandspeeder. There was just nothing Boba couldn't do whether it was in Mos Eisly, the Death Star or on Mark's living room floor. Of course, Mark always got to be Boba Fett, and the rest of us had to settle for lesser characters like Luke, Obi-Wan or Han Solo.
Boba's legend continued to grow when Mark received an issue of Bantha Tracks, the official newsletter of the Star Wars Fan Club. The newsletter featured a profile on Boba Fett, which included an illustration of his armor and the various tchotchkes he carried around with him, including Wookie Scalps.
Wookie Scalps?! We immediately began to speculate on whether or not Chewbacca would fall victim to Boba Fett. Clearly, Boba was badder than Darth Vader. Of
course he was badder than Lord Vader, we reasoned. Why else would Vader call Boba Fett in the first place? He needed someone badder than himself to take care of business. It all began to make sense. It became clear to Mark and me, as well as to the rest of the kids in the neighborhood, that Boba Fett was going to be the lynchpin of the next Star Wars film.
Within days, kids in my neighborhood had exhausted every Boba Fett conspiracy we could think of. "Maybe Boba Fett kills Luke, captures Han and Marries Leia," one neighbor offered. "No, maybe Boba Fett is the
Emperor!" another chimed in with. Each theory was offered, and each accepted as a possibility. When every permutation of every outcome involving Boba Fett had been covered, we entered the realm of the hypothetical. "Who would win in a fight," and "Who had a cooler name," were topics up for discussion. Kids would wheel down to the nearby park on their bikes, form a circle with their front tires nearly touching and cover the basics. Boba Fett could beat any other Star Wars character except for possibly Darth Vader and
maybe Luke Skywalker. But the verdict was still out. Nobody knew who Jaba the Hutt really was yet, so no speculation centered on him. Boba Fett could also take out Steve Austin, The General Lee (
Bruce Lee, too, for that matter) and the Airwolf Helicopter if he faced them. Mark Gaekel, a kid who rode a Huffy, was laughed out of Memorial Park when he suggested a match up between Boba Fett and Latka Gravas, the Andy Kaufman character from Taxi.
When The Empire Strikes Back finally rolled around, we kids were stoked. Finally, we would see how The Imperial Forces had regrouped after the destruction of the Death Star, and, more importantly, we would see the true power of Boba Fett! To the kids in my neighborhood, The Empire Strikes Back was what movies were all about. Adults could talk about their Citizen Kanes and their Midnight Cowboys, but we kids knew that Empire would eclipse all other films in the history of cinema. And the being who would be remembered as the ultimate movie character, the standard-bearer for all characters to come, would be Boba Fett.
The day came. We went to the Piedmont Theater, watched The Empire Strikes back and felt…disappointment. Walking from the theater, all I felt was emptiness. Mark’s mom took us for ice cream sundaes at nearby Fenton’s Creamery, and even ice cream didn’t taste the same after such heavy disappointment. The reality of the film was not as we neighborhood kids had envisioned it. The reality was that Boba Fett was barely on screen at all, and, far from being a badass, he was simply a cowardly flim-flam artist who had barely anything to do with Han Solo's eventual capture and transformation into a block of carbon. The movie sucked. We all thought so. My neighbor Mark's Boba Fett figurine found a place somewhere in the cushions of his parents' sofa, and the name "Boba Fett" was hardly mentioned again at all.
It wasn't until years later, when I saw The Phantom Menace, that I realized that, in a way, Boba Fett was
indeed the man--from a marketing standpoint. I realized this when I met another figment of George Lucas' imagination, Darth Maul. Darth Maul popped up everywhere before Episode I hit the movie screen. His terrible face, part Freddy Krueger, part Satan, part Maori Tribesman, was on everything from fast food containers to...who the fuck knows what else. He was
everywhere. He should've been called Darth (you'll see him when you go to the) Mall [sic]. From a publicity standpoint, he was the 90’s version of Boba Fett.
Darth Maul was so hyped that I fully expected, when I saw Phantom Menace, to find him playing a character similar to Darth Vader's character in the original Star Wars film. I didn't fall for the hype as hard as I did the Boba Fett hype when I was young, but I admit, I was intrigued. I never once wondered aloud if Darth Maul could whip ass on LLCool J or Harvey Keitel or even David Letterman, but my curiosity was piqued by the ubiquity of the shadowy newcomer. I was not surprised, however, when Darth Maul proved to be the same over-hyped LucasFilm disappointment of a villain that Boba Fett was. He did not so much as utter a word throughout the film. Darth Maul spent less time on the big screen than young children dressed in Darth Maul costumes spent on my front porch for Halloween that year. He cracked a crooked smile, did some light saber tricks, and then got killed. "Genius," I thought. "George Lucas is a fucking genius. If I could create and market a character like Darth Maul, I would be living in Marin County, too."
My adult sensibilities told me to steer clear of Episode II, and quite honestly, the latest episode of the Star Wars saga just doesn't matter to me, either. As a young Star Wars devotee, I was envious of anyone who could find the leisure time to spend the night in line waiting to see the next figment of George Lucas' creative genius grace the big screen. Now, I'm not so envious of those people. "You fuckers," I think to myself, "your company is going to pay you sick time and will somehow pass that cost on to me, the consumer." Now, as an adult, I know that a trip into the theater to see what Mr. Lucas has to offer is most likely a waste of time. The genius of George Lucas isn't inside the movie theater, it's what's on display
outside of the movie theater.
