04/16/2026
On the 2004 DVD release of the Special Edition version of Return of the Jedi, George Lucas revealed that he had considered changing Boba Fett’s apparent dεath with an extra shot, one that would only end up appearing years later in The Book of Boba Fett.
“In the case of Boba Fett’s dεath, had I known he was gonna turn into such a popular character, I probably would’ve made it a little bit more exciting. Boba Fett was just another one of the minions, another one of the bounty hunters and bad guys,” Lucas says of the fan-favorite character, who first appeared in animated form in the 1978 Star Wars Holiday Special before making his live-action debut in 1980’s The Empire Strikes Back. “He became such a favorite of everybody’s that, for having such a small part, he had a very large presence. And now that his history has been told in the first trilogy [Lucas’ Star Wars prequels], it makes it even more of a misstep that we wouldn’t make more out of the event of his defeat because most people don’t believe he diεd anyway.”
Lucas then explained that he had even thought about adding a survival shot directly into Return of the Jedi. “I’d contemplated putting in that extra shot in [Return of the Jedi] where he climbs out of the hole,” Lucas says on the 2004 commentary, “but I figured that it doesn’t quite fit, in the end.”
Long before canon eventually showed that escape on screen, the old Expanded Universe had already taken the story in that direction. After Dark Empire confirmed that Fett survived the Sarlacc, the anthology Tales from Jabba’s Palace told the details of his escape in the short story “A Barve Like That: The Tale of Boba Fett.” In that now-Legends version, Fett communicates telepathically with an earlier victim trapped inside the Sarlacc before using weapons from his armor, including his jetpack and grenades, to blast his way out.
By Ty95
