Boba Fett has been one of the greatest antagonist characters in Star Wars history since his 1978 debut, but George Lucas originally had much more villainous plans for the bounty hunter. The clone son of notorious bounty hunter and mercenary Jango Fett, Star Wars first introduced Boba Fett in the infamous Star Wars Holiday Special in 1978, where a cartoon version of the character was seen riding the Paar’s ichthyodont. While the Star Wars Holiday Special has largely been disowned by the stars and fans alike, the Boba Fett sequence was notably well-received, which aligns with George Lucas’ original intentions for him to have a significant role in Star Wars: Episode VI - Return of the Jedi.
Before becoming the anti-hero figure in Disney+’s Star Wars shows The Mandalorian and The Book of Boba Fett, the character’s original trilogy role consisted of working for Darth Vader in Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back and being killed off within the first 10 minutes of Return of the Jedi upon falling into the Sarlacc pit. While The Mandalorian revealed that Boba miraculously survived this fall, the character’s long-time Star Wars legacy after 1983 was that he was underutilized as a fan-favorite villain. After being set up as a villain as threatening as Darth Vader in Empire Strikes Back, Boba Fett was thought to be humorously killed before the action even started when his rocket pack sent him into the mouth of the Sarlacc—but this wasn’t always George Lucas’ plan.
Just as he was set up in The Empire Strikes Back, George Lucas’s original intentions were to make Boba Fett the “big bad” of the original trilogy while saving Darth Vader’s major storyline and fall for a scrapped sequel trilogy. According to LucasFilm’s first fan relations officer Craig Miller (via Inverse), George Lucas wanted Boba Fett to be the main villain in Return of the Jedi alongside the Rebels’ storyline of rescuing Han Solo from Jabba the Hutt. The entire conclusive battle, Emperor reveal, and Anakin Skywalker sacrificing himself to save Luke were intended for a later trilogy that Lucas eventually decided against. Miller revealed that at one point, Lucas was set on doing 9 or 12 Star Wars movies, but later backtracked and decided Return of the Jedi would be his last—at the time, of course. Without a future set of movies to wrap up the Darth Vader and Luke storyline, Boba Fett’s main role as a villain was cut tremendously.
Since Boba Fett’s role in Empire Strikes Back was structured around his capture of Han Solo, it appears Luke and Leia’s rescue mission from Return of the Jedi’s opening sequence would have accounted for much more of the movie’s plot. This of course resulted in major Boba Fett changes in Return of the Jedi, not only removing the iconic character's ability to fulfill George Lucas' planned "big bad" arc, but forcing him to suffer a gag-like death that has been mocked for decades. It’s unclear whether his arc would have extended past Jedi if Lucas stuck to his original plan, but since it was building to a trilogy involving the Darth Vader and Emperor narrative, one can imagine Boba Fett would have been taken out in a much more climactic and respectable fashion by Star Wars’ protagonists.
Considering Boba Fett was one of Star Wars’ earliest underutilized villains, it’s a shame that he would have had much more screen time had Lucas not been so adamant about making Return of the Jedi the last of his movies. That said, Lucas clearly had regrets about writing out such an amazing character once he decided to move forward with the divisive Star Wars prequel trilogy. Instead of becoming a major character in Luke’s movies, Boba returned as a child in Anakin’s origin story, where his bounty hunter father Jango Fett posed a substantial threat to the galaxy. Rather than revive Boba Fett as the villain he could have been in Return of the Jedi, Star Wars has been rebranding the iconic character in the Disney+ TV shows, making him an anti-hero crime lord who hardly even dons his Mandalorian armor.
