Warning! Spoilers ahead for The Book of Boba Fett episode 7
Thanks to The Book of Boba Fett's final episode, a deleted arc of The Clone Wars animated series has been made canon, becoming further integrated into the official Star Wars history thanks to a duel between gunslinger Cad Bane and Fett himself. While their battle at Mos Espa was their first on-screen fight, it was actually a rematch with their first duel occurring during Clone Wars where Fett faced the gunslinger as a teenager in an unfinished arc of episodes. Now, the tense words and interactions between the two rivals confirm that their earlier history did indeed happen in the official timeline.
While the aforementioned episodes of The Clone Wars were never completed after the series was canceled on Cartoon Network, clips were released online as part of the Clone Wars Legacy project. As such, these deleted scenes were released in a pre-viz format though the dialogue had all been recorded featuring Corey Burton playing Cad Bane with young Fett being voiced by Daniel Logan (who played Boba in Attack of the Clones). Not only would the arc have seen Bane mentoring Boba as Jango had mentored him, but the pair would have also had had an eventual falling out after Boba could no longer tolerate Bane's dishonor. This led to their duel where they shot each other in the head simultaneously, an act that would have explained the dent in Boba Fett's helmet.
While the more recent The Bad Batch animated series saw Bane with a metal plate on his head as a reference to his now off-screen duel with Boba, new insights from The Book of Boba Fett confirm more elements from the deleted scenes are canon as well, suggesting that the majority of the arc is indeed still a part of the timeline. Not only does Bane reference Boba's father Jango (a confirmation that he knew him), but Boba also warns Bane not to toy with him as he's "a little boy no longer" further confirming their history during his youth. Furthermore, Bane intended to kill Boba after sharing "a final lesson", implying that there were earlier lessons he'd taught Boba which would have been seen in the episodes where Bane mentored him. Even their positions from their first showdown were flipped with Boba being on the left instead of the right as he was during the Clone Wars duel (and vice versa).
While their past rivalry was never directly stated or shown in a flashback in The Book of Boba Fett like some might have hoped, there are enough references made to Boba and Bane's Clone Wars backstory to confirm its stronger status in the canon beyond their showdown and Boba's helmet dent. Bane did indeed mentor Boba before they turned on each other, and it was also revealed that Bane had beaten Fett out on bounty hunting jobs as well in the years that followed The Clone Wars, no doubt a symptom of their ongoing rivalry that began in these incomplete episodes, culminating in this finale episode with Boba finally defeating Bane.
Lucasfilm could have certainly left those Clone Wars episodes in the dust and simply kept the first off-screen duel as the only part that was official canon, though it now seems safe to say that the entire arc is canonical with these new references (despite the bulk of it having only been teased). Not only did they provide more engaging dynamics to Bane and Boba's rematch in The Book of Boba Fett, but they also created more depth for Boba personally seeing as how Bane was used to draw connections between Boba's honor in protecting Mos Espa and the legacy of his father Jango.
The Book of Boba Fett is now streaming on Disney+.
