WARNING: Contains SPOILERS for The Book of Boba Fett episode 5
The Book of Boba Fett episode 5 "Return of the Mandalorian" made Luke Skywalker's (Mark Hamill) feat with womp rats in Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope less impressive. The Book of Boba Fett sets up The Mandalorian season 3 as Mando (Pedro Pascal) returns to the Star Wars universe and continues his story from The Mandalorian season 2. However, while this storyline remains the episode's primary focus, it also undermines one of the most iconic anecdotes from the original movie.
After he gets his beskar spear converted into armor for Grogu and learns he has to atone for taking off his Mandalorian helmet, Din Djarin returns to Tatooine and gets a new ship from Peli Motto (Amy Sedaris). When he arrives at Peli's garage, he finds her struggling with a womp rat, which her trusted droids refuse to defend her from. As the womp rat grabs Peli's leg, Din Djarin quickly shoots it down as a way of making his entrance. After he and Peli restore the pre-Empire N-1 Starfighter (which is the perfect Easter egg to Anakin’s ship in Star Wars: The Phantom Menace), Mando takes his new ship for a test run. In an attempt to check the ship's ability to fly through tight spaces, Mando blasts through Beggar's Canyon, which is part of the course for the famous Boonta Eve Classic, the yearly Tatooine podrace. Mando scares off another womp rat in the process, and this is a clear reference to Luke's youth, as he and Biggs Darklighter used the Beggar's Canyon as a training ground, flying T-16 skyhoppers and hunting down womp rats.
In A New Hope, Luke says, "I used to bull's-eye womp rats in my T-16 back home, they're not much bigger than two meters," assuring Col Takbright (Colin Higgins) that hitting the Death Star's small weakspot can be done. But Luke's boast is pretty questionable: as The Book of Boba Fett episode 5 shows, womp rats are pretty big (and hard to miss). While the one in Beggar's Canyon doesn't appear fully grown, the one attacking Peli in her garage fits the womp rats' description as rodents that can reach two meters in size. This makes Luke's statement strange in itself, as he is bragging about bull's-eyeing a very large creature (even though, of course, the practice he got shooting womp rats in Beggar's Canyon eventually helped him end the Battle of Yavin).
It's worth mentioning that womp rats share the Jawa Heights region with monstruous creatures such as krayt dragons. This is the only potential reason for Luke sharing his womp rat hunting as a great feat: perhaps on Star Wars' Tatooine, two-meter rats are not that big as they pale in comparison to the other resident creatures (Boba Fett's enemy sarlacc included). But the image of Peli Motto being dragged away by the womp rat as her adorable but helpless BD units watch and panic stands as a counterargument to Luke's strange statement in A New Hope.
"The Return of the Mandalorian" continues Star Wars' legacy of portraying womp rats as Tatooine pests. In Clone Wars, Obi-Wan Kenobi (Ewan McGregor) comments that there's "more than one way to skin a womp rat," demonstrating the lack of empathy generally shown towards the big rodents. In The Book of Boba Fett episode 5, Din Djarin scores against the womp rats twice, first to Peli's delight, and second as he almosts runs over a womp rat with his new Starfighter. The episode was both a live-action debut for the womp rat and a confirmation that Luke's womp rat feat is fairly strange and, overall, not that impressive.
Episodes of The Book of Boba Fett air Wednesdays on Disney+
