We have, at least for the moment, avoided a Boba Fett movie. The project has been in development at Lucasfilm since 2013, and according to EW, they were planning to announce that Josh Trank (Chronicle) was planning to direct a film back in April 2015, and had even prepared a presentation for Star Wars Celebration. However, that was all canceled when rumors swirled around Trank’s disastrous Fantastic Four reboot and reports of his behavior on set. So the project was scuttled, but then came to the surface again when there was word that James Mangold (Logan) might helm a Boba Fett movie. But last week we heard confirmation that the Boba Fett movie was officially dead.

So what would have Trank’s movie focused on? EW reports that “The movie would have focused on Fett and the menagerie of bounty hunters who appeared alongside him on the deck of a Star Destroyer in The Empire Strikes Back,” which presumably means the lineup would have included IG-88, Bossk, Zuckus, 4-Lom, and Dengar.

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Image via Lucasfilm

While some fans may be excited at this news and what Lucasfilm was pursuing at the time, the news overall paints a discouraging picture. Look at what Lucasfilm was planning: First, they wanted to do a Boba Fett movie, which no one should ever do because Boba Fett is an action figure masquerading as a character. He has no personality other than what fans have projected onto him because he has a jetpack and is told by Vader “No disintegrations.” He is then comically murdered by a blind guy who knocks him into a giant mouth in the ground.

Setting aside an attempt to put Boba Fett front and center, you make your universe smaller by just focusing on bounty hunters that die-hard fans already know about. There’s no attempt to, I don’t know, introduce new characters. It makes it look like there are only six active bounty hunters in the entire galaxy, and instead of expanding Star Wars into new areas, you retreat into the familiar (this was also the problem with the proposed Obi-Wan movie).

Thankfully, it looks like the best thing Solo accomplished was putting a nail into the coffin of revisiting old characters for spinoff movies. No one was really asking how Han Solo got his last name or how he became friends with Lando. Not everything needs its own mythology, and hopefully Lucasfilm is focusing on looking to the future rather than riffling through the past

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Image via Mondo
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Image via Lucasfilm