Ming-Na Wen, who played in Boba Fett in The Book of Boba Fett, thinks the new Star Wars show is reminiscent of The Godfather. On December 29, 2021, the Boba Fett-centric series will premiere on Disney+. The series is a spinoff of The Mandalorian, which revived the renowned Star Wars bounty hunter in its season 2. On the Mandalorian season 2 ending, a post-credits sequence showed Boba Fett (Temuera Morrison) and Fennec Shand (Wen) storming Jabba’s Mansion, slaying Bib Fortuna, and eventually taking to the infamous criminal crown of Tatooine.
The Mandalorian was regularly linked to classic Western movies such as The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, The Magnificent Seven, and Stagecoach throughout its first two seasons. The series carried its western inspirations and references to medieval movies on its shoulder. Fennec Shand, Wen’s character, initially appears in the season one episode “The Gunslinger,” when she quickly established herself as being one of the galaxy’s most lethal hitmen and bounty hunters. That episode closed with a preview of Fennec Shand’s alliance with Boba Fett, which was expanded upon until two were introduced in the second season’s latter half.
Wen distinguishes The Book of Boba Fett from The Mandalorian in a recent conversation, stating that the project is not a western but rather is inspired by crime movies such as The Godfather. She described the friendship involving Shand and Fett, saying that the spin-off is “more like a twist on gangster films.” She stated “I feel they are bonded since they both suffered near-death experiences. They’re both bounty hunters, and they have a certain amount of respect and honor for one another. He rescued her, therefore there is a duty to be repaid, which bounty hunters honor.”
Wen’s description of the series as a gangster illustration rather than just a western aligns with what viewers have learned yet about the series. The series’s co-creator, Jon Favreau, has previously claimed that the plot will revolve around Boba Fett inheriting Jabba’s criminal empire. Favreau stated “Jabba was clearly a very powerful and imposing ruler, whom everyone feared and who seemed to govern with an iron fist. You take someone like this out of Tatooine ecosystem – and Hutt Space in general – and you have a ripe opportunity in the gangster genre.”
There have been numerous Star Wars stories written in both live-action and animated form over the decades. The criminal underworld of a galaxy far, far away has already been portrayed in films like Solo, The Mandalorian, and The Clone Wars. The Book of Boba Fett, on the other hand, maybe the first canon project wholly committed to that region of the world. There’s plenty that can be explored in the criminal underworld of Star Wars, and Morrison has promised that audiences should expect lots of twists and appearances throughout The Book of Boba Fett’s seven-episode span. With the gangster series launching later in 2021 and additional series like Obi-Wan Kenobi, Andor, and Ahsoka on the way, it’s a wonderful time to be a fan of Star Wars.
