It's been something of a slow burn, but the world established by The Mandalorian is on the verge of its first significant expansion. The Book of Boba Fett will soon launch on Disney+, continuing the former bounty hunter's story as a new crime lord on Tatooine. The series sees the return of Temuera Morrison as the titular character alongside Ming-Na Wen, who plays the sharpshooting Fennec Shand.
For months, The Book of Boba Fett has been shoruded in secrecy. Following a late beginning for the series' marketing campaign, executive producer Robert Rodriguez revealed that footage seen in the promotional material has all come from the first 15 minutes of the inaugural episode, and a short clip featured most of the released dialogue in a 30-second span.
All of the precautionary steps taken have been done with the intent of preserving surprises for the fans. Rodriguez asserted that anything following the first half of the opening episode would be too spoilery to share, implying that some familiar names and faces could be poised to appear.
Those who follow the MCU are aware of the similar technique that Disney's other major property follows. Fans have become conditioned to expect intersecting stories between well-known characters, and for executive producer Jon Favreau, it's a path that the Star Wars shows are also going to follow.
Star Wars Takes the MCU Approach
In an interview with The New York Times, executive producer Jon Favreau touched on the MCU's nature leading to an expectation of interconnectedness from Star Wars fans, a result of "characters within the same franchise making appearances across several different properties."
Favreau noted that Star Wars fans are as much a factor in the final products as the work done by the creative minds:
“Star Wars is something where the audience is just as much a component as what you’re putting out there as a filmmaker.”
While Boba Fett didn't arrive in-universe until The Empire Strikes Back, the character debuted in the infamous Star Wars Holiday Special and was part of a Kenner promotional campaign, which saw a rocket-firing version of the character become the coolest member of kids' action figure collections.
Though the wait to meet him onscreen was long, Favreau suggested the earlier efforts gave fans a pre-existing connection to Fett:
"For people who didn't grow up at that time, it's hard to understand how starved we were for information about Star Wars. You'd buy magazines with photo spreads. You'd buy the toys and play with them. By the time Boba Fett appeared onscreen, we felt like we already knew him."
Binding the Galaxy Together
The MCU has redefined the term "interconnected," bringing together comic book characters in ways previously unseen. Many franchises have told long narratives over the years, but never in the way that various characters come in and out of different stories to support the needs of another.
Given that he kicked off the MCU by directing the first two Iron Man films and has remained involved with the franchise, it comes as little surprise that Favreau has taken inspiration from the interconnected approach and applied it to Star Wars.
The seeds for this trail were planted in The Mandalorian Season 2, which saw the live-action debuts of Ahsoka Tano and Bo-Katan Kryze, the marshall Cobb Vanth spring from the pages to Aftermath to screen, a shocking appearance by Luke Skywalker, and, of course, the return of Boba Fett. Ahsoka will continue the story of the titular character in a search for Ezra Bridger, and Fett's involvement spawned The Book of Boba Fett.
Boba Fett will be the first of many shows in the MandoVerse to carry on plotlines established by The Mandalorian, and Favreau's comments seem to strongly suggest that many of the characters will be crossing paths in the future.
Discussion of the excruciating wait for Boba Fett's debut in The Empire Strikes Back puts things into perspective. While the present-day seems to present a serious drought of Star Wars news, there's enough content being released through other mediums to make the time between the original trilogy films feel like the Dust Bowl.
But the home stretch is here, and Star Wars fans' patience will soon be rewarded.
The Book of Boba Fett debuts on December 29, 2021 on Disney+.
