It's no secret that director Kevin Smith is a huge fan of Star Wars, and like many of us, he was crazy excited to hear that Disney bought Lucasfilm and that we would be getting more Star Wars movies. Smith wrote an open letter to Disney that was published at THR called My Prayer for Star Wars.
He explains what it was like for him growing up with Star Wars, playing with the toys, and creating his own Star Wars adventures with his best friend Pete. The article revolves around his childhood friendship with Pete, which was built on their love of Star Wars. That moves into talking about Boba Fett, one of our favorite Star Wars characters,
With no access to the actual Star Wars films until the VCR was made affordable to the average consumer, we'd create our own Star Wars adventures. The best story (and the only one outside of the movie canon that we'd repeatedly play) wasn't about Luke and Leia: It was about inexplicable fan-fave Boba Fett -- the intergalactic bounty hunter who brings a carbonite-frozen Han Solo to Jabba the Hutt. The plot of our backyard adventure: Boba Fett gets trapped by robotic gunslinger IG-88 in aStar Wars universe time loop, sending him through all the movies as well as moments only referenced in the flicks. In some eras, he's a hero -- even getting to kiss Princess Leia instead of Luke (this was before Return of the Jedi made 'em relatives). Other times when the chrono-belt pulled him into another era, Fett's the villain he's always known as in the flicks. The time-travel plot allowed us to touch on the well-told stories of the movies we so adored, but it also gave us a chance to mash 'em up with the funkier flights-of-fancy Pete and I would manufacture. It was like an episode of Quantum Leap before that show ever existed, and it was our favorite Star Wars adventure.
This little Boba Fett rundown leads into his advice to Disney, and how the awesome character should play a big role in the upcoming trilogy.
If Disney wants to make another cool billion dollars like it did with The Avengers last summer, all it needs to do is make a Boba Fett time-travel flick. It would center on a character everyone digs and allow for a greatest hits of Star Wars while playing with an already-established timeline, a la Back to the Future. You could use every living (and dead) actor from the previous Star Wars films, no matter what their age -- which means Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher and Harrison Ford can come and play as well. It'd be a dream come true for any Star Wars fan -- particularly those of us who opted out of the boring-ass real world every summer for galaxies far, far away.
He goes on to talk about how he and Pete drifted apart as friends. Shortly after he made Clerks, Smith learned that Pete was hit by a car and killed.
Not a summer goes by when I don't think about Pete or our ongoing saga of Boba Fett lost in time. So when I heard about Disney's $4 billion Lucasfilm acquisition, naturally I had a brief, one-sided conversation with my former best friend.
"We might finally get to see that Fett flick we always dreamed about, Pete," I said aloud at my desk after I read the news.
So in a world where Disney needs to make back its investment, we may indeed see an all-Boba Fett film. And if the Force wills it, maybe it'll even be about Boba Fett lost in the Star Wars universe time stream. But even if it became the highest-grossing film of all time, it'd still never be as good as Pete King's version.
I think a lot of us can relate to growing up with Star Wars in our lives. A time travel Boba Fett film would be amazing, and I don't think fans would have a problem with it. What are your thoughts about Smith's Star Wars advice?
For those of you who missed it, click Here to read an article that Mick Joest wrote up for us about Boba Fett's possible return to Star Wars.