Boba Fett claimed to be a “simple man” in his triumphant The Mandalorian return, but his starring role in The Book of Boba Fett makes this comparison to his father, Jango Fett, a lie. A similar line was said by Jango Fett in Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones during a tense conversation with Obi-Wan Kenobi. Jango Fett was originally anything but a simple man, but the line nevertheless became iconic enough for his son, Boba Fett, to repeat it when introducing himself to Din Djarin. When considering the backstories of both bounty hunters, however, the line becomes an understatement, to say the least.
Boba Fett was a menacing minor antagonist in The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi. Despite his captivating on-screen presence, Fett had little screen time and few lines of dialogue. While Attack of the Clones established him as the cloned son of Jango Fett, Boba Fett’s backstory, characterization, and future in the Star Wars franchise would be explored in great detail in non-movie material from both the original Legends continuity and the post-2014 canon timeline.
Star Wars: The Clone Wars explored the canon version of Boba Fett following his father’s death. The series showed him unsuccessfully attempting to exact revenge on Mace Windu and later becoming a deadly bounty hunter in his early teenage years. The Book of Boba Fett explores the titular former bounty hunter following his escape from the sarlacc pit. After being captured by a tribe of Tusken Raiders, Fett gradually earns their trust, helping them fight back against Tatooine’s lethal fauna and criminal assailants, eventually being accepted into the tribe. The show’s main storyline sees Fett easing into his new role as a crime lord after years of being a notorious bounty hunter. All of this makes Boba Fett anything but a simple man, though the description applies to Jango Fett in the canon timeline.
In the Legends timeline, Jango Fett has a compelling and epic backstory in which the ten-year-old Fett and his family are caught in the crossfire between the murderous Death Watch and Jaster Mereel’s True Mandalorians. With his parents dead and sister missing, Jango Fett joins Mereel, becoming a child soldier before eventually succeeding his mentor as the Mand’alor, only for his military unit to be killed by the Jedi during the Battle of Galidraan. Fett became a bounty hunter while retaining his duties as Mand’alor, raising Boba Fett as both his legacy and that of the Mandalorians.
The post-2014 canon removed the specifics of Jango Fett’s Legends-era backstory, though The Mandalorian season 2 confirms that its broad strokes occurred in the new continuity. While Jango is not confirmed to have ever been the Mand’alor in canon, Boba reveals that he was both a foundling and a veteran of the Mandalorian Civil Wars. Compared to his Legends-era counterpart, canon’s Jango Fett is a far simpler character, adding a degree of truth to his Attack of the Clones line, which was duplicitous in Legends.
In both canon and Legends, Boba Fett is a complex and morally-ambiguous character who continues to suffer the trauma of witnessing his father’s death decades later. The canon timeline remains light on details regarding Jango Fett’s backstory, aside from his Mandalorian affiliation, making him a rather simple character in a meta sense. The Mandalorian and The Book of Boba Fett, however, explore the humanity and complexities of Boba Fett like the Legends universe, making his claim of being a simple man dubious at best.
