ボバ・フェットの本を開く前に、ヘルメットの下にいる男を見てみましょう

With Disney+ series The Book Of Boba Fett , Lucasfilm is finally giving the fan-favorite Star Wars character his own solo live-action adventure—more than 40 years after he was first introduced. Boba Fett has been a prominent part of Star Wars for a long time, popping up in every toy line, multiple video games, and even a painfully distracting cameo in George Lucas’ special edition version of A New Hope (it’s easy to miss if you keep your eyes closed for several minutes after Han Solo is introduced). But now that he’s getting a more direct spotlight, it seems like a good time to take a step back and investigate who Boba Fett really is beneath his Mandalorian-style helmet.

Most people first met Boba Fett in 1980's Star Wars: Episode V—The Empire Strikes Back, when he was one of the bounty hunters hired by Darth Vader to track down the Millennium Falcon. But he had already appeared in an animated segment of the not-entirely-canonical Star Wars Holiday Special (which you can now see on Disney+ under the title The Faithful Wookiee) in 1978.

In that holiday special, Boba Fett poses as a helpful stranger trying to assist Luke Skywalker in tracking down Han and Chewbacca after an accident. The good guys eventually discover he’s a bad guy, and after basically telling him to leave, the short ends. It’s telling that this is held up as “the good part” of the Star Wars Holiday Special.

As for stories that actually count, though, Boba Fett’s first chronological appearance in the Star Wars timeline was in Star Wars: Episode II—Attack Of The Clones. There, it’s revealed that he’s the “son” of legendary bounty hunter Jango Fett, played by Temuera Morrison, who serves as the template for the Republic’s army of clone soldiers. But Boba’s not really his son; he’s just another clone who ages at a normal rate and hasn’t been brainwashed by the supposed good guys into being a mindless drone in their war against robots.

When Jango is decapitated by Samuel L. Jackson’s Mace Windu, Boba sees it happen and is there to sorrowfully hold up his ersatz father’s severed head (still stuck in its chromed-out helmet). Star Wars isn’t generally a subtle film series, so this presumably serves as the motivation for Boba growing up to be a not-very-nice person.

After that, we catch up to his original big-screen debut, decades later in the Star Wars timeline, when Boba Fett was on Darth Vader’s Star Destroyer with his goofy-looking bounty hunter buddies—including lizard man Bossk, weird robot 4-LOM, weirder robot IG-88, and a grouchy man in bandages known as Dengar, though it’s worth explicitly noting that none of them are named onscreen here, including Boba Fett.

ルーク・スカイウォーカーと彼の友人を捕まえる任務を負ったボバ・フェットは、ミレニアム・ファルコンをクラウド・シティに追いやり、ダース・ベイダーにチップを渡します。ダース・ベイダーは彼にハン・ソロを支払います。ハンはボバの本当のボスである犯罪組織のジャバ・ザ・ハットにお金を借りており、ボバ・フェットは彼をタトゥイーンのジャバのパーティーパレスに連れて行き、カーボナイトのブロックで凍らせました。

Boba next shows up during Luke and Leia’s rescue mission to save Han in Return Of The Jedi, hanging out with the rest of the degenerates at Jabba’s house and enjoying the occasional performance from Sy Snootles and the Max Rebo Band. When the heroes made their failed play to save Han, Boba Fett joined Jabba on his trip out into the desert to dump them all into the Great Pit Of Carkoon, nesting place of the all-powerful Sarlacc, where they would “find a new definition of pain and suffering as they were slowly digested over a thousand years.” When the heroes revealed their actual plan to save Han, it didn’t work out well for Boba Fett; he was immediately knocked right into the Sarlacc’s mouth and killed. That’s it.

わかりました、それは明らかに「それ」ではありませんが、元の映画に関する限り、そうです。ボバがマンダロリアンに到着したのは、あなたが「retcon」（または「後付け設定」の変更）と呼んでいるものです。つまり、後続の作品で変更された架空の作品に関するものです。ディズニーがスターウォーズを引き継いだとき、映画と（便利な場合は）クローンウォーズのアニメシリーズを除いて、元のキヤノンのすべてを消去しました。古いスターウォーズの本は、ボバがずっと前にサーラックへの転落を生き延びたことを明らかにしていましたが、それらの物語はもはや公式のスターウォーズの規範の一部ではありません。

In other words, as far as Disney was concerned, nobody had any reason to suspect that Boba Fett had not died in the Sarlacc pit until he showed his face on The Mandalorian. The Book Of Boba Fett will probably address the question of how he survived and what he was doing in the years between Return Of The Jedi and The Mandalorian, but this is all we’ve got until that happens—save for Boba Fett getting his armor back and then claiming Jabba The Hutt’s criminal empire for himself and new friend Fennec Shand (Ming-Na Wen).

If you’re really desperate for more Boba Fett, he did make some appearances in the Clone Wars cartoon as a little kid. It won’t tell you anything about what to expect from The Book Of Boba Fett, and anything in those episodes that is contradicted by later movies doesn’t count, but there are some more Boba Fett stories out there at least.

He first appeared in the episode “Death Trap,” posing as a regular clone kid while trying to enact a plan to get revenge against the Jedi for killing his dad. He returned in the episode “Bounty,” leading his own team of bounty hunters (including a young Dengar), but after that, he mostly drops out of the larger Star Wars saga until The Empire Strikes Back.

これから学ぶべき教訓が1つあるとすれば、それはボバ・フェットにとって本当に多くのことがなかったということです。彼はかっこいい鎧を持っていますが、それを身に着けている間、彼が実際に多くのことをしたのはマンダロリアンまでではありませんでした。The Book Of Boba Fettの予告編は、ジャバの治世の過剰とは対照的に、銀河の犯罪者の下腹にある種の倫理規定を課すことになることもからかっています。彼はこれまで何も話したことがないからです。

せいぜい、ボバ・フェットはいつも誰か他の人の話の中で面白いプレーヤーでした、それで新しいショーが彼と何をするかを予測するのは難しいです。それはボバ・フェットの何世代にもわたるファンにとって待望の見返りとなることを願っていますが、彼がいつ背中をバタバタさせられ、ピットに落ちて死ぬのかはわかりません。