Ever since Boba Fett first appeared in Star Wars, fans have been wanting to know more about the bounty hunter. As the universe expanded through books and video games, plenty of people took this opportunity to expand upon Boba Fett’s story and his further adventures after escaping death in Return of the Jedi.
However, this was all erased when Disney bought the rights to the franchise and decanonized everything that wasn’t either a Star Wars movie or TV series. Boba Fett was once again a mysterious figure who may or may not have survived his fall into the Sarlacc pit.
So it’s easy to imagine how excited fans were upon seeing the face of Temuera Morrison at the end of the first episode of the second season of The Mandalorian meaning that the bounty hunter was still alive in the new Disney approved Star Wars timeline.
Though Morrison is best known for playing Jango Fett, the father of Boba Fett, there was no question that when he appeared in The Mandalorian he was playing Boba, as Boba Fett is actually a clone of Jango. While Morrison had been portraying Jango Fett, as well as various clone troopers, since the release of Attack of the Clones in 2002, this was the first time he was appearing on screen as Boba Fett. Kind of.
You see, other than his appearance as a child in Attack of the Clones and on The Clone Wars tv show (portrayed by Daniel Logan in both cases) Fett had always appeared with a helmet on, meaning that we could always imagine Temuera Morrison’s face under the helmet, even if we knew another actor had to be portraying the character at the time.
However, just because Morrision wasn’t the person wearing the armor on the screen, that doesn’t mean that The Mandalorian was the first time that Morrison played the bounty hunter.
In 2004 the original Star Wars trilogy was released onto DVD for the first time. For this release several updates were made to the movie in order to connect them closer to the prequel trilogy that was being released at the time.
One of the changes made was Morrison redubbing the lines for Boba Fett. Boba Fett had previously been voiced by actor Jason Wingreen, but for the 2004 release and every release of The Empire Strikes Back going forward, Boba Fett is voiced by Temuera Morrison in his first time portraying the character. (The reason Morrison isn’t credited with the role in any of the other movies in the original trilogy is because The Empire Strikes Back is the only one of the trilogy where Boba Fett has any lines.)
After that, Morrison would go on to voice Boba Fett in several Star Wars video games including starting with Star Wars: Battlefront II in 2005, and continuing through Star Wars: Empire at War (2006), Star Wars Battlefront (2015), and Star Wars Battlefront II (2017).
After that Morrison’s next time portraying Boba Fett would be his appearance in The Mandalorian where he appeared in four episodes in the second season, and for the first time, an adult Boba Fett’s face was seen on screen. Morrison would voice the character one more time in an episode of Star Wars: Visions earlier last year, before the character was finally given a starring role in The Book of Boba Fett.
Counting it all up, The Book of Boba Fett is Temuera Morrison’s second time portraying a live action Boba Fett, but his eighth time in total playing the character in any Star Wars media.