timdiggerm said:

Akton said:

Bingowings said:

Focusing on a core group of characters isn't universe shrinkage.

Falstaff appearing across a group of plays doesn't make Shakespeare's oeuvre smaller. It's enriching it with detail over brevity.

It is 100% fan service but fan service can be done well it doesn't have to be to the general PT level of naffness.

Adding new characters however is universe enlargement.

Very salient points.

And, lest anyone forget, Boba Fett's very creation as a character was a kind of fan service... His appearance in the Holiday Special was, in essence, a fan service two years ahead of his first proper film appearance. What I'm hoping for in his possible inclusion in TFA, and his possible portrayal by an actor of such gravitas as Max Von Sydow, is to finally see some substantive incorporation of the character into the Saga; to justify the hype machine created around him that's nearly as old as the franchise itself. That'd be the very opposite of mere fan service. To me, fan service is Han Solo saying "I always shoot first" or some such stupid (but hopefully not inevitable) thing.

Ugh, that potential Han line would be awful. :(

And his appearance in the HS is not fan service; it's promotion.

I don't see the two as necessarily mutually exclusive. Fan service is characterized by its gratuitousness and if there's one word that describes the pre-ESB Boba Fett hype campaign, it's "gratuitous."

In any case, I think we can agree that pretty much every iteration of Boba Fett post-ROTJ (his death scene in which being a famous example of fan disservice) has been little to nothing more than fan service (the most egregious example being his fourth wall-breaking, composited cameo in the SW SE). That's why I'd like to see his elderly self play a pivotal role in the events of this first episode of the Sequel Trilogy, so much the better if he's played sans helmet and armor by Max Von Sydow...