Akton said:
ZkinandBonez said:
joefavs said:
The movies don't really have any choice about which canon to follow, though; they're bound to whatever the Lucasfilm Story Group decides, and they're most definitely going with the prequels. I honestly think it's a case of a subset of fans wildly overestimating Fett's importance, seeing there was still an actor whose character we didn't know anything about, and saying "well, obviously that has to be Boba Fett".
Like I said Kasdan and Abrams aren't going to be allowed to contradict the PT, but that doesn't necessarily meant that they will make any direct, if any, references to it other than what was already acknowledged in the OT.
And because of that Sydow cant be Boba Fett.
It's actually kind of funny considering how so many people on this forum is almost terrified that the ST will create more universe shrinking like the PT did, while most of the fans on the internet seems desperate to prove all kinds of strange lore connections.
I personally can't help but think "Why do so many people even want Sydow to play an old Boba Fett?" I mean is that a good thing? It's also so illogical, so why this persistence regardless.
Casting Max Von Sydow is not some kind of formal contradiction of the PT; at most, it is (from the PT fanboy's POV) a case of very bad casting. Perhaps he wears some kind of facial prosthesis which makes the fact that he's not a Maori less immediately jarring... and he's lived on (a) desert planet(s) for decades, and so he aged badly; plus he was mauled by a Sarlaac at one point - so there's your in-universe justification right there.
Outside-universe requires no explanation at all other than "he's a great actor and we thought he was right for the role." Could it be taken as a passive swipe at the PT canon on the part of the ST team? Sure, but nothing solid enough for the Corporate Canon Committee to hang their hats on.
As to why his playing Boba Fett is desirable for some of us, that's easy. Boba Fett was a wildly popular peripheral character from the OT who was given an unceremonious chump's death in ROTJ that left many fans feeling cheated. Having an actor of MVS's caliber play the character in TFA nicely fixes all of the problems that hamstrung Boba Fett to begin with: It means he survived what was otherwise the lamest onscreen death of a beloved character; and, assuming he plays a pivotal role in the plot of TFA, it means his importance to the franchise - an importance that exists solely because he was cool-looking and heavily marketed - has been justified by making him important to the actual events of the larger story beyond being a glorified delivery boy / bouncer.
I get why people like Boba Fett, I was a huge fan of Fett as a kid, I still he's a cool character, but I don't really feel that these fans have really though it through when they wish for him to be in TFA. It would end up being a cheap plot twist regardless of anyones SW canon preferences.
If it weren't for Disney/Lucasfilm I would genuinely be worried about this rumour. It would be like Leonard Nimoy in Abrams 2009 Star Trek reboot; a pointless cameo that's there purely to trick fans into thinking for a short while that it's connected to something that they love nostalgically. It didn't really complement the story, it made little logistical sense, and it simply acknowledged that the film didn't have the guts to be it's own thing. So they simply made a convenient excuse for him to be there. Not to mention the obvious fan service, and fan service very rarely works within the plot of the movie.
All in all, despite liking Boba Fett, I really think it would have been a terrible choice to put him in TFA. Not that I think he will be, and I'm glad that he's most likely not. I just think that a lot of fans are very shortsighted and easily swayed by their nostalgia when they wish for him to make an appearance.