Boba Fett: The Bigger Story

With the popularity of The Mandalorian there has been a renewed interest in the mysterious character that introduced the infamous and iconic Mandalorian armour to Star Wars so long ago. 

Boba Fett has captured the imaginations of Star Wars fans since his animated on-screen debut in The Star Wars Holiday Special back in 1978. His appearance in 1980’s The Empire Strikes Back was limited but had a huge impact on audiences. Suddenly Darth Vader wasn’t necessarily the coolest bad guy in the galaxy! That armour was just so cool, and he barely speaks but you know he means business. And he dares to talk back to Vader!

The 1978 Screen Debut!

While it may have appeared that the notorious bounty hunter died in the belly of the horrifying sarlaac creature in Return of the Jedi, there has always been speculation of how that armour could have saved him. Maybe he blasted his way out? Maybe he killed the sarlaac? Fans loved the character so much that many created their own storyline of how Boba Fett could have plausibly escaped.

Jango and Boba Fett

Knowing the ever-growing popularity of the character, Star Wars creator George Lucas made young Boba and his father Jango into key characters in 2002’s Attack of the Clones. That’s when fans learned for the first time that Boba is a clone of his father, that bounty hunting is the family business, and that Boba has a very good reason to dislike the Jedi.

What happens next for young Boba Fett was originally explored in a series of six middle-grade chapter books from Scholastic publishing. While entertaining and still fairly easy to find, these stories are not the official story of Boba Fett and are now out of print. 

When The Clone Wars was in its second season, young Boba Fett was introduced into the animated series in 2010. Once again Boba Fett was on the small screen, animated just as he had debuted almost 32 years earlier! Unlike the earlier novels, those seven episodes are part of the official Star Wars chronology, or “canon”, and expand on the story of the vengeful youth and his loathsome bounty hunter mentors.

Anyone wanting to know the whole story of Boba Fett would be well-advised to watch those episodes. Several of them were adapted by frequent Star Wars author Jason Fry (The Weapon of a Jedi) into the illustrated chapter book Star Wars: The Clone Wars Boba Fett: Bounty Hunter in 2010.

While not entirely in sync with the official Star Wars chronology, 2013's The Bounty Hunter Guide is also an excellent read for fans of The Mandalorian and Boba Fett.

More recently, some of Boba Fett’s young appearances on The Clone Wars were adapted into short stories in the 2020 collection Star Wars: The Clone Wars Tales of Light and Dark.

However you dive into the story of the fearsome bounty hunter Boba Fett, there may be more to the story than you realize. There’s probably plenty more to come too! Without spoiling too much, Boba Fett fans really need to check out The Mandalorian!

I Know That Star Wars Voice! (Part 1)

Have you ever been watching an animated show and one of the characters sounds really familiar? Like they should be talking about the Force and the Empire? You're not imagining things!

Many actors who appear in the Star Wars movies also act with just their voices for animated TV shows and movies!

Mark Hamill (aka Luke Skywalker) probably has the most voice acting credits of any Star Wars performer. Nearly every animated version of Batman's The Joker has been played by
Hamill since 1992's Batman: The Animated Series. 

He has also appeared in many, many cartoons for kids and adults including The Simpsons, Scooby Doo, Hey Arnold!, Johnny Bravo and Clifford the Big Red Dog!

Hamill may be the Star Wars actor best known for also doing animation acting, but he is far from alone!

If you saw last year's creepy and kooky animated feature The Addams Family you might've noticed a familiar sound to Gomez Addams, the Dad of the family. That voice is none other than Oscar Isaac, better known to fans as Resistance pilot Poe Dameron!

In The Secret Life of Pets 2 (2019), you don't need the hearing of a dog to notice that gruff, annoyed voice of farm dog Rooster sounds a LOT like Han Solo in The Force Awakens. That's actor Harrison

Ford in a rare voice-over performance as the older, wiser Welsh Sheepdog who tries to teach Max the ways of country life.

Maybe rabbit-strength ears will help your hearing to notice Rey herself, actress Daisy Ridley, as the voice of Cottontail in 2018's Peter Rabbit. Cottontail, along with Flopsy and Mopsy are sisters to Peter Rabbit in this retelling of the Beatrix Potter
classic.

Fans of the incredible Disney/Pixar Incredibles movies may

certainly notice that Mr. Incredible's close friend and "Super" Lucious (aka. Frozone) sounds a lot like Jedi Master Mace Windu. He should, because they are both performed by the super Samuel L. Jackson!

In The Lego Movie, fans probably didn't need the Force to sense something familiar about Bad Cop/Good Cop. The dual-personality police officer with a double-sided head is voiced by Liam Neeson, better known as Jedi master Qui-Gon Jinn.

There are plenty more examples but we'll save those for next time! Who is your favourite Star Wars actor you've heard in animation? Comment below!

Big News for Young Star Wars Fans!

Star Wars Celebration 2017 has come to an end and over the 4 days in Orlando, Florida fans were treated with plenty to get excited about. Yes, of course the biggest news was the first look at the upcoming movie The Last Jedi (out December 2017). Seeing moments of Rey training, Finn recovering, Leia leading and more were unquestionably the highlight of the weekend. If you haven't yet seen the teaser trailer, view it here. 

In the months up to the December premiere, books, comics and more will be released under the banner "Journey to The Last Jedi".

Nearly every site on the internet will have something to say about the new images, teaser poster and trailer for The Last Jedi, so we're going to focus on a few pieces of news that will be specifically interesting to Star Wars Kidscast readers and listeners:

New Comics!

Comic publisher IDW announced that in September 2017 they will begin publishing Star Wars comic books specifically aimed at younger readers. The Star Wars Adventures will have familiar characters from many eras of our favourite galaxy. 

There have not been Star Wars comics specifically created for younger readers in several years so it's exciting to see that happening again! Here's more information.

Marvel Comics will continue publishing their excellent Teen-rated comics as well. It's a great time to be a Star Wars comics reader!




New Books!

Daring Adventures Volume 1 & 2!

Lucasfilm/Disney Publishing announced several new books for younger readers, including a BB-8 picture book (above), more additions to the World of Reading leveled reader series, a new book called The Legends of Luke Skywalker and a Leia-focused YA novel. As well, there are "Daring Adventures" books to tie directly into the new Forces of Destiny cartoons coming soon!

DK Publishing also announced new titles, including an update to 2015's Star Wars: Absolutely Everything You Need to Know and new book for tech-minded younglings: Star Wars Coding Projects! 

New TV!

A bittersweet announcement was made regarding Star Wars Rebels - yes, there's a new season of Rebels coming this fall, but it will actually be the final season of the show. What happens to the crew of the Ghost in the next season is anyone's guess but it sure looks like it'll be exciting!

Before we see any more Rebels though, this summer will debut a brand-new animated series of short stories called Star Wars: Forces of Destiny. We wrote about these new shows here. There will also be new toys and books connected with this series too! More on this as announcements are made! Here's a new clip:

Fans of LEGO Star Wars: The Freemaker Adventures have a second series to look forward to starting May 4. The fun and excitement continues as the Freemakers start to fight in their own way against the Empire! More info on season two is available here.

This is far from a complete list of everything we're excited about from the past few days, but it sure is plenty! More new info on upcoming fun Star Wars stuff is coming soon!

What are you most excited to see that was announced at Celebration? Comment below!

Brand-New Star Wars Animation Announced!

Late last night, while most young Star Wars fans were asleep (at least in North America) a brand-new series of animated shorts were announced on EW.com Star Wars: Forces of Destiny!

This series of short 2D animated stories will debut this summer and will be proudly shining the spotlight on the female stars of Star Wars like Leia, Rey, Jyn Erso, Padme, Maz Kanata, and more!

Read the whole story here then check out this video with a few looks at what's to come! Apparently more will be revealed this weekend at Star Wars Celebration too!

VERY exciting!

 

There are already toys planned to tie-in with the adventure series! More details coming soon!

Thrawn: A New Threat for Star Wars Rebels

Returning for a third season this month, Star Wars Rebels introduces a dangerous “new” Imperial character named Grand Admiral Thrawn.

But Thrawn isn’t new at all!

Many long-time fans (mostly adults) are excited in anticipation to see this character return to Star Wars. For some, “excited” is a big understatement! But why? Who is Thrawn?

A little history: after the popular appeal of 1983’s blockbuster Return of the Jedi started to die down the widespread appeal of all things Star Wars also started to cool off. Toys, games, clothing, books and more became more and more scarce. As difficult as it is to imagine now, by 1986 it was increasingly rare to find much of ANYTHING Star Wars.

With no new movies on the horizon, no new toys and no new books or comics, the late 80’s are often referred by fans as “the dark times”. Star Wars almost seemed like it was finished forever, at least to the general public. 

Then in 1991, the novel Heir to the Empire was released and became a surprise bestseller! Author Timothy Zahn told his version of what happened to Luke, Han, Leia and the Empire after Return of the Jedi. Heir to the Empire (and two follow-up novels often called The Thrawn Trilogy) ushered in a new era of renewed popular interest in Star Wars. More novels came soon after, along with new comics, toys and by 1999 Episode 1 was released! Star Wars was back!

So for thousands of fans, Heir to the Empire and its sequels were the beginning of a renewed excitement for all things Star Wars.  It’s possible there would be no Episode 1, 2 or 3, let alone The Force Awakens or Rogue One, without the popular appeal of that book and the snowball of fan excitement it created in the early 1990’s. 

Ok, thanks for the history lesson but who is Thrawn? 

Grand Admiral Thrawn is the main villain of that landmark book Heir to the Empire, and several books that followed. He’s a remarkably clever military leader who uses intellect over brute force and almost always wins. He’s a cunning analytical thinker on par with Sherlock Holmes. He’s a villain that for many fans is as important to the Star Wars saga as Darth Vader and the Emperor!

In short: he is incredibly dangerous to the Rebels!

New novel coming in 2017

Even if you’d never heard of Thrawn before there are a lot of reasons to look forward to him appearing in Star Wars Rebels.

First, Rebels features Darth Vader sparingly and so far only glimpses of the Emperor, so a really dangerous and powerful villain would be a welcome addition to the show. 

Second, Thrawn is a very different kind of threat to the Rebels crew and should make for big challenges if they are all to survive to Season 4!

Finally, Thrawn is not human (he’s a blue-skinned Chiss) and in the Empire, humans tend to run everything. Having a very powerful alien within the Empire could cause some interesting conflict within the Empire too!

How long Thrawn lasts and what kind of danger he can pose for the Rebels remains to be seen but what is clear is he will not go down easily! Tune in to Season 3 of Star Wars Rebels to see it unfold!

Scary times ahead for the Ghost crew!

For more information and details about Thrawn see this article on StarWars.com and Thrawn’s Wookiepedia page.

Read, You Must: Star Wars Original Trilogy Graphic Novel!

Most Star Wars books are great so it’s hard to review so many of them without being repetitive. I love books and I love Star Wars, so putting them together usually results in something special. Sometimes the books are even fantastic. Occasionally though, a book comes out that really should be on EVERY Star Wars fans’ wish-list. A “must-have”.

Star Wars: The Original Trilogy – A Graphic Novel is a must-have book! It is wonderful.

Star Wars: The Original Trilogy – A Graphic Novel from Disney-Lucasfilm Press is a faithful adaptation of Episodes 4, 5 & 6 (aka The Original Trilogy) into comic form bound in one amazing 208 pg. hardcover collection. It is as suitable for younger Star Wars fans as the movies themselves but offers plenty to enjoy at any age. There have been many books that retell the story of the films “for a new generation” but this one really stands out.

Past comic and novel adaptations of the films have usually been released around the same time as their corresponding movie, so to get them out on time they have been created based on early versions of the scripts. This usually results in scenes not in the movie, key moments missing and overall minor differences in the dialogue throughout. This kind of thing really bothered me as kid; “That’s not what Luke said!” “That’s not in the movie!” I’d say.

In this case thankfully the creators felt no need to change the script as we know it from the classic movies. I could easily hear the characters and famous lines in my mind as I read along. A few minor scenes were left out of these books but what is here is Star Wars greatness!

The new treat here the amazing artwork. This graphic novel is very modern in its style, presenting Star Wars in a way that would be very appealing to kids who read the popular Bone or Amulet series’ or enjoy shows like Avatar: The Last Airbender. Some of the panels look like they’re from a Star Wars 2-D animated show or movie, which would be amazing to see! There hasn’t been much Star Wars 2-D animation since the original Star Wars: Clone Wars “micro-series” from 2003-2005. This book makes me wish there was much more!

Words like beautiful, exciting, and absolutely cool are the words that best describe the artwork, created by a very talented team. If you know the story (if you’re reading this you likely do) then you already know how awesome THAT is!

Still not convinced? At a very reasonable price of $19.99 or less, this retelling of Episodes 4 - 6 belongs in EVERY Star Wars fan collection

Even better – the final page promises more of these graphic novels coming for Episodes 1 – 3, The Force Awakens and beyond. Yes, please!

(Publisher's Recommendation: Ages 8+ )