Temuera Morrison Wanted To Play Boba Fett In The Mandalorian Season 3 But No One Called Him
Temuera Morrison expected to be in The Mandalorian Season 3 but was never asked.
First, Lucasfilm changed the name of his ship, and then they left him out of Mando Season 3. This Boba Fett guy can’t seem to catch a break! As ComicBook.com reports, Star Wars actor Temuera Morrison was expecting to return to The Mandalorian for Season 3 and was discouraged when Disney didn’t ask him back.
The actor has every right to be upset, considering Mandalorian Din Djarin hijacked The Book of Boba Fett for a huge chunk of time to flesh out a storyline started in his own show. As Temuera Morrison himself put it, “That Mando guy stole a few chapters of my book.” Morrison further griped that Pedro Pascal‘s Mandalorian ruined his series and that he had no choice but to “bear it.”
Temuera Morrison wasn’t the only one perplexed and even a little bit miffed by Djarin’s side quest taking up so much time in Book of Boba Fett. Fans were also upset that the original “Mandalorian” didn’t get more screen time on his own show. To be fair, though, that was hardly the biggest problem with The Book of Boba Fett.
New Zealand native Temuera Morrison has played the “face” of Boba Fett since 2002’s Star Wars: Episode II-Attack of the Clones. Technically the actor played Jango Fett in Clones, but given that Boba is an exact clone of Jango and Jango was Boba Fett in everything but name, it’s essentially the same thing. George Lucas even went as far as to replace the original Boba Fett Jeremy Bulloch’s voice with Morrison’s when he further bastardized his original trilogy for its 2004 DVD release.
The character was the Star Wars franchise’s most popular bounty hunter until Pedro Pascal’s Din Djarin came along and usurped Temuera Morrison as the Mandalorian. One could argue that Din had an unfair advantage in the form of a tiny green ball of cuteness, but even without Grogu, some fans still prefer the Mando-come-lately over the classic formula.
It wasn’t always that way. Despite appearing in the original trilogy for only six-and-a-half minutes across The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, Boba Fett was a fan-favorite character from day one, mostly due to his cool-as-heck armor and mysterious demeanor. George Lucas, however, never expected Fett to become as popular as he did and even killed him off in Return of the Jedi.
Boba was too popular to stay dead, however, and was resurrected in the Star Wars Expanded Universe (dubbed Legends by Disney) and went on to have several adventures post-return-from-the-dead.
When Disney bought Star Wars, one of the biggest questions fans had was whether Boba Fett surviving the Sarlacc would become canon, a question Disney answered by having Temuera Morrison show up in Season 2 of The Mandalorian. Fett’s return seemed to be well received, so why didn’t Book of Boba Fett get a similar reception? Why wasn’t Temuera Morrison the first person Disney called when Mando Season 3 started filming?
There are two answers. For one thing, years of exposition and backstory have eroded Boba Fett’s mysteriousness and made him a much less interesting character. The other reason is simply that Din Djarin made Boba Fett irrelevant.
Putting aside any in-universe lore, Temuera Morrison’s Boba Fett scratched a particular itch for Star Wars fans. He looked cool, he kicked butt, and by being a bounty hunter, he served as a gateway into the grey area of the Star Wars universe not defined by Empire or Rebellion. All ther things Din Djarin does, plus he does them with an adorable puppet.
On top of that, Season 3 of The Mandalorian featured so many armored Mandalorians that Temuera Morrison would have gotten lost in the shuffle and wasted. Still, Disney could have asked.
