Wait, isn’t he dead? How Boba Fett could be in The Mandalorian season 2

How did Boba Fett die, and how was he brought back?

In Return of the Jedi, after Boba Fett had delivered the Han Solo to Jabba the Hutt, Boba accompanies Jabba to the Great Pit of Carkoon on the desert planet of Tatooine. The idea was to dump Han and his buddy Luke Skywalker into the Sarlacc Pit, where they would be slowly devoured by the frightful Sarlacc. But it didn’t work out that way. Luke, Lando Calrissian, Leia Organa and Chewbacca turn the tables on Jabba and managed to fight their way out. During the scuffle, a partially blind Han Solo is able — through sheer dumb luck — to knock Fett into the Pit. We last saw him getting gobbled up by the Sarlacc, his jetpack having malfunctioned.

And this could have been the end. But Boba Fett was too popular a character to just let die…at least in the Star Wars Extended Universe, which was a network of novels, comics and other stories that thrived in the time before Disney made them officially “not canon” when it purchased the Star Wars license from George Lucas.

In that continuity, Boba Fett’s armor took heavy damage from the digestive juices of the Sarlacc, but it did protect him long enough for him to figure a way out. According to the story A Barve Like That: The Tale of Boba Fett by J.D. Montgomery, published in 1996, Boba makes psychic contact with Susejo, the first of the Sarlacc’s victims. Susejo has some control over the Sarlacc, and Boba Fett goads it into wrapping tentacles around his jetpack, which explodes. That frees him from the Sarlaac’s grasp. Then he uses concussion grenades to blow a hole through the wall of the beast and escapes.

Boba Fett survives but is severely weakened. Jawa scavengers come across him and mistake him for a droid. After eventually escaping the Jawas, Fett is found by fellow bounty hunter Dengar. The two became fast friends and even formed a bounty hunting partnership.

But again, all of this was nixed by Disney, but that’s not to say The Mandalorian showrunner Dave Filoni couldn’t take some inspiration from it when bringing Boba into the fold.