Legendary Star Wars bounty hunter Boba Fett has his own show on Disney+: The Book of Boba Fett picks up with this iconic character after he escapes the Sarlacc Pic he was tossed into near the start of Return of the Jedi. We see him taking over Jabba the Hutt’s old criminal empire, kicking butt and taking names.
We also see him spend a lot of time in a cylindrical tube of water, resting his eyes. What is he doing in that thing? Well, it’s a bacta tank, so named because it’s filled with bacta, a gelatinous substance used to treat or sooth injuries. We saw Luke Skywalker recover in one after fighting a wampa in The Empire Strikes Back and Darth Vader use one in Rogue One.
In Darth Vader’s case, he spends a lot of time in a bacta tank because the brutal burns he sustained on Mustafar are never going to heal completely; the bacta tank gives him some relief from chronic pain. Similarly, we see Boba Fett get burned when escaping from the Sarlacc Pit, and there be injuries he’s hiding under his suit that we have yet to see him get; he lives a rough-and-tumble life, after all. Bathing in the bacta tank can help ease his suffering.
Why does Boba Fett remove his helmet?
When he’s in the tank, Boba Fett obviously has his helmet off. In fact, he spends a lot of time with it off, which might confuse fans who never saw him without the thing in the original Star Wars trilogy.
Over on The Mandalorian, Din Djarin also makes a big deal of never taking off his helmet. But while Boba and Din follow similar codes, Din is much more strict about the rules regarding helmet removal that Boba is. Technically, Boba Fett could have taken his helmet off at any time during the original trilogy, we just never happened to see him during those moments. And now that he has a criminal empire to run, he seems to want people to get to know his face
New episodes of The Book of Boba Fett air on Wednesdays on Disney+.
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