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The Mandalorian owes its success to Boba Fett, according to the actor behind Din Djarin's helmet

Boba Fett's popularity helped spawn everything about The Mandalorian.

Features by Trent Cannon, Contributing writer

Published on Thu Jun 20 2024

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We’ve loved The Mandalorian’s unique take on the Star Wars universe, turning the high adventure space opera into a more grounded space western series. However, the show does a lot of piggybacking off the legacy of Boba Fett as a character. Everything about Pedro Pascal’s Din Djarin started with Boba Fett, from the iconic armor to the concept of Mandalorians in general – something that wasn’t lost on the person inside the helmet.

“The reason we have The Mandalorian was because of Boba Fett,” explained Brendan Wayne, who served as Pascal’s body double throughout the first three seasons of the show, during the cast’s MCM London panel in May 2023. And he’s right to make the distinction since it was Boba Fett’s almost absurd popularity (he famously only had a few lines in the original trilogy) that led to the establishment of Mandalor and the Mandalorian people in the Star Wars universe.

Wayne was also quick to praise the person who brought Boba Fett to life in both The Mandalorian and The Book of Boba Fett, saying “No one could have filled those shoes better than [Temuera Morrison].” Morrison originally portrayed Jango Fett in 2002’s Star Wars: Attack of the Clones before going on to play several clone troopers in Revenge of the Sith as well.

The Mandalorian wasn’t the first time that Morrison played the most famous bounty hunter in the galaxy. He dubbed over Jason Wingreen’s lines in The Empire Strikes Back in the 2004 release and has voiced the character in multiple video games since then, making him the de facto Boba Fett for over two decades now. While it is growing increasingly unlikely that The Book of Boba Fett will get more episodes, we have to hope that Temuera Morrison will pop up as Boba Fett in The Mandalorian and Grogu. They wouldn’t have their own movie without him, after all.