The Mandalorian Corrects George Lucas’ Biggest Jango Fett Retcon

The Mandalorian Corrects George Lucas’ Biggest Jango Fett Retcon

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Like Boba, Jango Fett was originally a Mandalorian, but was retroactively made a pretender in canon – until The Mandalorian retconned the retcon.

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The Mandalorian Corrects George Lucas’ Biggest Jango Fett Retcon

The Mandalorian season 2, episode 6, “Chapter 14: The Tragedy” features a massive retroactive change to the current canon’s version of Jango Fett. Star Wars: The Clone Wars, season 2, episode 12 released, Jango Fett’s status as a Mandalorian has been in question on various levels, and this change came at the behest of George Lucas himself. At the time of the episode’s airing (January 2010), the Star Wars Expanded Universe was the official (and only) canon, and it definitively showed that Jango was a true Mandalorian. In April 2014, a little over a year after Disney purchased Lucasfilm and announced a new slate of Star Wars films, the original Expanded Universe was renamed Legends, made into an alternate timeline, with the new canon retaining the original six saga films and 2008’s The Clone Wars, but otherwise moving forward with entirely new lore.

With this came a new version of Jango Fett who now is simply a common bounty hunter who uses Mandalorian armor. This was the accepted canon version of Jango until The Mandalorian changed him back into a Mandalorian. What was Jango’s Legends-era backstory, and why did George Lucas change it? Is Jango Fett a true Mandalorian now? To answer all of these questions, one must look into the Legends-era history of Jango’s son, Boba Fett, and the Mandalorian culture they’re both inexorably tied to.

In a real-world sense, all Mandalorian culture and viewers’ interest in the people goes back to Boba Fett’s first appearances in The Star Wars Holiday Special and The Empire Strikes Back. At the time, Boba Fett was simply the galaxy’s best bounty hunter and a reliable henchman for Darth Vader, who wore an eye-catching suit of armor designed by Joe Johnston and Ralph McQuarrie. The closest thing Boba got to a backstory comes from The Empire Strikes Back’s novelization, which says that Boba, the very sight of whom frightens those around him, wears armor that belongs to a group of evil warriors who were defeated by the Jedi years before. Two years later, Boba’s backstory and that of the Mandalorians were elaborated on in Marvel’s original Star Wars comics. Boba himself went through a few retcons before Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones and subsequent stories cleared everything up.

Boba Fett & Jango’s Mandalorian History

The Mandalorian Corrects George Lucas’ Biggest Jango Fett Retcon

In Legends, Boba Fett is the clone son of Jango Fett, a bounty hunter from Concord Dawn and a member of Clan Fett, descending from a long line of Mandalorian soldiers and leaders. During the Mandalorian Civil War between the true Mandalorians and the brutal faction known as the Death Watch, a ten-year-old Jango lost his family to the Death Watch, joined Jaster Mereel’s true Mandalorians, and later succeeded Jaster as the Mandalorian peoples’ leader (the Mandalore). When a battle against a Jedi task force killed all of Jango’s troops, he became a bounty hunter, keeping his peoples’ warrior tradition alive almost single-handedly. It was once he became the Republic’s clone template that he ensured the legacy of Clan Fett, through the Clone Troopers and his son Boba.

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This origin story was disputed in The Clone Wars episode “The Mandalore Plot”, in which Almec, the Prime Minister of Mandalore’s now-pacifist government, dismisses Jango as a fraud. The show’s creator, Dave Filoni, explained this line by citing George Lucas himself, who claims to have not considered the Fetts to be Mandalorians, but simply mercenaries using the armor and weapons. Jango’s well-established Mandalorian past in the then-Expanded Universe, and Almec being revealed as a duplicitous Death Watch sympathizer (who later joined their ranks) in later seasons, led many to dismiss the apparent retcon. Once the new canon was launched, however, Almec’s once-dubious claim about Jango Fett became true.

Why Lucas Made Jango & Boba Fett Not Mandalorians

The Mandalorian Corrects George Lucas’ Biggest Jango Fett Retcon

For better or worse, this was far from the first time that George Lucas has contradicted his own work in the Star Wars franchise, let alone that of the Expanded Universe. Throughout the history of the Star Wars franchise, Lucas has given his approval and sometimes even creative input on the lore, characters, and plot points of the Expanded Universe. Lucas approved of Timothy Zahn’s Thrawn Trilogy, which introduced the Sith-turned Jedi who would go to marry Luke Skywalker, Mara Jade, as well as the city world of Coruscant, a planet which Lucas made pivotal to the prequel trilogy. Lucas also suggested that the villain of the Dark Empire comics not be a Darth Vader imitator, but instead a resurrected Emperor Palpatine. Years after the release of the Thrawn Trilogy and Dark Empire, Lucas has been quoted as saying that, in his mind, Luke never gets married nor does the Emperor ever come back from the dead.

With this in mind, it’s possible that George Lucas did originally see the Fetts as Mandalorians, but changed his mind while working on The Clone Wars. When all previous Legends material showing otherwise was relegated to an alternate universe, The Clone Wars remained, and thus the Fetts were no longer Mandalorians. For the next six years, the Fetts were written as such: Simple, yet deadly mercenaries who used Mandalorian weapons and armor because it made for perfect bounty hunting gear. They weren’t concerned with honoring their warrior culture; they simply did their job because it was their job. The Fetts were portrayed this way in material as recent as the November 2020 anthology book From a Certain Point of View: The Empire Strikes Back. But as suddenly and abruptly as the Fetts were rendered Mandalorian pretenders in the new canon, Chapter 14 of The Mandalorian reinstated their collective status as part of the culture.

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The Mandalorian’s New Rules Return Jango Fett To The Creed

In Boba Fett’s triumphant return to the current canon, the aged bounty hunter confronts Din Djarin on Tython, demanding his suit of armor back. When questioned by Djarin, Boba states that while he gives his allegiance to no one, his father Jango was given the armor. This is a surprising statement, given the past six years of Jango being labeled a faux Mandalorian, but upon reclaiming the armor and defeating a garrison of Stormtroopers with it, Boba further elaborates on the armor’s history. Boba reveals that Jango was, like Djarin, a foundling, who obtained the armor upon pledging himself to a Mandalorian clan and was a veteran of the Mandalorian Civil Wars. Boba also activates the armor’s chain code, showing Mandalorian glyphs which reveal Boba and Jango’s rightful claim to it, as well as Jango’s master, “Jaste.”

This scene officially makes Jango Fett a true Mandalorian. It also makes the armor rightfully Boba’s even, if he doesn’t adopt Mandalorian culture as his father did. The mysterious “Jaste” in the armor’s chain code is a reference to Jaster Mereel, and the civil war that Jango took part in follows his Legends-era origin story, as seen in Jango Fett: Open Seasons. From an out-of-universe perspective, this decision makes sense, since the lore behind Mandalorians throughout the Star Wars franchise has always sooner or later led back to the Fetts. In-universe, the discrepancy can likely be explained by the fact that Jango and Boba both are men of few words, who are uninterested in whether or not the galaxy at large knows if they’re Mandalorians or not.

If anything, the ambiguity may work in their favor, as enigmatic and terrifying bounty hunters. It also creates a new and fascinating link between the late Jango Fett and Din Djarin. Both are foundlings who keep their culture alive through the trade of hunting fugitives and discover a paternal side of themselves amid their violent vocation. With Boba now one of Djarin’s few allies in The Mandalorian season 2, it remains to be seen if there are any further parallels (or possibly a developing rivalry) between the two bounty hunters.

Link Source : https://screenrant.com/mandalorian-jango-boba-fett-george-lucas-retcon-fix/

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