The post-credits scene at the end of The Mandalorian’s second season promised a spin-off entitled The Book of Boba Fett for a December 2021 release. The recently dropped trailer has pitched the show somewhere between a revisionist western and a gangster epic. The series has been spearheaded by Robert Rodriguez, who directed Boba’s return to action in The Mandalorian episode “Chapter 14: The Tragedy.”
In anticipation of the new series, there are plenty of fellow Boba-centric Star Wars adventures, Rodriguez-helmed projects, spaghetti westerns, and crime sagas to check out.
10 El Mariachi (1992)
Long before Robert Rodriguez would direct Boba Fett’s return to action in The Mandalorian episode “Chapter 14: The Tragedy” and spearhead a spin-off series for Disney+, the filmmaker launched his own career with his breakout indie hit El Mariachi.
The story of a lone gunslinger running afoul of nefarious villains on a lawless frontier has interesting parallels with the plot details that have been revealed about The Book of Boba Fett.
9 Star Wars: Episode II – Attack Of The Clones (2002)
Boba Fett was initially played by Jeremy Bulloch, but since he’s a clone of Jango Fett, the revived version of the character seen in Disney+ originals is played by Temuera Morrison. Before Morrison headlines Disney+’s latest foray into a galaxy far, far away, it’s worth revisiting his Star Wars debut in 2002’s Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones.
The movie itself is a mixed bag, often regarded as the worst prequel movie, but Morrison gives a riveting turn as Jango raising a young Boba and clashing with Ewan McGregor’s Obi-Wan.
8 Street Fighter (1994)
Alongside Temuera Morrison reprising his role as Fett, The Book of Boba Fett will star Ming-Na Wen reprising her Mandalorian role as Fennec Shand. Fennec owes Boba her life following the events of season 1’s “Chapter 5: The Gunslinger.”
Wen got her big break in the movie adaptation of the Street Fighter games. She played vengeful killer Chun-Li Zang opposite Jean-Claude Van Damme’s Colonel Guile.
7 Iron Man (2008)
Rodriguez has reportedly directed the majority of The Book of Boba Fett’s first season, but the rest of the series’ episodes were handled by Mandalorian directors Jon Favreau, Bryce Dallas Howard, and Dave Filoni.
Favreau’s best-known directorial work – besides The Mandalorian – is 2008’s Iron Man, the masterfully crafted comic book actioner that launched the Marvel Cinematic Universe. It’s also worth rewatching fellow MCU gem Black Panther to remember the sheer talent of returning Mandalorian composer Ludwig Göransson.
6 Miller’s Crossing (1990)
Based on the trailer, The Book of Boba Fett will revolve around Boba’s attempts to take over the criminal underworld of Tatooine in Jabba the Hutt’s absence.
The Coen brothers’ darkly comic Prohibition-era crime saga Miller’s Crossing chronicles the struggle for power in a gangland setting in a subversively hilarious fashion. Gabriel Byrne stars as a mob enforcer who gets caught in the middle of a gang war.
5 Once Were Warriors (1994)
Before Temuera Morrison gets a bigger spotlight than ever before as the series lead in The Book of Boba Fett, fans can check out the early performance that put the actor on the map. Lee Tamahori’s Once Were Warriors is a highly acclaimed 1994 drama tackling such social issues as poverty and substance abuse.
Morrison stars alongside Rena Owen and Cliff Curtis in the tragic saga of the Hekes, an urban Māori family. When it first hit theaters, Once Were Warriors became New Zealand’s highest-grossing movie.
4 Machete (2010)
This isn’t the first time that Rodriguez has given a badass antihero his own spin-off. When Rodriguez co-helmed the double feature Grindhouse with fellow director Quentin Tarantino, he contributed a fake trailer called Machete, starring Danny Trejo as a rogue Mexican agent who does the U.S. government’s dirty work along the border.
After the enthusiastic fan response to the trailer, it ceased to be a fake trailer and became a real trailer as Rodriguez and Trejo expanded it into an action-packed feature. Machete and its sequel are spot-on homages to exploitation cinema.
3 The Empire Strikes Back (1980)
The long, winding road to Boba Fett getting his own spin-off can be traced all the way back to 1980’s The Empire Strikes Back, the movie that introduced Boba and solidified him as a fan-favorite icon.
He only appears briefly, but Jeremy Bulloch does a lot with that screen time. Empire is still widely considered to be the best Star Wars movie of all, thanks to its subversively dark tone and downer ending.
2 The Godfather (1972)
If The Book of Boba Fett is going to be a gangster epic, then it wouldn’t be a bad idea for fans to check out arguably the most acclaimed gangster epic ever made: Francis Ford Coppola’s timeless 1972 masterpiece The Godfather.
Like The Book of Boba Fett is poised to do, Coppola’s portrait of the Corleone crime family charts the rise of a criminal enterprise and the obstacles it faces at the hands of bitter rivals.
1 The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly (1966)
The Man with No Name was a major influence on Boba’s characterization. Played by Clint Eastwood, the Man with No Name – a.k.a. “Joe,” “Manco,” and “Blondie” – is the quintessential spaghetti western antihero from Sergio Leone’s Dollars trilogy. Arguably his finest cinematic outing is the trilogy-closing finale, The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.
Tatooine, where the majority of The Book of Boba Fett’s action will likely take place, is a lawless frontier full of gunslingers and outlaws. George Lucas was heavily inspired by classics of the western genre – of which Leone’s 1966 masterpiece is a prime example – in its creation.
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