QI'RA?
COULD BOOK OF BOBA FETT BRING BACK
By John Saavedra
Boba Fett may not be the only major Star Wars movie character vying for control Jabba the Hutt’s old territory.
The Book of Boba Fett will pick up right where The Mandalorian season 2 left off, with the infamous bounty hunter and his partner Fennec Shand, taking over Jabba’s palace.
But trailers show that taking over the palace is the easy part. Now Boba and Fennec need the rest of Jabba’s old empire to fall in line.
It looks like Boba Fett’s rule will be challenged from all sides, from Jabba’s former captains unwilling to follow a new ruler to others on Tatooine who think they’d be a better fit.
And that’s not even accounting for at least one mystery villain who could be hiding in the shadows.
In a recent interview, showrunner and director Robert Rodriguez explained that trailers couldn’t show much of even the first episode because it would “give so much away.”
Which leaves us wondering what else The Book of Boba Fett might be hiding…
One theory suggests that there might be another galactic gangster from the movies ready to challenge Boba Fett for Jabba’s throne: Qi’ra!
The criminal played by Emilia Clarke in Solo: A Star Wars Story took over the reins of Crimson Dawn at the end of that movie, solidifying her place as a top player in the underworld.
While that movie takes place many years before BoB, with most of Qi’ra’s time unaccounted for since then, Star Wars recently brought her back in a major comic book event!
In “War of the Bounty Hunters,” Qi’ra announces the return of Crimson Dawn by stealing Han Solo frozen in carbonite from Boba Fett in order to auction her former beau off to the highest bidder.
Interestingly enough, the story takes place between The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, which brings Qi’ra much closer to the era in which BoB is set.
What Qi’ra might have been planning in the five years since Return of the Jedi (which is when BoB takes place) is a mystery…
But Lucasfilm bringing the character back and her story forward in the timeline just ahead of BoB could mean Clarke is about to return to Star Wars.
It would make sense from a storytelling perspective since Qi’ra’s goal in “War” and the current comic book miniseries “Crimson Reign” is to rule the underworld with Crimson Dawn.
What better way to finally achieve that than to take over Jabba’s empire now that the Hutt is dead? She’s already outsmarted Boba Fett once, after all…