'Star Wars' Historian J.W. Rinzler AMA Highlights: Boba Fett Lives, More Archives Books On The Way

Boba Fett lives. I mean, you knew that. Despite falling into the Sarlacc pit during Return of the Jedi he managed to escape, and later showed up all over the place in the Star Wars expanded universe. He even fell into the Sarlacc again, and after getting out was best man at the wedding of the bounty hunter Dengar. Seriously.

But nothing in Star Wars is canon until it ends up in a movie, The Clone Wars (or Rebels) TV show, or comes out of the mouth of George Lucas. Today, during a Reddit AMA, Star Wars historian J.W. Rinzler said he's had conversations with Lucas where the Star Wars creator confirmed that Fett is alive. Get that quote, and some other highlights from Rinzler's talk below.

Asked whether he thinks Boba Fett survived the events of Return of the Jedi, Rinzler said,

Yes, he does. I have been in meetings with George where he confirms that Fett survived. If it comes from George then it's true!

So that's that. Does this mean that Fett could end up in Episode VII, or even that the rumored Boba Fett spin-off movie might take place after Return of the Jedi rather than before it? No answers there, but ironically Rinzler doesn't really see the appeal of solo character movies:

Their own movie and why... I don't know, that's a hard question. It's always such an ensemble thing. Star Wars is not really a solo; it is not like the Clint Eastwood 'man with no name' thing. It is always about a group of characters. I can't think of one, it would have to be a group project. I like to see Star Wars movies that have a deep meaning. It doesn't matter to me who the characters are, as long as there is something for the soul to grab on to. How is that for pretentious?

He wouldn't say anything at all about upcoming films (of course), but offered a good nugget of info about the origins of Star Wars and licensing:

Everybody thinks George negotiated for all of the licensing rights. Not true. We only got half of the rights for the first movie. Because he had the sequel rights he was able to renegotiate. In fact, the smart thing with George and the sequel rights was that nobody thought they were worth anything, but he knew they were.

Asked about the chance of another Lucasfilm Archives book, or a Lucas biography, he said,

I think fans can rest assured that there's going to be a couple of really big archives books coming our way. In fact, we could say we just got some good news. I'm breaking that story here on reddit!

He also said there's not much chance for revised or expanded versions of the prequel books:

Well that would be nice, but it's highly unlikely. I would like to put out an edition of the Episode III book that includes the last chapter which was only available online. That would be fun. But now with all the new movies, I think we're going to be looking forward to the next decade or so.

He also threw out big support for the work Mark Hamill did in the original film:

Well what I would say is that in the real world, Mark Hamill should be given many kudos for all of the work he did to learn how to fight with a lightsaber. He was in fantastic shape and he was really proud of the fact that he did nearly all of his own stunts. He got an official union stuntman card in the UK which is a very hard thing to achieve. He's kind of the big athlete of the Star Wars saga. Luke trains with Yoda after all. And for the prequel trilogy you have Nick Gillard who was the stunt coordinator who just did an amazing job with all the modern lightsaber fights and the different fighting styles.