‘The Book of Boba Fett’ Trailer Pays Off Two Unfulfilled Star Wars Promises

Disney+’s first look at the upcoming Book of Boba Fett limited series has a lot going on. You’ve got Boba Fett (Temuera Morrison), obvs, as well as his assassin bestie Fennec Shand (Ming-Na Wen). You’ve got the sweeping vistas of Tatooine and a posse of Tusken Raiders emerging over the horizon. You’ve got a bunch of classic Star Wars aliens, from Trandoshans to Aqualish to Ithorians—even a B’omarr monk!

But this initial look at the Book of Boba Fett has something else going on, too, a vibe that feels familiar yet excitingly fresh. It all clicks into place when the text “every galaxy has an underworld” appears. This completely new series actually feels like it’s making good on two longstanding and unfulfilled promises made by Lucasfilm years ago.

The first promise is Star Wars: Underworld, an unproduced live-action TV series that fans got way hyped up for in 2005. 2005! Overseen by George Lucas himself, the proposed Underworld series would be set between Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith and Star Wars: A New Hope and would navigate the seedier side of the canon, with most of the action presumably taking place on Coruscant. The series was definitely in the works, with dozens of writers creating scripts from an outline of 100 episodes. And then… crickets. Nothing substantial came from it, as budget concerns became budget headaches.

You gotta remember that the whole Peak TV era was in its infancy back in 2005. Sure, there was The Sopranos, and Lost and Battlestar Galactica were hot shows back then, but we were still two years away from Mad Men turning AMC into a powerhouse network and six years away from Game of Thrones upping expectations for the scope of a TV series. A live-action Star Wars show makes sense today, but in 2005? Yeah, no wonder it was hard to get Star Wars: Underworld off the ground!

The other unfulfilled promise? A Boba Fett movie! Fans have been waiting for Boba Fett to take the spotlight since he first appeared riding a sea serpent creature in the only quasi-watchable segment of the Star Wars Holiday Special. We were close to getting a feature film starring Boba Fett in 2018 from James Mangold, fresh off of his Oscar-nominated work on Logan. And then the extended Star Wars film franchise was put on hold after the fiasco of the Solo: A Star Wars Story reshoots, including Fett’s feature film.

Now we have a trailer for the Book of Boba Fett. Clearly it’s making good on the promise of a Boba Fett vehicle, since he’s the star of the show. His name’s in the title. And as for Star Wars: Underworld—the usage of the word “underworld” feels like a wink, doesn’t it? A knowing wink to the fans who have been waiting for over 15 years for a show all about Star Wars’ shady characters? Well, if this excellent first look at the series is any indication, The Book of Boba Fett appears to be the show we’ve all been waiting decades for.

The Book of Boba Fett premieres on Disney+ on December 29.