Top 10 Reasons Proving Boba Fett Killed Luke Skywalker’s Aunt and Uncle
Darth Vader needed to find the plans stored within R2-D2. It stands to reason that Vader would have been desperate enough to use any means necessary, in order to secure those plans. “Any means necessary” could have included one of the most notorious bounty hunters in the Galaxy: Boba Fett. In that a bounty hunter uses any means necessary to accomplish his goals, Luke Skywalker’s Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru may have gotten caught in the crossfire.
10. Boba Fett Was At The Scene of the Crime
For all of the many failings of the Star Wars Special Edition that was first released in 1997, George Lucas has stood by this version as being canon. The last part of the docking bay scene clearly establishes that Boba Fett was on Tatooine during the search for the droids. Boba Fett would not have been above trying to collect multiple bounties. A bounty for the droids, as well as a bounty for Han Solo, would have made Boba Fett even more likely to be on Tatooine.
9. Boba Fett Had Stormtrooper DNA
When the bodies of Owen and Beru were discovered, the deaths are made to look like Tusken Raiders had killed them. The Empire is a clearly established authority; their Death Star is used to blow up an entire planet. If Stormtroopers had killed Owen and Beru, then there would have been no reason to cover up their tracks.
The main argument most people have for Stormtroopers killing Owen and Beru is the following quote by Obi Wan Kenobi: “These blast points, too accurate for Sandpeople. Only Imperial Stormtroopers are so precise.” Fine, but who were Imperial Stormtroopers? They were altered clones of Jango Fett. And who was Boba Fett? Episode II: Attack of the Clones establishes Boba Fett as an unaltered clone of Jango Fett. Jango even raised Boba as his son.
8. Darth Vader Protected Owen and Beru For Decades
In Attack of the Clones, Anakin Skywalker endangered a mission given to him by the Council, in order to go back to Tatooine. In the course of avenging his mother’s death, Anakin met the entire Lars family. During the purge at the end of Episode III, the Lars family could have easily been arrested at any time for information. Yet, Obi Wan thought that Tatooine would be a safe place to go and live in anonymity. He may have suspected that Vader would attempt to protect the only perceived family that he had left.
7. Darth Vader Preferred Interrogation
The only real time that you see Darth Vader kill a member of the Rebellion is when Vader chokes Captain Antilles at the beginning of Star War Episode IV: A New Hope, during the course of an interrogation. Leia, meanwhile, is stunned and captured. Han Solo fires a shot at Vader in Empire Strikes Back, and is then disarmed and captured. The Stormtroopers had already used non-lethal methods of capture by stunning Leia. The Stormtroopers had also set up checkpoints to look for the droids. They clearly had not been on the trail of the droids enough to follow them from the Jawas, to the Lars residence. If they had, they would have been looking for Luke and the Droids at Mos Espa. The Stormtroopers were behind the game.
6. Boba Fett Had A Motive To Slaughter
Darth Vader would have known who Owen and Beru were. The Stormtroopers would not have acted without orders. The only reason to kill the Jawas, as well as the Lars’s, is so that they would not talk to anyone else. Killing them would also indicate that the killer had no place to store them for later questioning. The killer was also working on a time-frame. None of those statements are true of Imperial Stormtroopers. Stormtroopers had the means to not only interrogate, but also imprison. Stormtroopers could take over Mos Espa and set up checkpoints. Owen and Beru’s killer covered up their role in the killing, but Stormtroopers simply had no reason to do so. They act purely on Imperial Orders. A cover-up, and killing of, Owen and Beru is a waste of time unless you are trying to prevent another bounty hunter from collecting the same information.
5. Darth Vader Was Not Above Using Bounty Hunters
Lets just say that The Empire Strikes Back was not Darth Vader’s first rodeo. Bounty hunters, including Boba Fett, are assembled to listen to Vader give the parameters of the mission. The meeting in Empire is obviously not the first time that Vader has dealt with bounty hunters. It is also obvious that this is not the first time that Vader has encountered Boba Fett. Even before the mission in Empire starts, Vader shows a clear disdain for Boba Fett in particular. Every time Vader encounters Fett, he seems thoroughly disgusted by him.
4. Stormtroopers Could Not Disobey Orders
The entire reasoning for creating the Stormtroopers in the first place was to have an entire army of soldiers who would never question orders. Order 66 caused the Troopers to turn on their superiors and friends. They slaughtered without question, when there were orders. So there are two possibilities here. One, Vader would have had to order the deaths of Owen and Beru. This is possible, but highly unlikely. Anakin was still inside that suit, and Owen and Beru were still family to him. More likely, somebody acted on their own, somebody who could exactly duplicate a Stormtrooper, but also execute free will. In that case, the list of suspects is narrowed to one: Boba Fett.
3. Darth Vader Saves Chewbacca
In The Empire Strikes Back, Darth Vader stands next to Boba Fett, before Solo is encased in carbonite. Vader feels the need to be close to Fett, in case anything goes wrong. When Chewbacca inevitably tries to stop the events from unfolding, Vader actually prevents Fett from killing Chewie. Vader does not approve of Fett’s methods, and wants to keep him on a short leash. This is a further indication that there has been a major past event, which has caused Vader to not trust Fett at all.
2. There Is No Punishment For Not Recovering the Droids
If Vader had blamed the Stormtroopers, or anyone really, within the Imperial chain of command for not recovering the droids, he would have force-choked them to death. Vader nearly force-chokes an officer in A New Hope for an insult. Vader force-chokes multiple officers in The Empire Strikes Back for incompetence. The lack of punishment for anyone, after the failure to recover the droids, means Vader put the failure upon himself. Assigning more than one group to the same task qualifies as an overkill that foiled the mission.
1. “No Disintegrations”
In the famous bounty hunter scene in The Empire Strikes Back, Darth Vader says, “you are free to use any methods necessary, but I want them alive…no disintegrations.” The “no disintegrations” comment is directed directly at Boba Fett, who simply responds, “as you wish.” Vader not only feels the need to specifically eliminate murder from the equation, but also feels the need to direct the comment right to Fett’s face. This indicates that there was a problem in the past. The directive also indicates that, previously, disintegrations had occurred.
Merriam-Webster defines disintegrate as “to undergo a change in composition…an atomic nucleus that disintegrates because of radioactivity.” Simple blaster fire, or damage from a lightsaber, does not cause the effect of being cooked to the bone by radioactivity. The only real examples of disintegrations in the Star Wars Universe is what happens to the Jawas, and the Lars’s. Vader is specifically warning Fett, to prevent another mess-up. The mess-up, of course, being the only example of disintegrations previously in the films.
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I though Boba was not a clone of Jango, he is his son and therefore not a copy.
Boba was an unaltered clone of Jango.
Jango Fett asked for a clone to keep as a son
One problem – The Storm Troopers of episodes 4-6 were not clones of Jango Fett. The use of clone troopers was stopped at the end of the clone wars, Storm Troopers were just regular recruited humans.
That assumption is incorrect. The storm troopers in 4-6 were, in fact, clones. Episode 3 shows the evolution of the stormtrooper.
Storm toopers at this time were both recruits and clones so your both right
While some of the clones may have survived to this point in time and the EU shows that some do, MOST have died out do to the conflict and the accelerated growth techniques used in making the clones in the first place. So at this point in time humans made up 99% of the imperial military if not more.
Clones are human, too!
But yes, they’re mostly regular people who joined or were enlisted in the military.
People who think they’re clones, see Allegiance by Timothy Zahn, for example.
Actually, according to canon, the stormtrooper at the time of 4-6 were humans, but 1/3 of their ranks were still the clones that had been commissioned after episode 3. These clones made up most of the bodies on the death star and the star destroyers. There were probably around 1 billion (estimation considering hte size of the unvierse, it’s planets, and the empire) which would mean around 300 million stormtroopers are clones.
I think you are inserting a lot of details into this scenario.
First off, Darth Vader’s body count is much, much higher than you realize. He slaughtered numerous sand people, padwans, and the viceroys in episodes 2 and 3. He is also not above killing full-fledged Jedi, having killed both Count Dooku and Obi-Wan in episodes 3-4.
Boba Fett’s body count, on the other hand, is zero, at least as far as what was shown in the movies. And he is not some indiscriminate killing machine, either. He actually had no interest in killing Han Solo, specifically mentioning that he would be out a lot of money if Han does not survive the carbonite freezing.
Second, we know for a fact that Stormtroopers were instructed to be ruthless in trying to recover the droids, as they completely wiped out the Jawas that picked up R2-D2 and C-3PO prior to moving on to Owen and Beru’s place. There was no way that Vader could have known they would be sold to his aunt and uncle, so the Stormtroopers were just following their last order in trying to recover the droids.
Third, there is no evidence whatsoever that Boba Fett was at the scene of the crime. We see Boba Fett for the first time in Mos Eisley, which is within driving distance of Owen and Beru’s farm but nothing else.
Fourth, there is no indication at all that Boba Fett knew of or cared about the droids. We first see Fett alongside Jabba, and Jabba was very specifically after Han Solo. That was his primary goal the entire time.
I have to agree with Joe.
Fett was with Jabba, who was after Han. There’s no reason he would be after Owen & Beru. Not until Empire does Vader get bounty hunters involved in this. Most likely in the beginning Vader & the Emperor would want to keep this “hush hush”. It looks bad on the empire that plans for their big weapon would be stolen. Why put a bounty out about it, especially when it seems like a simple find & retrieve mission?
Even if your only family is down on that planet, it’s still a whole planet. What are the odds of the droids ending up there? Besides, it’s a big secret to everyone else that Vader has family. I imagine the directive was, “Get me those droids, kill whoever you need to. Don’t fail me.” The lack of punishment on-screen doesn’t mean it didn’t happen off-screen.
It’s also established in Star Wars cannon that disintegration devices leave noting behind but ash. So the reference in Empire to Fett about “no disintegrations” is more likely about Fett trying at some point in the past to collect a Dead or Alive bounty when there was no proof left of that individual’s death, except for maybe a few ashes.
Disruptor Weapon
http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Disruptor
“A Disruptor was a particularly powerful type of energy weapon often preferred by assassins and bounty hunters. Disruptor weapons were similar to their blasters counterparts in many ways, such as the use of blaster gas and energy cell. Disruptors were illegal on many planets, and in many places merely possessing one would earn an instant death sentence. ”
“In simpler terms, disruptor weapons used extremely high amounts of unstable blaster energy, enough to obliterate matter on a higher scale than normal blasters. A shot from a disruptor rifle could do this in less than a full second, vaporizing a being almost instantly. A disruptor was capable of disintegrating a humanoid target, turning it to a pile of ash.”
Sorry, but disintegration does not equal burned.
Too Americanized.
Nice. Very nice. I see you must be a long-time reader.
Oh god. Not this again.
I realize now you see I’m a troll. So I’ll be going now, but remember I’ll always be with you….. In your heart.
Cough “NERDS” Cough. Sorry, i have a bit of a bad cough here.
Maybe you should take a “why are you reading this list just to comment on nerds” tablet. It’s very helpful for “BS” colds.
I don’t think the writer of the list said that Boba Fett is the actual killer, he just came up with some circumstantial evidence for all we know they spontaneously combusted.
That’s an interesting theory, seems a bit too far-fetched for me but i’m impressed you could find 10, more or less, good reasons to explain this. -)
I’ve always been surprised to see how people speculate about the Star Wars Universe, i may be wrong (and i’m sure a lot of people will point how wrong i am
), but i think Lucas never went that far while building this whole universe. The 1st trilogy (Ep. 4 to 6) is mostly good guys vs bad guys. Again it’s my personal opinion but it seems to me that the complexity of this universe was built afterwards by people like Timothy Zahn or other authors.
Don’t get me wrong i always find those discussions interesting, a bit like wondering if the rebellion killed a lot of innocent people who were rebuilding the Death Star in Return of the Jedi; but i’m not sure these questions ever reached Lucas’s mind.
10 Reasons why this is a stretch.
10. Boba Fett Was At The Scene of the Crime
• This is based on the unsubstantiated assumption that the Empire automatically contracted bounty hunters to look for the droids as well as sending down a detachment of imperial forces. Already you are assuming that the Empire automatically goes to Bounty hunters for anything. With the events that took place above Tattooine, carrying the weight that they do, the enormously “sensitive material” would not risk being exposed to the underworld. The fact that Boba Fett was there at the same time is coincidental.
9. Boba Fett Had Stormtrooper DNA
• Yes, an unaltered clone of Jango Fett. He, unlike his clone brothers, is living out a life with a more normal duration. By this point, some 19 years later, many of those clones have begun to meet their full life expectancy. Many in the ranks of the Stormtroopers were already being replaced by none clones.
• Why did they need to cover their tracks? Imperial forces represent the law of the Empire. In the lawless expanses of the outer rim Stormtroopers would often act as judge, jury, executioner. Persons suspected of aiding the rebellion would be dealt with harshly, especially if all useful information had been already acquired. The cover up that is presented, is so that any remaining parties that might have information about the droids would not be tipped off by the imperial presence.
8. Darth Vader Protected Owen and Beru For Decades
• Did young Anakan in Episode II convey any ounce of compassion or feeling towards his now step family? Had Wato not sold Anakan’s mother she wouldn’t have been kidnapped by the sand people. Anakan’s behavior towards the Lars family appears to be one of restrained tolerance. They were another step in his mother being taken away from him. He is not going to hold a lot of compassion for a stepfamily that couldn’t protect his mother.
7. Darth Vader Preferred Interrogation
• Vader was into wholesale slaughter. This is the guy that walked into the Jedi Temple and massacred children. As far as taking Leia captive she is a member of the Imperial Senate so as a bargaining chip she holds more leverage than a couple of moisture farmers on some back woods planet. As far as the Stormtroopers trailing the droids, they were continually one step behind. From the escape pod, to the sand crawler, to the homestead, to finally creating check points in Mos EISLEY, the closest spaceport.
6. Boba Fett Had A Motive To Slaughter
• In the Imperial Hierarchy there is a chain of command that acts as a buffer between the lowest Stormtrooper and high-ranking officials like Darth Vader. The Stormtroopers would have simply reported that the droids were last reported in possession of some moisture farmers. By executing Aunt and Uncle the Stormtroopers prevent any information that they may have acquired from being circulated, same with the Jawas. Once again the Stormtroopers acted as authority and carried out these executions as a form of policy.
5. Darth Vader Was Not Above Using Bounty Hunters
• Anakin was caught in the crossfire of young Boba’s attempts to murder Mace Windu. Anakin recollects who Boba is in relation to Jango Fett. As the Clone Wars continue, a now teenage Boba along with other notorious bounty hunters will always have a presence in the events that transpire. In matters of finding persons or manipulation through intimidation the Empire is more likely to use bounty hunters. The bounty hunters can be more discreet simply because they don’t arrive with squads of white armored Stormtroopers and ruin the surprise. The Jedi were forced to deal with the Mandolorians revolt lead by Death Watch. Any person having the memory of those specific events would have an automatic distrust for a bounty hunter who prefers to wear the armor of the mandalorian super commandos.
4. Stormtroopers Could Not Disobey Orders
• Again, you are assuming that Vader/Anakin retained any feelings for a family he literally only spent hours with. The Stormtroopers could have been under orders to destroy any traces of the droids and or those that the droids may have come into contact with. That type of reaction is very similar to the Nazi German reaction to the conspirators who plotted to kill Hitler, in the failed bombing attempt by Stauffenberg. They too went to extremes and any person affiliated with the conspiracy was either imprisoned or executed. And this was under orders.
• At the massacre sight of the sand crawler Obi-Wan refers to “these tracks” are side by side, how many Boba Fetts are there? If Obi-Wan is seeing multiple tracks that indicate there are multiple persons, this alone negates your argument. Unless of course Boba was dancing while killing the Jawas.
• PURPLE RAINNNNNN!!!
3. Darth Vader Saves Chewbacca
• You are citing an event which transpires years after your initial argument and using it to support your argument. We know that there are reasons for Vader to keep Boba on a short leash. They are the history that exists following episode II through the Clone Wars up too Empire Strikes Back. Your support here is irrelevant.
2. There Is No Punishment For Not Recovering the Droids
• The time frame between the landing of the droids escape pod and when the Falcon flees the spaceport is only a matter of days. The search for the droids is still on going. The Death Star captures the Falcon in the remains of the Alderaan system; this is hours after having left Tattooine. Vader makes the assumption that they are trying to return the stolen plans to the princess. What is to punish? With how things have unfolded the droids may have potentially landed right in Vader’s lap.
• How is Vader’s lack of punishment proof that Boba killed Owen and Beru?
1. “No Disintegrations”
• The charred remains of the bodies (Owen and Beru) are outside of their dwelling. Meaning they died outside. Neither Boba Fett nor Stormtroopers would take the time to remove the corpses. This means that they were forced outside of their homestead while still alive, likely questioned and then killed. Typically police forces or militias will employ one or two persons to hold suspects outside their homes while other persons in the party search the home. Would Boba enter their home, force them to tag along as he searched their home for the droids, only to bring them to the surface to murder them? They were rounded up, the place was searched, they were questioned, executed and the place was destroyed. This was to prevent anyone from returning and reoccupying the residence, essentially flushing the prey towards the snare. The prey being whoever currently has the droids and the snare being the checkpoints established in surrounding cities.
• Between the smoldering fire at the homestead and the charred bodies it is likely evidence of the use of thermal detonators, which every Stormtrooper is issued as standard equipment.
The comic book story “Thank The Maker” http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Thank_the_Maker would seem to imply that #3 might be wrong, Vader may very well have been protecting C-3PO instead of Chewbacca. That would actually make even more sense though, because it would be as if Vader was telling Boba Fett “you killed my family, but you won’t destroy something I built”.
Sorry guys-
This is how it happened.
http://youtu.be/jlp9DHKDg6c
I’ve heard George say as much.
This list is called 10 reasons Boba Fett killed Luke Skywalker’s aunt and uncle yet I cannot find one reason to suggest why he would have. Killing them would not have benefited him at all. Never mind the fact that Boba Fett was not even an established character when this film was made. Do you really think audiences watching this movie in 1977 thought “I bet Luke’s aunt and uncle were killed my a completely unrelated character who has not even been introduced yet”? No they knew, as we do, that it was the Empire. Nice bit of speculation, but completely off the mark.
Also the whole thing about Vader wanting to protect his family holds no water. This is a man who attacked, possibly killed his wife, has dismembered his own son. Ok eventually he turned and became a good guy in the end, but Owen and Beru weren’t even related to him and he only met them once. I doubt he’d care for them much at all.
okay, #10. yeah he was on the planet, I”ll give you this one.
9 Fett’s DNA? and the explanation has nothing to do with this. It makes a reference to the stormtrooper attack on the Jawas. Not Lars.
8 Vader protected them? okay lets say he did. Did that mean the trigger happy troopers knew Vader was their family when they were following the trail?
7 uhmmm… yeah that’s why he interrogated all the younglings at the temple. Also as I said to #8 was Vader there to stop the troopers from killing them?
6 Again, assuming Fett killed them, why would he bother if he was just after info. Why not the Stormies? When government officials murder two people they don’t usually leave the evidence lying around.
5 yeah Vader uses Bounty Hunters. Sure, but Fett seems to have been under contract with Jabba at the time. I’ll almost give you this point.
4 Stormtroopers were not clones. okay, a healthy clone in his 20′s during the clone war would have been in his 40′s during ANH. Oh wait, except for that whole accelerated aging thing. see a lot of 60-80 year old soldiers in the front lines? I don’t think so. Stormies are not clones.
3 Vader saves Chewbacca.. Yeah he needs them as bait for Luke if this trap doesn’t work. Or to get rebel info from. Sure he asked no questions while torturing them on Bespin. but that was to get Luke’s attention. no dice here either.
2 No punishment for not recovering the Droids.. How do we know this.. Just cause it wasn’t shown in the movie doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. Vader never did paperwork either, at least in the movie. And cause it wasn’t shown in the movie, we can assume that people didn’t go to the bathroom in that galaxy far far away? Poor assumption, no dice.
And #1… No disintegrations. Fett is famous as a dead or alive kinda guy. Who knows who he killed on a job in the past. Doesn’t mean that it was the Lars. Also, the bodies looked to be torched…not disintegrated. A fire that could have been started by the superheated plasma of a blaster shot. Look at the movie, you see that all throughout all of the films when blasterfire hits.
Long and annoying but hey I was bored. And to be honest, I can’t see Mandalore Fett offing two farmers then trying to cover it up.
as a star wars nerd, this list is making me crazy. fett didn’t kill luke’s aunt and uncle, because there was no bounty on them, and his assigned role during that time period was actually to act as personal bodyguard for jabba the hutt. jabba did send fett out on random errands, but killing an unimportant farmboy’s aunt and uncle (aside from vader and palpatine, no one knew beru and lars were luke’s relatives) were not among them. there are several books published, and one in particular (tales from the mos eisley cantina/tales from jabba’s palace) that chronicle these events.
By this time the Stormtrooper corps was not comprised solely of Clones. As a matter of fact there were very few clones left in ervice.
Agreed!
Just To elaborate some more: In the deleted scene on Tatooine in Episode 4, Biggs and Skywalker chat about the Rebellion and the Empire. During this particular conversation, Luke clearly mentions that he would just end-up being recruited in the military of the Empire had it not been for his ambition to fight as a part of the Rebel Alliance. Therefore, Skywalker (or any other human during this time) could have been recruited as a TIE pilot, Stormtrooper, ect as the Empire would have deemed necessary.
“These blast points, too accurate for Sandpeople. Only Imperial Stormtroopers are so precise.”
lmao, yeah cause they’ve always got such pinpoint accuracy, huh?
and i’ll never accept the new trilogy’s story for Boba Fetts origin after reading the (much better and officially licensed) prequel stories for him the SW novels.
Vader/Anakin hated the Lars. He felt they were too incompetent to save his mother. He blamed it on them. He hated them. He WAS the one who had them killed (you can see a canon picture in the Star Wars wiki). Vader only chose to save Chewbacca and Leia because if they were dead, he would have no way of luring Luke to Cloud City.