Star Wars: 15 Things You Didn’t Know About Jango Fett
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You may know about his son, but Jango Fett is a man of many mysteries. This is the story behind the face of the clone army.
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Jango Fett is an enigmatic villain in the Star Wars saga. For a character with so little time on screen, he had widespread influences on the events after Attack of the Clones. He was the template for the clone army, the forces that helped establish the Empire and execute the Jedi under Order 66.
He raised his unaltered clone, Boba Fett, who was created at his request and would follow in his footsteps as an exceptional bounty hunter. He even indirectly instigated Anakin and Padme’s relationship with his failed assassination attempts on Padme Amidala. Jango Fett had a hand in many of the circumstances of the original trilogy, affecting events long after his death.
Unfortunately, Jango Fett was introduced and killed off in the course of a single movie, giving fans limited information about him and leaving many questions about him and his progeny Boba Fett. His origins are heavily debated, especially after the non-canonization of the Expanded Universe.
His death caused several problems in the Star Wars universe. He could have been a very different character if George Lucas had worked with ideas he had in development, and the creation of his character hit a few bumps along the way behind the scenes.
Here are the 15 Things You Didn’t Know About Star Wars’ Jango Fett.
15 Boba Fett tried to kill Mace Windu to avenge him
After Jango Fett was killed in the battle on Geonosis, Boba Fett swore revenge against Mace Windu, who decapitated Jango. In The Clone Wars, Boba Fett finally got his chance to execute a revenge plot alongside a band of other bounty hunters he had joined.
Assuming the identity of a clone trooper cadet, Boba Fett infiltrated a Republic vessel. After Boba failed to kill Windu once, the bounty hunters urged him to cause an explosion on the ship, which crashed the ship and nearly killed Windu.
Attempting another plan, Boba Fett set a bomb in Jango Fett’s helmet and left it in the wreckage of the damaged ship, intending for it to detonate when Windu came looking for survivors.
After this failed, the bounty hunters then set a trap for Windu by taking hostages. In the violent hostage situation, however, Boba Fett realized his mistake in allying with the bounty hunters.
When the Jedi discovered the bounty hunters’ location, Boba Fett was captured, and Hondo Ohnaka convinced him to tell the Jedi the location of the hostages because Jango Fett would have wanted him to do the honorable thing. However, Boba Fett still swore to never forgive Windu.
14 His name is thought to reference another famous mercenary
Jango Fett’s name was not decided from the beginning. In early drafts of Attack of the Clones, he went by the name J’Mee Fett. His name was changed to Jango during development, and George Lucas is thought to have purposefully chosen the name as a reference to the 1966 movie Django.
In this film, Django was a violent mercenary and drifter with a rough past in the American Civil War. Django becomes entangled in a feud between former Confederate soldiers and Mexican revolutionaries when he allies with the revolutionaries to steal the Confederate officer’s gold.
Lucas may have drawn on this iconic Western character when developing Jango Fett, as they share similarities in their mercenary professions, violent and cunning methods, and dark pasts.
However, Django has a relatively happier ending for its title character than Attack of the Clones had for Jango Fett.
13 Morrison had trouble filming in Jango Fett’s armor
Temuera Morrison, who brought Jango Fett to life in Attack of the Clones, did not have an easy time transitioning into playing the bounty hunter. Jango Fett’s iconic Mandalorian armor was not easy for Morrison to film in. Jango Fett’s helmet in particular caused a few problems.
Morrison explained, “You couldn’t see anything! I remember filming with that mask on, one of the first days in the studio, standing there with no guns, just my fingers pointed out. I thought they could’ve got me some toy guns, but I didn’t even have that, would you believe!”
“I’m standing there right and can’t see or hear anything because I was fogged up from my breathing, and I’m the idiot standing there doing nothing while they’re yelling out ‘Action!’ Probably three or four times, then I see someone waving and I thought ‘Yes, I am the idiot.’ But then you start getting into it and moving about,” he said.
12 He could have been a more important character
During the development of the prequel trilogy, George Lucas considered the idea of making Darth Vader and Boba Fett brothers. He eventually discounted the idea as too hokey, but this developmental idea would have drastically changed Jango Fett’s part in the series.
This change could have changed Jango Fett’s role in one of two ways. If Jango was still included in the series as Boba Fett’s father, that would mean he would likely be Anakin Skywalker’s father figure in some form, as Lucas’ idea was to portray Boba and Anakin as stepbrothers.
Since Phantom Menace explained Anakin Skywalker has no father, Jango Fett might have filled an important role in Anakin’s backstory. However, this idea could instead write Jango Fett out completely instead of including him in the Skywalker family.
11 Mandalore disavowed any connection to him
Jango Fett wore Mandalorian armor, a design associated with the planet Mandalore in the outer rim. The Mandalorians have a long history of bloody war, making their armor a symbol of fear in the galaxy.
The Mandalorians fought in many conflicts, from early conflicts with the Jedi to the Mandalorian Civil War involving the notorious Death Watch. Many years of war killed the majority of the planet’s population and made the planet’s surface inhospitable.
However, the government of Mandalore tried to distance themselves from this history and did not want to be associated with the actions of Jango Fett, especially as claims circulated that Jango was Mandalorian.
They disavowed any connection to him, considering him a pretender who stole an artifact from Mandalore’s bloody past. The exact origin of his armor remains to be seen.
10 He was supposed to look more like a clone trooper
Jango Fett was not always intended to wear his recognizable blue Mandalorian armor. His armor was originally white like the clone troopers, and it was only changed to blue later in development. This concept design was a reference to Boba Fett’s original concept designs for Empire Strikes Back.
Boba Fett’s armor was originally designed as all white to look like an old style of stormtrooper armor. Boba Fett’s armor was eventually changed to its green design to place him in the visual spectrum between the stormtroopers armored in white and Vader dressed in black. The design was also intended to convey Boba Fett’s gray morality as a character.
In the end, the white design was abandoned for both characters, leading to their now-famous final designs. This decision was probably for the better, as white armor would have made it too easy for Jango Fett and Boba Fett to get lost in scenes full of nearly identical white clone troopers and stormtroopers.
9 He had a complicated backstory that is now non-canon
In the Expanded Universe, now Star Wars Legends, Jango Fett had a complex history that led to his life as a bounty hunter. In this version of his backstory, Jango grew up in the Mandalore sector during the Mandalorian Civil War. During the conflict, his parents were murdered by the Death Watch.
Jango was taken in and raised by the Death Watch’s rival faction, the True Mandalorians. The leader of the True Mandalorians, Jaster Mereel, was his adoptive father.
During a battle years later, Mereel was betrayed and left for dead by his second-in-command, Montross, in an attempt to seize power, but Jango outed Montross’ betrayal to the rest of the faction and became the new leader of the True Mandalorians himself. As leader, Jango Fett had to battle the Jedi, who sided with the Death Watch in the conflict.
Jango Fett killed several Jedi, but was the only Mandalorian to survive and was arrested by the Jedi, among them Jedi Master Dooku. Following his capture, he was sold into slavery, but eventually escaped and got his revenge by bringing down the Death Watch.
8 A video game explained how he was chosen by Dooku
LucasArts’ video game Star Wars: Bounty Hunter tells how Jango Fett was chosen to be the template of the clone army. Jango Fett receives a transmission from Darth Tyranus, otherwise known as Count Dooku, inviting him on a special hunt for the Dark Jedi Komari Vosa, leader of the Force-worshipping criminal group Bando Gora.
He accepts and starts to track down Vosa, trying to stay ahead of several other bounty hunters, including the Mandalorian traitor Montross. Along the way, his old ship is destroyed. He has to steal a new one, which he calls Slave I.
He finally discovers Vosa’s location and defeats Montross along the way. Upon entering Vosa’s location, he is captured and tortured by the Bando Gora, which results in his facial scars. However, he is finally freed by his ally, Zam Wesell.
Jango Fett escapes and duels with Vosa, emerging victorious. As Vosa lies critically injured, Darth Tyranus force chokes her as he steps out of the shadows. Tyranus explains that the entire hunt was a test, and he offers Jango a large reward if he will go to Kamino to be a template for the clone army.
7 He helped train the clone army
While on Kamino serving as the template for the clone troopers, Jango Fett supervised the training of the clone troopers. According to the Star Wars Legends version of the story, he was instrumental in the development of the clone army.
He trained the clone troopers through the Mandalorian methods with which he had been trained. He helped design the clone troopers’ armor, which is one reason the armor draws so much from Jango Fett’s armor.
He recruited an elite group of one hundred training commanders, most of which were Mandalorian, to train the clone army’s special forces, and he personally oversaw the training of the most elite group of clone troopers.
Since the non-canonization of Star Wars Legends, it is unclear exactly what roles Jango Fett may have had in preparing the clone troopers.
6 Lucas says he is not Mandalorian
After the Expanded Universe had crafted a detailed backstory based on Jango Fett’s history as a Mandalorian soldier, George Lucas decided to start from scratch on what fans know about his past.
Clone Wars director Dave Filoni commented that George Lucas had told him the Fetts were not Mandalorian, a fact he used in building the canon Clone Wars lore. Clone Wars episode “The Mandalore Plot” shows the Mandalore Prime Minister dismissing any ties the planet might have to Jango Fett.
Pablo Hidalgo of the Lucasfilm Story Group reiterated the fact that Jango Fett was not Mandalorian. It remains to be seen what impact Jango Fett’s origins have on the canon Star Wars universe beyond some brief mentions in Clone Wars, but it could become an important point with a Boba Fett movie reportedly still in development.
5 His clumsy exit was a stormtrooper reference
After Jango Fett’s impressive fight with Obi-Wan Kenobi on Kamino, Jango makes one small mistake during his exit. As he runs aboard his ship Slave I, he bangs his head on the closing metal door as it lowers down on him, complete with a metal-hitting-metal sound effect to confirm his clumsy exit.
This small moment was a reference to a famous goof in A New Hope, where a stormtrooper bangs his head on a doorway as he walks through it with other stormtroopers.
By the time of A New Hope, not all stormtroopers were Jango Fett’s clones, as the Empire began finding other sources for their army. However, it’s safe to assume that one particular stormtrooper was related to Jango Fett and inherited his inability to judge the height of doors.
4 Temuera Morrison had no idea who the character was when he was cast
Temuera Morrison had an interesting experience when he was brought in to audition for the role of Jango Fett. He related, “I had a letter asking me to meet with the Star Wars casting lady, Robin Gurland… It was just funny [the audition location] happened to be in the same hotel I was in.”
“So I just went up one floor, sat down with her. She had a video camera on me and we had a nice chat – that’s all it was. No lines, no dialogue – we were just having a chat about me, what I liked and where I was from, my family and she would’ve just shown George [Lucas] that,” he said.
Morrison added, “It was fantastic, great. It was a fantastic feeling. I had to brush up on my Fett homework though – I didn’t know who the hell Jango Fett was! People were like, ‘Yeah, you’re Jango Fett!’ And I was like, ‘Who the hell’s Jango Fett?!'”
3 A jetpack malfunction led to his death
Jango Fett’s death in the confusing melee on Geonosis was somewhat anticlimactic for the character, much like Boba Fett’s presumed death in Return of the Jedi.
Jango Fett confronted Mace Windu when the Jedi lost his lightsaber running from a reek, a large animal in the arena, but Jango lost the upper hand when the reek turned on him and trampled him. He managed to kill the reek, but is immediately set upon by Mace Windu, who quickly decapitates him.
Many fans have pointed out telltale details about Jango Fett’s death. Right before Windu’s fatal swing, Jango tried to activate his jetpack, but it didn’t fire. When the reek trampled Jango, sparks flew off his jetpack, indicating it had been damaged by the attack. Jango was unable to fly away after losing his reliable escape route, becoming an easier target for Windu.
2 Morrison wants to return to Star Wars
Ever since being cast as Jango Fett, Temuera Morrison has been prolific in the Star Wars universe. He plays Jango Fett in Attack of the Clones and Commander Cody in Revenge of the Sith, and he even re-recorded Boba Fett’s lines in the original trilogy for the 2004 DVD release. He has also voiced Jango Fett, Boba Fett, and various clone troopers for several Star Wars video games.
On top of his previous work, he has recently expressed his desire to return to the Star Wars movies. He set his sights on playing one of the many characters who would have his face, such as clone trooper Captain Rex from The Clone Wars and Star Wars: Rebels.
Morrison said, “What’ll make me really happy is if I get the phone call asking me to play another character – an older Captain Rex or something. I want to pop in on one of these new ones, that would be great.”
1 His death caused issues maintaining the clone army
As the clone army was put into use, the army suffered from losing its template. In the Clone Wars episode “Clone Cadets,” Lama Su and the clones’ drill instructors discuss “bad batches” of clones when five clone troopers appear to have trouble completing their training. Some clones are not accepted into the army and instead become maintainence clones after failing training.
Lama Su explains that since the death of Jango Fett, they have had to stretch his DNA to produce clones. This has led to some batches of clones that they deem too deficient for the army.
This is one reason the Empire had to seek other sources for stormtroopers as years progressed, since it became less and less feasible to continue to produce Jango Fett clones without a living Jango Fett.
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Can you think of any other interesting facts about Jango Fett from Star Wars? Let us know in the comment section!
Christy Box is a list writer for Screen Rant. She graduated summa cum laude from the University of Central Florida with a BA in Anthropology, and she has a great love for media anthropology. Her experience working in film and television production as a director, producer, and camera operator has made her passionate about the work that goes into bringing a story to the screen. She is a major science fiction fan, as her family raised her on Star Trek from birth. She is fascinated by slow-burn suspense, strong female leads, and book adaptations that don’t leave out all the good parts. In her free time, she writes fiction, binge-watches many shows, volunteers to support the arts, and fawns over other people’s dogs. She also writes for Ranker and Factinate on pop culture and history topics.
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