Disney’s The Book of Boba Fett has reimagined a character that fans always viewed as a soulless bounty hunter, happy to work for the worst people in the galaxy, into a merciful crime lord with a heart of gold.
We already have an armor-encased softie in The Mandalorian, who was already a bit of a fanfiction clone of Boba Fett - why does the real Boba Fett have to be such a nice guy?
The latest Book of Boba Fett episode offered viewers an explanation for why the bounty hunter softened - he learned the value of friendship and family during his time with the Tuskens.
But Boba’s newfound morality has attracted the ire of certain fans, who long to see an adult amount of violence in a franchise that was always aimed at children.
Obviously, Star Wars is never going to echo The Punisher, for good reason, but that doesn’t mean avoiding moral ambiguity. Both Disney and Star Wars have always drawn firm lines between good and evil, but despite the fact that some of the more villainous characters are becoming protagonists, that line remains firmly drawn, with no blurred edges.
Hence, Disney has made a habit of flattening its villainous characters into dull do-gooders; this is glaringly obvious with Boba Fett, but was even more striking with Loki, one of Marvel’s most enjoyable villains, who was a self-centered narcissistic that shifted into just another dope fighting for the greater good in his titular series.
Even Cruella DeVille, wannabe puppy-skinner, was reincarnated into a dog-lover in her live-action reboot.
Perhaps the most amusing example of Disney reducing a morally ambiguous, self-centered character into a selfless hero was that of Scarlet Witch in WandaVision, as the finale of the series awkwardly attempted to frame Wanda as a good person, while diminishing the fact that she pushing the population of an entire town to the brink of madness, controlling their minds and bodies like toys while she worked out her own personal issues.
Wanda’s grief-fuelled selfishness was actually a pretty interesting concept, but one that the show refused to acknowledge the implications of. Not every protagonist has to abide by a strict moral code - it’s great fun to watch a character break bad!
There’s an interesting precedent to Disney’s reluctance to experiment with moral ambiguity, as Walt Disney originally depicted Mickey Mouse as a bit of a rascal, but as the rodent became increasingly popular, he was flattened out into a dorky do-gooder.
In a 1949 interview, Walt Disney stated:
"Mickey's decline was due to his heroic nature. He grew into such a legend that we couldn't gag around with him. He acquired as many taboos as a Western hero—no smoking, no drinking, no violence."
Instead, Donald Duck began to embody the mania and mischief that Mickey could no longer exhibit.
"(Donald Duck's) temper made him an easier character to work with than Mickey Mouse," Disney animator Jack Hannah stated in a 1978 interview. "I remember many stories were started with Mickey but as soon as they started to rough the Mouse up, somebody would come up and say, 'Well, that's more of a Donald Duck story, so they'd turn around and make it a Donald Duck story.”
When it comes to the protagonists of the Marvel and Star Wars Disney+ shows, there doesn’t seem to be a place for Donald Ducks; everyone, no matter how sordid their fictional past, is just another incarnation of Mickey Mouse.
