Mando's Meat Factory Fight Featured Designs From A Canceled Boba Fett Video Game
So, you may not have noticed this on your recent viewing of "The Book of Boba Fett" Episode 5, but among the Easter eggs sprinkled throughout that frankly spectacular episode were references to a "Star Wars" project that never even saw the light of day — at least, according to game designer Grant Parker.
Parker worked on a LucasArts video game codenamed "The Star Wars 1313 Project," which was being developed as basically "Uncharted" but with Boba Fett. The game followed the iconic bounty hunter as he navigated the seedy underbelly of Coruscant, the giant city planet that served as home of the Galactic Senate and the Jedi Council. "Star Wars 1313" was unfortunately scrapped when Disney bought the rights to Lucasfilm, but apparently some of the design elements weren't totally thrown out.
Parker took to Twitter in the wake of episode 5 of "The Book of Boba Fett" — which was focused on the return of Din Djarin (aka Mando) — and pointed out that the big opening fight at a meat packing plant featured a design element from his work on "Star Wars 1313." He said he was "so happy" to see his unused designs brought to life, and noted that a lot of other concept art from "Star Wars 1313" has been "repurposed and reused" for the Disney+ "Star Wars" shows.
You Thought They Smelled Bad on the Outside
Turns out those hanging slabs of meat aren't just any "Star Wars" creature, but those lovable tauntauns from "The Empire Strikes Back." Parker quote-tweeted a video with some early progress looks at "Star Wars 1313," which shows Boba Fett chasing someone through hanging slabs of tauntaun.
I did some early pre-pro work on a bar in this section and some of the planning for a meat factory (you see the hanging tauntaun carcasses). It was the first professional level design work I ever did. It was very important to me. Happy to see it again. https://t.co/qk6SAjyizu
— Grant Parker 💙 (@GrantPDesign) January 27, 2022
I suppose it could always be coincidence — a "great minds think alike" moment — but the similarities are hard to deny. There's a lot of rooftop climbing/fighting going on in the rough footage as well, which IGN points out is very much like the fight scene between Fennec Shand and the assassins in "The Book of Boba Fett" episode 1.
Again, that's pretty generic as "fight scenes on roofs" happen all the time in action movies. "Highlander," "Blade Runner," "The Matrix," a couple dozen Jackie Chan movies ... Hell, there's like three of them in Marvel's "Hawkeye." But still, it's not a stretch to think that Lucasfilm had these designs and ideas in their back pocket, just looking for a way to incorporate them into one of their live action films or series.
I don't have the raging hate-on for the Disney "Star Wars" era that a lot of folks seem to have, but I do think the dismantling of LucasArts was a massive bummer and misstep for Disney. The layoffs were terrible and the loss of these cool projects in development is something I still think about every once in a while. Don't get me wrong, "Star Wars Jedi: The Fallen Order" is pretty fantastic, so we're at least still getting some good "Star Wars" games — but something about the description of a Boba Fett game trying to emulate the "Uncharted" style fires up my imagination something fierce.
"The Book of Boba Fett" episode 6 releases February 2, 2022, on Disney+.