This article contains spoilers for The Book of Boba Fett episode 1.
Boba Fett was cool long before the release of The Empire Strikes Back.
This makes Boba Fett's fate in the original trilogy more than a little amusing. He may have been a force to be reckoned with in The Empire Strikes Back, but he was speedily defeated in Return of the Jedi. Jabba had intended to sacrifice Luke Skywalker and his friends to the Sarlacc - "In his belly, you will find a new definition of pain and suffering, as you are slowly digested over a thousand years," Jabba declared through Threepio. In the end, it was Boba Fett who fell into the Sarlacc, swallowed into its maw shortly before Jabba's entire sail barge was destroyed. The fearsome bounty hunter's fate was more than a little disappointing.
Boba Fett survived the Sarlacc, returning to help Din Djarin regain his ward Grogu when the Force-sensitive infant was kidnapped by the Empire. Finally, Boba Fett was treated like the badass he deserved to be - complete with a stunning action sequence in which he took on Imperial stormtroopers, tearing through them with ease. But his survival went unexplained until The Book of Boba Fett episode 1, which featured flashbacks that revealed the truth.
How Long Was Boba Fett In The Sarlacc After Return Of The Jedi?
The Book of Boba Fett doesn't really show how long Boba Fett was trapped within the Sarlacc - but it was probably only a few hours. As revealed in Chuck Wendig's "Aftermath" trilogy, the Sarlacc was critically wounded when Jabba's burning sail barge crashed upon it, and it died. Boba Fett had initially been rendered unconscious by the experience of plunging into the Sarlacc, and he awoke within the dying creature's stomach. Boba initially struggled to breathe - either his helmet seal hadn't been closed when he was consumed by the Sarlacc, or more likely he'd used up most of his oxygen supply while unconscious - but he was able to replenish oxygen reserves courtesy of a deceased Stormtrooper who was in the process of being digested. Reinvigorated, Boba Fett triggered his flamethrower, and began to fight his way out.
How Boba Fett Escaped The Sarlacc In Star Wars Canon
According to The Book of Boba Fett the bounty hunter seemingly forced his way out from inside it. Still, the Sarlacc's death was unseen in Aftermath: Life Debt, with unreliable narrators describing what happened to the creature, so there's no real contradiction here.
What Happened To Boba Fett's Armor After Escaping The Sarlacc
As revealed in the "Aftermath" trilogy and The Mandalorian season 2, industrious Jawas raided the Sarlacc pit for treasure. They found Boba Fett's body at the surface of the Pit of Carkoon, and stripped him of his armor, figuring they could sell it at a profit; Boba awoke while the armor was being torn off him, but they clubbed him down, presumably assuming they had killed this weakened human. The armor would ultimately be acquired by Cobb Vanth, a former slave who became Marshal of Mos Pelgo and drove slavers off Tatooine. Boba Fett, for his part, was found by Tusken Raiders and dragged away to be brutalized. Boba Fett wouldn't reclaim his armor for five years, although the reason he took so long to do this has yet to be explained.
How Boba Fett Escaped The Sarlacc In Star Wars Legends
At last, after 38 years, viewers have a definitive canonical of how Boba Fett survived the Sarlacc. There's nothing really new to this idea to fans familiar with the old Expanded Universe, though, because in the '90s Lucasfilm Publishing swiftly deduced they could bring the fearsome bounty hunter back. The old EU wasn't always especially well-coordinated, though, meaning there were actually two separate s of how Boba Fett made it out of the Sarlacc alive. Hilariously, attempts to reconcile these different stories meant that - according to the EU - Boba Fett escaped the Sarlacc, fell back in, and got back out again.
In one version, Boba Fett's iron will and Mandalorian armor allowed him to survive, and he flew triumphantly out of the Sarlacc, only to crash back into it again while trapped on a Jawa Sandcrawler. In another, he conversed with a fellow prisoner trapped inside the monster, and learned they were psychically bonded to the Sarlacc. Fett used this bond to goad the Sarlacc into constricting its tendrils around his jet pack, and the resulting explosion ignited the device, allowing Boba Fett to escape - but resulting in even more severe injuries. All this was, of course, rendered non-canon (dubbed "Legends") by Disney when they acquired Lucasfilm in 2012, resulting in the latest in The Book of Boba Fett.
The difference between the Legends versions and The Book of Boba Fett is simply one of spectacle. Legends attempted to turn Boba Fett into the character Star Wars fans already thought he was, whereas The Book of Boba Fett seems to acknowledge his mixed portrayal in the original trilogy, treating him as a limited being whose heroic exploits are often somewhat anticlimactic. It's a very different approach, and frankly far preferable, humanizing Boba Fett so he can star in his own series. It will be interesting to see where Lucasfilm take it from here.
The Book of Boba Fett releases new episodes Wednesdays on Disney+.