How did Boba Fett survive the Sarlacc? A Mandalorian theory

The Mandalorian's season 2 premiere brought back Boba Fett, the original trilogy bounty hunter with too little screen time and a death so unceremonious that the leading headcanon is that he had to have been drunk. I think the premiere left more than enough clues to explain how Boba survived the Sarlacc, what he's been up to since and what he might do next.

The Mandalorian (2019) stars Pedro Pascal. The return had been widely reported months before the episode aired. It isn't only Boba Fett's armor coming back, worn in the episode by Cobb Vanth, Timothy Olyphant's marshal character from the Aftermath books. It's the actual man in the flesh, played by Temuera Morrison, who played Jango Fett in Attack of the Clones. Jango was the source donor for the Kamino clones, Boba Fett included.

Boba Fett's Sarlacc survival was a decades-old mystery

Whether Boba Fett survived the Sarlacc has been speculated on by pretty much every Star Wars diehard over the decades, including Patton Oswalt, who pitched the gloved gauntlet of Boba Fett grabbing onto the sand outside the pit. Now that his survival is legit onscreen canon, we're still not satisfied. We never are. We have follow-ups.

One doesn't simply walk out of a Sarlacc. When C-3PO translated Jabba's death sentence in Return of the Jedi, he warned that the prisoners would be cast into the pit, the nesting place of the all-powerful Sarlacc: "In his belly you will find a new definition of pain and suffering as you are slowly digested over a thousand years." During the fight with Luke, Han and Chewie on the skiff, Han blindly knocked Boba's jet pack, sending him bottle rocketing into Jabba's barge and down into the pit.

The krayt dragon's acid may explain how Boba got out

The new episode offered an answer by having the even larger krayt dragon take up residence in an abandoned Sarlacc pit. There's no such thing as an abandoned Sarlacc pit, unless you eat the Sarlacc. To paraphrase the great Jedi, there's always a bigger sand monster. One of the dragon's surprise features was its ability to spew acid to dissolve its enemies, and according to Mando, that acid must be capable of dissolving and digesting a Sarlacc.

But when Mando himself gets swallowed by the dragon along with a bantha loaded with explosives, the acid doesn't dissolve his beskar armor. You can see it smeared all over the beskar, but it doesn't appear to be burning it away. So here's the food chain: the Sarlacc eats Boba, and its slow digestive juices get started on him. Then the krayt dragon eats the Sarlacc and dissolves it, cutting out the middleman, so that Boba, his armor immune to the acid, can get puked up to freedom just like Mando did.

Canonically, Boba Fett's armor is supposed to be durasteel, a different alloy than beskar. But in Cobb Vanth's flashback, you can see Boba's armor deflect a blaster bolt, the same way Mando's beskar always can. So it wouldn't surprise me if they end up retconning Boba Fett's armor to be beskar, or suggesting it's just as strong, even if dragon acid can leak in and burn your hair off.

Why Boba Fett is no longer wearing his armor

If that's how he survived, why isn't Boba wearing his armor anymore? This is the bigger mystery, raised by a fan named Christopher Voss (no relation, I don't think). There are a few theories. One is that escaping two turducken layers of monster exhausted him so much that he passed out in the Dune Sea, where Jawas found him and stole the armor off his body.

Look closely at that armor and the green paint has been corroded off, just as there's some scarring on Boba's face. He went through a lot. There's also a metal patch on the jet pack repairing the spot Han smashed on the skiff. Boba could have repaired that himself, but I think it's more likely the Jawas welded it on.

Another theory is that Boba, as a contractor for the Empire, might want to change his identity and blend in on an anti-Imperial Outer Rim planet like Tatooine. I'm not sure about that one. Without the armor, he'd look like every other clone trooper enlisted for the Empire, so that wouldn't help.

Boba Fett could be living among the Tusken Raiders

The explanation I like is that Boba could have voluntarily given up or sold off his armor. He carries a Tusken rifle, a Tusken gaffi stick and Tusken robes, so Boba Fett could be living among the Tusken Raiders. We know from the episode that the Tuskens have an ongoing arrangement with the krayt dragon, feeding it bantha tributes to try to keep it sleeping.

Perhaps during one of those feedings, the dragon coughed up a Boba hairball. The Tusken Raiders, whom we now understand to be far friendlier and more hospitable as a people, could have taken him in and nursed him back to health. The same way Mando adopted the identity of his rescuers, Boba could discover a sense of kinship and community with folks his former boss, ironically, slaughtered like animals. He could now live in a mask like his Tusken brothers, spiritually outgrowing the Mandalorian armor of his clone papa.

Don't assume a Mando versus Boba Fett fight

Boba does appear to be living as a Tusken Raider on Tatooine, whether in disguise or sincerely. He might not be too eager to get his armor back, because he could have snatched it from Cobb Vanth at any point over the years, and he didn't. I assume that's for a reason. So I don't think we should jump to the assumption that we'd see a Mando versus Boba showdown that season.

If anything, they'd have more in common and be assets to each other, especially if Boba could say he saw the error of his ways and stopped appropriating Mandalorian armor, which Mando would totally appreciate.

Fennec Shand may be with Boba Fett

The season 2 premiere didn't answer the big Tatooine mystery from season 1: the identity of the figure who came upon Fennec Shand after she was attacked in episode 5. I feel like if that had been Cobb Vanth, he would have told us about it. That chatty Cathy talked our ears off about his backstory.

I think Fennec Shand may be with Boba Fett, maybe with the other Tusken Raiders as well, recovering from that attack. Her possible return in season 2 could explain what's next for Boba.

Boba Fett's Kamino clone origins could link to Baby Yoda

Series producers Dave Filoni and Jon Favreau didn't bring back Boba Fett just for fan service. They took him out of his famous armor to remind us of the face underneath and where it came from: Kamino, where he was cloned. This has to be important to the future of the series. Dr. Pershing, who studied Baby Yoda, wore a patch from Kamino, and in the premiere Peli Motto made a reference to Baby Yoda's reproductive biology: "If this thing ever divides or buds, I will gladly pay for the offspring."

The season 2 trailer also showed a rainy ocean planet that could be Mon Cala or Kamino. So I believe that whenever Mando encounters Boba, the reason for his live-action return will be as a link to the primary Star Wars history. That includes his Kamino origins, which could be part of Baby Yoda's origin despite Kuiil's belief that Baby Yoda wasn't genetically engineered. It also includes Boba's experience with Vader and with the Jedi, since he was there for Jango and Obi-Wan Kenobi's fight on Kamino and for the massive Jedi battle on Geonosis.

That's why I think Boba Fett is going to tell Mando where to go next to find Jedi, and to find the entities involved with genetic engineering in this universe.