CLASSIC BLOG: ADDICTED TO FETT

Soon to be seen in STAR WARS:1313? That ever popular Boba Fett.

Saturday March 8th 2008 - Jeremy Bulloch made a personal appearance at the ADDICT clothing store in central London to promote their new ICON series STAR WARS tee shirts.

The limited run of tee shirts have been designed by the talented "graffiti" artist known simply as MITCH. The shirts come in three awesome designs of Boba Fett, Sandtrooper and Biker Scout. Although a bit on the pricey side at £35 ($70 approx) they come packaged in a collectible box featuring MITCH's artwork.

For more info and to see the designs in full check out www.addictclothingco.com

Arriving at the store at 8am, the incentive to be early was that the first 30 people in line would receive a free MITCH print of one of the 3 shirt designs that Jeremy would sign. The event was not due to open until 11am and would run until 4pm. At first it looked like the turn out was going to be fairly low as between 8am and about 10am there were just a few of us lining up, probably about 10 but as time got nearer to 11am the fans began to arrive and I would estimate about one hundred, give or take, had arrived in time for opening.

Also in attendance were members of the 501st UK Garrison, duly kitted out as the 3 characters that matched the shirt designs. As usual the guys looked great and entertained the line and posed for photos as we waited in the dull and chilly London spring weather.

Jeremy arrived shortly after 10am and very kindly stopped to talk to me as he went in and again came out to chat a short while later before things formally kicked off.

Jeremy is pretty busy at the moment and is currently working on night filming for a new TV show in Bath called WETWORKS, in which he plays another masked character. At the moment its planned that this show will get a primetime Saturday evening schedule slot and Jeremy is very excited about it's prospects. He additionally recently completed a pilot for a new TV show called "Turpin" about the notorious British highwayman, Dick Turpin.

Jeremy has also just been added to the roster of guests for the JEDI-CON convention in Dusseldorf, Germany on March 21 - 23. Alongside his other Boba compatriot, young Daniel Logan, he will also be attending with his brother, STAR WARS and INDIANA JONES producer and STAR WARS AFICIONADO favourite, Robert Watts. It seems that Ray Park has pulled out of JEDI-CON due to work commitments on the GI JOE movie. Sadly, it also seems unlikely that Rick McCallum will be able to attend, either.

I asked Jeremy to sign a photo of Fett that I had recently had signed by Jason Wingreen, the actor who provided Boba Fetts voice in the original version of TESB. This prompted Jeremy to tell me he had never met Jason Wingreen in person but that they had a telephone friendship. Jeremy stated his dislike for the re-dubbing of Fett’s dialogue by Temuera Morrison on the DVD edition of EMPIRE, preferring Wingreen’s emphasis and inflection, although he understood why the alteration was done, for continuities sake, he thought it unnecessary.

Jeremy also spoke of how he felt that the Prequel Trilogy had removed the mystery around Boba Fett, as we now know what he looks like and where he came from. The mysterious nature and enigmatic persona being a large part of the characters appeal was now gone. He felt that the character should never have had his face revealed.

Ian Trussler with Jeremy and Boba!

Once the event started proper at 11am, I had an official picture taken with Jeremy and the 501st member dressed as Boba and had a bit more of a talk with Jeremy while he signed my MITCH print of Fett. It did look to me that more than the first 30 people would get a signed print as there appeared to be loads on the signing table. Hopefully everyone who attended got one.

Jeremy Bulloch is such a lovely guy and wonderful to the fans- always friendly and polite and very giving of his time, willing to chat and always grateful for the support the fans give him. Having met him a couple of time before it was so nice that he remembered me, these sort of things make all the difference when you have waited hours in the cold to meet someone.

On leaving the event it looked like the crowd had increased and that the event was very successful.

Thanks to Jeremy and to the 501st UK Garrison for making it such an enjoyable experience.

IAN TRUSSLER

EDITOR’S NOTE: In conversation with Jeremy at the event, I discovered that several deleted scenes involving Boba were filmed for EMPIRE, including shots of him operating numerous instruments on the SLAVE 1 command deck and he confirmed that there was indeed a scene of Boba taunting the Carbon Han Solo within his ship. Additionally, more footage of Boba for RETURN OF THE JEDI, in Jabba’s Throne Room, was filmed that didn’t make the final cut.