‘Book of Boba Fett’ Tusken Raider Deaths Were Originally Much Worse, Temuera Morrison Reveals
Chapter 3 of The Book of Boba Fett confirmed a tragic fate for the Tusken Raiders of Tatooine. Star Temuera Morrison revealed that it could have been even worse as originally scripted. Morrison pushed the Star Wars show to show a little bit more solemnity in the depiction of the Tusken Raiders’ tragedy.
[Warning: This article contains spoilers for The Book of Boba Fett.]
Morrison and Ming-Na Wen were on a Television Critics Association Zoom panel for The Book of Boba Fett on Jan. 14. They discussed how they improved the depiction of the death of the Tusken Raiders. New episodes premiere Wednesdays on Disney+.
The original Tusken Raiders deaths was even more frank
Morrison said the original script lacked any reverence to the Tusken Raiders. After all the flashbacks to Boba Fett (Morrison) spending time with the Tusken Raiders, he came back to the burned camp and just went about his business.
“It was better than it was, anyway,” Morrison said. “There were times when I read we were just throwing dead bodies on the fire and I was going, ‘Oh, hang on. We’ve got to put a bit of ceremony on this.’”
Temuera Morrison added ceremony to ‘The Book of Boba Fett’
In the final episode, Boba conducts a ceremony over his fallen Tusken Raiders. Morrison said he drew from his own New Zealand culture.
“Yeah, they are the indigenous of the sands of Tatooine,” Morrison said. “It was just creating a little bit more history about their culture and I was pulling from my own culture in a way too in terms of some of the coming to terms with all the ceremonies and things like that and preparing the warrior and preparing a weapon and things like that.”
Morrison hopes all of that comes across. He acknowledged they were rushed filming that scene in The Book of Boba Fett.
“I think it was in the staging and things like that, the staging of it all,” Morrison said. “We were running out of time.”
Wen also observed that there is a history of mourning on Tatooine in the Star Wars universe, going back to the Jawas.
“That was part of the Star Wars image,” Wen said. “For Tatooine, there is this ceremonious desire to burn the bodies as opposed to just letting them lie out in the desert in the open.”
The Tusken Raiders were Boba Fett’s family
Morrison added that the Tusken Raiders were the only family Boba Fett knew. His father, Jango, was killed when he was a child.
“I don’t think Boba has experienced a family dynamic before,” Morrison said. “The young Tuskens, the old Tuskens, just that whole family, what we call the Whanau, the family and the land of course protecting their land. Those are the two things in our culture, my own culture here in New Zealand. Land and woman, we will survive. So I kind of brought a little of those elements to the Tusken family.”
Wen added that the flashbacks added depth to the Tusken Raiders, who’d been on the outskirts of the Star Wars universe.
“We knew so little about the Tuskens. It really gave them an incredible backstory I felt because I wasn’t there for Tem in shooting those scenes. I only read it and to see visually and how you guys worked out those dance moves and making the weaponry of the staff, I thought all those elements really enriched who the Tuskens were.”
