This Is Why Boba Fett's Mandalorian Helmet Has A Dent

One of the reasons why the "Star Wars" franchise remains popular is because of the depth and richness of its world — or, more accurately, its galaxy far, far away. Since "A New Hope" premiered in 1977, various "Star Wars" media have colored in many of the details that the main films just didn't have time for.

Take Boba Fett, the badass bounty hunter of few words. In the original trilogy, the character only appears in a little over six minutes of screen time (via Boba Fett Fan Club). But the character proved to be fascinating, and since his debut in "The Empire Strikes Back," many comic books, TV shows, and other supplementary materials have given fans more of his backstory.

The smash-hit Disney+ series "The Mandalorian" continued that tradition when it brought in Boba Fett (played by Temuera Morrison) for Season 2. For the first time since Disney acquired Lucasfilm, (and threw out the old Expanded Universe canon), fans got to see what the character had been up to since "Return of the Jedi." In Season 2, it's revealed that Boba survived his fall into the Sarlacc pit, but lost his iconic Mandalorian armor in the process. The titular Mandalorian, Din Djarin (Pedro Pascal) eventually recovered the armor and returned it to Boba in exchange for helping him protect Grogu. Once that was done, Boba returned to Tatooine and took over Jabba the Hutt's old crime syndicate — with his armor newly fixed up.

But as we saw at the end of Season 2, Boba didn't manage to repair the iconic dent in his helmet. Like many other "Star Wars" details, this dent has its own backstory that even diehards might not know.

At the 2017 Celebration Orlando convention celebrating the 40th anniversary of "A New Hope," Lucasfilm Executive Creative Director Dave Filoni shared a deleted sequence from the final season of "Star Wars: The Clone Wars," which includes the fateful moment.

In the clip, Boba Fett is having a showdown with Cad Bane, the bounty hunter whom Boba's father Jango once mentored, and who later mentored Boba in return. The showdown came at the end of a four-episode arc that saw Boba and Cad team up for a rescue mission on Tatooine, before Cad eventually turned the tables on him. After a tense standoff lasting well over a minute, Boba and Cad draw on each other and fire. Only Boba survives, but the helmet doesn't escape unscathed. When the camera showed the smoldering and dented helmet in closeup, fans in attendance cheered. 

So there you have it: the origin of Boba Fett's iconic helmet dent. Of course, since this sequence never made it to air it can't be considered canon. But unless the upcoming spinoff of "The Mandalorian," "The Book of Boba Fett," provides an alternate explanation, this is the closest fans will get.