Did Book Of Boba Fett Make A Deleted ‘A New Hope’ Scene Canon?
Scenes are deleted from movies for all sorts of reasons: time constraints, they're tonally inconsistent (with the rest of the film), pacing, they take the story in a different direction, or they're incomplete. But here's a question: how many deleted scenes have you seen that you felt should've remained in the movie?
The original cut of A New Hope featured more of Luke's life on Tatooine, and his interaction with his friends, Biggs Darklighter, Camie Marstrap, and Laze Loneozner, aka "Fixer."
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Biggs declares he's joining the Rebels and implores Luke to do the same in one scene. Luke wants to but feels obligated to his Uncle Owen, so he reluctantly declines. The whole sequence plays like an arthouse movie of nobodies discussing galactic events and how they fit into them.
When this cut of A New Hope failed to appeal, it was re-edited. All scenes with Biggs, Camie, and Fixer went. They're only referenced by Aunt Beru, who remarks to Uncle Owen that all Luke's friends have gone (a small fib, it seems in retrospect).
Biggs reappears in the rerelease of A New Hope – nope, not on Tatooine. Instead, he appears on Yavin and has a brief reunion with Luke before they board their X-Wings for the assault on the Death Star. Two old friends (one of them an incidental character) meeting – whatever could this mean?
Biggs is killed in the dogfight – just another building block in Luke's life gone. It doesn't mean as much as it could because this friendship has only existed for us (the audience) for minutes. It's not exactly a lot of time for us to have become invested in their friendship or gotten to know Biggs. He means as much to us as Porkins.
In making A New Hope, these scenes were cut due to pacing. It was deemed the opening was too slow. Once Darth Vader apprehended Princess Leia, they could jump much quicker into the story from Tatooine's perspective– introducing Luke, then Obi-Wan Kenobi, and how they were directly involved in the grander scheme things.
The simple examination of these deleted scenes would suggest they teach us more about Luke, but they actually do much more than that. They show us that there are people on Tatooine who are aware of the political situation and Imperial tyranny. If Luke, Biggs, Camie, and Fixer have these oppositional views, there must be others.
It also shows us that the Empire's pervasiveness must be bad enough that it's engendering this passion from teens whose primary concern should be goofing off and making trouble. And it also implies that there's enough awareness about the Rebels that somebody like Biggs could have a pipeline to them. (That's a curiosity in itself: how exactly do you join the Rebels?)
Chapter 2 of The Book of Boba Fett: The Tribes of Tatooine, featured a scene in Tosche Station – you know, where Luke whined he had to pick up some power converters. On this occasion, Boba Fett ducked back to find some speeder bikes.
And who happened to be there? None other than Camie Marstrap and Laze Loneozner. They're still stuck on Tatooine. (You have to wonder if they know their whiny old friend, Luke Skywalker, was instrumental in overthrowing the Empire or, like Rey, they think it's all just legend.)
It's a nice little easter egg from Jon Favreau and Dave Filoni – two people with a comprehensive knowledge of Star Wars and who have worked assiduously to rehabilitate the image that (arguably) the movies tarnished. Listen to either talk, and you hear their love of Star Wars.
It'd be easy to dismiss the appearance of Camie and Fixer as just some nifty trivia, but they legitimize these deleted scenes and canonize them to some extent. If Camie and Fixer exist, does their connection to Luke exist? Does that deleted exchange from A New Hope exist?
Also, if these deletions are valid, here are a couple of questions to consider. Do Favreau, Filoni, and company plan to do more with this thread? For example, will there be some scene where we see Camie and Fixer talking about Luke? Or will Luke reappear?
And if these deletions have been redeemed, what other scenes might be next? These scenes seem to be a simple Easter egg, so they could have wider repercussions in the Star Wars universe.