The Book Of Boba Fett finally tells the story of how Boba Fett escaped the Sarlacc pit which he famously fell into in Return Of The Jedi when he was fighting Han Solo.
His escape was one of those moments in the Star Wars fandom that was never confirmed, but was heavily hinted at in numerous Legends tales and fan theories.
Since we now know that Boba escaped the Sarlacc pit, the biggest open question now is how long did he spend in there? It’s actually quite unclear, but this article aims to answer this burning question whilst giving a bit of background information regarding Boba Fett.
What Is The Book Of Boba Fett?
We first saw that Boba had survived the Sarlacc in season 2 of The Mandalorian, when he teamed up with Mando and Fennec Shand to fight the stormtroopers trying to take Grogu and suited up in his famous armor during the fight.
Boba Fett’s appearance in The Mandalorian was executed perfectly, it let the audience know he was truly alive and hinted that we may be seeing more of him, which is where The Book Of Boba Fett comes in.
The Book Of Boba Fett was released on Disney+ in December of 2021, and it wasted no time in showing us Boba escaping the Sarlacc.
Within the first two minutes of the first episode we’re shown a flashback to his escape where we watch him use his flamethrower gauntlet to burn a hole in the creature’s body and in the next scene we see him crawling out of the sand.
It’s a brilliant opening scene as it quickly addresses the burning question many Star Wars fans had for years and closes it in the same breath, leaving the story to progress to what The Book Of Boba Fett is actually about- establishing himself as the new Daimyo of Mos Espa.
How Did Boba Fett Survive The Sarlacc Pit?
Now if you’re unsure of what the Sarlacc pit is, it’s essentially a huge creature that resides under the sand that feeds on other creatures and humanoids and victims of the Sarlacc would either die from suffocation, the acid or both.
The Sarlacc of Tatooine was one of Jabba the Hutt’s favorite pets and he used this as a means of execution, Jabba also said that when someone is thrown into the pit they endure immense pain and are slowly digested over a thousand years due to their weak stomach acid, it’s unsure if this was ever found to be true, but it’s scary nonetheless!
So if Boba Fett was stuck inside the creature, how did he survive the indescribable pain and suffering of being digested?
We have the canon answer from The Book Of Boba Fett now, but some Legends tales explained how he survived before Disney purchased Lucasfilm, making quite a lot of things from Legends non-canon now.
How He Survived In Legends
The best explanation of how Boba survived in Legends is from A Barve Like That: The Tale of Boba Fett in the anthology book Tales From Jabba’s Palace.
This book isn’t considered canon anymore, but it’s still interesting to hear previous tales about how Boba escaped almost certain doom.
In this story, Boba wakes up in the Sarlacc trapped in the creature’s tentacles and his armor has been quite badly damaged from the creature’s stomach acid.
This story is quite convoluted and strange, so bear with us. Boba finds that he has a telepathic link to the other victims of the Sarlacc and he’s able to communicate with them (telepathically, of course).
When he finds the Sarlacc’s first victim, Susejo, he works with the victim to hatch an escape plan. This escape plan consists of using his jetpack to explode out of the creature’s grasp and then use grenades to escape from the Sarlacc’s stomach altogether. Weird- We know!
How He Survived In The Book Of Boba Fett
You’re probably more interested in the actual canon reason of how he survived the Sarlacc, and The Book of Boba Fett gave us visual evidence of exactly how he survived.
In the flashback to his time in the Sarlacc, we see a half-digested stormtrooper and Boba takes some extra oxygen from this trooper and this allows Boba to use his flamethrower to bust a hole in the Sarlacc and climb out.
He almost didn’t survive though, whilst he’s passed out on the ground, his armor is stolen by Jawas and then he is captured by a Tusken Raider clan.
We won’t say much about this, we’ll leave you to find out what happens. But we know that being in this creature’s digestive system took a toll on him, as we see him recuperating in a Bacta Tank within a minute of the first episode.
So, How Long Was He In The Sarlacc Pit For?
This was never actually addressed in The Book Of Boba Fett, but from the few clues we can gather on screen, it was probably a few days at the most.
When Boba collapses on the sand, we can see the wreck of Jabba’s sail barge behind him, all the fires had put themselves out but the wreck is still intact.
With the protection of his armor and the need for food and water, he was probably in there for around 1-3 days, any longer and he would have died from natural causes or the creature’s stomach acid.
Final Thoughts
The Book Of Boba Fett is still yet to actually address how long he was in the Sarlacc pit for, it might never be addressed due to the writers not thinking its important, but it would be interesting to know how long he survived on pure survival instinct alone.
He was probably in the creature’s stomach for only a few days at the most, as he would’ve succumbed to the dehydration and starvation from being in the creature’s digestive system in no time.
Brad Burnie is the founder of Starships.com. He loves all video game genres. In his spare time, he loves reading, watching movies, and gaming
