Disney has proactively obliterated the 40-year-old name of Star Wars bounty hunter Boba Fett’s starship, Slave 1 — a many see as an attempt to head off a woke backlash over the word “slave” in ship’s name.
The starship first appeared in the 1980 hit, The Empire Strikes Back and later in Attack of the Clones. It has also featured prominently in comics and novel treatments based on the Star Wars saga. At best there’s been lite criticism of the name but no big outcry has formed.
Despite a lack of any real push by fans, though, Disney was recently found to have ordered the Lego company to stop selling its model of the ship as “Slave 1,” Breitbart News reported in June. Lego began selling the ship model simply as “Boba Fett Starship.”
The explanation over the last few months came from insiders who told various fan sites that “Slave 1” was about to be dumped and Disney was laying the groundwork for the move by alerting vendors.
Now, according to website Bounding Into Comics, while it hasn’t made an official announcement, new promotional materials are showing that Boba Fett’s ship has taken on a new name: “Firespray.”
The site notes that Disney recently put out a notice that fans will be able to see several spaceships in its upcoming comic book series, Star Wars: War of The Bounty Hunters, and one of those ships will be “Boba Fett and Firespray.”
This has not mollified many hardcore fans because the ship has always been a “Firespray.” Deep diving fans point out that Boba Fett’s ship is a “Firespray-31 Patrol and Attack Craft.”
Mark Anthony Austin, who played the bounty hunter Boba Fett in Star Wars and worked as a digital graphics artist, slammed Disney’s decision months back.
“I cannot put into words how much I love this spaceship. It’s like Han has Chewie. I’ve always had Slave1. You cannot change that,” Austin said at the time.
I cannot put into words how much I love this spaceship. It’s like Han has Chewie. I’ve always had Slave1. You cannot just change that. #markanthonyaustin #slave1 pic.twitter.com/Qqwdt8uoAh
— Mark Anthony Austin (@BobaFettANHSE) June 28, 2021
The name change is just one more example of Disney’s efforts to woken its Star Wars property.
In March, the company proudly announced that it had introduced characters Terec and Ceret, who were paraded as the series’ first “trans non-binary Jedi Knights.”
Disney also fired actress Gina Carano from its Disney+ Star Wars series The Mandalorian because she violated wokneess by posting social media posts that executives considered too right leaning.
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