Episode 1 of The Book of Boba Fett showed the main character needs to spend a lot of time inside his healing recovery chamber, but the show doesn’t initially explain why he uses it, so here’s everything you need to know about the Bacta Tank. It’s essentially a sealed water bath that the former Imperial bounty hunter sleeps in and while the details about what it does or how it works didn’t get explained early on in the show, it’s easy to guess that it’s designed to heal him.
As the series progressed, we’ve found out more about why Boba Fett has to sleep in the recovery chamber as it featured in Episode 2 and throughout the majority of Season 1, and you can see that he clearly needs it on a regular basis. He’s in the water bath right at the beginning of Episode 1 and even though he’s put in it after the attack in Mos Espa to recover, it seemed as though he might sleep in it, or at least use it daily, so the question is why.
AdvertisementIt looks pretty dangerous sleeping underwater, even with the oxygen mask, but let’s assume that it’s safe enough and Fett doesn’t do much tossing and turning when he’s inside the pod. In all fairness, it isn’t the first time we’ve seen a Bacta Pod being used. It’s just the first time we’ve seen one with a horizontal chamber, so it’s clearly an important element of The Book of Boba Fett storyline.
What is a Bacta Pod/Tank?
A Bacta Pod, or Tank, is a submersion bath therapy that is used to speed up the healing process. As you can see from the two big examples below, it can either be used as a one-off treatment for a specific problem or injury, or it can alleviate an ongoing issue that afflicts someone on an ongoing basis.
The tanks go back a long way in the Star Wars franchise. If you think back to The Empire Strikes Back you’ll remember that Luke was put in one to recover from his ordeal out on the ice planet of Hoff. You will have also seen Darth Vader inside a Bacta tank in Rogue One to maintain his life-support without needing his suit on. There are also various references to it throughout the wider Star Wars universe, including books, comics and computer games.
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Why Boba Fett needs to sleep in a Bacta Pod recovery chamber?
AdvertisementTo start to answer the question, you need to look at what the recovery chamber does. There’s a liquid solution that Boba Fett is submerged inside without his armor on, so his skin is in contact with it. There’s then an air supply of some kind too. This means that on the face of things, the recovery system can either work through the liquid itself, through the air supply or through a combination of the two.
However, we know from previous Star Wars stories that it is the liquid itself that is responsible for the healing and you need to have skin contact with it in order for it to work, which is why everyone is always billy buff whenever they’re inside one of the pods. The air supply is literally just to allow you to fully submerge, while still being able to breath effectively.
We know that it’s definitely a Bacta Pod, and not something new, because the one reference to the sleep bath in Episode 1 mentions it by name. It comes just after Fennec chases after the attackers in Mos Espa and the Gammorean guards help Fett up to his feet. It’s hard to make out what he says to them, but if you put the subtitles on, you can see that he instructs them, “get me back to the Bacta Pod”.
With this in mind, it’s safe to assume that Boba Fett probably uses the recovery chamber to heal some ongoing illness he has, because he appear to use it regularly. This is in addition to him using it specifically just after the attack to heal his injuries, which is similar to Luke using the Bacta tank to heal from the cold exposure he suffered on Hoff.
AdvertisementThis adds a new question to the situation, which is what long-term illness he might have. For this, the first thing we had to go on was from the dreams he has inside the pod. They appear to be flashback memories of his earlier life after his altercation with Luke Skywalker on Jabba the Hutt’s sail barge over the sands of Tatooine.
They pick up with Boba Fett inside the gut of the Sarlacc, which he’d fallen into during the battle on the barge. He manages to escape using his flame thrower, but is left out in the desert and his armor is taken by Jawas. To add insult to injury, he’s then taken prisoner by Tuskan Raiders, who tie him up outside, where he’s left day and night.
In the present, you can see that he’s got some kind of skin condition. It looks like it got burnt or damaged at some time in the past and with Sarlacc stomach acid and sun exposure it’s easy to see what might have caused it. This was the most likely reason he needs to spend so much time in the Bacta Pod, which would be similar to Darth Vader in Rogue One.
It was then confirmed in Episode 4 that he had been using the chamber to recover from the acid burns he’d suffered while inside the digestive sac of the Sarlacc. In this episode, it’s revealed that he has now fully recovered and his skin looks shiny and new, or at least as new as actor Temuera Morrison’s skin looks without any fake skin applications and make-up on.
AdvertisementThere was another angle that could have been explored in The Book of Boba Fett. It’s possible that he initially used the Bacta Pod for his skin condition, but then developed an addiction to it over time. This could have formed a part of the story with the Mandalorian battling his addiction along with everything else he and Fennec Shand must face together, but this doesn’t appear to be the case.
It’ll be interesting to see whether or not the Bacta Tank features in the second season, or if it appears in any of the other Disney+ Star Wars shows. Andor is currently under way and with the amount of heat he’s drawing it seems only a matter of time before he needs one. After that there will be The Mandalorian Season 3, so there are plenty of opportunities for the recovery chamber to feature one more.
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We’ll update things here as more details are confirmed about the Bacta Pod healing bath. You can also check out our TV news section to see other big releases, or visit the Disney+ website to see more on the show at https://www.disneyplus.com/.
