Cad Bane's look in The Book of Boba Fett was met with a lot of criticism, and now Star Wars just made the design changes worse. Confirming what many had speculated, gunslinger Cad Bane appeared in Boba Fett to provide services to the Pykes Syndicate and settle accounts with Tatooine's new crime boss. However, all the anticipation for a possible live-action appearance of the character was not entirely paid off as Bane's design left much to be desired, and the character was killed off too soon.
Like many characters that are showing up in the Disney+ Star Wars shows, Cad Bane originally appeared in the animated series Star Wars: The Clone Wars. Throughout the show's many arcs, audiences were able to follow Cad Bane on different missions, such as raiding the Jedi temple or kidnapping the Chancellor. Despite being a simple bounty hunter, Bane was skilled enough to take on Jedi like Anakin and Obi-Wan and at least survive to fight another day. After the end of Clone Wars, which did not feature the originally planned Cad Bane versus Boba Fett arc, Bane's next appearance before his The Book of Boba Fett role was in the also animated series Star Wars: The Bad Batch.
Cade Bane was another addition to the already large list of Star Wars characters who made the jump from animation to live-action. However, the design changes made when crafting the first-ever live-action Cad Bane did not nail the character – at least when compared to its Clone Wars counterpart. When The Book of Boba Fett episode 6 first aired, several possibilities were raised as to why Cad Bane looked so off, such as the focus could have been on the actor's performance or the visuals actually being a mixture of Bane's Clone Wars look and how the Duros' species looked like during the cantina scene in the original Star Wars. However, during Disney Gallery's Star Wars: The Book of Boba Fett episode, it is revealed that the show's art team was indeed aiming at a Cad Bane design that matched the one in Clone Wars. The Book of Boba Fett did not necessarily have to follow Bane's original Clone Wars look. Still, with that being explicitly mentioned as what the show was going for, the noticeable changes in the characters' design became even worse.
The less elongated face shape, the more rounded nose, the shape of the mouth, and the eyes size are some of the main changes made to Cad Bane's live-action design compared to Star Wars' animated shows Clone Wars and The Bad Batch. There was obviously some effort put into making the character true to its animated origins, but that may have been the cause for the problem. By aiming to replicate an animated look despite some things that cannot work in live-action, Star Wars reached an uncanny valley territory with Cad Bane. The design resembles the original one but with enough differences to break the immersion.
The failed attempt to recreate Cad Bane's Clone Wars look in The Book of Boba Fett is a symptom of a larger Star Wars problem. By connecting events from the animated series to live-action shows, such as Ahsoka having an important role in The Mandalorian universe or the Grand Inquisitor appearing in Obi-Wan Kenobi, Star Wars is setting itself up for a major challenge as to how properly translate those characters from one media to another. After the criticism leveled at Cad Bane, a new balance between finding something that works on live-action and trying to honor the original look must be found.
