The best trick that George Lucas ever pulled was filling the edges of the frames in his movies with absolutely batshit nonsense and forcing a bunch of authors, toymakers and video game studios to attempt to fit that nonsense into the larger tapestry of the Star Wars universe.
While most of the talk about the films is dedicated to the characters who have things like speaking roles, credits, and an impact on the plot, we thought we’d take some time to focus on the unsung heroes of the franchise: all the weirdos loitering silently in the background that have inexplicably been given extremely detailed backstories.
Squidface McJedi
Jedi master Kit Fisto plays a very limited role in the films – accomplishing the sum total of knocking over a few droids in Attack of the Clones and getting very quickly killed by Darth Sidious in Revenge of the Sith – but he’ll always hold a special place in my heart. Why? For no reason other than his beautiful smile. What a chill dude.
The bounty hunter who looks like someone’s unemployed uncle
Flanked by a psychopathic killer robot, a fearsome reptile man, some insectoid bastards, and Boba Fett (the canonical coolest man in the universe), Dengar sticks out as a kind of schlubby looking interloper. Maybe he’s such a badass that he doesn’t need to look cool. Maybe he wears that dumbass thing on his head as a bandage for an injury he sustained in the sickest adventure you can imagine. It’s impossible to say – well, impossible now that the expanded universe is no longer canon.
Butthead Dan and the Butthead Band
None of us will ever know what Lucas was thinking when he decided to call the genre of music that the cantina band was playing ‘jizz’ and, even more bafflingly, none of us will ever know why Lucas decided to give that same band butts for heads. Nevertheless, Figrin D’an and the Modal Nodes will forever be immortalised in A New Hope as they fart out an exceptionally catchy 30 seconds of jizz for centuries to come.
Female mullet Yoda
Lucas was deliberately tight-lipped about the origins and specificities of whatever the hell species Yoda is, but the inclusion of Yaddle on the Jedi Council in The Phantom Menace gave us one very crucial piece of information about them: despite Yoda’s mess of sparse, wiry cranial pubes, they clearly do have the capacity to grow a beautiful, luscious mullet.
Glam chicken-snake Jedi
Trained by Yaddle, Jedi master Oppo Rancisis is arguably the most extra of all the minor Star Wars characters. Rancisis has the tail of a snake, the beak of a chicken, the beard of a dwarf king, and the hair of John Travolta in Hairspray. Rancisis doesn’t have a speaking role in any of the films, presumably because the sound they make would be an indecipherable chicken noise.
Girl, look at that body:
Albino Rowlf the Dog with emphysema
What would Star Wars be without a big hairy thing with a big gun? Absolutely nothing. Rogue One‘s addition to the BHTWBG canon was Moroff, a silken haired mercenary working for Saw Gerrera that carried a big fuck-off gun and wore a gas mask, presumably for the treatment of some chronic illness. Fuck, look at those brows.
The opera singer made of titties in The Last Jedi
While Star Wars has had multi-boobed women (Yarna d’al’ Gargan) and alien songstresses (Sy Snootles) before, The Last Jedi marked the first time that the two were combined into one. If you believe everything you read, Ubbla Mollbro is covered in eggs, not titties, but you and I know the truth. “Engorged egg sac” my ass.
Jabba the Hutt’s rat-weasel hype man
Say what you will about powerful crimelord and horny dickhead Jabba the Hutt, he did one thing right: he employed one fucked up looking muppet full-time to laugh at all of his jokes. Salacious Crumb is one of the elite cadre of Lucas creations who was almost definitely named at 4:59 on a Friday afternoon.
Galactic Senate Sinéad O’Connor
While she might look like a backup dancer from a Björk performance art piece, Sly Moore was the senior administrative aide to Chancellor Palpatine before his reveal as Darth Sidious / eventual rise Emperor Palpatine. Fun fact: Emperor Palpatine’s first name is “Sheev“. Lol.
The praying mantis from the cantina scene
Given a fantastical space universe that gave him the ability to create any sort of creature he wanted, Lucas decided to make one of the aliens in the Mos Eisley cantina just a really big version of a common insect. You can’t really see it, but they tried to make it clear that Kitik Keed’kak is a female of her species by putting her in a big skirt. According to Wookieepedia, her diet consists of meat and eggs. Fascinating stuff.
Blue keyboard elephant
Everybody loves Max Rebo, the lovely blue elephant who plays space keyboard. He might have been a murderous bastard but, when you think about it, it’s pretty cool that Jabba the Hutt supported local music. Big ups.
Alopecia butler
What he doesn’t have in hair, Lobot makes up for in having huge electronic shit plugged into his head. Before working as Lando‘s aide, Lobot ran “battlefield calculations” for the Empire, making him a pro-fascist collaborator – but damn is he a snappy dresser.
Weepy shirtless rancor-friend
Truly, it doesn’t matter if you’re a child with a pet dog or a shirtless dude in a dumb leather hat who is employed to maintain the killing tool of an interplanetary gangster whose syndicate controls a planet in an iron grip of crime and terror – the bond between man and animal is a universal experience. We understand that the rancor had to die for Luke to live, but seeing Malakili grieve for it made us all wonder if that death was truly necessary.
Fu Manchu camel
Who could forget everyone’s favourite, the disconcerting camel-faced beast with potentially racist facial hair? Saelt-Marae was chilling on Jabba the Hutt’s dope pleasure barge in Return of the Jedi and was originally released as a toy under the name Yak-Face, the name given to him during production. Buddy, you got a weird ass face.
