It’s MAY THE FOURTH: Calling Coruscant Central Casting!
By JIM BEARD
One of my favorite lines from a 1977 review of the first Star Wars movie said something like, “Lucas populates every frame with throwaway background characters that other filmmakers would make an entire film about.”
That’s stuck in my mind all this time not only because it was speaking my love language, but because there’s something really cool in that assessment that I think speaks to the beauty of the property. Star Wars is not just about its characters; it’s about a galaxy. And that stretch of space is populated with the best background denizens of any science fiction production ever.
I’m going to take this reasoning one step further and lay out my favorite 13 such background beings from the entire OG trilogy. I hope you’ll find a few of your favorites in this list, too. After all, there’s literally a Star Wars character for everyone.
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Silver Threepio (A New Hope, 1977). There are two ballsy things in the very first character scene in A New Hope. One is that there are no humans, and another one is that C-3PO is not unique. Right from the get-go, Lucas tells us that this galaxy is full of robots and some of them have been stamped from the same mold, just colored differently. And, as we soon learn a few seconds later, it’s what’s inside these protocol droids that counts.
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He Owns Utini (A New Hope, 1977). Did he know? Did he think about it? Did he ever suspect that one little Jawa would go down in film history just from one simple little word? And here’s another important question to ponder: Did he still get royalties every time someone else screams, “Utini”?
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Cantina Sideburns (A New Hope, 1977). My fandom for the guy with the sideburns and spacesuit chatting with Chewbacca really grew out of Decipher’s Star Wars Customizable Card Game (where I learned he’s named “BoShek”). Why? Because he seems like a cool cat who might’ve looked right at home in Arnold’s Drive-In, dipping his fries in a shake and eyeing the chicks. BoShek was cool, Daddy-o…
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Simple Scanners (A New Hope, 1977). Pity the poor Imperial duo who got the orders to haul their scanning equipment onboard the Millenium Falcon only to… what? Get knocked out? Killed? I mean, geez, they weren’t even soldiers, just two dudes from IT who had a simple job to do and probably got court-martialed afterward — if they even survived the destruction of the Death Star. Always felt bad for them.
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The Clunktrooper (A New Hope, 1977). You know him, you love him, he’s the guy who storms the Death Star control room with his trooper team, only to realize too late the door wasn’t going to rise anymore than it did. So weird and wonderful that his faux pas is not only immortalized on celluloid, but it even has a sound effect of the impact of helmet against door just to rub it in.
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Biggs (A New Hope, 1980). Very little past that needs to be said. I will add that when you go from a supporting character down to a brief walk-on and your fiery death, you’re owed something from someone. Just sayin’.
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Ion Cannon Ice Queen (The Empire Strikes Back, 1980). I remember it was a little shocking the first time I saw Toryn Farr. It was unusual, you see, and please forgive me, because the first film really only had two women with any significant face time, but here was this seemingly mature Rebel lady in charge of the ion cannon—who was she? And where had she been all this time? Will I ever see her again? Is that fair, I ask you?
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Hey, Needa Drag, Man? (The Empire Strikes Back, 1980). The Empire seems to have a lot of guys who have the crappiest jobs in the fleet. Look at the two troopers who, with a simple gesture from Vader, have to pick up Captain Needa’s lifeless body and drag him off to what I presume is either a morgue, or, more likely knowing the Empire, an airlock. Yikes. I’d be refreshing my resume if I were them.
Needa in better times.
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Hiss-y Fit (The Empire Strikes Back, 1980). My favorite background figure of all time is, of course, big, bad Bossk. OK, he maybe ranks as a bit more than just a background dude, but he doesn’t have any dialogue (in English) and barely moves, but he is so damn cool to look at. I kind of regret that over the years he’s become a bigger deal in books and comics and whatever, because it takes some of the mystery out of the very best lizard-man ever.
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I Scream, You Scream… (The Empire Strikes Back, 1980). Willrow Hood, late of Cloud City, has to be the poster boy for what I’m laying down here. His fame, his legend, has spread to the point that an entire convention cult has sprung up around him, simply because he knew the jig was up and the Emperor had finally caught up to him because of “Palpatine Pistachio,” and it was time to cut his losses and run. And run he did, right into our hearts.
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Maybe He Wants to Be a Dentist (Return of the Jedi, 1980). One of the great shames of the Jabba’s palace sequence is that they upped the ante on aliens, but by doing so gave short shrift to even more characters than the Mos Eisley cantina ever did. Hermi Odle’s a great example of this. What is he exactly? Doesn’t matter, because flying in the face of his, ahem, less-than-stellar looks is the fact that you just want to give him a big ol’ hug — sometimes just for his name alone.
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Comfortably Nunb (Return of the Jedi, 1980). See, kids, if you join the Empire, you’ll probably get a sucky job like cleaning up corpses… but in the Rebellion, you could, I dunno, maybe be the co-pilot on the Millenium Falcon. Huh? Huh? It’s a cushy job, and you get to meet people and go places and hang out with card players like Lando Calrissian, so there’s that, too. Love this little guy.
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Dignity Has Nothing to Do With It (Return of the Jedi, 1980). One of the great regrets of my writing career is that my Imperial Dignitary story pitch to Dark Horse Comics was not accepted and I never got to bring one of these dudes into the light. Why? You’ll love this: “Too minor of a character.” Yep. That’s right. In the world of minor Star Wars beings, the Imperial Dignitary is not fit to have his story told. The Emperor will listen to what he has to say, but not editors. Nope.
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MORE
— ATTACK OF THE MOUSE DROID: 13 Favorite STAR WARS Projects of the DISNEY Era — RANKED! Click here.
— Dig These 13 Far Out STAR WARS Characters Found Only in Classic MARVEL COMICS. Click here.
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When JIM BEARD’s not editing and publishing through his two houses, Flinch Books and Becky Books, he’s pounding out adventure fiction with both original and licensed characters. In fact, he’s put words in the mouths of Luke Skywalker, Superman, Fox Mulder, Carl Kolchak, Peter Venkman and the Green Hornet… and lived to tell about it. Check out his space opera novella, Treble Swift and the Solar Symphony, available here.
