There are literally thousands of characters in the Star Wars universe. What we see in the movies (for the purposes of this post, I’m only referring to A New Hope, The Empire Strikes Back, and Return of the Jedi; Attack of the Clones? Never heard of it) is only a fraction of their life stories. You have to dip into the Expanded Universe, which includes tie-in novels, toys, comic books, television shows, and video games, to learn more, even if Disney now wishes you wouldn’t.
Here are seven obscure, but recognizable characters with crazy, and formerly canonical, histories (hat tip to the tireless authors of Wookiepedia for attempting to make sense of it all).
Cornelius Evazan and Ponda Baba
Such an odd couple. Cornelius, he of the messed-up pig face, was a cosmetic surgeon who went mad and began conducting horrible medical experiments on his patients. A bounty hunter returned the favor to Cornelius (hence his ugly mug), but he was saved by Ponda Baba, a petty, quick-to-anger thug. They teamed up and smuggled spices for Jabba. Everything was going swimmingly — minus the whole having the death sentence on 12 systems thing — until they ran into Obi-Wan and Luke in the Mos Eisley Cantina…
Dengar
Dengar is the hipster Boba Fett. All the cool kids know he’s the best bounty hunter that Darth Vader hired to find Han Solo. That’s because they have an ugly history. Before the events of The Empire Strikes Back, Dengar, who was sick of being compared to Han Solo on the swoop racing circuit (it’s sort of like pod racing), challenged the nerf herder to a winner-takes-all race. During the final lap, Solo’s swoop racer got a little too close to Dengar, and burned his face (so many damaged faces). He survived the injury, but became a steely half-cyborg. The only emotion Dengar listened to: Hate, of Han Solo.
Droopy McCool
Droopy McCool — his “real” name is actually Slit, but he prefers his stage persona — is one-fifth of the Max Rebo Band, the house entertainers at Jabba’s palace. The Chindinkalu flute player wasn’t always on Tatooine, though. Droopy was born on Kirdo III, but eventually moved to the slave trade planet Orvax IV, where he was bought by a musician named Evar Orbus, the frontman of Evar Orbus and His Galactic Jizz-Wailers. You might know their hit song, “(That Joyous Night) I Ate My Mate.” Also, yup, the Jizz-Wailers. In the Star Wars universe, jizz is described as “an upbeat, swinging genre of music.” This really is in a galaxy far, far away. Anyway, unlike Jabba, Droopy survived Luke’s siege, and disappeared into the sandy, jizzy night.
Lobot
How did Lobot get his… thing? Is it a visor, or a future-hat, or did he steal it from Geordi La Forge? The answer is, no. It’s actually a cybernetic implant he received after being arrested by the Bespin Wing Guard (think Cloud City cops) for stealing. Lobot, who’s mute by choice (he can speak, but only in fragmented, brief sentences, thanks to the surgery) was forced to 15 years of community service and become a cyborg. Tough, but fair.
R5-D4
R5-D4 is arguably the most important character in the galaxy. Not Luke, not Han, not Leia, but R5-D4, or as he’s known in the Star Wars Tales comic series, Skippy the Droid. The events of Episode IV and beyond wouldn’t be possible without him. Skippy is a rare droid with the Force, and his “hokey religion” takes him to the desert, where he’s nabbed by a Jawa, who brings him to a certain moisture farm. Skippy senses the Force in Luke, and wants to be picked by the future Jedi master. Until he envisions stormtroopers taking R2-D2 and his message from Leia to Darth Vader. The Rebellion would be squashed before it even started. So, R5-D4 sacrifices himself — it’s a bad motivator! — and uses the Force on C-3PO to get Luke to pick R2-D2.
Salacious B. Crumb
Despite his closeness to and familiarity with Jabba, this mischievous little monkey-lizard, who looks like he belongs in The Dark Crystal, is actually a slave. If he couldn’t make his master laugh at least once a day, he’d be killed, probably death-by-Jabba-eating-you. Salacious’ laugh is the worst, but no one deserves that fate. And it never happened: He was blown up by the Rebels.
Sy Snootles
Here’s another member of the Max Rebo Band with a crazy backstory. Sy Snootles (never forget the single worst scene in the special editions… actually, scratch that, please do forget) was in an affair with Ziro Desilijic Tiure, better known as Ziro the Hutt, Jabba’s purple uncle. It was actually Jabba who hired Sy to go undercover as Ziro’s lipsticked lover, in an attempt to retrieve sensitive datapad information from his camp. Their plan worked. Jabba got what he needed, and Sy shot and killed Ziro with a blaster. Family, am I right?
