Minor Star Wars Characters Who Need Spin-Offs

This summer, the Star Wars rumour mill kicked into high gear once again thanks to an exclusive from The Hollywood Reporter’s Borys Kit. Kit wrote that Oscar-nominated director Stephen Daldry would be directing a spin-off centred around Obi-Wan Kenobi, and that Lucasfilm were also considering movies featuring other fan favourite characters to fit in around the three trilogies, Rogue One and the (still!) untitled Han Solo film.

Many fans seemed excited, others less so. The alleged decision to choose characters already given a trilogy or two dedicated to their stories (Obi-Wan, Yoda), secondary characters whose involvement smacked more than a little of fan-service (Boba Fett) drew everything from exasperation to downright ridicule (Jabba the Hutt movie, anyone?).

Still, as many commentators observed, this is Star Wars: whether it’s Obi-Wan’s tales from the desert or Boba Fett’s thousand-year digestion in the belly of the Sarlacc, you can be sure as the (twin) sunrise that audiences will shell out the cash. But just how far will this goodwill/franchise loyalty/slavish devotion (delete as appropriate) stretch? To find out, I drew up my own roster of minor and background characters who could star in their own standalone films...

Ben Quadinaros:

The excitable Podracer pilot who spectacularly lost control of his BT310 during the Boonta Eve Classic in The Phantom Menace wasn’t always a failure. This Rush-style racing drama would showcase his rise to power across the raceways of the galaxy, from Malastare to Ando Prime. High on a string of wins and against the advice of his sponsors, the skittish Toong invests his reward money into highly-experimental pods, ignoring his exasperated pit droid team’s complaints. A fellow racer attempts to copy one such design, and is killed in a mid-race explosion. Arrogantly confident that he can control the pod, Quadinaros journeys to Tatooine and, in the closing moments of the movie, takes his seat in the four-engine monster that will soon lose him everything.



Kitster:

This dark character study examines the life of an impoverished Tatooine teen when his best friend, Anakin Skywalker, suddenly leaves to follow his dreams of becoming a Jedi. Without the interest of Anakin’s racing exploits to excite them, Kitster’s friendship group lose interest in him. We cut to ten years later: the Clone Wars are being broadcast across the galaxy. A jealous Kitster, now a grown man, spends his evenings in the cantina, cursing his old friend as he is forced to watch Anakin hailed as a champion of the Republic again and again. In a biting piece of metanarrative, Kitster – who, in the 18 years since Episode I came out, has never been replicated as an action figure – burns a stall selling holo-posters and toys of his old friend.

Zuckuss and 4-LOM:

This chirpy buddy comedy details the exploits of the two bounty hunters seen aboard the Executor during Darth Vader’s search for the Millennium Falcon. Sick of being belittled and mocked by Boba Fett, Bossk and the rest, the duo makes it their mission to secure the Falcon first. Unfortunately, the hapless Gand mercenary and his droid companion learned everything they know about Bounty Hunting from watching the galaxy far, far away's equivalent of 21 Jump Street, and, in their haste to prove themselves, weave an accidental path of destruction across the cosmos. The film’s recurring gag is that everyone from assailants to clients and producers of wanted holograms keep mistaking them for one another, due to their fly-like heads.

Salacious B. Crumb:

Think King of Comedy with a Kowakian Monkey Lizard instead of Robert De Niro's Rupert Pupkin. Crumb, sleeping rough on the streets of Mos Eisley and taking whatever grimy cantina gig comes his way, dreams of playing the premiere clubs of Tatooine. During a particularly raucous pub brawl, he kidnaps one of Jabba’s henchmen in a desperate plea for attention, offering the bodyguard’s release for a chance to entertain the gangster. Given De Niro’s recent propensity to take even the most degrading gig (see Dirty Grandpa…actually, don’t), I can’t imagine he’d need much persuasion other than a lucrative Disney paycheck to voice the gnarly creature. In accordance with the recurrent preference for practical effects over CGI and against the advice of film historians, the original – rapidly degenerating – puppet will be used.



Constable Zuvio:

Remember Niima Outpost's very own long arm of the law from The Force Awakens? If you answered yes, you'd be lying, because – despite getting a whole article in Empire magazine dedicated to his first appearance – poor Zuvio was cut from the film, appearing only in a blink-and-you'll-miss-it moment during Rey and Finn's escape from the First Order. For the sake of justice, I say we give him his own movie. Jakku Vice? Heat (because it's a desert planet, geddit)? They can even throw in a cameo from a now-ancient C2-B5, Rogue One’s Imperial astromech droid, similarly left on the cutting room floor. They'll save a fortune in merchandise, too: why manufacture new action figures when you can simply apply a new logo sticker onto the hordes of plastic policemen still warming the pegs of your local toy shop? Gotta shift those Funko Pops somehow!