Six Super-Evil Star Wars Villains Who Only Got a Second of Screentime

Every Star Wars character, no matter how minor, has their own complex backstory.Thanks to a robust line of (now possibly obsolete) Expanded Universe books and comics, dozens of science fiction’s top writers have crafted some crazy backstories for some of Star Wars‘ strangest creatures.So, it probably isn’t a surprise that several of the background characters in the various Star Wars movies and TV series are just as terrifying as Darth Vader or Boba Fett.They might not enjoy the screentime of some of their evil peers, but that doesn’t mean that Luke Skywalker or Han Solo would want to encounter one of these monsters on some backwater planet.Here’s some of our favorite Star Wars villains who barely got any time to shine on camera:

IG-88

An assassin droid from Mechis III, IG-88 made a brief appearance in Empire Strikes Back as one of five bounty hunters sent by Darth Vader to hunt down Han Solo and his friends.  Although IG-88 was considered one of the best bounty hunters in the galaxy, eagle eyed fans spotted the remnants of IG-88 in the bowels of Cloud City, hinting that the droid suffered a hapless fate during its pursuit of the Corellian smuggler.   

Science fiction writer Kevin J. Anderson revealed that IG-88 was actually one of four assassin droids who shared the name IG-88.  Shortly after gaining sentience, the IG-88 droids wiped out the population of the factory planet Mechis III and started their plan to subjugate all biological life in the galaxy.  Taking control of Mechis III, IG-88 added coding to newly manufactured droids that would turn them against their owners upon command.  In order to divert attention away from their true goals, one of the IG-88s became a bounty hunter with a reputation for collateral damage.   Boba Fett destroyed that particular IG-88, but not before it sent plans to the second Death Star to its counterparts.  While two of the remaining IG-88 droids unsuccessfully tried to kill Fett out of revenge, the “prime” IG-88 assimilated its programming into the Death Star mainframe, functionally becoming the second Death Star days before Rebel Forces destroyed it. 

Durge

Durge appeared in an episode of the Star Wars: Clone Wars as a monstrous bounty hunter assisting the Trade Federation in their battle against Obi-Wan Kenobi’s forces.  After Kenobi sliced up Durge with his lightsaber, the creature revealed his true form: a mass of infinite tentacles capable of mass regeneration.  Kenobi wasn’t the first Jedi Durge faced in battle.  He actually was over 2,000 years old and fought alongside the Sith during the New Sith Lords.  Capable of surviving almost any injury, Durge waged a one-man war against the Mandalorians before returning to help his Sith allies during the outbreak of the Clone Wars. Durge survived multiple battles against Kenobi (including one where Kenobi literally ripped him apart from the inside) until meeting his supposed final fate against Anakin Skywalker, who shot Durge into the sun.  The online video game Star Wars Galaxies revealed that Durge had somehow survived and had returned to bounty hunting, much to the chagrin of his old rival Boba Fett.

General Grievous

Revenge of the Sith depicted General Grievous as a wheezing half-cyborg coward who had no problem running away from a fight even though he had four cybernetic arms and lightsabers to spare.  Grievous’s first appearance in the Clone Wars cartoon was a far cry from the wheezing mess seen in Revenge of the Jedi, singlehandedly cornering and wiping out an entire team of Jedi.  After Grievous freed his planet from a species of mantis-slavers, Count Dooku arranged Grievous’s near death and transformation into a cyborg killing machine.  Under Dooku’s tutelage, Grievous became one of the galaxy’s most fearsome Jedi killers, wiping out scores of the already endangered Force warriors.  The Clone Wars TV series depicts Grievous as a much more dangerous threat than his movie counterpart, in part because it takes place before Grievous suffered a serious injury at the hands of Mace Windu, who crushed his chest and injured the cyborg’s few remaining internal organs.  

EV-9D9

EV-9D9 was the supervisor of Jabba the Hutt’s droids and assigned C-3PO and R2-D2 jobs after Luke “gifted” the droid to the Tattooine crime lord.  What the movies don’t mention about EV-9D9 is that she’s actually one of most sadistic characters in the entire Star Wars universe.  “Eve”, as her owners liked to call her, had a programming defect that allowed her to enjoy the pain and suffering of other robots.  She even had a third eye installed specifically calibrated to pick up on the soundwaves and frequencies robots gave off while being tortured.  Originally stationed at Cloud City, EV-9D secretly tortured and killed nearly 25% of the floating city’s droids before nearly destroying the city when security forces discovered her true motives. She later discovered her old boss Lando Calrissian had infiltrated Jabba’s palace and fled thinking that Lando was coming for her. 

Dannik Jerriko

One of the patrons of the Mos Eisley cantina, Dannik Jerriko was the pug-nosed man smoking a pipe at the bar.  Although Jerriko had an unassuming look to him, he actually was the closest thing the Star Wars universe has to a vampire. Jerriko’s race, the Anzati, had two retractable proboscises that could delve into victims’ skulls and suck out their brain.  As the Anzati needed to eat brains in order to survive, Jerriko became a bounty hunter in order to make some money while satisfying his vampiric urges.  Over a thousand years of brutal murders, Jerriko became known as “Death” among the criminal underworld, although he eventually drew his own bounty when he failed to assassinate Jabba the Hutt shortly before his death.  

Kardue’sai’Malloc

Unsurprisingly, the devil look alike lurking in the back of the Mos Eisley Cantina is one evil monster. Kardue’sai’Malloc was an army captain on his home planet ofDevaron until he brutally massacred several hundred war prisoners. Malloc became known as the Butcher of Montellian Serat and fled to Tattooine to escape his execution.  Hiding under a fake alias, Malloc gained a reputation as a music aficionado and a terrible spy. Eventually, his five million credit bounty was too much for bounty hunters to ignore.  Boba Fett captured him alive and delivered him to his home planet where he was fed to a group of starving reptilian canines.