7 Star Wars Characters More Important Than You Realized

The Star Wars franchise is notorious for creating some of the coolest-looking background characters in science fiction and then giving them 30 seconds of screen time. And yet, some characters like Boba Fett—appearing in the original trilogy for just over six minutes — demand a fleshed-out backstory. That’s where the novels, comics, and video games come in. Whether through Legends or the current Disney-approved canon, you can rest assured that every obscure alien mercenary and put-upon droid has its place in the greater Star Wars narrative. However, not all side characters are created equal. While the likes Elan Sleazebaggano may have his own Wookiepedia entry, at the end of the day, he’s still just a glorified extra.

The following characters have, in one continuity or another, done something important to place them above and beyond their fellow supporting characters. It may not be evident just from watching the movies, but these characters have a lot going on behind the scenes. In fact, one or two of them are so integral to the Skywalker Saga that it wouldn’t have played out the same way without them. Without further ado, here are seven minor Star Wars characters that are more important than you realize.

Ephant Mon

Jabba the Hutt filled his palace in Star Wars: Episode VI – Return of the Jedi with all sorts of shady characters but out of all the degenerates hanging around his wretched hive of scum and villainy, only one called him a friend. Ephant Mon was an arms dealer and perhaps the only person in Jabba’s palace who wanted to be there. The two criminals came up through the underworld together, and when Jabba took his place as one of the galaxy’s biggest crime lords, it only made sense for Ephant Mon to tag along as his head of security. Unfortunately, the two BFFs had a falling out when Ephant Mon tried to convince Jabba to let Luke Skywalker and his friends go free. Jabba ignored his old friend, and as a result, Ephant Mon went on to have many post-Jabba adventures while the Hutt met a painful demise at the hands of Luke’s sister, Leia Organa.

Benthic  “Two Tubes“

Rogue One: A Star Wars Story may have sold itself as a more grounded affair than the other Star Wars films, but that doesn’t mean it didn’t still have its share of exotic aliens. One such alien—Benthic—turned out to have a rich history offscreen. Introduced as part of Saw Gerrera’s group of resistance fighters, the Partisans, Benthic actually got his first taste of rebellion several years earlier when the Empire took over his home planet of Yar Togna. Left without a home, Benthic — also known as “Two Tubes” after the breathing apparatus he was forced to wear on oxygen-rich planets — and his eggmate (brother) Edrio joined up with pirate leader Enfys Nest. As a Cloud-Rider and later a Partisan, Benthic was instrumental in helping a pre-Alliance rebellion stand up to the Empire while inspiring countless others to take up the cause in the process.

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Toryn Farr

The Battle of Hoth is one of the high points of the Skywalker Saga despite being a low point for the actual Skywalkers. In fact, The Empire Strikes Back — downer than it is — would have been even more depressing — not to mention shorter, if not for the actions of communications officer Toryn Farr. Along with being one of the only women in the original trilogy other than Princess Leia, Farr was instrumental in allowing the Rebels to escape their base on Hoth relatively unscathed. She was in charge of coordinating Echo Base’s ion cannon during the Rebel’s emergency evacuation. It was Farr who gave the command to fire on the Imperial Star Destroyer Tyrant, disabling the ship long enough for the Rebel transport Quantum Storm to shoot through Darth Vader’s blockade and make the jump to lightspeed. If it weren’t for Toryn Farr’s quick thinking, the Rebellion would have ended on Hoth, and the Skywalker Saga would have ended after just two movies.

IG-88

Like all the bounty hunters introduced in The Empire Strikes Back, IG-88 was designed to stand there and look cool, and that’s pretty much it. Luckily for him, several Legends creators had other ideas for the assassin droid. Technically, IG-88 is four droids — IG-88A, IG-88B, IG-88C, and IG-88D — all of whom shared the identity of the galaxy’s second most feared bounty hunter. Which IG unit is which gets pretty complicated, but at least one IG-88 managed to upload itself into the Deathstar II, essentially making it one giant droid. Had the Rebels failed in their plan to destroy the battle station, IG-88 intended to take over every droid in the galaxy in hopes of leading a grand droid revolution. Unfortunately, thanks to those pesky freedom fighters, IG-88 was never able to complete his master plan, though he did get to mess with Emperor Palpatine by locking the Sith in his throneroom for a little while, so his Deathstar takeover wasn’t all in vain.

Malikili (The Rancor Keeper)

Jabba the Hutt’s Rancor may have been a monster, but even monsters deserve love. Enter Malikili, Jabba’s personal Rancor handler and the closest thing the beast ever had to a mother. Malikili had a special relationship with the Rancor, and the beast allowed him to treat its wounds and even hang out during meals without attacking. The bond between the two was so strong that the Rancor once threw away a chance to escape Jabba’s palace forever in order to rescue Malikili from a gang of Tusken Raiders. Sadly, Malikili would have his heart broken soon after when Jabba the Hutt threw Luke Skywalker into the Rancor pit, resulting in the creature’s death.

Dr. Evazan and Ponda Baba

This inseparable pair of Star Wars villains started out with a violent cameo in Star Wars: A New Hope, and their story only got more horrific from there. Cornelius Evazan was a respected plastic surgeon until he decided it would be more fun to create grotesque body horror abominations that would make David Cronenberg blush. At some point, Evazan picked up reluctant sidekick Ponda Baba, and the two carved their way through the galaxy, racking up death sentences on more than 12 systems. Throughout both Legends and Canon, this deadly duo menaced their fair share of innocents while occasionally butting heads with various heroes and antiheroes. If you’ve ever wondered what Star Wars might look like through the eyes of Rob Zombie, look no further than Dr. Evazan and Ponda Baba.

R5-D4

Even the most hardcore Star Wars fans may not know just how important R5-D4 is to the Skywalker Saga and the greater Star Wars narrative as a whole. To put it bluntly, without R5-D4, the original trilogy would have been about twenty minutes long. You may recgonize R5 as the first astromech droid Luke and his Uncle Owen bought from the Jawas in A New Hope. What you probably don’t know is that the plucky little droid purposely blew his motivator so that Luke would have to buy R2-D2 instead. Thanks to a long talk with R2 aboard the Jawa Sandcrawler, R5 realized just how important it was that the Rebellion get the information the other droid was carrying. Knowing that the fate of the galaxy was in his hands-er-retractable metal claw, R5-D4 bravely sacrificed himself so that R2-D2 could carry out his mission. Now, that’s a hero!