As the Star Wars watching public waits to see The Mandalorian & Grogu next summer, a new Star Wars project has just dropped on Disney+. And because the new four-part series takes creative liberties, we finally have the chance to see a notoriously divisive, but lesser-known character on the screen for the first time. Even though George Lucas quite openly hated him.
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New Star Wars show LEGO Star Wars: Rebuild the Galaxy – Pieces of the Past includes the Lepi smuggler Jaxxon T. Tumperakki. Never heard of him? There’s a reason for that. George Lucas apparently hated the large green rabbit-like alien so much that he insisted the character never be used after Jaxxon’s brief stint in the classic Star Wars Marvel comics. Yet much like Jar Jar Binks, the Star Wars fandom is wide and varied enough that Jaxxon garnered enough fans during his mere eight appearances in the Star Wars comics to be brought into the canon through the modern comics, merch, prose, and now, animated television.
Who is Jaxxon T. Tumperakki? And Why Did George Lucas Hate Him?
Jaxxon, an anthropomorphic green rabbit, or a typical member of the Lepi species, made his debut in the eighth issue of the classic Star Wars comics way back in November 1977. Jaxxon was an acquaintance of Han Solo, and in his comics debut, Jaxxon is recruited by Han and Chewbacca to protect a small village from local thugs on a small planet in the Outer Rim. Don’t let Jaxxon’s seemingly cute appearance fool you, though, from the get-go, the Lepi was characterized with a haughty disposition to mask his insecurity about Han Solo’s fame.
Jaxxon only appeared in a mere four issues afterward, since Star Wars creator George Lucas hated the character and comic writer Archie Goodwin was instructed by Lucasfilm to write Jaxxon out of the comics. The chief complaint around his character seemed to be that Jaxxon came off as too goofy, even in the wildly imaginative and fantastical Star Wars universe. We suspect it was his resemblance to such a common and innocuous creature here on Earth that invited the widespread criticism and mocking of Jaxxon.
The in-universe mocking of Jaxxon even went as far as Clone Wars, including what looks to be his skeleton in the episode “A Sunny Day in the Void”. Lucas went on to call it his favorite episode of the series, presumably due to the death of the Lepi. A 2014 issue of the new Marvel Star Wars comics seemed to perfectly encapsulate the sentiment about Jaxxon’s exile from both the fandom and canon’s good graces, in which they recreated the poster for the film Uncle Buck with Jaxxon trying to get through a door that’s being held shut by several beloved Star Wars characters.
Jaxxon’s Resurgence in the Star Wars Canon & Fandom
Although he was cut from the comics swiftly and decisively, Jaxxon’s infamy afforded him a considerable amount of staying power in the Star Wars fandom. The Lepi is immortalized as a six-inch Black Series Action figure, as a statue, and a pin at Star Wars Celebration London. Yet the writer who can perhaps take the most credit for resurrecting and redeeming Jaxxon is Cavan Scott. A fan of the character since childhood, Scott made Jaxxon a prominent part of his Star Wars Adventures: Ghost of Vader’s Castle run and annuals. Scott even wrote him into an unseen role in Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back via a short story in the From a Certain Point of View: The Empire Strikes Back anthology in 2020.
Like most fan-reviled pieces of Star Wars media, the fans and creators do eventually come around. In LEGO Star Wars: Rebuild the Galaxy — Pieces of the Past, Jaxxon returns with his bravado intact when Sig and his brother Darth Dev encounter the Lepi in the Force Hold, a secret realm full of discarded pieces of past galaxies, the one Sig destroyed included. Schwartz voices Jaxxon as a quick-talking, quick-witted refugee of the Force Hold, and it’s a perfect fit for LEGO Star Wars’ playful, irreverent, and meta tone as compared to other media in the universe. It may have taken nearly fifty years, but it seems Jaxxon has finally found the corner of the galaxy where he belongs and has even been embraced.
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