More Star Wars nonsense

Continuing my occasional series of entries into the Star Wars alphabet.

I

Ithorian

That’s the real name, apparently, of the extremely cool alien seen lurking in the Mos Eisley cantina, who tends to go by the name ‘Hammerhead’. He has a truly bonkers physical appearance, with a great big swooping head that seems to lunge forward from his body as if trying to escape. I’m not sure what he does or if there’s more than one of him. In my mind, he’s some kind of intergalactic bank manager, who had unwisely wandered into the cantina with some buddies after work. I think he’s secretly terrified of someone stepping on his massive head.

J

Jar Jar Binks

A fascinating and multi-layered character, he represents everything that is greatest about Star Wars. Deeply mysterious but with a wry sense of humour, his presence alone is enough to elevate any scene he is in up into the pantheon of cinematic greatness, alongside the deep focus photography in Citizen Kane and the awesome tracking shots in Goodfellas. It is one of the greatest tragedies of modern cinema that Jar Jar’s presence in Clones and Sith is so greatly reduced. It is almost as if, rather than being incredibly proud of his magnificent creation, as he *constantly* stated in the aftermath of Phantom Menace, Lucas was, in fact, massively embarrassed by Jar Jar, and considered him a stupid, useless, borderline racist, pointless waste of everyone’s time.

Klaatu Barada Nikto

This is the phrase uttered in ‘the Day the Earth Stood Still’ to stop the big shiny robot killing everything that moved. No one seems quite sure what it means (although if we asked the Bothans they’d probably make something up), but it is clearly a cool and useful phrase. Jabba the Hutt is clearly a big fan, as he chose three of his skiff guards on the basis that their names formed this phrase. Klaatu, Barada and Nikto are all present at Jabba’s Sarlacc barbecue, and probably all die horribly.