10 Background Star Wars Characters With Ridiculously Convoluted Backstories

If you thought some of the most iconic and adored heroes and villains the galaxy far, far away has ever known possessed some rather complicated and fascinating backstories, then wait 'til you get a load of this bunch of often overlooked Star Wars characters.

Often found wandering around in the background while Chosen Ones are flying through podraces or icons are catching up with old friends in bars, the following forgettable alien figures and not exactly eye-catching droids have actually lived quite the lives within the Star Wars universe.

While you may just know this bunch of personalities as the people, creatures, and droids who clashed with legendary space wizards in Mos Eisley, didn't make it out of the original trilogy alive, and attempted to digest a famous bounty hunter, there's actually an awful lot more to all of them than meets the eye on-screen.

So, from secretly force-sensitive droids, to disillusioned stormtroopers who ultimately defected to the side of the heroes long before a certain FN-2187, here are those Star Wars background characters with the most unexpected and often complex backstories.

While he would go on to appear in more of a supporting capacity during The Mandalorian's third season - helping Din Djarin and pals on Mandalore - when it comes to the original Star Wars trilogy, the astromech known as R5-D4 was little more than an additional background droid.

Before he suddenly blew up not long after being acquired by Luke Skywalker and Uncle Owen and it became clear he had a "bad motivator", though, R5's life had certainly been an interesting one - both in Canon and Non-Canon.

In the former version of his backstory, Arfive worked alongside the Rebel Alliance for a spell before he eventually ended up with the Jawas and having his mind wiped four years before the events of Episode IV - A New Hope. 

Then, when R2-D2 and C-3PO popped up on the same sandcrawler he was travelling on, Artoo attempted to sabotage his fellow astromech as a way of ensuring he was the astromech sold next before explaining how the fate of the galaxy depended on him getting off the vehicle. 

Sure enough, those beeps eventually struck a chord with Arfive, leading to him purposely sabotaging himself so Artoo would be taken by Luke and Owen.

The Non-Canon backstory? Well, it involves Arfive (a.k.a. Skippy in the Skippy the Jedi Droid comic story) being revealed as a Force-sensitive droid (!), experiencing a shocking Force-vision that shows what would happen if he was purchased and not Artoo, and again blowing his own head up on purpose to make sure Artoo completed his mission.

What a hero.