10 Minor Star Wars Characters Whose Stories Must Be Told

10. Wicket The Ewok

At first glance we’re on shaky ground here, because Wicket the Ewok, cutest of the sentient Endorian chipmunks, already has plenty of standalone presence thanks to the Ewoks cartoon series. But that series does not depict the Ewoks of Return of the Jedi, even if hindsight might conflate the two. No, the cinema-going public seems to have forgotten the first thing Star Wars teaches us about the Ewoks.

Ewoks are absolutely. Freaking. Terrifying.

Strangers arrive in their forest, and the Ewoks’ first reaction is to capture them in a net, drag them to their village, and cook them. Cook them while they are alive and conscious, while they are screaming and begging for mercy, and all in the name of their alien god. Wicket's tale unfolds in this horrifying tribal land, as he struggles to choose between being cast out as an exile, or becoming a cannibalistic monster.

Wicket's story is needed to show the horror inherent in Star Wars. Away from the bright lights of Coruscant and the dusty drinking holes of Tattooine, there is another world, a savage and bloodstained world the galaxy's sentient beings have no idea exists.