Star Wars: 10 Truly Disturbing Side Character Backstories

To Chewbacca's friends he's a gentle giant. To his enemies he's a force of furry nature. Like so many characters who ultimately ended up fighting the Empire, Chewie's disdain for them was not unwarranted, with two specific events likely contributing to this.

Towards the end of the Clone Wars, his people were betrayed by their former clone trooper allies. He witnessed many Wookies killed or sold into slavery, and was eventually captured himself.

Forced to work and tormented by his captors, the Wookie became increasingly more animalistic. The restrictive and oppressive life of slavey had a marked impact on a creature who once roamed the forrest planet of Kashyyyk.

Chewbacca was eventually freed with the help of Han Solo, but before they became reluctant heroes, they also witnessed one of the worst atrocities the Empire inflicted on its own people.

Part of Chewbacca's Legends history involved he and Han being incarcerated on an Imperial prison barge. The barge breaks down, but stumbles across a seemingly derelict Star Destroyer, which can be used for spare parts.

A boarding party soon discovers the Destroyer was the sight of a biological weapons experiment. Only a handful of inmates and prison guards survive, after being exposed to a deadly virus - Chewbacca and Han among them. What follows is essentially Dawn of the Dead in space, with the survivors battling hordes of undead storm troopers, reanimated by the virus.