The beauty of the Star Wars universe is how timeless the story is. With storylines that span decades and fans across all ages, the movies clearly have important stars. No, not Carrie Fisher. Not Harrison Ford either.
We’re talking about the creatures! The furry ones, the big ones, the scary ones, and most importantly, the adorable ones. Since day one, each movie has had a wide range of fictional creatures populating each planet, each based on real animals from our planet.
Fathiers – Horse + Dog + Cat + Lion
This crazy combination of animals resulted in the majestic Fathiers. These creatures, who were destined to live their lives under the oppressive race-track culture on Canto Bight, break free after saving Finn and Rose from getting caught by The First Order.
The Fathiers were created entirely by the digital effects team. They are enormous creatures and physically superior, such as the horse and lion, with faces similar to a dog or cat. These gentle giants have personality traits that are similar to those animals that we have here on our Earth. They certainly captured our hearts from the moment they appeared on the big screen.
Vulptex – Arctic Fox
Towards the end of The Last Jedi, the audience got a glimpse of the crystal-covered Vulptex creatures on the planet Crait. These sparkly creatures are based on the Arctic Fox, the fluffy animals of the Arctic Tundra. The Arctic Fox can be found anywhere from Alaska to Iceland, and weighs between 6.5 to 17 pounds.
For the film, the creative director thought it would be interesting to see what these creatures would look like if they had crystals, instead of fur. The Vulptex ended up have coats that refracted light, and gave off shimmering rainbows of color.
Ewok – ???
In The Empire Strikes Back, Luke Skywalker, Leia Organa, and Han Solo were great and all. But the real stars of the show were the Ewoks.
These 3-foot tall creatures were helpful in defeating the Galactic Empire in the second installation of the original Star Wars trilogy. Our first guess was that the Ewoks were based on some kind of bear, since they look a lot like teddy bears (but fight like angry monkeys).
Supposedly, the Ewoks were based on a dog breed called Griffon Bruxellois. The visual effects director and make-up artist for the movie looked at photos of these dogs for inspiration when creating the Ewok.
You can see it… right?
The Porgs – Puffins
By far the cutest of all of the Star Wars creatures, the Porgs, were the true stars of the show in The Last Jedi. In this movie, Rey tracks down Luke Skywalker to his hideout on Ahch-To and it is filled with these curious, feathered cuties.
The Porgs are based on the Atlantic Puffin, which were all over the island that the Star Wars crew filmed these scenes on. In real life, the Atlantic Puffin can be found mostly in the sea, diving up to 200 feet into the water to catch fish. Porgs, on the other hand, can be found goofing around on Ahch-To.
