Top Five Most Useless Star Wars Characters

By Megashaun

1. Ponda Baba

Who is he?
In Star Wars: A New Hope, Luke Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi enter the Mos Eisley Cantina in search of a pilot willing to fly them to the Alderaan System. Luke orders a drink and an alien with an ass for a mouth takes exception to the young traveller’s looks. That alien is Ponda Baba, a creature from the Aqualish race.

I am the Walrus.

Prior to 1989, he was known only as “Walrus Man,” which is odd considering walruses typically do not have poop-chutes for mouths (though admittedly, I’m no expert on walrus physiology). But by 1989, the Star Wars role-playing game had gathered a following among hardcore fans. During this time, the game’s publisher, West End Games, was given license to further populate the Star Wars universe. This involved bringing names, personalities, and history to many of the trilogy’s background characters.

In a sense, the existence of the role-playing game was a springboard for the development of the many Expanded Universe Star Wars stories such as the Dark Force Rising series by Timothy Zahn and the excellent and foreboding Dark Empire comic series by Cam Kennedy. Interest in these stories was so great that it prompted a resurgence in Star Wars popularity. In terms of marketing, it also allowed for the release of the Special Editions and Prequel Trilogy. Ironically, Episodes 1 through 3 have rewritten much of the stories behind some of the supporting background characters, making all the great work from these passionate contributors inaccurate.

Why Ponda Baba is useless:
He tries picking a fight with Luke, a kid who was accompanied by a Jedi. Sure, by this point in time Jedi were thought to be extinct but the movie takes place a mere 18 years or so after the Jedi have been killed off. Did Baba not recognize the outfit Obi-Wan was wearing? Poor Baba leaves that fight with his life, but disarmed. Literally. Kenobi cuts his arm off, thus ending the confrontation.

2. Dengar

The next guy who calls me
Claude Rains gets shot in
the ass, okay?

Who is he?
Dengar is a human from Corellia (like Han Solo) and one of the many bounty hunters hired by the Empire to track down the Millennium Falcon in The Empire Strikes Back. What’s funny about him is that as angry as he looks, he’s apparently wrapped in bandages underneath all that armor. But wait, you say, aren’t wounds temporary in the Star Wars universe? In that same movie, Luke is mauled by a Wampa and is fully healed thanks to a submersion in a Bacta tank. At the end of the movie, Luke gets a cybernetic hand. So why is Dengar wrapped up in bandages?

Dengar’s backstory is actually cool. He and Han Solo used to race swoop bikes together. In one of those races Dengar’s face was badly burned and he suffered brain injuries. He was treated by the Empire’s doctors and became a cyborg, but the Empire didn’t fix him completely. Dengar became a killer whose only emotions were rage, hope, and loneliness. He also rescued his friend Boba Fett after the events of Return of the Jedi. Too bad Boba Fett’s useless, too.

Why he’s useless:
He’s wrapped up in bandages.

3. Boba Fett

Who is he?
Boba Fett is the bounty hunter who successfully tracked the Millennium Falcon to Cloud City, securing the bounty placed on the ship by the Empire. He then received another bounty from Jabba the Hutt for delivering a Carbonite-encased Han Solo to the crime lord. Not a bad job, right?

Boba Fett is yet another character that did not originally have a name. Check it out the next time you’re watching Empire. No one ever refers to him as “Boba Fett.” It’s always “bounty hunter.” He was obviously given a name for the action figure and the name is now in the credits of the film.

I bounty hunt for Jabba Hutt
to finance my ‘vette.

Fett is another character who was given a lush and storied past thanks to the Expanded Universe. He’d been a fan favorite (not to mention a personal favorite) for years and that was enough to warrant numerous adventures to be written about him, set both before and after his encounter with the Sarlaac Pit on Tatooine. The story was that Boba Fett was once a Mandalorian warrior and a journeyman named Jaster Mereel. The Mandalorians, much like the Jedi, had been wiped out and he wore their armor as homage to them.

These days Boba Fett is just a clone of his daddy, Jango. His backstory is now even more confused and convoluted by attempts to merge his original history with the new one created by the film Attack of the Clones.

Why he’s useless:
I previously mentioned that he successfully tracked the Millennium Falcon to Cloud City and got paid twice for doing essentially one job. So how is that useless?

For one, he didn’t actually capture anybody. Vader captured the Falcon’s passengers, and then let Fett have Solo.

Secondly, and I don’t care what the Expanded Universe says, Fett meets his demise when his jetpack misfires, sending him bouncing off Jabba’s sail barge and into the mouth of the Sarlaac. Most feared bounty hunter in the galaxy, my ass.

4. Han Solo in Carbonite

Hello? A little help here please?
Hello?

Who is he?
Han Solo is the loveable scoundrel with a tough exterior and a heart of gold. At first, Solo appears to be in it only for the money, but he proves he’s not such a bad guy after all. Solo helps destroy the first Death Star, evacuates the Rebels’ Echo Base on Hoth, and is a constant source for cheesy one-liners. And he does all this with a smug smuggler’s smirk. But when he’s captured by Darth Vader on Cloud City and encased in Carbonite, he becomes pretty damn useless.

Unless you want to use him as a coffee table. Imagine what a conversation piece that would be!

Why he’s useless:
He’s a giant and heavy prop. Though he can float, it takes several men to push him along and load and unload him from Boba Fett’s ship. When used as a decoration in Jabba’s Palace, he doesn’t fit with the décor despite the inexplicable existence of a Han-Solo-in-Carbonite-sized alcove in the throne room. As an action figure, he’s a lifeless grey chunk of plastic.

5. Captain Bolvan

Who is he?
He’s The Imperial Who Tells The Other Imperial Not To Fire On The Droids’ Escape Pod (TIWTTOINTFOTDEP). In A New Hope, C-3PO and R2-D2 escape the Rebel Blockade Runner by jettisoning from it in an escape pod. R2-D2 has the Death Star schematics in his memory. As the escape pod fires off towards Tatooine, we see two Imperial officers looking out a window.

I am filled with shame.

“There goes another one,” remarks one of them.

“Hold your fire. There are no life forms. It must have been short-circuited,” Captain Bolvan answers.

Why he’s useless:
By not firing on that escape pod, the droids are able to meet up with Luke Skywalker, then Obi-Wan Kenobi, and then pass the schematics along to Rebels who use them to exploit a weakness in the Death Star’s construction. This results in the destruction of the Death Star. Bolvan may as well have just flipped Vader off or blew up the Death Star himself. Talk about embarrassing and devastating tactical decisions!

In light of this huge mess, it’s no wonder the only photo of the man in existence is this shot of his back. I’d be embarrassed, too.