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Captain Phasma could've been so much more than the Star Wars sequels' Boba Fett...
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00:00Star Wars is home to some seriously iconic and beloved characters. Darth Vader, Yoda, R2D2,
00:07and C-3PO. And who could forget everyone's favourite Boonta Eve classic podracer,
00:12Mars Guo, who went out, may I add, like a champ, screaming,
00:17Rest in peace, King. For every star-to-date podracer who took home a podium finish,
00:22there are many, many more who were cut down before their time.
00:26You see, Star Wars has the unfortunate habit of leaving a lot of potential on the cutting room
00:32floor. As far as their film careers are concerned, they really deserved a better one.
00:37Yes folks, the dead speak. Somehow, Ewan has returned. This is WhatCultureStarWars,
00:42and here are 10 Star Wars characters with the most wasted potential.
00:4610. General Grievous
00:50Everyone's favourite asthmatic droid officer General Grievous was first introduced in the
00:54spectacular Genndy Tadakovsky Clone Wars series in 2003. And boy, what an introduction it was.
01:03The General tore his way through a group of encircled Jedi in his debut episode,
01:07including the memorable Jedi Padawan Shaggy, who literally looks like Shaggy, like Zoinks,
01:14before being fought off by the brilliant Captain Fordo and his arc troopers. Grievous continued to
01:20torment the Jedi in the second season of the series, abducting Palpatine and mercilessly cutting his
01:26way through Shaak-T to get to him, before then appearing in Revenge of the Sith, where he was
01:32decidedly, well, less intimidating. Look, I love the cowardly Grievous as much as the next guy,
01:38but he could have been a great Darth Maul-level antagonist. This version of the character has been
01:43fleshed out nicely in the 2008 Clone Wars TV series and in comics and Legends material, but I still
01:50think Lucasfilm can do one better and tap into what made his animated debut so successful all the way
01:56back in 2003, which is 20 years ago. Dear God.
02:019. Galen Erso
02:03The father of lead character Jyn, Galen Erso is a scientist working with the Empire on the development
02:09of the first Death Star. It is he who leaks the location of the battle station's plans and who
02:14designed the flaw in the superweapon to begin with, setting in motion the events of this film
02:18and the entire original trilogy. Despite being the one responsible for this intelligence,
02:23Galen doesn't get much screentime in Rogue One. A lot more of it is devoted to his daughter,
02:29which is fine, but when compared to the rest of the cast she's kind of, you know, a bit boring,
02:34and I can't help but feel that a lot was left on the table when it came to this act
02:38of heroic
02:38genius from Galen. Or maybe I'm just looking for an excuse to have more Mads Mikkelsen on our
02:43screens. I mean, come on, the dude rocks. 8. Biggs Darklider
02:47Okay, so Biggs Darklider is low-key one of the most important characters in the entire Star Wars
02:54mythos. A fellow native of Tatooine, Darklider grew up alongside Luke Skywalker and shared in his
03:00dreams of becoming a pilot. He left the planet before Luke, graduating from the Imperial Academy
03:05before defecting to join the Rebel Alliance. We only see our moustached king for a handful
03:11of minutes in A New Hope, where he is reunited with Luke just before the Battle of Yavin,
03:16which is when he dies in the Assault on the Death Star, and well, that's it. That's the last we
03:21hear
03:21of him. Biggs is set up to be a pretty big deal in the early portion of the film. He's
03:26presented as
03:27Luke's best friend, and then he just dies without any kind of big fanfare, and what's up with that?
03:33Sure, he's been in a few video games and comic books since, but as far as the first Star Wars
03:37goes,
03:38Biggs's introductory scene with Luke, that was originally intended to be on Tatooine,
03:42should've maybe been kept. 7. Bendu
03:45Much is made of the light and dark sides of the Force, but what about the soft, squishy middle?
03:51The white stuff in the Oreo of the Force is occupied by the Bendu, a mysterious being that we
03:56meet in Star Wars Rebels. Claiming to represent the center of this mysterious aura, this gigantic
04:02creature served as a mentor to Kanan Jarrus after the Jedi lost his vision. His appearances occur
04:08solely in the third season of Rebels, turning up in the season premiere and vanishing in the finale.
04:14In this time, he is shown to be extremely powerful, extremely knowledgeable, and extremely old.
04:21Someone you'd probably want to keep around then. Sadly, Bendu hasn't turned up in an official
04:25capacity since 2017. With such a deep interest out there in the early days of the Force, you'd
04:31have thought this ancient character would have been used to explore that just a smidge more.
04:35Will we ever see this enormous fuzzball again? Who's to say? But at least one fascinating bit
04:42of trivia came from his time in Rebels. Because Bendu was voiced by Tom Baker, meaning that the
04:47fourth Doctor has been in Star Wars. Nice.
04:526. Maz Kanada Look, we can't ignore the confusing mess that was Maz Kanada. A character who was part
05:00Yoda, part Jabba the Hutt, and part Minion. I think that works.
05:04Introduced in The Force Awakens, Maz is the proprietor of an outlawed tavern frequented by Han Solo. The
05:11smuggler asks his diminutive friend for help, which is where she first encounters Rey. She attempts to give
05:16the young woman a gift. Luke Skywalker's old lightsaber. Do we ever find out how she got
05:22to hold the weapon that fell from Cloud City all those years ago? Do we heck. Maz then turns up
05:27via
05:28hologram in The Last Jedi and essentially serves as a substitute for Leia in The Rise of Skywalker.
05:33Despite being set up as an ancient, all-knowing character, she's reduced to little more than a
05:38background extra by the trilogy's end. And come on, let's face it. If you're coming up against Claude in
05:43the background extra, the sequel trilogy kind of role, well, you lose in that battle. You lose
05:48that battle every time, friend. Maz has received more development in High Republic stuff and the
05:53occasional comic, but as far as sequels go, she was frustratingly underused.
05:59Number 5. Jango Fett
06:02If, like me, you grew up with the prequels, then chances are you're a big Jango Fett guy,
06:07and for good reason. Jango looks cool as hell, was one of the key faces of Attack of the Clones,
06:14the source of the Republic's clone army, father to Boba Fett, and had a killer actor in Tamora
06:20Morrison bringing him to life. Sadly, like a lot of Episode 2, Jango doesn't really fulfill his
06:26potential in that film. He shows up to assassinate Zam Wessel, introduces the clones, and then gets his
06:32head unceremoniously disconnected from his neck by Mace Windu in the big gladiatorial arena on
06:38Geonosis. Surely the father of Boba Fett deserved better. Now, to be fair to Jango, and because Scott
06:44Tailford will beat me to death with his toy lightsabers if I don't bring this up, the character did
06:49receive two really cool stories that expanded his origins in the Star Wars Bounty Hunter game,
06:55which showed how Dooku recruited him to be the genetic template of the clone army. He also got this
07:00for all seasons comic prequel, written by Hayden Blackman, which introduced his origins as a
07:05Mandalorian and being trained by Jasta Muriel. There's still clearly loads more left to explore
07:11with that character though. That bounty hunting world is one of Star Wars' most interesting corners,
07:16and Jango should be the face of it alongside Cad Bane. Look, you put Lee Van Cleef in Star Wars
07:22and
07:22I'm a happy man. 4. Mace Windu
07:25Sure, he was in all three prequels and has been a highlight in both Clone Wars TV shows,
07:30but how much do we actually know about Jedi Master Mace Windu? We know he's the second
07:35in command of the Jedi Council, junior to Yoda in terms of rank and experience, but senior to him
07:41in terms of height. We know he wields a purple lightsaber, which is objectively the coolest
07:46on-screen lightsaber and there shall be no further discussion on that, thank you very much.
07:50But all of this feels very… surface level. Yes, he's meant to represent the stalwart dogmatism
07:56that will prove to be the downfall of the Jedi, but someone of Samuel L. Jackson's stature deserved
08:01bigger and better things. Windu's origin story has been explored greatly in written media,
08:07but he's been pretty hard done by on-screen. We only know that he's so powerful because we've
08:11been expressly told so. We've been given no reason to care about him beyond his existing name
08:17recognition. But he does have that really cool bit in Clone Wars where he beats up an entire army
08:21of battle droids with his fists. That kind of maybe makes up for everything else.
08:25Number 3 – Captain Phasma
08:27She was a shiny stormtrooper. A SHINY stormtrooper! How cool is that?
08:32Portrayed by Game of Thrones' Gwendoline Christie, Captain Phasma acts as the leader of the white-suited
08:38soldiers with poor aim. She is set up as the main antagonist for Finn in The Force Awakens,
08:44as she is the one who takes the most offence to him, defecting to the resistance.
08:48If you can cast your mind back to 2015, before The Force Awakens came out,
08:53you couldn't really escape Captain Phasma. Her image was everywhere and she played a huge
08:58role in the film's marketing. In the end though, what did she actually do?
09:02She was established in The Force Awakens, taunted Finn a little bit in The Last Jedi,
09:07and then died. She had no real impact on either film's plot, and ended up serving as maybe the
09:124th or 5th most important villain. She doesn't even get the honour of being the sequels Boba Fett,
09:17because if you look at Boba and Empire, at least he did stuff of note.
09:21Number 2 – Wedge Antilles
09:23For the longest time, Rebel pilot Wedge Antilles was one of the textbook examples of a Star Wars
09:29character, not really ever given his flowers. He was shown quite prominently during the fighter
09:34sequences in A New Hope, and was even brought back for the attack on the second Death Star in Return
09:39the Jedi. He had plenty of lines, and it was implied that he was a pretty vital part of the
09:44Rebel machine, but he was given no backstory whatsoever, at least in the movies. Most fans
09:49didn't even know his name. The character has turned up a few more times though, most notably
09:54in the X-Wing novels by Michael Stackpole, and in a handful of Star Wars Rebels episodes, but it still
10:00feels like this beloved flyboy hasn't gotten the recognition he deserves. When you think that actor
10:05Dennis Lawson was actually asked to reprise his role in The Force Awakens and the position that
10:08Poe Dameron ended up filling, imagine how much more Wedge we could have gotten. Seriously,
10:13I'm living a very Wedge-deficient lifestyle right now. Give me more Wedge.
10:17And Number 1 – Finn
10:18Finn, played by the brilliant John Boyega, was set to be the breakout character of the Star
10:24Wars sequel trilogy. He was given way more prominence than Rey in The Force Awakens' marketing,
10:29as everyone was led to believe that he was the Force wielder, and not her.
10:33And then things went differently. And then badly. In that order.
10:38The Rise of Skywalker took this main character, and reduced him to little more than a background
10:43part. The fact that Colin Trevorrow's Duel of Fates script leaked at the same time,
10:47and had a way bigger role for Finn leading a rebellion against the First Order on Coruscant,
10:53made this reduced role even worse. But conceptually speaking, it sounded way more interesting than what
10:59we ended up getting from JJ Abrams and Chris Therrio. In any case, Finn was given NOTHING in Episode 9.
11:07Even the big secret he had for Rey was never revealed. He was pretty much forgotten about
11:12halfway through the film. The expanded canon has a lot of making up to do. The only things really
11:17focusing on Finn at the minute are the LEGO movies. That's where we are right now. Do better, Star Wars.
11:24And those were 10 Star Wars characters with the most wasted potential. Do you have any other
11:29beloved Mars-Guo-level faves you feel were underserved in the films? Let me know in the
11:33comments down below. And while you're there, if you could force throw us a like and a subscribe,
11:37you'll have us all doing happy bantha noises here at War Culture Towers. Once again,
11:42I've been Ewan, and until next time boyos, may the force be with you. See ya!
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