8 Most Pointless Star Wars Characters
Not everyone is as competent as the Skywalkers in the galaxy far, far away...
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00:00 From clueless background characters to bafflingly misplaced antagonists, Star Wars certainly
00:05 has no shortage of pointless and useless characters.
00:09 And that's what we're here to talk about today. I'm Jules, this is WhatCulture.com,
00:12 and these are the 8 Most Useless Star Wars Characters.
00:16 8. The Emperor's Royal Guards
00:19 Although they certainly look intimidating, the Emperor's Royal Guards are rather pointless,
00:24 at least in the original trilogy. First appearing in Return of the Jedi, these Imperial Guards
00:29 did virtually nothing other than stand in the corner of the second Death Star's throne
00:33 room and then promptly leave on their master's request, ultimately doing nothing to stop
00:37 the Emperor's demise at the hands of a redeemed Anakin Skywalker.
00:41 Saying that, these guards get a much better treatment in the other pieces of Star Wars
00:45 media, particularly the Star Wars Legends continuity. Obviously, these guards exist
00:49 to protect Palpatine and his identity as a Sith Lord, since the Emperor can't go around
00:53 personally killing his enemies as Palpatine wanted to hide his Sith mastery from the galaxy.
00:58 During the Galactic Civil War, a group of guards killed a large number of spies, and
01:02 were also instrumental in snuffing out traitors in the Empire, led by Grand Moff Tractor,
01:07 who conspired to kill the Emperor. Even so, the Emperor's Imperial Guards remained the
01:11 silent protectors of their master, but unfortunately didn't do much in terms of actual protection.
01:16 In Star Wars Rebels, the young Jedi, Ezra Bridger, quickly disposes of a group of Imperial
01:21 Guards after he refuses to help Palpatine gain control of the World Between Worlds,
01:26 proving just how ineffective they can be.
01:28 7. Zam Wessel
01:30 Zam Wessel was a bounty hunter who was tasked to assassinate Padme Amidala by Jango Fett.
01:35 However, her assassination attempt and subsequent escape were foiled by Anakin Skywalker and
01:40 Obi-Wan Kenobi, mostly because of the moronic decisions that Zam made. To start, Zam uses
01:45 some poisonous bugs to secretly enter Amidala's room through a window in an attempt to kill
01:50 the Senator. Since Amidala's quarters were heavily monitored by a significant security
01:54 force, including two Jedi, it's rather confusing why the assassin chose to attempt to infiltrate
01:59 her bedroom with the bugs, rather than just shooting the Senator with a projectile rifle
02:03 from the safety of an adjacent building or something like that. Moreover, rather than
02:07 moving into a better position to shoot the Senator after the bugs had been killed, Zam
02:11 instead chooses to destroy the droid which Obi-Wan was holding onto, and then flee in
02:16 her speeder.
02:17 Stranger yet, Zam also made no use of her advantages during her escape from Anakin and
02:22 Obi-Wan. Being a claudite, she has the ability to shapeshift into anything or anyone, so
02:27 when she runs into a bar after crashing her speeder, it's fair to assume that she would
02:31 just shapeshift into somebody else and hide in plain sight from the Jedi. However, Zam
02:35 stays in the same recognisable form, and worse yet, attempts to gun down Anakin rather than
02:40 discreetly just escaping the bar. With these constant, stupid decisions, it's no wonder
02:45 that Fett would go out of his way to kill Zam for her incompetence.
02:49 6. The Emperor's Advisors
02:51 The Emperor's Advisors may be the only characters in Star Wars that, if they were removed entirely
02:56 from the franchise, absolutely nothing would be different. Appearing alongside the Royal
03:00 Guards in Return of the Jedi, the Emperor's Advisors offered nothing other than following
03:05 their Emperor around and occasionally spoke with him off screen. Oddly enough, these Advisors
03:09 only appear in a few throwaway scenes in Return of the Jedi before they vanish from the story
03:13 and are presumed dead when the Rebels destroy the Death Star. Like every other minor Star
03:17 Wars character, these Advisors are given a proper story and explanation in the expanded
03:22 universe.
03:23 During the invasion of Naboo, a group of Senators formed an inner circle around Senator Palpatine
03:27 and were drawn closer to him during the last few years of the Republic. By the creation
03:31 of the Empire, these Senators, now called Palpatine's Advisors, were given bureaucratic
03:36 responsibilities, such as overseeing the Empire's administration, with some even scouring the
03:40 galaxy for Sith artifacts. Still, none of these characters exist in the films, with
03:46 the Advisors instead being rendered as nothing more than creepy followers of the Emperor
03:50 wearing strange purple robes.
03:52 5. Virtually Every Imperial Officer
03:55 Unfortunately for Vader, basically every one of his underlings are completely useless.
04:00 The Empire's officers and admirals can't seem to make any decision that will lead to
04:03 an Imperial victory, just going from blunder to blunder. Peter Cushing played the villainous
04:08 Grand Moff Tarkin in A New Hope, and although Cushing brought an authoritative intimidation
04:13 to the role, Tarkin is as short-sighted as he is evil. After the events of Rogue One,
04:18 the Death Star plans had been stolen by the Rebels, with Tarkin assuming the Rebels would
04:22 analyse the plans to find any weaknesses in the superweapon they could exploit. But instead
04:26 of analysing the Death Star for any potential weakness, Tarkin instead did nothing to ensure
04:30 the safety of the battle station, which would eventually become his downfall.
04:34 A New Hope also saw the likes of Mulkhive Wormus, who oversaw the attack on Tantive
04:38 IV, at the beginning of the film. But for some reason, Wormus chose not to destroy the
04:42 escape pod that C-3PO and R2-D2 were hiding in, justifying it that there were no life-form
04:47 readings coming from the pod. It was a strange choice for the commander to disallow the destruction
04:52 of the escape pod, since destroying it was an easy task to perform and had no drawbacks
04:56 at all in firing on the pod. However, by choosing not to fire, he allowed the Death Star plans
05:01 to slip through the Empire's fingers, and ultimately was somewhat responsible for the
05:05 Death Star's destruction.
05:06 In The Empire Strikes Back, we also got to see Admiral Ozell, who ignored Vader's request
05:11 to bring the Imperial invasion fleet out of hyperspace away from Hoth, and so alerted
05:15 the Rebels' defence measures, who were then able to activate the planetary shield. By
05:19 coming out of hyperspace too close to Hoth, this boneheaded decision prevented the Imperial
05:24 Navy from bombarding the planet from the comfort of space, and so lost the Empire the chance
05:29 of destroying the whole rebellion with ease.
05:32 4. Claude
05:33 One of the strangest characters introduced in The Rise of Skywalker was Claude. Claude
05:38 is a mechanic who was on board the Millennium Falcon during a resistance mission to the
05:41 Cinta Glacier colony to gain intel from a First Order spy. After the Falcon was attacked
05:46 by TIE fighters during the mission, Claude took it upon himself to fix the ship as best
05:50 and as quickly as possible. Apart from having only a few seconds of screen time, what makes
05:55 Claude so useless is his design. Being a mechanic, it's essential to have arms to repair and
06:00 replace ship parts and other devices. Bafflingly, Claude has no arms, and he's only shown
06:04 to stare at the sparking mechanisms on the Falcon closely, before the camera quickly
06:09 pans away from him, leaving the audience completely perplexed as to how an armless alien will
06:13 repair the Millennium Falcon. He might be able to move things with telekinesis, but
06:16 there's still a lot he won't be able to do on the ship, all that will require intense
06:20 concentration and show limits to his powers. Meaning that unfortunately, as much beloved
06:24 as he is by the fans for his ridiculous design, he's probably quite useless in his actual
06:29 job role.
06:30 3. The Knights of Ren
06:32 Apart from Supreme Leader Snoke, the Knights of Ren became a hot topic when they were introduced
06:37 in The Force Awakens. The film only contained a short scene with the group, as well as briefly
06:41 mentioning them occasionally during its runtime, and so it was up to the following two pictures
06:45 to explain and expand on these mysterious warriors. However, what we got was anything
06:51 but satisfying. The group didn't appear at all in The Last Jedi, and their inclusion
06:55 in The Rise of Skywalker contributed nothing more than a brief fight with a redeemed Ben
06:59 Solo. Whilst their live-action appearances are substandard, the group is significantly
07:04 expanded on through the Star Wars comic book lines.
07:07 The comics reveal that the Knights of Ren had existed long before the First Order, and
07:11 were prevalent during the Imperial era, though this was a different group than the warriors
07:15 we see in the sequels. The Knights were infamous throughout the galaxy, pillaging every planet
07:19 they visited, and were known to be dark side practitioners, with the group eventually being
07:24 hired by the crime syndicate Crimson Dawn to challenge Vader and Sidious. Even so, the
07:29 film demonstrates just how useless the Knights of Ren are. Other than temporarily capturing
07:33 Chewbacca, the Knights failed to seize the crew of the Falcon during the events of The
07:37 Rise of Skywalker, and finally died at the hands of a redeemed Kylo, achieving absolutely
07:42 nothing throughout the sequel trilogy.
07:44 2. Captain Phasma
07:46 When Game of Thrones actress Gwendolyn Christie signed on to play a villain in the sequel
07:50 trilogy, it rightly generated a lot of anticipation among Star Wars fans. Ultimately, though,
07:56 Captain Phasma had no more than a few minutes of screen time across The Force Awakens and
08:00 The Last Jedi, in which we learn absolutely nothing substantial about the character before
08:04 she was quickly killed off. In an interview with The Times in 2018, Christie revealed
08:08 that there were no solid plans to include Phasma in the last installment of the sequel
08:12 trilogy, much to her dismay. As she detailed, "In truth, I don't know. And that scares
08:17 and upsets me because I really want to see this character explored. I'm actually very
08:20 invested in the character now."
08:22 Since Phasma was excluded from The Rise of Skywalker, her arch-enemy Stormtrooper defector
08:26 Finn had no stake in the plot, with his character being also rendered virtually meaningless
08:31 without having Phasma to go up against. Whether she was included in Episode IX or not, Gwendolyn
08:36 Christie deserved far more than just standing around, snarling at Finn for just a brief
08:40 amount of time before being bested in a very quick fight with the Resistance hero.
08:45 1. Supreme Leader Snoke
08:48 Easily the most useless character in Star Wars, Supreme Leader Snoke had virtually no
08:52 positive attributes. When The Force Awakens was released in 2015, fans were gripped by
08:57 this mysterious ruler of the First Order, and were quick to start speculating about
09:01 who the character really was. Some believed that he was Darth Plagueis, Palpatine's
09:05 old Sith master, whilst others believed that he was a bitter, failed clone of Luke Skywalker,
09:10 or possibly even a vengeful Mace Windu. So, come the theatrical release of The Last Jedi
09:15 in 2017, fans were hugely disappointed to learn nothing about Snoke, who was abruptly
09:19 killed off without addressing anything to do with the character. In a 2021 interview
09:24 with CinemaBlend, Andy Serkis, Snoke's actor, voiced his own disappointment with the character.
09:29 Serkis said, "I was devastated when I read that script because it was going so well.
09:33 I was like, 'Man, this is a boss character. I'm gonna love playing - oh, what? You're
09:37 kidding me, what?' I was like, 'Okay, is this a good idea?'"
09:41 In The Rise of Skywalker, Snoke is revealed to have been a puppet of the undead Emperor
09:45 Palpatine, who had been ruling the First Order through Snoke the entire time. What is most
09:51 peculiar about Snoke is why he even exists at all. If Palpatine was strong enough to
09:55 control this bio-engineered creature, the question of why he didn't rule the First
09:59 Order himself, since he always intended to reveal himself to the galaxy, rears its ugly
10:03 head. Obviously, the answer to this question is, Disney had no plans for the sequel trilogy,
10:08 so when they killed off Snoke, they had written the franchise into a corner without a central
10:12 antagonist to pit our heroes against. Had the House of Mouse planned the sequels out
10:16 from the start, either Snoke would have had a compelling and understandable backstory,
10:20 or he wouldn't have existed at all, with Palpatine firmly taking his place from the
10:24 beginning of the trilogy.
10:26 And there we go, my friends. Those were the 8 most useless Star Wars characters. I hope
10:29 that you enjoyed that, and please let me know what you thought about it down in the comments
10:32 section below. As always, I've been Jules, you can go follow me over on Twitter @RetroJay,
10:36 but the O is a zero, or you can swing by Instagram, where it's the same handle, RetroJay, but
10:41 the O is a zero. Hope to see you over there. But before I go, my friend, I just want to
10:45 say one thing. You, yes you listening to this video, are not useless. Sometimes we can be
10:50 too hard on ourselves, and I just want to remind you that you are a big ledge. You deserve
10:54 happiness and success. You deserve love and respect. And don't let anything or anyone
10:59 else tell you otherwise, alright? I'm going to go out there and absolutely smash it today.
11:03 I believe in you.
11:04 As always, I've been Jules, you have been awesome, never forget that, and I'll speak
11:07 to you soon. Bye.