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 has
00:05 no shortage of pointless and useless characters. And that's what we're here to talk about today,
00:10 as I'm Jules, this is WhatCulture.com, 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,
00:28 these Imperial guards did virtually nothing other than stand in the corner of the second
00:32 Death Star's throne room and then promptly leave on their master's request, ultimately doing nothing
00:37 to stop the Emperor's demise at the hands of a redeemed Anakin Skywalker. Saying that,
00:41 these guards get a much better treatment in the other pieces of Star Wars media,
00:45 particularly the Star Wars Legends continuity. Obviously, these guards exist to protect Palpatine
00:50 and his identity as a Sith Lord. Since the Emperor can't go around personally killing his enemies,
00:55 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,
01:02 and 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 Guards
01:22 after he refuses to help Palpatine gain control of the World Between Worlds, proving just how
01:26 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 Obi-Wan
01:40 Kenobi, mostly because of the moronic decisions that Zam made. To start, Zam uses some poisonous
01:46 bugs to secretly enter Amidala's room through a window in an attempt to kill the Senator.
01:51 Since Amidala's quarters were heavily monitored by a significant security force,
01:55 including two Jedi, it's rather confusing why the assassin chose to attempt to infiltrate her
02:00 bedroom with the bugs, rather than just shooting the Senator with a projectile rifle from the
02:04 safety of an adjacent building or something like that. Moreover, rather than moving into a better
02:08 position to shoot the Senator after the bugs had been killed, Zam instead chooses to destroy the
02:13 droid which Obi-Wan was holding onto and then flee in her speeder. Stranger yet, Zam also made no
02:19 use of her advantages during her escape from Anakin and Obi-Wan. Being a claudite, she has the
02:24 ability to shapeshift into anything or anyone, so when she runs into a bar after crashing her
02:29 speeder, it's fair to assume that she would just shapeshift into somebody else and hide in plain
02:34 sight from the Jedi. However, Zam stays in the same recognisable form and, worse yet,
02:38 attempts to gun down Anakin rather than discreetly just escaping the bar. With these constant,
02:44 stupid decisions, it's no wonder 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 Guards
03:01 in Return of the Jedi, the Emperor's Advisors offered nothing other than following their Emperor
03:05 around and occasionally spoke with him off-screen. Oddly enough, these Advisors only appear in a few
03:10 throwaway scenes in Return of the Jedi before they vanish from the story and are presumed dead when
03:15 the Rebels destroy the Death Star. Like every other minor Star Wars character, these Advisors
03:19 are given a proper story and explanation in the expanded universe. During the invasion of Naboo,
03:24 a group of Senators formed an inner circle around Senator Palpatine and were drawn closer to him
03:29 during the last few years of the Republic. By the creation of the Empire, these Senators,
03:33 now called Palpatine's Advisors, were given bureaucratic responsibilities, such as overseeing
03:38 the Empire's administration, with some even scouring the galaxy for Sith artifacts. Still,
03:43 none of these characters exist in the films, with the Advisors instead being rendered as
03:48 nothing more than creepy followers of the Emperor wearing strange purple robes.
03:52 5. Virtually Every Imperial Officer
03:55 Now, unfortunately for Vader, basically every one of his underlings are, well, completely useless.
04:00 The Empire's officers and admirals can't seem to make any decision that will lead to an Imperial
04:04 victory, just going from blunder to blunder. Peter Cushing played the villainous Grand Moff
04:09 Tarkin in A New Hope, and although Cushing brought an authoritative intimidation to the role,
04:13 Tarkin is as short-sighted as he is evil. After the events of Rogue One, the Death Star plans had
04:19 been stolen by the Rebels, with Tarkin assuming the Rebels would analyse the plans to find any
04:23 weaknesses in the superweapon they could exploit. But instead of analysing the Death Star for any
04:28 potential weakness, Tarkin instead did nothing to ensure the safety of the battle station,
04:32 which would eventually become his downfall. A New Hope also saw the likes of Mulchive Wormus,
04:36 who oversaw the attack on Tantive IV at the beginning of the film.
04:40 But for some reason, Wormus chose not to destroy the escape pod that C-3PO and R2-D2 were hiding in,
04:46 justifying it that there were no lifeform readings coming from the pod.
04:49 It was a strange choice for the commander to disallow the destruction of the escape pod,
04:53 since destroying it was an easy task to perform and had no drawbacks at all in firing on the pod.
04:57 However, by choosing not to fire, he allowed the Death Star plans to slip through the Empire's
05:02 fingers, and ultimately was somewhat responsible for the Death Star's destruction.
05:06 In The Empire Strikes Back, we also got to see Admiral Ozell, who ignored Vader's request to
05:11 bring the Imperial invasion fleet out of hyperspace away from Hoth, and so alerted the Rebels' defence
05:16 measures, who were then able to activate the planetary shield. By coming out of hyperspace
05:21 too close to Hoth, this boneheaded decision prevented the Imperial Navy from bombarding
05:26 the planet from the comfort of space, and so lost the Empire the chance of destroying the
05:30 whole rebellion with ease.
05:32 4. Claude
05:33 One of the strangest characters introduced in The Rise of Skywalker was Claude. Claude is a
05:38 mechanic who was on board the Millennium Falcon during a resistance mission to the
05:42 Cinta Glacier colony to gain intel from a First Order spy. After the Falcon was attacked by
05:47 TIE fighters during the mission, Claude took it upon himself to fix the ship as best and as quickly
05:51 as possible. Apart from having only a few seconds of screen time, what makes Claude so useless
05:56 is his design. Being a mechanic, it's essential to have arms to repair and replace ship parts
06:01 and other devices. Bafflingly, though, Claude has no arms, and he's only shown to stare at the
06:05 sparking mechanisms on the Falcon closely, before the camera quickly pans away from him,
06:10 leaving the audience completely perplexed as to how an armless alien will repair the
06:13 Millennium Falcon. He might be able to move things with telekinesis, but there's still a lot that he
06:17 won't be able to do on the ship, all that will require intense concentration and show limits to
06:22 his powers. Meaning that, unfortunately, as much beloved as he is by the fans for his ridiculous
06:27 design, he's probably quite useless in his actual 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
06:42 mentioning them occasionally during its runtime, and so it was up to the following two pictures to
06:46 explain and expand on these mysterious warriors. However, what we got was anything but satisfying.
06:52 The group didn't appear at all in The Last Jedi, and their inclusion in The Rise of Skywalker
06:56 contributed nothing more than a brief fight with a redeemed Ben Solo. Whilst their live
07:01 action appearances are substandard, the group is significantly expanded on through the Star
07:05 Wars comic book lines. The comics reveal that the Knights of Ren had existed long before the First
07:10 Order and were prevalent during the Imperial Era, though this was a different group than the
07:15 warriors we see in the sequels. The Knights were infamous throughout the galaxy, pillaging every
07:19 planet they visited, and were known to be dark side practitioners, with the group eventually
07:24 being hired by the crime syndicate Crimson Dawn to challenge Vader and Sidious. Even so,
07:29 the film demonstrates just how useless the Knights of Ren are. Other than temporarily
07:33 capturing 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 nothing
07:43 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 trilogy,
07:51 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 The Last
08:00 Jedi, in which we learn absolutely nothing substantial about the character before she
08:04 was quickly killed off. In an interview with The Times in 2018, Christie revealed that there were
08:09 no solid plans to include Phasma in the last installment of the sequel trilogy, much to her
08:13 dismay. As she detailed, "In truth, I don't know. And that scares and upsets me because I really
08:18 want to see this character explored. I'm actually very invested in the character now."
08:22 Since Phasma was excluded from The Rise of Skywalker, her arch-enemy Stormtrooper defector
08:27 Finn had no stake in the plot, with his character being also rendered virtually meaningless without
08:32 having Phasma to go up against. Whether she was included in Episode IX or not, Gwendolyn Christie
08:37 deserved far more than just standing around, snarling at Finn for just a brief amount of time
08:41 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 positive
08:53 attributes. When The Force Awakens was released in 2015, fans were gripped by this mysterious
08:58 ruler of the First Order, and were quick to start speculating about who the character really was.
09:03 Some believed that he was Darth Plagueis, Palpatine's old Sith master, whilst others
09:07 believed that he was a bitter, failed clone of Luke Skywalker, or possibly even a vengeful Mace
09:12 Windu. So, come the theatrical release of The Last Jedi in 2017, fans were hugely disappointed to
09:17 learn nothing about Snoke, who was abruptly killed off without addressing anything to do with the
09:22 character. In a 2021 interview with CinemaBlend, Andy Serkis, Snoke's actor, voiced his own
09:27 disappointment with the character. Serkis said, "I was devastated when I read that script because
09:32 it was going so well. I was like, 'Man, this is a boss character. I'm gonna love playing - oh,
09:37 what? You're 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 Palpatine,
09:46 who had been ruling the First Order through Snoke the entire time.
09:50 What is most peculiar about Snoke is why he even exists at all. If Palpatine was strong
09:54 enough to 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 head.
10:04 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 from the
10:16 start, either Snoke would have had a compelling and understandable backstory, or he wouldn't
10:20 have existed at all, with Palpatine firmly taking his place from the 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 but the O
10:37 is a zero, or you can swing by Instagram where it's the same handle, @RetroJay but the O is a
10:42 zero. Hope to see you over there. But before I go, my friend, I just want to say one thing,
10:46 you, yes you listening to this video, are not useless. Sometimes we can be too hard on ourselves,
10:51 and I just want to remind you that you are a big ledge. You deserve happiness and success,
10:55 you deserve love and respect, and don't let anything or anyone else tell you otherwise,
11:00 alright? I'm going to go out there and absolutely smash it today. I believe in you.
11:04 As always, I've been Jules, you have been awesome, never forget that, and I'll speak to you soon.