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.
00:04Darth Vader, Yoda, R2-D2, and C-3PO.
00:08And who could forget everyone's favourite Boonta Eve classic podracer,
00:12Mars Guo, who went out, may I add, like a champ, screaming,
00:16RARGH!
00:17Ugh, rest in peace, King.
00:19For every started 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
00:29a lot of potential on the cutting room floor.
00:32As far as their film careers are concerned, they really deserved a better lot.
00:36Yes, folks, the dead speak.
00:38Somehow, Ewan has returned.
00:40This is What Culture Star Wars, and here are 10 Star Wars characters
00:44with the most wasted potential.
00:46Number 10, General Grievous.
00:48Oh, excuse me.
00:50Everyone's favourite asthmatic droid officer, General Grievous,
00:53was first introduced in the spectacular Genndy Tarkovsky Clone Wars series in 2003.
01:00And 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 venerable Jedi Padawan Shaggy, who literally looks like Shaggy, like zoinks,
01:14before being fought off by the brilliant Captain Fordo and his ARC Troopers.
01:19Grievous continued to torment the Jedi in the second season of the series,
01:23abducting Palpatine and mercilessly cutting his way through Shaak Ti to get to him,
01:28before then appearing in Revenge of the Sith, where he was decidedly, well, less intimidating.
01:35Look, I love the cowardly Grievous as much as the next guy,
01:38but he could have been a great Darth Maul-level antagonist.
01:41This version of the character has been fleshed out nicely in the 2008 Clone Wars TV series
01:47and in comics and Legends material, but I still think Lucasfilm can do one better
01:52and tap into what made his animated debut so successful all the way back in 2003.
02:019. Galen Erso
02:03The father of lead character Jyn, Galen Erso is a scientist working with the Empire on the
02:09development of the first Death Star. It is he who leaks the location of the battle station's plans
02:14and who designed the flaw in the superweapon to begin with, setting in motion the events of this
02:18film and the entire original trilogy. Despite being the one responsible for this intelligence,
02:23Galen doesn't get much screen time in Rogue One. A lot more of it is devoted to his daughter,
02:28which 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 of 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 Darklighter
02:48Biggs Darklighter is low-key one of the most important characters in the entire Star Wars
02:54mythos. A fellow native of Tatooine, Darklighter grew up alongside Luke Skywalker and shared in
03:00his dreams 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 of
03:11minutes 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
03:20last we hear of him. Biggs is set up to be a pretty big deal in the early portion of the film.
03:26He's presented as Luke's best friend, and then he just dies without any kind of big fanfare,
03:32and what's up with that? Sure, he's been in a few video games and comic books since,
03:36but as far as the first Star Wars goes, Biggs' introductory scene with Luke,
03:40that was originally intended to be on Tatooine, should have maybe been kept.
03:447. Bendu
03:45Much is made of the light and dark sides of the Force, but what about the soft,
03:50squishy middle? The white stuff in the aureole of the Force is occupied by the Bendu,
03:55a mysterious being that we meet in Star Wars Rebels. Claiming to represent the centre of
04:00this mysterious aura, this gigantic creature served as a mentor to Kanan Jarrus after the Jedi
04:06lost his vision. His appearances occur solely in the third season of Rebels,
04:11turning up in the season premiere and vanishing in the finale. In this time,
04:15he is shown to be extremely powerful, extremely knowledgeable, and extremely old.
04:21Someone you 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,
04:31you'd have 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,
04:47meaning that the Fourth Doctor has been in Star Wars. Nice.
04:526. Maz Kanata
04:54Look, we can't ignore the confusing mess that was Maz Kanata. A character who was part Yoda,
05:00part Jabba the Hutt, and part minion. I think that works.
05:04Introduced in The Force Awakens, Maz is the proprietor of an outlaw tavern frequented by
05:10Han Solo. The smuggler asks his diminutive friend for help, which is where she first encounters Rey.
05:15She attempts to give the young woman a gift, Luke Skywalker's old lightsaber. Do we ever
05:21find out how she got ahold of the weapon that fell from Cloud City all those years ago? Do we,
05:26Maz turns up via hologram in The Last Jedi and essentially serves as a substitute for
05:31Leia in The Rise of Skywalker. Despite being set up as an ancient, all-knowing character,
05:36she's reduced to little more than a background extra by the trilogy's end.
05:40And come on, let's face it, if you're coming up against Claude in the background extra,
05:44the sequel trilogy kind of role, well, you're losing that battle. You lose that battle every
05:49time, friend. Maz has received more development in High Republic stuff and the occasional comic,
05:54but as far as sequels go, she was frustratingly underused.
06:005. Jango Fett If, like me, you grew up with the prequels,
06:04then chances are you're a big Jango Fett guy, and for good reason. Jango looks cool as hell,
06:11was one of the key faces of Attack of the Clones, the source of the Republic's clone army, father to
06:17Boba Fett, and had a killer actor in Temura Morrison bring him to life. Sadly, like a lot
06:23of Episode II, Jango doesn't really fulfill his potential in that film. He shows up to assassinate
06:29Zam Wessel, introduces the clones, and then gets his head unceremoniously disconnected from his
06:35neck by Mace Windu in the big gladiatorial arena on Geonosis. Surely the father of Boba Fett
06:41deserved better. Now, to be fair to Jango, and because Scott Taelford will beat me to death
06:46with his toy lightsabers if I don't bring this up, the character did receive two really cool
06:50stories that expanded his origins in the Star Wars Bounty Hunter game, which showed how Dooku
06:56recruited him to be the genetic template of the clone army. He also got this For All Seasons comic
07:01prequel, written by Hayden Blackman, which introduced his origins as a Mandalorian and
07:07being trained by Jaster Mereel. There's still clearly loads more left to explore with that
07:11character 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.
07:19Look, you put Lee Van Cleef in Star Wars and I'm a happy man.
07:24Mace 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 in
07:35command 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
08:00deserved bigger and better things. Windu's origin story has been explored greatly in written media,
08:06but he's been pretty hard done by on-screen. We only know that he's so powerful because we've
08:11expressly been told so. We've been given no reason to care about him beyond his
08:16existing name recognition. But he does have that really cool bit in Clone Wars where he
08:20beats up an entire army of battle droids with his fists. That kind of maybe makes up for everything
08:24else. Captain Phasma
08:27She was a shiny stormtrooper. A shiny stormtrooper! How cool is that? Portrayed by Game of Thrones'
08:34Gwendolyn Christie, Captain Phasma acts as the leader of the white-suited soldiers with poor
08:39reign. She is set up as the main antagonist for Finn in The Force Awakens, as she's the one who
08:45takes the most offense to him defecting to the Resistance. If you can cast your mind back to
08:502015, before The Force Awakens came out, you couldn't really escape Captain Phasma. Her
08:55image was everywhere, and she played a huge role in the film's marketing. In the end, though,
09:00what did she actually do? She was established in The Force Awakens, taunted Finn a little bit in
09:06The Last Jedi, and then died. She had no real impact on either film's plot, and ended up serving
09:12as maybe the fourth or fifth most important villain. She doesn't even get the honour of being
09:16the sequel's Boba Fett, because if you look at Boba and Empire, at least he did stuff of note.
09:21Number 2. Wedge Antilles
09:24For 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
09:38in Return of the Jedi. He had plenty of lines, and it was implied that he was a pretty vital
09:43part of the Rebel machine, but he was given no backstory whatsoever, at least in the movies.
09:48Most fans didn't even know his name. The character has turned up a few more times,
09:52though, most notably in the X-Wing novels by Michael Stackpole and in a handful of Star Wars
09:58Rebels episodes, but it still feels like this beloved flyboy hasn't gotten the recognition
10:03he deserves. When you think that actor Dennis Lawson was actually asked to reprise his role
10:07in The Force Awakens in the position that Poe Dameron ended up filling, imagine how much more
10:11Wedge he could have gotten. Seriously, I'm living a very Wedge-deficient lifestyle right now.
10:15Gimme more Wedge.
10:16And Number 1. Finn
10:18Finn, played by the brilliant John Boyega, was set to be the breakout character of the Star Wars
10:24sequel 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.
10:34And 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 the 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,
10:57it sounded way more interesting than what we ended up getting from J.J. Abrams and Chris Theriot.
11:03In any case, Finn was given nothing in Episode IX. Even the big secret he had for Rey was never
11:10revealed. He was pretty much forgotten about halfway through the film. The expanded canon
11:14has a lot of making up to do. The only things really focusing on Finn at the minute are the
11:19Lego 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 banther noises here at WarCulture Towers. Once again, I've been
11:42Ewan, and until next time boyos, may the force be with you. See ya!