10 Star Wars Characters More Important Than You Realised
There's much more to these unassuming Star Wars characters than you think.
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00:00 Star Wars is perhaps the richest and most expansive franchise of all time.
00:04 An impossibly dense universe that fans can lose themselves in for, well, basically forever.
00:10 It's a world that's become populated with literally thousands of characters over the last 45 years,
00:15 and though we're all familiar with the principal players by now,
00:19 it is easy to dismiss those smaller roles as being inconsequential in the grand scheme of things.
00:25 That, of course, would be a mistake.
00:28 I'm Josh from WhatCulture.com, and these are 10 Star Wars Characters Far More Important Than You Realized.
00:34 Number 10 - Bolvin
00:36 You probably won't remember his name, and you certainly don't know his face,
00:40 but Imperial gunnery Captain Bolvin played a major unintentional role in the Empire's downfall.
00:47 See, at the very start of A New Hope, he famously told his subordinate officer,
00:52 "Hold your fire, there's no lifeforms, it must have short-circuited."
00:55 When said officer prepared to open fire on the escape pod, jettisoned from the captured Tantive IV.
01:01 But, of course, the escape pod in fact contained C-3PO and R2-D2,
01:06 who were in turn able to flee to Tatooine with the Death Star plans,
01:11 where they would eventually cross paths with Luke Skywalker.
01:14 Had Bolvin ordered the pod to be fired upon then, Luke's heroic rise would have likely been prevented,
01:20 as would the fall of the Empire.
01:22 Hilariously, in the wider universe, it's actually revealed that Bolvin was encouraged not to fire upon the pod
01:28 due to the Empire's obtuse promotion system, which was tied to an officer's hit-to-kill ratio.
01:35 Had Bolvin fired upon and exploded an empty pod, which wouldn't have counted as a kill,
01:40 he would have been knocked down the pecking order for promotion, which is kind of amazing.
01:45 Number 9 - Barriss Offee
01:47 Jedi Knight Barriss Offee appeared in Attack of the Clones for all of about 30 seconds,
01:52 hanging out in the background during a meeting of the Jedi Council,
01:55 and later being seen fighting during the Battle of Geonosis.
01:59 But Offee had a much larger role in the Clone Wars animated series,
02:03 where it's revealed that she grew disillusioned with the Jedi throughout the Clone Wars,
02:07 enough so that she eventually plotted the bombing of the Jedi Temple on Coruscant,
02:12 and framed her former friend Ahsoka Tano for it.
02:15 This ended up having wide-reaching implications far beyond what she ever could have anticipated.
02:21 For starters, Tano was herself exonerated for the bombing,
02:24 but then refused an invitation to rejoin the Jedi Order, having lost faith in it.
02:29 Tano then left to take part in the Siege of Mandalore,
02:32 ensuring that she wasn't around for her Master Anakin's turn to the Dark Side,
02:37 which she potentially could have played a role in preventing.
02:40 As a result, Offee's influence on the entire Skywalker saga is really quite immense when you think about it.
02:46 Number 8 - Poggle the Lesser
02:48 Forgive his silly name and just appreciate that Poggle the Lesser,
02:52 who first appeared in Attack of the Clones, has a much larger role in proceedings than you probably remember.
02:58 Sure, he's a public leader of the Geonosians during the Clone Wars,
03:02 but it's often forgotten that Poggle both designed the Death Star,
03:06 and during the Battle of Geonosis, gave the plans to Count Dooku,
03:10 who then gave them to Palpatine, set in construction in motion.
03:14 As such, Poggle had a pivotal role in how the Galactic Civil War played out,
03:18 even if he doesn't usually get much recognition for it.
03:21 But without his involvement, things would have turned out quite differently,
03:25 and the Empire would have been looking elsewhere for somebody to design their epic superweapon.
03:30 Number 7 - Admiral Kendall Uzzel
03:33 The most diehard Star Wars fans often credit Admiral Kendall Uzzel with ruining basically everything for the Empire,
03:40 enough so that there are even theories that he was actually a Rebel spy all along.
03:44 See, in The Empire Strikes Back, Uzzel initially oversaw the Battle of Hoth,
03:49 until he was force-choked to death by Darth Vader for his incompetence.
03:53 His big miscalculation? Well, that was pulling Empire ship The Executor out of lightspeed too close to the Hoth system,
04:01 which allowed the Rebels to quickly detect their presence and realize an attack was imminent,
04:06 giving them precious time to shield up.
04:08 Had this dude adopted Vader's preferred tactic of exiting lightspeed further out and entering Hoth more or less undetected,
04:15 they could have conceivably crushed the Rebels outright.
04:18 But this one foolhardy decision gave the Rebels the breather they desperately needed,
04:23 and so his role in galactic history, albeit one he'd probably prefer not to be remembered for, shouldn't be underestimated.
04:31 Number 6 - Quinlan Vos
04:33 Casual Star Wars fans may not know the name Quinlan Vos,
04:36 though they might remember the distinctive-looking individual hanging out in the background
04:41 during Jar Jar Binks and Sir Bulba's confrontation on Tatooine in The Phantom Menace.
04:46 At this point in time, the character didn't have any, well, character,
04:51 but because he caught the eye of many fans watching the movie,
04:54 he was eventually given a name and a wider backstory in various Legends stories, such as Star Wars Republic.
05:01 And long story short, Quinlan Vos was a Jedi Master with the ability to perceive people's memories
05:06 by touching objects that they'd made contact with, making him an extremely skilled tracker.
05:12 In the canon novel Dark Disciple, it's also revealed that Vos teamed up with Ventress on a mission to assassinate Count Dooku.
05:18 A mission which, of course, failed.
05:20 Vos has also appeared in an episode of The Clone Wars,
05:23 and has been referenced in both Revenge of the Sith and the recent Obi-Wan Kenobi series,
05:28 the latter seemingly confirming both that he did indeed survive Order 66,
05:32 and has been helping smuggle Jedi and Force-sensitive children to safety.
05:37 So yeah, that's quite the fleshed-out story for a cool-looking guy, seemingly just chilling out during The Phantom Menace.
05:44 Number 5 - Mas Amedda
05:46 Mas Amedda first appeared in The Phantom Menace, and is best remembered by many Star Wars fans
05:51 as that blue-collared guy often seen standing behind either Supreme Chancellor Valorum, or later on Palpatine.
05:57 Though you might assume that he was just a random, relatively inconsequential dignitary in the grand scheme of things,
06:03 Mas Amedda was actually the Vice-Chair of the Galactic Senate,
06:06 which eventually made him one of the most powerful people in the galaxy.
06:10 Despite his lack of on-screen action though, he had a major role in the trajectory of Star Wars as we know it,
06:16 aiding in Valorum's ousting while going on to serve Palpatine's interests,
06:21 and being one of the very few aware of his Sith Lord alter-ego, Darth Sidious.
06:26 This guy served Palpatine throughout the Clone Wars, and even managed to outlast his superior,
06:31 yet perhaps his single most important action saw him eventually surrender the Empire to the New Republic.
06:37 So yeah, not bad for a guy who most people remember for his unique look above all else.
06:43 Number 4 - Davin Felf
06:45 When Stormtroopers are combing the Tatooine Desert for Rebel Droids in A New Hope,
06:49 one of them comes across a metal remnant from C-3PO and tells their superior officer, "Look sir, droids."
06:56 Now you'd reasonably assume this Stormtrooper was just a nameless nobody,
07:00 but this being Star Wars, that of course is not the case at all.
07:04 In Legends continuity, it's established that this Stormtrooper goes by the name of Davin Felf,
07:09 and though much of Fienth's backstory is technically non-canon now, it's still fascinatingly comprehensive,
07:16 and much of it doesn't directly contradict what we actually see on screen.
07:20 It turns out that this guy was originally an ambitious Imperial officer,
07:24 who pointed out a fatal flaw in the design of the 8080s,
07:28 prompting Colonel Maximilian Viers, who oversaw the development of the 8080s,
07:32 to assign him to Stormtrooper duty in an attempt to cover up his own embarrassing mistake.
07:38 Ultimately, Felf came to appreciate the Empire as evil,
07:41 and decided to help the rebels by acting as a spy from within the Stormtrooper's ranks.
07:46 Though it's basically self-parody at this point that even the most insignificant Star Wars characters
07:51 have hilariously elaborate backstories, at least this one's really interesting,
07:56 no matter its lack of canonicity.
07:59 Number 3 - Rick Ollé.
08:01 Rick Ollé appears in The Phantom Menace as the pilot of Padme's ship while escaping Naboo,
08:06 and though certainly not a background character who disappears into the periphery,
08:10 few would assign him too much importance.
08:13 Yet it's crucial to remember that Ollé did one absolutely pivotal thing in The Phantom Menace,
08:18 and that's he taught Anakin Skywalker how to pilot a ship.
08:22 Without this impromptu lesson, Anakin wouldn't have been able to fly into the Federation droid control ship
08:27 and destroy it from the inside.
08:29 Ollé's role is also significantly fleshed out in the expanded universe,
08:33 where he joins a resistance group called the Amidallans,
08:35 who committed themselves to avenging Padme's death.
08:38 And in the 2020 comic Star Wars Darth Vader Volume 1 Number 4,
08:43 Ollé ends up crossing paths with Darth Vader himself,
08:46 who promptly runs him through with a lightsaber, killing him dead,
08:50 and further proving Anakin's monstrous transformation from the sweet boy he used to be.
08:55 Number 2 - Ki-Adi-Mundi.
08:57 Though Ki-Adi-Mundi's infamous one-liner in Revenge of the Sith,
09:00 that of course being "What about the droid attack on the Wookiees?"
09:04 made him seem like more of a meme than an actual character,
09:07 this Jedi High Council member is actually a vital piece of the narrative puzzle.
09:12 See, even if Mundi's question seems a little bit off topic at first,
09:16 it has major consequences for the rest of the prequel trilogy and beyond.
09:21 After all, if Mundi hadn't mentioned the Wookiee attack,
09:24 Yoda wouldn't have travelled to Kashyyyk to help defend it,
09:27 and instead likely remained on Coruscant.
09:29 Given that Anakin's turn to the dark side unfolds while Yoda is away,
09:33 things would have almost certainly been very different if he remained on planet,
09:37 and potentially prevented him from being corrupted by Palpatine.
09:41 So, let's give Ki-Adi-Mundi a hand here for sending Yoda off on a mission,
09:45 when in terms of the bigger picture, he desperately needed to stay put.
09:50 Number 1 - Finnis Valorum.
09:52 Finnis Valorum was the Supreme Chancellor of the Galactic Republic,
09:55 and as the only character on this list played by a major actor,
10:00 the one you'll surely recognise above all others.
10:03 Yet despite Terence Stamp's casting in the role,
10:05 Valorum appears for all of around two minutes in The Phantom Menace,
10:09 even if he was an instrumental figure in Palpatine's rise as Supreme Chancellor,
10:13 and later, Galactic Emperor.
10:16 After all, it was Valorum's inability to stand both corruption in the Galactic Senate,
10:20 and the bureaucratic trade crisis in Naboo,
10:23 which allowed Palpatine to persuade Padme to call a vote of no confidence,
10:27 resulting in Valorum being replaced with Palpatine himself.
10:31 Basically, Valorum let Palpatine play him like a damn fiddle.
10:35 He was a pawn who, through his political inaction,
10:38 ultimately aided Palpatine's ascent to Galactic Emperor.
10:42 So, that's our list. I want to know what you guys think down in the comments below.
10:45 Did you know about the wider lives of these characters?
10:48 And are there any other secretly important ones I missed off here?
10:51 Let me know, and while you're down there, could you please give us a like, share, subscribe,
10:54 and head over to whatculture.com for more lists and news like this every single day.
10:58 Even if you don't though, I've been Josh, thanks so much for watching, and I'll see you soon.