The Star Wars universe is known for its exotic creatures and alien lifeforms, they have unique designs and are unlike anything we've ever seen. It helps diversify the galaxy far, far away and subtly tells the viewer that the world lives on outside of the story that you're witnessing at that moment.
With Star Wars: The Last Jedi just 4 months away, new details are trickling out via Entertainment Weekly's Fall movie preview. Some of those details revolve around the planet that Luke Skywalker has exiled himself to which is known as Ahch-To. Speaking to director Rian Johnson, EW learned that there's a bunch of new creatures living amongst Skywalker including a couple new adorable creatures known as Porgs.
The penguin-like creatures are puppets on set and they have big wide, black eyes and furry wings. Johnson got the idea for the creatures when visiting Skellig, the real island Ahch-To takes place on, during the filming of The Force Awakens. Johnson states he didn't want Luke to be alone so he populated the island with various aliens such as the cute Porgs.
“If you go to Skellig at the right time of year, it’s just covered in puffins, and they’re the most adorable things in the world,” Johnson tells EW. “So when I was first scouting there, I saw these guys, and I was like, oh, these are part of the island. And so the Porgs are in that realm.”
The Porgs aren't the only creatures native to Ahch-To, there are another group of creatures known simply as "The Caretakers" who maintain the structures on the island.
“They’re kind of these sort of fish-bird type aliens who live on the island,” Johnson says. “They’ve been there for thousands of years, and they essentially keep up the structures on the island.”
The Caretakers are played by actual human actors in costume, unlike the Porgs which are basic puppets. They have a more civilized nature to them, they wear clothes and they speak their own alien language.
“They’re all female, and I wanted them to feel like a remote sort of little nunnery,” Johnson says. “Neal Scanlan’s crew designed them, and costume designer Michael Kaplan made these working clothes that also reflected sort of a nun-like, spartan sort of existence.”
Luke Skywalker isn't necessarily welcomed by The Caretakers, though. Johnson notes that they "tolerate" his presence but it sounds more like he may be uninvited. They do communicate with Luke through “a blubbery sort of Scottish fish talk” (whatever that means) but from the sounds of it, they're just keeping the place in tact and aren't there to service Skywalker.
“You get the sense they did at some point or maybe they occasionally do [return to the sea,] but when we see them, they’re land creatures,” Johnson says. “They’re these big matronly creatures, but they have these little skinny little bird feet. They were really fun to work with on set.”
Ahch-To is home to the first ever Jedi Temple so there's a bit of a religious, mythological history surrounding it. Fans speculate that the island holds many Jedi secrets and may even store the Journal of the Whills, a piece of Star Wars lore from the very first drafts of the first film. Johnson says it won't fully dive deep into the history of the Jedi but it will touch on the mythology.
“Hopefully it will be fun to discover in the context of the movie,” he says. “My notion was this is a place that goes all the way back. This is where the cave paintings are.”
Johnson stated that he was keen on making the caves and temples look old and weathered instead of looking clean and flashy.
“The first designs that we had were temples, and I just kept pushing it back and saying, ‘No, think earlier, think earlier. Let’s push this all the way back and see how deep we can go into the foundations of where this all started.’”
In related news, we also learned about the relationship that Rey and Luke Skywalker will have and it doesn't sound super friendly.
Star Wars: The Last Jedi opens in theaters on December 15th, 2017.
