Spoilers Ahead
For those of us who watch the Star Wars movies without delving into the intricacies of the expanded universe, Chewbacca is merely Han’s furry companion, a cute creature whose singular purpose is to set up one-liners for our favorite smuggler.
But while Solo: A Star Wars Story delves into Han’s origin, it also really fleshes out Chewbacca, revealing a surprisingly dark side to the beloved Wookie. Chewbacca is first introduced as “the beast,” a caged monster who eats prisoners alive, for the amusement of the bad guys.
The old sci-fi trope serves as a clever, unexpected set-up for Chewie’s introduction, but the implication is pretty damn disturbing for a Disney film. As the guards drag Han to his supposed doom, they comment that the beast hasn’t been fed in days, and that “this should be good.”
Meaning that they are used to watching Chewbacca tear people apart and eat their organs. That’s right - good old Chewie used those canine teeth to tear still-living human flesh from bones. Out of desperation, sure, but it certainly makes you look at the character in a different light.
It’s a far cry from Chewbacca’s elder incarnation in The Last Jedi, who spends his time chilling with sentient plushies known as porgs, and is too soft-hearted to consume a cooked porg while one of the creatures is watching.
Clearly, the character has changed over the years. But Chewbacca has had quite a bit of time to mature, seeing as in Solo, Han finds out he’s 190 years old. Current canon suggests that Wookies can live to be 400, meaning that Chewie is middle-aged when we first see him.
He’s also lived quite a life prior to meeting Han, fighting in the Clone Wars, raising a family, and watching his people be tortured and enslaved, before becoming enslaved himself.
Perhaps it’s for the best that the audience can’t understand Chewbacca, otherwise, he’d be a lot less fun, recounting horrific war stories about the time his family was sold into slavery and he was forced to eat human flesh to stay alive. The cuddly creature must be suffering from major PTSD - no wonder he’s so volatile.
Solo also showed how alarmingly violent the creature can be, biting and tearing arms right out of sockets. Chewie’s signature bowcaster looks like it was holding back the animalistic bloodlust he experiences on the battlefield; his opponents should be grateful he carries it.
Of course, this is all old news to fans of the expanded universe. Star Wars books and comics provide convoluted backstories to just about every character that appears on screen, Chewie included, but that canon is subject to change. For example, in the old expanded universe, Chewbacca is crushed to death by a falling moon, for some reason, until someone at Disney made the sensible decision to pretend that never actually happened.
For the most part, the juicy details of Chewbacca’s tragic life have remained offscreen, until Solo acknowledged them. And if we’re delving into days of Star Wars past, let’s see more of Chewbacca’s backstory, in live-action.
The creature is way more than the cute sidekick to a charismatic smuggler, he’s a war hero, freedom fighter, and above all, survivor. Also, he used to tear people apart and eat their flesh.
I still can’t get over that.
