Wookiee
Wookiees are fictional creatures from the Star Wars franchise, originating from the planet Kashyyyk. Creator George Lucas was inspired to design the Wookiee Chewbacca by his dog, conceiving a character who was large, furry, and intelligent. The suit used to portray Chewbacca was similar to earlier suits constructed for 2001: A Space Odyssey, with the facial features as the main exception. The character's vocalizations were created using animal sounds combined in a way that sound designer Ben Burtt felt conveyed emotion. Since the release of Star Wars, Chewbacca and other Wookiees have appeared in a range of films, series, video games, and comics.
Star Wars media establish a number of details about the fictional culture of the Wookiees, as well as their language, Shyriiwook. They are shown to have a rivalry with the Trandoshan species. Life Day is often shown as a major Wookiee holiday, first created for The Star Wars Holiday Special but since depicted and referenced elsewhere. Among the Wookiees that have appeared in Star Wars media are several Wookiee Jedi. The name of Wookieepedia, a Star Wars wiki, is a portmanteau of Wookiee and Wikipedia.
Inspiration
According to Star Wars creator George Lucas, his dog, Indiana, frequently sat by Lucas's side while he was writing or driving his car, which inspired him to give Han Solo a sidekick. He wanted this sidekick to be "like a big furry dog" but also intelligent. The character was named Chewbacca, from the Russian words and .The name of Chewbacca's species comes from an add-libbed line in George Lucas's THX 1138, where actor Terry McGovern exclaims "I think I ran over a Wookiee back there". Some sources link this word to the surname of a friend of McGovern's, whose full name is given variously as Ralph Wooky or Bill Wookey.
Appearances
''Star Wars'' (1977)
The suit worn by Chewbacca's actor, Peter Mayhew, in the original Star Wars film was designed by make-up artist Stuart Freeborn. He stated in a 1986 interview that the design was based on the costumes used for the apelike creatures in 2001: A Space Odyssey, with the main difference being Chewbacca's furry face. He said it was otherwise "exactly the same inside".The design for the Wookiee's face was Lucas's idea, inspired by his own pets. He told Freeborn that he had a dog and a cat and mentioned a doglike design, and when Freeborn made a basic sculpture to demonstrate his idea, Lucas approved. However, Lucas later suggested a feline appearance instead, but he was again dissatisfied with the mock-up. He asked Freeborn to combine the two animals, leading to the final Wookiee design.
Ben Burtt, the sound designer of the Star Wars films, wanted to create a believable sound for Chewbacca given that the character did not have proper lips. This led him to consider bears, as they use the backs of their mouths to vocalize. Across various accounts, a four-month-old Cinnamon bear, three other bears, a badger, a lion, a seal, and a walrus, have been reported as sources of Chewbacca's voice. Burtt specifically recounted recording the moaning of a walrus from Marineland in California whose pool was being cleaned. After recording the audio, Burtt combined different sounds that he felt represented a specific emotional tone. Cutting them together, he said, created a "sense of speech" for Chewbacca.
''Star Wars Holiday Special''
The Star Wars Holiday Special takes place on the Wookiee planet of Kashyyyk. The film centers around Han Solo trying to help Chewbacca, again portrayed by Mayhew, return home in time for Life Day. Life Day was originally conceived as a galactic celebration, but the plot was simplified so that Life Day was instead a sacred Wookiee holiday. The film's first 10–15 minutes follow Chewbacca's family as they prepare for the holiday, conversing in unsubtitled grunts. This scene was likened by Chris Williams, writing for Collider, to "stumbling into a surreal, laugh-track-less sitcom in a language no one understands". He called the special itself a "perfectly terrible object" and wrote that other than Chewbacca, "none of the Wookiee costumes would pass muster at a local theme park". Another journalist criticized a scene where one of the Wookiees watches pornography. ABC News states that the special was "such a flop that it was never again broadcast on TV or released on video".''The Empire Strikes Back''
Mayhew reprised the role of Chewbacca in The Empire Strikes Back. The Chicago Tribunes Gene Siskel called the non-human stars of the film, specifically the droids and Chewbacca, "the most lovable creatures in a family film since the Tin Man, Lion and Scarecrow in The Wizard of Oz".''Return of the Jedi''
Mayhew again returned as Chewbacca in Return of the Jedi. Parts of the film were shot at Grizzly Creek Redwoods State Park in northern California, US, and there was concern that Mayhew would be mistaken for bigfoot and potentially shot if he wandered off in costume. He was given strict instructions to stay close to camp at all times. In the end, filming concluded without incident.The final battle of Return of the Jedi was based on a scrapped concept from the first Star Wars film, which had originally involved Wookiees. Lucas envisioned a battle between the Empire and a "society of Wookiees" at the end of the movie, but this proved too complicated, and Chewbacca ended up being the movie's only Wookiee. When Return of the Jedi was being made, Lucas wanted to create the battle he had originally envisioned, but he no longer felt that Wookiees were an appropriate choice: Chewbacca's character made Lucas's initial conception of Wookiees as having a primitive culture seem inaccurate. Instead, a new species was created: the Ewoks. Lucas designed them to be the opposite of Wookiees: short instead of tall and short-haired instead of long-haired. Monica Zurowsky of the Calgary Herald wrote that Lucas said he created the name by "reversing the syllables of the character he called Wookie " and rhyming it with the name of the Native American Miwok tribe.
''Revenge of the Sith''
Revenge of the Sith features a battle sequence set on Kashyyyk toward the end of the Clone Wars. Yoda is sent to aid the Wookiees owing to his "good relations" with them. Shots used for the arrival scene on Kashyyyk were filmed during postproduction at Thailand's Phang Nga Bay near Phuket, and some were digitally combined with places in Guilin, China. Supervisor Dave Elsey said that numerous Wookiee costumes used for the battle were "basically being built the same as the original Chewie". Mayhew once again returned for Chewbacca's brief appearance in the film. Some of the details of the Kashyyyk scenes come from The Star Wars Holiday Special, including terrain, foliage, and treetop structures resembling Chewbacca's home in the special. The voice of Attichitcuk, Chewbacca's father, is reused from archival Holiday Special dialogue for Tarfful, a friend of Chewbacca and Yoda.Sequel trilogy
Chewbacca appeared in all three films of the Star Wars sequel trilogy. He was again portrayed by Mayhew in The Force Awakens. According to Mayhew's family, the actor "fought his way back from being wheelchair-bound" in order to play the character. Though Mayhew did not have an acting role in The Last Jedi, he helped instruct Chewbacca's new actor, Joonas Suotamo, on playing the part. Suotamo played Chewbacca again in The Rise of Skywalker, the last film of the series known as the Skywalker Saga.''Solo''
Suotamo again played Chewbacca in the standalone film Solo, released less than six months after The Last Jedi and before The Rise of Skywalker. According to Screen Rant writer Chris Agar, the movie marks the first time that the Empire's mistreatment of Wookiees was shown in film, with Chewbacca's first appearance as a malnourished prisoner. Later in the film, he helps free other Wookiees from the mines of Kessel. The book The Art of Solo: A Star Wars Story includes an unused screenplay draft featuring Wookiee Stormtroopers. The idea was that this would allow for more development of the species without having to create individual faces.''The Book of Boba Fett''
, a Wookiee bounty hunter who first appeared in various series of comics, makes his live-action debut in The Book of Boba Fett. Although the relationship between the Wookiee and Boba Fett depicted in the comics was not explicitly acknowledged, IGN writer Jesse Schedeen interpreted some of the scenes as indirect references. Angie Mayhew, Peter Mayhew's widow, extended her regards to Krrsantan's actor, Carey Jones, for his performance. Jones, a longtime Star Wars fan, described seeing himself in the Wookiee costume as "surreal".Other media
Additional appearances of Wookiees in Star Wars media include The Phantom Menace, Star Wars: The Clone Wars, Star Wars Rebels, Star Wars: The Bad Batch, and The Acolyte. The Battle of Kashyyyk is featured in Star Wars Battlefront II and Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order is partially set on the planet, revolving around the protagonist's efforts to shut down an Imperial refinery that has led to the enslavement of many Wookiees. In a critical review of Fallen Order by Sam White of GQ, Kashyyyk was described as the best looking planet of the three White had seen, but the appearance of the Wookiees was called "abysmal".Fictional culture
The Star Wars Databank describes Wookiees as gentle and intelligent creatures with short tempers. They are depicted as having a historic feud with another species, the Trandoshans, who originate from the same planetary system. References to this feud appear in the Star Wars: The Clone Wars episode "Padawan Lost", where a Trandoshan hunting lodge is shown adorned with Wookiee pelts, and the game Star Wars: The Force Unleashed, where killing 200 Wookiees in the prologue level on Kashyyyk will earn the player the "Bossk" achievement.The Wookiee language is called Shyriiwook. Wookiees are seldom depicted speaking Galactic Basic, although the Wookiee Ralrracheen is able to converse with Princess Leia in Basic in Star Wars: Heir to the Empire. The character explains that he suffers from a speech impediment that allows him to speak the language, while most Wookiees cannot. Conversely, the film Solo has a scene where Han Solo talks to Chewbacca in Shyriiwook. Solo's actor, Alden Ehrenreich, said that the noises he made were mostly improvised, aside from a phrase that needed to be repeated, while Suotamo's dialogue was dubbed with animal sounds. The book The Ultimate Star Wars and Philosophy: You Must Unlearn What You Have Learned analyzes whether Shyriiwook, specifically its usage by Chewbacca, can be accurately described as a language from a philosophical standpoint, even though it is readily interpreted by viewers as such. The authors argue that the unintelligibly of the noises, the impossibility of identifying it as speech without dialogue from other characters, and the unscripted nature of the noises make the conclusion that Chewbacca does not actually speak "so obvious as to be unnecessary".
Life Day is depicted as a sacred Wookiee holiday. In one version of the holiday, created in the 1970s by Carol Wikarska Titelman, Lucasfilm's director of publishing, Life Day was said to have originally taken the form of a communal hallucinogenic experience invoked by consuming a specific root. She wrote that some Wookiee families continued to use that, but because of the unpleasant side effects, many others use a device called the environmental transporter instead. This device appeared in The Star Wars Holiday Special, albeit simplified from its original depiction for budget reasons. Life Day has since received appearances and mentions in Star Wars video games and other media, and a commemorative event was held at Disney's Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge in California and Florida on 17 November 2022.
In the first Star Wars movie, Han Solo and Luke Skywalker receive medals following the destruction of the Death Star, while Chewbacca does not. Soon after the release of Star Wars, Lucas said that Wookiees do not place much value in medals and that Chewbacca had a celebration with his own people where he received a prize, which Lucas called an honor for "the entire Wookiee race". Comics from the pre- and post-Disney eras of the franchise, as well as The Rise of Skywalker have since provided varying interpretations of Chewbacca receiving a medal at some point after the award ceremony scene.
The book Star Wars: Complete Locations, New Edition states that the Wookiees granted Yoda the ancient title "Defender of the Home Tree" for helping negotiate during incidents between the Wookiees and Trandoshans, which both the book and Screen Rant author Nathaniel Roark contrast with Yoda's modest claim of having "good relations" with the Wookiees in Revenge of the Sith. Star Wars works set after Revenge of the Sith depict the Wookiees as enslaved by the Empire, which Roark wrote "adds more tragedy" to Yoda's life.
The 2003 game Star Wars Galaxies allowed players to form communities and construct buildings, including museums. One such museum, created by librarian and museum scholar Annie Platoff, was called the Wookiee Cultural Center. She spent four years collecting in-game objects related to the Wookiees and Kashyyyk for the WCC, which expanded from its original location into a network of six museums total, including a traveling one. She sought to apply professional standards to the management of the museum's collection, such as by crediting donors, creating labels for items based on theme, and assigning the items to appropriate places within the museum. She wrote that it could take hours of gameplay to construct one exhibit. The purpose of the study was to determine whether a virtual museum could become "real".